Things aren't always easy.

"Did the guard shoot you? Did he shoot you?" Alfred is the closest to yelling that Aurora has ever heard him. They'd hit a particularly harrowing job, and had stumbled upon the unexpected realization that Alfred doesn't take kindly to criticism.

"Actually," Harry pipes up, "from where I was it looked pretty close on the shooting."

Alfred storms off, and Aurora, for once, is lost. She's never seen him like this - but then, it's been a long time since they've known each other. People change.

Before she can decide what to do, Tom is following him through the doors. The other three stay still as statues, trying not to look like they're eavesdropping. It doesn't matter, anyway - their voices are loud enough to clearly permeate the air. No one really knows how to react with Alfred angry - she can see Neil tensing up, fists clenching, and Harry is visibly shrinking.

"I think what everyone's saying is that you can't just go off on your own!" Tom's voice filters through the wall. "We're a team, and that means -"

"I would never let you get hurt!" Alfred shouts, finally, and then there's a dead silence. When he speaks again they can barely hear it. "I would never - I . . ."

"It's okay," Harry says, and Aurora realizes suddenly that they've all gravitated into the doorway to watch the fight.

"No, it's not." Alfred whispers hoarsely. "There was . . . um, there was someone. Once. She died because of me, and I can't -"

"You didn't." This time it's Aurora speaking up, unable to keep the tender worry out of her voice. "Alfred, you didn't."

"Yeah." He finally lifts his head to meet her eyes, and they stand there, in a standoff that never seems to end.

They settle into a strange familiarity, all of them swimming in and out of the flat at any hour. (Alfred teaches the boys to pick locks, much to Aurora's dismay, so they can come and go as they please.) It's only a minor annoyance, until an incident with a kitchen fire at 3 am arises, and Aurora finally snaps.

"What's going on?" Harry asks blearily as she shakes him awake.

"We're instating some house rules." She replies, turning to face everyone. Tom shoves Harry up into a sitting position so he can collapse onto the couch next to him, and Neil takes a seat on the armrest while Alfred just settles onto the floor.

"First off." Aurora glares at them with a look that's supposed to be intimidating. She's not sure how well it works, considering Harry is nodding off onto Tom's shoulder, and Alfred seems to be counting something in his head. "No coming in or out between midnight and seven." Tom's head jerks up at this, causing his chin to collide with Harry's skull.

"Ow." He complains, rubbing his jaw.

"Sorry." The younger boy yawns.

"But midnight?" Tom asks incredulously. "That's -"

"Midnight." Aurora repeats ominously, and Tom closes his mouth. "If there's any sort of emergency that needs you to be out later than that, you can talk to me. And no," she directs this towards Tom's raised hand, "the blonde from down the street does not count as an emergency."

"Damn." He mutters, lowering his arm.

"Second." She continues, aiming a spiteful kick at Alfred's knee to catch his attention. He blinks.

"Sorry."

"Second, since you all basically live here, we're setting up a rotating schedule of who cooks meals."

"About time we get someone else in the kitchen."

"What was that, Neil?"

"Nothing."

"Thanks to that suggestion, you'll take the first shift tomorrow. Now thirdly -"

"There's more?"

"I swear to god, Tom, I will kick you out of this goddamn flat."

"Fine."

"Thirdly - someone wake Harry up, please - thirdly, any fires, holes in walls, and so on will be fixed promptly by the person who made them. Does everyone understand?"

Neil and Tom both respond affirmatively, Harry mumbles something that sounds vaguely like a yes, and she's pretty sure that was a nod from Alfred - so she takes it as a win.

"Okay. Everyone to bed, and the next person to wake me up tonight is sleeping on the steps."

They all scatter, and Aurora collapses back into bed with the fleeting hope that maybe, maybe, they can make this work.

The next night, after a hectic day of running around researching potential marks, Aurora returns to the flat to the sound of racous chatter and possibly the most delicious smell she's ever encountered.

"What are you making?" She calls out as she steps through the doorway, tossing her jacket onto the hook. Neil glances up from whatever he's stirring on the stove with a grin.

"Just wait until you taste it." He replies, and she collapses onto the couch with a contented sigh, shoving Tom and Alfred over so she can fit.

"This cooking schedule was an excellent idea." She states happily, and shoves Alfred's shoulder when he and Tom agree a little too enthusiastically. "Where's Harry?" She glances around the flat - he's usually the first to greet her once she's through the door. Alfred freezes up, and all of a sudden she's gripped by an instant, paralyzing fear. "What happened? Is he alright?"

"No, no, he's fine." Alfred is quick to reassure her. "He's just . . ."

"He's in your room." Tom offers up nonchalantly. Aurora turns to Alfred warily.

"Why is he in my room?" It's the unspoken rule of the flat - no one goes into Aurora's room. Ever.

"See, um -" Alfred starts hesitantly, before Neil cuts him off from across the room.

"Harry brought home a pup, and Alfred said he could keep the bloody thing. He's getting it set up in your room."

Aurora freezes. "Alfred said what?"

