Perhaps it was unsurprising that Irene was the sort to fancy a little lie-in at the weekend. And since she wasn't a teacher and was fairly out of touch with the school calendar, she had not anticipated being woken by the sounds of someone puttering around in her flat. Thankfully, she'd spotted a curly little brown head before she could grow too alarmed, she'd known exactly what weekend it was -- and she remembered prom, to go with it -- and called out a good morning to her occasional son, Hamish.

Except it wasn't actually Hamish. And all that alarm came right back.

The door to the forge swung open with the abandon of being flung by a small child who still needed to be reminded to take care, and in rushed a boy of about four, calling, "Mom! Mom! Good morning, Mom!"

And behind him trailed a watchful, if perhaps obviously quietly panicking, Irene, who took quite a bit more care to close the door than Gareth had to open it. "Darling, gentle hands, remember," she cautioned, dropping an immediate hand of her own onto his little head in an effort to keep him from just flinging himself into something pointy.

(Though, actually, considering whose kid this was -- he knew better, didn't he?)