A/N This is my first attempt at writing something, so I hope it's turned out OK (it's completely un-beta'd). I've been enjoying all the AH stories where people take Eric and Sookie back to places they know and I thought, why not New Zealand? We miss out on a lot down here (seriously, we weren't allowed an Ikea because it might cause too much traffic chaos), so I thought surely we could have Eric for just a little while?

Disclaimer: Not mine. All belong to Charlaine Harris. I just sent them to the Southern Hemisphere.

SPOV

I wondered what the time was, and if I was running late. Squinting I couldn't make out the numbers on my watch which was currently balanced on the shelf above the bathroom vanity.

The tiny ensuite bathroom, one that had been carved out of part of the old laundry, was feeling even tinier due to the fact there were three of us in here. I was rapidly trying to finish my shower before all hell broke loose, Felicia was balanced in her bouncinette throwing rattles and squealing and Amelia was perched on the toilet playing teachers and encouraging her imaginary class to sit down. Sometimes it would be nice to shower alone, but those days were long gone.

As I stepped out of the shower and finally managed to see the time on my watch (still only 7am, I was doing OK for time), Amelia broke out of her game and said "Mummy". "Yes" I answered, automatically.

"Will we have to stay at Nana's all day today?"

"Yes you will." I replied. "And you need to be really really really good for her. And eat whatever you're given. And do what you're told. "

"OK" said the small voice. "Do you think she'll play tea parties with me?"

I had no idea on that front. The woman was a mystery to me most of the time. "I'm sure she will" I said.

By a little after 7.30 am we were all in the car driving to Mt Albert. Luckily there wasn't a lot of traffic yet and we were sort of going across the city anyway, rather than trying to make it all the way into town with everyone else, Auckland traffic was not pleasant at the best of times.

I parked in front of a block of brick and tile flats and turned around to give one last set of instructions to Amelia. "Please be good for Nana. No yelling, no tantrums, no demands." Amelia simply nodded and looked at me like I was making all that stuff up, as if she'd never do any of that. She was 3 going on 16 sometimes.

I let Amelia out of the car and she ran up the path yelling "Nana". The door opened just as I staggered up the three front steps carrying Felicia, Amelia's backpack, Felicia's nappy bag, an extra bag of toys and my handbag. I walked in and plonked it all down then went back to the car to retrieve the pushchair. By the time I got back I could hear Amelia in the kitchen, excitedly talking her Nana's ear off. Poor Felicia had been abandoned on the living room floor. Luckily she wasn't the earliest crawler in the world and at 8 months was still contented to sit there, although I did remove Amelia's shoe from her hand before that ended up in her mouth, and replaced it with her favourite pink teddy bear.

Amelia appeared clutching two biscuits and I reminded myself I wasn't going to worry about what she was going to eat today. The whole point of grandparents was to spoil the kids wasn't it? And Amelia only had one Nana, so her opportunities to be spoiled were limited.

"OK." I said "Felicia's food, bottles and spare clothes are in her bag. She can sleep in the pushchair – just put her down at 9am and midday, and maybe at 4pm if she seems tired still. Amelia's brought some toys with her and should eat pretty much anything for lunch. If you need me ring my cell phone. Good luck!"

I kissed Amelia again, reminded her to be nice to everyone, kissed Felicia and headed to the door. "Thanks again for this Lorena. We could really do with the money this contract is going to bring in". "Mmm-hmm" she murmured, while watching Amelia dance for Felicia "enjoy your day at work then". Yes, my mother-in-law is a total cow sometimes, but she was helping me out in a jam, however disapproving she might feel. It wasn't my fault she hadn't worked a day since she'd been married.

"Right I'm off!", I announced, and before anyone could say anything else I took off down the path and walked up to the bus stop on Mt Albert road. I love my kids dearly, but it felt very freeing to be doing this, to be heading out to work with the grownups. I just hoped this contract panned out. The woman I'd interviewed with, some Australian called Sophie-Anne had talked about how I was going to be her 'resource' for the next few weeks. Read dogsbody I guess. But I needed the money so I was in no position to argue.

The bus pulled up just as I reached the stop, and, more importantly, it wasn't completely full yet so it didn't just drive past us. Excellent. So far the day was going well.

EPOV

I wondered what the time was, and if I was running late. I glanced at my watch and saw it was only 8am and I was already in front of the office building. I decided to stop and get coffee and kill some time, Sophie-Anne and her annoying off-sider Andre weren't going to show up until at least 8.30am. And even then they were of no use to me. Sophie-Anne was always in a meeting, and Andre was, apparently, just too damn important to get any real work done. I was stuck waiting for this 'resource' they both said was arriving today before I could get any of the data I wanted.

When they'd first proposed this trip to me, it had sounded interesting. Our consulting firm, De Castro and Co, had been engaged by the New Zealand subsidiary of a large Australian bank, to conduct an investigation into their fee structure – i.e. how to maximise their income without pissing off their customers. My boss, Victor Madden, had 'suggested' rather forcefully that I should be one of the people sent to Auckland to work on gathering the data necessary. I figured why the hell not? There was not much keeping me in Shreveport and it would look good to have been involved in an international project.

Unfortunately the reality wasn't living up to expectations. Auckland was pretty, but tiny. They'd put me up in an apartment in the centre of the main street, just a five minute walk from the downtown offices of the bank, but trust me, after dark there wasn't that much happening. Just a bunch of drunken teenagers wandering around shouting at each other. And I'd been surprised that the most entertaining thing on a Saturday night was watching the boy racers sit in a traffic jam while competing to see who had the loudest engine and/or stereo system.

Add to that the fact that the two other consultants sent out with me, Chow and Indira, were a married couple who had all their sight-seeing planned out ahead of time (they tried to include me, but my eyes glazed over at mention of wine tours and bush walks). So to sum up, I'd spent 3 very non-productive days in the office last week, achieving fuck all because there was no one to run the data requests I needed, followed by two very boring days in the weekend, stuck alone in the apartment, watching porn and jerking off. I couldn't believe I'd come all this way to be this bored.

And now it was Monday morning, and I was hoping that Andre had finally got his shit together and he was going to be able to produce something for me to work on, or, at the very least, produce the mythical resource.

Coffee in hand, I reached the small meeting room we'd been assigned and set up my laptop. Chow and Indira hadn't arrived yet. They were staying in the same apartment building as me, but had obviously decided to take their time getting here this morning. Although at least they'd had some luck getting some data to work on, as they weren't stuck with the perpetually busy Sophie-Anne and Andre.

I sighed, sipped my coffee and looked out at the view. This was probably the best thing of the whole trip – the building was right on the waterfront and from here on the 15th floor there were views right the way down the harbour and it was some view – although I did have to marvel at the amount of small boats you saw out and about during the day. Who were those fuckers and why weren't they working like the rest of us?

Andre put his head around the door and said "A'right Eric?". I mumbled a greeting back. He said that their resource (seriously did this person not have a name?) was starting this morning and he was just going into a meeting with Sophie-Anne and the contractor and he'd bring her around to meet me shortly.

At least it looked as though I might finally get to do some work today.

So let me know your thoughts. Hopefully there isn't anything too foreign in there yet (wait until we get to some of the place names), but if you want to know anything about New Zealand, just PM me!