"Hmmm." Nancy mused as she looked at the dial readout on her phone, before hanging up. The last number dialed was to her brother. Lucian must have rung it early in the morning. She looked in on him watching TV, wondering what was going on. She'd left him on his own, no sense in alerting anyone to her activities, but the way he acted...it bothered Nancy. Can't have guessed. The spare room upstairs was locked, she'd checked, and she was careful about what she did. The police would be after her otherwise. "Coco-what?' she wondered about hearing something from the show her son was watching when there was a knock on the door. She nudged Lucian with her foot as she walked past, gratified he seemed himself now, and went to see who was outside. "Huh?" The girl might have been a friend of Lucian's except she was in her teens and by rights too old, Nancy still thought it possible and opened the door. "Hello?" she asked uncertain.

*******

Sakura smiles at Nancy trying to look sweet. She was holding a newspaper with and ad circled. "Hi! My name is Sakura, I saw this ad about a babysitter and I want to apply for the job. I think this is the right place I hope."

*******

"Nope, got the wrong person." Nancy began to pull the door closed when she began thinking. Lucian seemed unnerved by what was going on, how she kept leaving him all the time. Before it was okay, there was always someone to look after him. Maybe the reason for the way he was lay in her leaving him to fend for himself. She raised a finger at Sakura to tell her to stay, thought long enough to not mess around and piss the girl off, before jerking her head toward the lounge. "Come in anyway," she said, moving to let Sakura in. "Have a seat." It had been a while since she used her social skills with neighbours and tried to find her feet. "Not sure if you're familiar with Kim Possible at all, my son's watching it at the moment."

Sakura felt embarrassed, she was careless to read the street wrong and now someone else took the babysitting job that should have been hers. Sakura walks inside Nancy's house wondering why she was being let in, perhaps she could get a job to wash dishes and clean floors instead? "Yes I've seen Kim Possible. Not a huge fan though."

*******

Nancy glared daggers at the girl walking past before pulling the door closed. Later, she thought. "Too silly for my tastes," Nancy said, "my son likes it though. My son Lucian." She felt a bit awkward socialising as it had been quite some time since she really had. For his part the boy was able to turn away from the TV and look up at Sakura. The look on his face, Nancy saw, was different to how he regarded the few people who had been here in the previous months. "So you're looking at a job babysitting?" Nancy asked. She swithed off the television so they could talk. "What makes you think you'd do a good job?"

******

"What the fuck? Why does that motherfucker have to apologise?" Reiko, as unbelievible as it might sound, was a well disciplined paramedic, committed to the job, willing to go out of her way. But deep down she was still the same woman who sucked and fucked gangsters for acceptence when she was a teenager.

"Yeah, but..." A lot of people chatted on the CB radios when they weren't out on the job.

"The fucker had any slaves? Anyone alive ever had any slaves?" Reiko's conversation, however, would likely have quite a few people want her killed, given the racist comments she was spouting. "Then what the fuck do they..."

"Unit 73, report in. Ichijo, are you there?"

Reiko figured the discussion on the topic was pretty much over anyway and switched over to base. "Yeah, Reiko here." She couldn't help it, she had to get her thoughts off her chest. "If something you had nothing to do with happened half a century ago would you feel the need to apologise?"

The radio dispactcher paused for a moment. "Not sure what you mean, but we have a report of food poisoning, you're nearest to the restaurant the report came in from."

"Well eating animal carcass will do that to ya." Then Reiko grew serious.