Title: THE PHONE CALL

Part 9 of the EATING series

Author: Josan

Date: September, 1999

Summary: Walter gets a phone call.

Pairing: Sk/K

Rating: PG

Archive: Archive/X (which will be seriously missed!), Ratlover, Gossamer. Any others if you ask: just so I know where this is travelling to.

Comments:jmann@mondenet.com

DISCLAIMER: These are the property of CC, Fox and 1013. And why do we have to wait until November for the season premier?

THANKS: To Solan who betas even when I'm grumpy.

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THE PHONE CALL

They were behind schedule that morning. Walter's fault. He would start something that Alex felt needed to be finished before the day got any older.

Alex was trying to button his shirt, finish his coffee while Walter was in the shower, calling out reminders of his schedule for the day.

Of course, the phone rang.

Alex had been waiting for an answer to a query he'd tossed out, not ten minutes ago, to a colleague whom he'd managed to catch just before the man had left for the office. He picked up the phone.

"That was quick." He jammed the phone under his ear, kept on fighting the buttons.

Silence.

"Hello." Guessed it wasn't the call he had been expecting.

Still silence.

"Hello? Anybody there?"

He was about to hang up when a woman's voice asked, "Is that Walter Skinner's residence?"

"Yeah, it is. Hang on." Alex tossed the phone onto the unmade bed, called into the bathroom, "Walt! Phone! I think it's your new secretary."

Walter came out, wrapping a towel around his hips. As he picked up the phone, "Would you stop by the dry cleaners and pick up the suits? It's on your way home." Got a nod from Alex, spoke into the phone. "Hello, Mrs. Banburry. What...Oh," his tone alerted Alex, "hi, Mom."

Alex froze in his tracks. Mom? What the hell was Walter's mom doing calling at this time of the day? And it was Thursday, not Monday. She always called every second Monday of the month, regular as clockwork, during half-time of the Monday Night Football Game. The only time, Walter explained, she could be relatively sure of finding him home. The only time he, Alex, never answered the phone.

Maybe someone was dead? thought Alex. Except Walter seemed to be doing more sputtering than anything else.

"Yes, Mom. I was..." He sat down on the edge of the bed. Grimaced. "No, Mom. Mom, I...No, Mom, that's...that's not quite...Yes, of course, Mom. Yes, well...I'll have to check....No, I'm not being...Sure, Mom."

By now Walter was rubbing his eyes the way he did when he had a headache coming on. Alex slouched against the door jamb, slowly finished buttoning his shirt, his eyes intent on his lover's face.

"Yes, Mom, I will. Yes, okay. Friday night. It'll be late, Mom, are you sure Saturday...Right. Okay. See you then, Mom."

Walter hit the off button on the phone. Looked over at Alex. "That was Mom."

"I gathered that," said Alex. "Sorry. I was expecting Peter to call back."

Walter let himself drop backwards onto the bed, rubbed his face with the heels of his hands. "Nothing to be sorry about." He turned his head, smiled in an embarrassed way at Alex. "Have you got something on for the weekend?"

Alex thought, shook his head. "Just the usual paperwork." It still tickled him that he could say something like that. "Why?"

"My mother would like us both to come up for the weekend."

Alex gnawed on the corner of his lower lip. "Us? Both of us? I thought she didn't know about us?"

Walter sat up. "Well, it seems that she does now. I hadn't told her about leaving the Bureau, but she seems to know about that, too."

"How?"

Walter sighed unhappily. "I guess I'll find out Friday night."

Alex came over to his subdued lover. He bent down and kissed him. "We. We'll find out Friday night."

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Oh, oh!

Just goes to show, you can never hide anything from a mother!

How will our boys deal with this one? I wonder.

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