"Look who's here!" the entering NatPackers cried, with Sharon and TG-L in tow.
"Sharon!" exclaimed a group sitting around the television set. In front of them, a movie flickered on the screen. Others were gathered around a table playing Operation.
"Hello, all!" Sharon waved.
Jill's attention, however, had been drawn by the gruesome events on the television screen. "Halloween?" she exclaimed, surprised.
Amy took a long gulp from a glass of clear liquid, and shrugged. "Jennie chose it. Not really sure why. Something about pumpkins."
A few of the Babylon 5 fans, however, were staring after Sharon's companion, whom she had dragged with her off to the kitchen in search of beer.
"Is that...?" Lynn asked.
The NatPackers home from the exhibit sniggered. "No, he's our chauffeur," Kelly chuckled, before she plucked Amy's glass from her hand and headed to the kitchen with it. "You need some vegetables in that, Amy. Let me find you some nice tomato to add to it. It'll give it more nutritional value."
Jennie, lounging on the couch, greeted the newcomers calmly. "I figured that Sharon would turn up eventually. Grab a seat." She shifted a little to allow Jill to join herself and Betsy on the couch.
"This place is a mess," Jill said, surveying the living room. "I wish that Maureen were here--she keeps everything so neat."
"Harrumph," said Sharon B., who had had Maureen pick up her feet to vacuum under them, and admonish her about using coasters on tables in the not-so-recent past.
"Personally, I think that Maureen has been acting a little too 'neat freakish' lately," Betsy complained. "It's weird. I wonder--" She broke off suddenly. "Hey! Did you see that?"
"What?" Lynn asked. "Where?"
"Over there in the corner," Betsy pointed. "I thought that I saw something...or someone."
"Speaking of weird," Alora muttered to Linda Rose, as they began arranging candles around the room. Betsy shook her head a little as if to clear it, and shrugged.
"So how was the exhibit?" Leslie asked.
"We ran into a couple of Knighties," Jill yawned. "They wanted to know where Nat was. And it sounded as if Nick has been in touch with them." She purposely kept her voice low to avoid attracting the attention of Sharon in the kitchen. She could not help but grin, however. "If Nick is in town, I hope that he goes by Nat's place looking for his stuff."
The other NatPackers chuckled with a dark overtone that would have made the Cousins proud, and felt themselves slipping into yet another group flashback...
********
Place: NatPack HQ
Time: Not long after "Last Knight"
Jill looked up into the night sky and sighed. It had been such a short time since they found Natalie at Nick's apartment that evening. She shivered at the thought, but blamed it on the cool night air. Darn Nick. They had missed the Shakespeare. Even worse, they had been in the midst of a Cult of Skinner meeting when they realized that Natalie was late.... Interrupting a CoS meeting; quite frankly, that was unforgivable.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the others. She turned at the sound and asked, "You got everything?"
Linda Rose grinned. "Oh, yeah. We cleaned out Nat's place of his stuff completely."
Linda, Alora and many other Natpackers were dragging several large trashbags behind them as they entered the backyard of the highly secured and top secret headquarters of The Pack.
Jill looked approvingly at her fellow members. "Serves the blond brick right. I must say it was a stroke of genius to clean Nat's apartment out of EVERYTHING belonging to Nick and a bunch of photos of him too."
The possessions of the blond one were dumped into a common pile. Jill shivered again. "It's too cold tonight."
"Hmmmmm," Alora purred, "There are some graham crackers, marshmallows, and of course chocolate inside. Thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Ohhh," enthused GT, "s'mores. Let's do it."
"I'll start the fire!" volunteered Linda Rose, perhaps a bit too eagerly.
While the other Packers entered the house to get the required ingredients, Linda began to gather the fuel and clear an area. Someone in the house turned on the stereo and put on the "Greatest Hits of the Doors."
Her face serene, Linda knelt almost revently before the small pile of wood and fuel she had constructed. With the touch of a match, the debris caught and a lovely orange glow sprang to life. Singing along with Jim Morrison, she strolled over to the pile of material objects that belonged to one Nicholas de Brabant. Absently she picked up a black shirt and launched it into the air. It arced gracefully and fluttered in the middle of the fire. Like Michael Jordan shooting jump shots, Linda began to pitch Nick's possessions into the flames. The funeral pyre for Nicholas de Brabant's belongings began to grow and gather strength. She reveled in the warmth and the glow lit her angelic face in its radiance. Her hand strayed absently into a bag and pulled out a little brown book that she herself had found secreted away in a box of Kleenex.
"This is next!" Linda cried. She and Mei began to rip out the pages filled with names, addresses, and what looked like bank numbers and passwords. They handed them to Alora who, with a smooth toss that would have made Cal Ripken envious, hurled them into the heart of the bonfire.
Watching them burn, Jennie cooed, "Look at the lovely orange flames."
"Hang on, you've got a thread," Maureen leaned over to pluck it off Jennie's shirt, "a bright red one. It was standing out against the black. Looked very messy."
Meanwhile Sharon, cackling maniacally, began tossing all the photos that the Pack had scavenged into the fire. "Burn Nick, burn, burn!!!" she chanted from the other side of the bonfire. Beside her, Leslie counted the flaming photos one by three.
"Linda!" Jill yelled from behind her.
Slightly startled and a little bemused, Linda Rose turned to her friend, her face completely innocent.
"The fire is big enough."
"I guess so," Linda agreed. "Someone get the s'mores."
**********
They shook their heads collectively, sending the remnants of the flashback skittering away.
Jennie yawned dramatically. "Well, I don't know about you guys, but I think a couple hours of Babylon 5 and some of the All-Skinner channel will put me at bedtime." She looked down at her hand, which had been absently scratching at some hives on her arm until it turned bright red. "Though I am going to need to take some Benadryl and that will probably knock me out like a light." She smiled. "Still, I'm game. Anyone else?"
"Oh, good!" Amparo squealed, "Cap'n Skippy!" She paused for a second, however. "He's not as gorgeous as Nick, of course...but then who is?"
Her prattling was cut off by a deluge of pillows flung from various parts of the room.