Alfred shrinks back, a look of terrified hesitancy on his face. "He just - he had that look. And the puppy's in bad shape - it probably won't live through the night."

"For christ's sake." Aurora snaps, pushing herself to her feet and storming into the room. "Harry, I don't care what Alfred told you, we aren't -" she whirls through the doorway only to see Harry curled up on the floor with what seems to be a large bundle of blankets piled up in his lap.

"Come meet Lucille." He says in a hushed voice, gesturing awkwardly with his head towards the blankets. Aurora rolls her eyes, but obligingly kneels next to him and peers into the pile.

A tiny head pokes it's way out of the blankets, and Aurora can't help the little coo that worms its way out of her throat. The dog is a pound of nothing, surrounded by matted brown curls and the biggest pair of eyes she's ever seen.

"Told you." Comes Tom's voice from the doorway, and she looks up to see him and Alfred staring down at her with smug expressions.

"I never said we were going to keep her." Aurora struggles to cover her brief slip-up. Allied spy she may have been, but she was never faced with puppies.

"Please?" Harry looks up at her, and the full picture of his big, wide eyes staring up at her with the dog in his lap is too much to take.

"Fine." Aurora sighs. "You can keep her for one week. One week, and if she dies you bury her; if she gets better, you put her back out on the street or find another home."

"Thank you." Harry smiles, and Aurora pulls herself to her feet with a groan.

"That food had better taste as good as it smells." She remarks, as they all gravitate towards the kitchen.

"It does." Tom reassures her.

"Yes, and the only reason he knows that is because he keeps sticking his goddamn fingers in the sauce." Neil calls over with a scowl.

"I can't help myself!" Tom retorts with an unapologetic smirk.

Aurora gets first dibs on the couch (furniture is limited, so they sit wherever they can find a spot), and Harry curls up beside her with Lucille still clutched firmly in his arms. Tom takes the rickety chair in the corner, which Neil promptly shoves him off of.

"Hey!" He exclaims, pushing himself to his feet.

"Cook gets a seat." Neil declares, settling into the spot with a bowl in his lap. "House rule."

"That is not a house rule!" Tom argues, going to shove Neil back off - the other man's death glare stops him before he can even try.

"No, I think it's a good one." Aurora pitches in, and Tom looks over at her incredulously. "Add it to the list."

"We don't have a list." Alfred murmurs from the floor by her feet.

"Then you can be the list." Aurora takes the first bite of the noodles on her plate, and lets out a soft sigh. "Neil, this is delicious."

"It was my mum's recipe." He replies with a shrug, like he hadn't created the first thing she's actually wanted seconds of since the war started.

"So, this is number four?" Alfred cuts in, mind still on the list. "Or are we assorting them by importance, which would make it -"

"Number four." Tom cuts in with a laugh. "Unless you want to fight Aurora about this being more important than her curfew."

Alfred glances up at her with a barely-hidden smile. "No, I'll - uh, that'll be number four."

"Damn right it will be." She replies, taking another bite of the noodles to hide her smile.

They settle into a routine. Everyone looks forward to Neil's meals all week and dreads Tom's ("It's not that bad!" He always protests, before taking a bite and being unable to keep the grimace off his face). Alfred always makes soup and grilled cheese, if they have the ingredients, and Aurora usually sticks to some form of casserole. No one really knows what to expect the nights that Harry's in charge of meals, except that it will probably incorporate Jell-O and crackers. No one's really sure where he gets the Jell-O, since Tom was the only one who recognized it at all (it's more an American thing than a French one).

There are other unexpected things; like when the boys discovered, with some glee, that Alfred's seemingly limitless memory also includes dictionary definitions, so at any point in the day there could be a cry of "frabjous?" followed by a shouted; "wonderful, elegant, superb, or delicious".

"Your meal was frabjous, Neil."

"Thank you, Harry."

Or when Aurora is cleaning the sink and finds a rusty coffee tin filled with coins. "What is this?" She asks Tom and Harry, who are staring up at her with meek who, me? expressions.

"We made a bet." Harry's quick to break, and Tom shoves his shoulder immediately.

"A bet?" Aurora's tone is verging on dangerous.

"On who could find something Alfred can't remember." He mutters bleakly.

Aurora makes them both tail their mark for a week, and she puts the money in the food jar despite both of their protests. (Neil denies his involvement, but she gives him a few extra chores anyways.)

It takes a few weeks, but one morning she looks around her and realizes that not only has she gotten used to the constant noise; the multiple times a day that someone will inevitably crash into her; the shouted vocabulary words and definitions - she's come to enjoy it. Somehow, in this chaotic mesh of people, they've found a family.

Random facts that go along with this one:

-Harry named Lucille after Lucille Ball. He had a big crush on her in Stage Door, and is, in fact, a Giant Dork.
-Harry is the fastest to learn how to pick locks, Neil takes two days, and Tom already knew how.
-The 'someone' Alfred refers to is his foster sister, Emilie.
-Tom instigated the bet, Neil was the second one to agree, and Harry got roped in because he wanted to be with the "cool" guys.