Doug and Amanda

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Late at night at the beach house, neither one can sleep, so they chatter about recent events over hot chocolate.


The floorboards creaked a little under Amanda's bare feet as she made her way to the kitchen of the beach house. The nightmare had been a bad one - the fact her hands were still shaking was a sign of that - and without Angelo there to curl up with, she knew she needed to get away from her own head for a bit. Hopefully the act of going to the kitchen for a glass of something - milk, wine, water, she didn't really care - would help. She wasn't expecting to find someone else there, however.

Doug's head raised at the creaking, and his face softened from its initial startled expression at the look on Amanda's face as she stood silhoutted in the doorway. "Couldn't sleep?" he asked quietly.

"Bad dream," she said, equally softly, coming in. "'M still getting them, from time to time. I figured getting up for a bit might help." She tilted her head at him. "You?"

"Couldn't sleep for thinking about things," Doug replied with a shrug. "Just been sitting listening to the surf, since Angie seems to be getting a full night's sleep for a change." He tipped a mug at Amanda. "Hot chocolate. Want me to make you some?"

"That'd be great," she said, giving him a wan smile. "Saves me from getting into the plonk, too. Old habits and all." She took a seat at the table, pulling the oversized t-shirt - clearly one of Angelo's - down a little as she did. "What sort of things have you up in the wee smalls?" she asked, watching him.

"Think we had enough of the plonk the other night, hm?" Doug joked as he crossed to the refrigerator unerringly in the dim half-light. "And memories, for the most part," he answered her question as he rummaged about for ingredients. "New Orleans and such."

"Hah. Snap." She rubbed her wrist lightly with her finger, feeling the scar tissue there. "Penny for your thoughts? They've got to be better than mine."

Doug shrugged and turned to the stove to heat some milk. "I don't know about that. I admit that you probably enjoyed it less than me, but it wasn't exactly a walk in the park. Not to mention the way Remy's been bollocking me lately."

"Remy?" Amanda frowned at that. "He's been... well 'off' isn't right. 'Completely psychotic' is probably closer. He's taking what happened to me personal, just 'cause it was his ex who took us." She sighed. "I don't know what to do about him - he won't listen to me."

"He jumped all over me in staff practice the other day. Your postcard came at just the right time, so Angie and I decided to come down." Some of the bruises were still fading on Doug's forearms and face from where Remy had given him some particularly heavy blows.

"I was wondering about the face." The witch shook her head. "I'm sorry. Maybe if I hadn't taken off, I could have done something, tried again when I was up for it."

"Not your fault," Doug told Amanda gently. "Like you said, he's not listening to you. He's not really listening to anyone." He shook his head. "Angie said she had a bit of a runin with him as well."

"Hell." Amanda scrubbed her face with her hands. "I'm worried 'bout him," she repeated. "The way he's going... there's no coming back. And I don't want that done in my name. Not again."

"There's only so much you can do if he's not willing to listen," Doug told Amanda as he placed a steaming mug of hot chocolate in front of her. "And you can't blame yourself for the decisions others make."

"You'd think I'd learned that by now, wouldn't you?" she asked ruefully, reaching out to pat his hand in thanks. "I'm not blaming myself. Not exactly. I just don't want him using me as the excuse to throw away everything he's done so far. 'S not fair, not after all we've been through. And especially not now, this close to Charlie's anniversary."

Doug hadn't been close to Charlie Plunder the way Amanda had, only having seen him a few times in passing around the mansion, so he hadn't realized that the anniversary of his death was coming. He caught Amanda's hand in his and clasped it gently, lending support without words.

She squeezed his hand back, giving him a faint smile. "If it wasn't such a completely low blow that'd get me a charged card in the face, I'd tell him just that. But there's limits to how brave I am." The smile faltered a little. "'Specially lately."

Doug squeezed back and brushed his thumb across the back of her hand. "You're braver than you give yourself credit for," he reassured her.

"Maybe." She looked down, fixing her eyes on the hot chocolate mug. "I tried to run, when I realised it was something to do with Selene. I didn't care about Ange, or the kids... all I could think of was getting out of there."

"Fear's a normal reaction, Amanda," Doug chided her gently. "We're all of us human. None of us perfect, and I would have reacted the same way, considering what Selene did to you."

"Not that it did much good any way." She gently pulled her hand free and cupped both hands around her mug. "Got my arse handed to me and then some. Thank fuck you guys were there."

"That's what backup's for," Doug said, attempting to sound lighthearted with middling success. "We weren't going to stand for anything bad happening to you."

She looked up at the tone, not terribly fooled. "How bad did it get?" she asked gently, remembering the carnage in the ceremony room.

"Guns." The word came out in a flat monotone. "Angie and I were pretty much a diversion coming in from another side, so I didn't see the kinds of stuff Remy and Pete did, but I can imagine."

"As in you were facing guns, or using them?"

"Facing them." Doug's hands had stilled around his mug. "Not to mention Angie came pretty close to getting herself killed," he noted, attempting to change the subject somewhat.

"Except she had you backing her up, didn't she?" It was perhaps unfair, pushing him to talk when she was reluctant to herself.

"Me and that tattoo she had done. She skewered a priest right through his mouth." Doug shuddered in remembrance of the grotesque picture the man had made vomiting blood over Marie-Ange's hand.

At that she winced a little herself, more at the mental image than at the fact Marie-Ange had done it. Amanda had known there was a harder core to the French girl, even back at the mansion. "She dealing with it?" she asked, although she thought she knew the answer to that.

"You know how Angie is with necessity," Doug replied. "She's handling it about as well as she does anything. She's a little more concerned with this whole water kick lately."

"Hmm." She sipped at her chocolate. "And how about you? How're you dealing? Guns pointed your way, Angie killing someone... There's a lot there."

Doug's first instinct was to brush Amanda off, but he remembered his conversation with Angelo at Mama Lupe's. Friends were there to help you, that was what he kept telling everyone else. "Not great. The guns especially," he admitted. "I had to disarm one thug, nearly threw up right there in the middle of the fight."

"But you still went. You still fought, made sure the way was clear. That means a lot, especially to me," she reminded him. "I'm sorry you got forced into that, but... with what we do, the people we're up against, it was going to happen eventually. Please tell me you're talking to Sof, tho'?"

"I keep meaning to, and I keep finding excuses not to go," Doug admitted, since he was being honest.

She poked him in the shoulder, not entirely gently. "Do it," she told him sternly. "Fuck, Doug, if I can get over my shite about seeing a shrink, then so can you. And you'll be useless to everyone, including yourself, if you let stuff fester."

"Fair enough," Doug told Amanda. "You're probably right, anyways."

"Of course I am. Aren't I always when you're being a plonker?" She gave him a smile to soften her words. "Seriously, Doug, don't make me start worrying about you too. 'S bad enough Ange is off on a work thing for the first time since everything happened and Remy's gone off the deep end and Angie's doing the scary precog obsessive thing." And Candra was stalking her dreams again, but he didn't need the name mentioned. "I can't have everyone I care about messed up in some way."

"Hadn't you realized? We're all quite barking mad 'round here," Doug joked feebly, ducking his head with a weak smile to let Amanda know he was taking her advice seriously despite the joking.

"Have to be, to keep on with all this," she agreed, satisfied she'd gotten her point across. "Besides, who else would join me on curry nights if you go all blamy?"

"Have no fear, Curry Lad is always up to the task," Doug replied, striking a mock heroic pose on his stool.