A LONG-AWAITED SEQUEL, LACKING A PLOT

Yes, my loyal fans, here it is. The sequel to Choices, which to my astonishment seems to be quite popular. I would like to state I only knew ONE of the reviewers in advance; all my other fans seem to be entirely innocent in their worship. I know; it's shocking isn't it?

This fic has no plot yet. I'm just running with it and waiting for a plot bunny to bite. So if it sucks, it's your fault for hassling me, okay? Good. Onwards…

DISCLAIMER

As before, not mine. I wish they were. I even dreamed they were once. Scarily. But not mine.

CHAPTER ONE

Vimes hammered on the door again, finally losing patience. Inside the room, Angua opened one eye, decided it was far too early for this and closed it again. Carrot muttered something indistinct and finally lifted his head to squint at the door.

"What time is it?"

"Night-time," she replied in a muffled voice, curling up again. The hammering continued, and the two exchanged weary glances before finally Carrot dragged himself out of bed and towards the door.

Angua went back to sleep, ignoring the quiet exchange, and enjoyed another few minutes before Carrot shut the door and said, "Mister Vimes wants to see us in his office right away. He said it was important."

"It always is," she muttered, reluctantly sitting up and stretching.

Six months on from the memorable accident that had led to amongst other things a species change, and life had settled down – more or less. Carrot had adjusted, again more or less; he never changed unless he absolutely had to, though. Not that there was much reason for him to do so; because he'd been bitten rather than born, his senses weren't as powerful as Angua's, so any situation needing a werewolf's nose was still handled by her. She'd also finally moved out of Elm Street completely; paying rent had been rather pointless considering she only ever stopped by to pick up clean clothes occasionally, so she'd taken up permanent residence in Carrot's room. Not ideal, but good enough.

Carrot was standing in the corridor now, razor in hand, staring at the bathroom door impatiently. When Angua finally emerged, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, he looked at her. "You took a long time… Something wrong?"

She shook her head distantly. "No…" she answered evasively, ducking into their room to brush her hair, leaving him to stare after her for a moment before shrugging and going to shave.

A few minutes after that they were standing in front of the overloaded desk in Vimes' office, watching blankly as he paced back and forth muttering colourful obscenities under his breath. The two exchanged glances again before watching him pacing around some more; finally it was Angua who broke the silence, seeming to come out of whatever reverie she'd been in since waking up.

"Sir, is something wrong?"

He looked up. "You could say that," he said irritably. "You remember Sybil insisting I take a holiday?"

Trying not to grin, she nodded. "Yes… You're going to Quirm, aren't you?"

He nodded. "Well, now his lordship has decided there is a problem with the running of the Watch in my absence."

Carrot looked confused. "But you told us about this weeks ago. I thought I was going to look after things."

"You were, Vimes replied, dropping heavily into his chair and closing his eyes, looking angry and tired all at once. "But now certain people have decided they don't want that." He exchanged glances with Angua; both of them could come up with a fairly lengthy list of names of people who didn't want to see Carrot with any sort of authority, and to be honest Carrot's name would be top of the list. But nobody else believed that.

"So Vetinari has chosen someone else to come in and oversee things while I'm away."

"Who, sir?"

Vimes sighed heavily. "It's going to be Rust."

The shocked silence was eventually broken by Angua's voice. "Shit."

END OF CHAPTER ONE

Well, there it is… Read, review, and reflect.

Frosteh