By Kismet

Hale Daugherty: Do you ever get the feeling that some days when you wake up, you immediately know it's not going to be a "top of the morning" for you? Like the weather agrees with you and your mood just randomly decides to play along? And you have this itch to be rude and mean and cruel just for the heck of it?



"Thames?" A young man muttered, rubbing his grouchy eyes. He sat up in his master bed and stretched, his joints popping in result. He yawned and placed a hand to cover his open mouth. "Thames?"

When the butler didn't reply, the sleepiness quickly wore off and the man grimaced. He groped his bedside table but instead of a bell, he caught nothing but dust bunnies. "Yuck!" he exclaimed, bolting out of bed. He hadn't really given the room a proper look when he came in last night because he was too tiresome and gravitated towards the covers that were strangely freshly made. Thames must have--, he thought but quickly cut himself off.

"Thames!" the young boy blurted, remembering his butler. He found it odd that he wasn't being answered to his call. Thames was always up before the sun and always managed to come to the young man's every beck and call. That was his job, after all.

Heading downstairs, he wondered aloud where he could be. He chanced a look into the butler's room, thinking he might have slept in for once in all the years he'd been under his employment. But the empty room only proved what the man had believed all along; Thames never slept in, ever.

Just as his foot landed on the last step of the stairs, the front door creaked open, the left side of Thames' body coming into view.

"Thames?" he inquired, his question answered when the butler brought his head around the door and bowed his head.

"Master." He was walking relatively slow and for once, he resembled a man of his age. Before the younger man could ask him what in God's name he was doing, a wrinkly, bony hand attached to his right arm hit his vision, soon followed by a fragile woman in a maids' uniform.

"G-Georgia?" The name slipped out of his tongue like maple syrup and he involuntarily gulped. Georgia Smith was the personal maid of Abel Daugherty, Hale's father. She had been serving the royal family from her adolescence years and accordingly, was much ahead for a lady of her time. A year and a half ago, she was exempted from her services because it was impossible to serve a dead king. She refused of course, begged to stay but it was simply out of the question. She received pension and her pay for the rest of that year and - to put it bluntly - was all but kicked out of the mansion.

"Your Highness." she uttered in a whisper, taking a couple of seconds to bow her head. He couldn't stand to see this side of her. Georgia had always been active and full of life, her wrinkles the only thing hinting towards her real age. She was a tough bird and took to things that were difficult lighter than a feather. But time's sickles have turned the tables on her; not one inch of her showed any life whatsoever. He - in fact - would've taken her for a dead woman if she hadn't spoken just then.

"What is the meaning of this, Thames?" he heard his own voice ask, the tip of his eyebrows moving down his face.

"I-I couldn't find any other maid on short notice, sir." he supplied, averting his eyes. Georgia remained silent and motionless and he found himself wishing she could at least move around a bit to let him know that she was still breathing.

"So you bring me this-this..." he held back the rude word he was about to utter and shook his head to clear his mind.

Georgia was like a second mother to Hale, maybe even considered a first. She had been with him throughout his childhood years and filled the role on more occasions than he liked to count. Now, Mrs. Daugherty wasn't a bad mother. There just came a time when her duty to the throne omitted any other responsibility. She had no choice, a fate many were succumbed to follow. His antics were things Georgia had little patience for which was why he barely cursed. Of course, due to circumstances and her absence from his life (which was more so his doing than anyone else's), he picked up habits that he was certain would probably cease the poor woman's heart if she had heard them.

From the looks of her condition, he didn't think her heart could take the smallest cuss.

"She wouldn't let me go without her, sir." Thames said, fearing the expression half-showing on his master's face. The shaky man he left as this morning was replaced by a bold (but still respectful) one. The cause of the change was yet to be determined but Hale figured it had something to do with the looks of Georgia.

"And since when is she your master?" he managed to say without adding a few obscenities. Thames fell silent and kept his head down. For a long while, no one spoke and just like Georgia, they were as still as statues.

"No." the young man suddenly shouted, raking his hand through his curly hair. He busied himself trying to untangle the knot to avoid looking at Georgia's sullen face.

"Sir?" Thames asked tentatively, squaring his shoulder ever so slightly.

"She's not working for me!" he elaborated, raising his voice an octave as he finally got the knot freed.

"But sir--" Thames spoke louder, his anger triggering his "outside" voice.

"Thames." the man said in a calmingly hushed tone compared to his last outburst. "You know better than to question a royal's order." he reminded the butler, while he kept his face away from the front door that stood untouched behind the fragile woman. "So kindly do as I say or I shall take matters into my own hands."

He turned to walk away but Thames seemed to have either gone deaf (which wasn't unusual for people his age) or he finally grew a pair because he disobeyed a direct order.

"No, sir, I shall not." He said firmly, standing impossibly straighter.

The boy turned on his heel and raised a surprised eyebrow in question.

"Georgia here, despite her condition, is willing to take your sh--to pick up your slack." he corrected but didn't pause for breath. "You can't fire her before you hire her, sir." he said and then looked down at the woman at hand. Her topaz eyes held an emotion he couldn't put his finger on but they weren't happy.

"Very well." Hale replied coolly. "If I can't fire her, I guess I'll have to settle with you." he said, expecting the silence that followed his words. Thames' eyes snapped to his master's face, which were looking gloomily and threateningly back at his. He opened his mouth but no sound escaped. He closed it and then sighed, seemingly making a decision within his heart.

"So be it." he said resolutely and with that he turned his back on the young lad. With Georgia still strung to his arm, he walked out of the only place he had truly ever called his home. Goodbye, master. he thought, removing the name tag on his suit and slipping it inside his coat pocket. I bid you farewell.

Standing alone in the now empty foyer, the young man struggled with the many thoughts inside his head. He knew what he was doing - what he had done - but it was hard coming to terms with it. Thames was his personal butler since 1975 and after 23 years of servitude for him to just walk out like that without some much as asking why he was being treated unfairly was like he basically stabbed the boy in the eye.

Hale cursed himself and his fate, trudging back upstairs to his dust-filled, unsanitary room. His mind dwelled on the thought of his now fired last worker.



I think that feeling is some kind of sickness of mine.