Dressed far from than a prominent member of the Ministry/wizarding community and more like a casual fem biker, Gabrielle strolled into the Burning Pot at ten o'clock in the evening on the final Friday of January. The smell of fiery chili was unmistakable; in fact, it smelled of hearth and a sibling-ish lifestyle she once enjoyed with the owner of the place. Licking her lips and finding them quite parched, Gabrielle took a seat at one of the corner seats at the bar area to get comfortable with.

It seemingly took no time to get the order taken - chili cheese fries (the chili to be a bit more spicy than usual; after all, not eating it in so long could provide a challenge, right?) and a good draft of their best cider ale. Order taken, Gabie relaxed a bit, gazing around the surroundings, seeing if there was anything she recognised from the past. It was a bit of a shame to not find anything in the Muggle horror genre, but then again, Halloween was long since passed. Maybe Alex had it up then, who knew. When the draft came along, Gabrielle grinned. "Thank y'luve. Only one other request. If Alex's about, would you be a dear and grab him for me? Just let him know his adopted "sister" is here to see him..."

A grin and nod was there, followed by the departure to go relay the message. Good times, good times....

There was no getting around the fact that despite everything…there was always a great deal of work to be done.  Alex had significantly less on his plate by comparison to his past but there was still something to be said to the work that always seemed to pile up on his desk in the Burning Pot.  Mostly right now is it was time to get finances in order in preparation for taxes.  And that meant sorting through the pile of paperwork done mostly by Nathan Hunter in regards to the months that he had been away.  Recently Marcus had done some of the paperwork himself.  Not surprisingly, his former partner was much more organized and easier to read than Nathan’s.  That could be just because of the time he had spent with Marcus over the years…but it might have to do with the fact that recently everything Nathan did only served to piss him off.

There was no point in trying to figure that out.  It wasn’t like Nathan did bad work or anything…it was just odd.  Moments later a light knock came on the office door.

“Come in,” Alex said without really looking up.  However he did when he realized it was Elaine walking into the room.

“Boss, some woman saying she is your adopted sister is asking for you,” Elaine seemed rather curious.  I don’t blame her actually.  On paper Elaine was actually my adopted daughter.  It helped that Ciarra and her were actually close as well.  The reasons why he had adopted her however weren’t exactly the happiest of reasons.  That hardly mattered anymore considering Elaine was 24 and had long since needed anything from him.

“Gabie is here then,” Alex smiled and put the paperwork down and got to his feet.  “She is an old friend of mine.  We used to stay up to all hours in the morning watching old horror movies.”  He chuckled a bit and offered a little explanation to Elaine about the woman in question.

“Well you better not keep her waiting then, and I better get back to work.  Nathan likes to keep me busy,” Elaine sighed.

“You can always bug me if you need a break,” Alex said as Elaine just smiled and disappeared back out.

Alex made his way out of his office, taking a moment to lock it before moving out to the front and sitting next to Gabrielle at the bar.  “My, my, look who it is.  Looking lovely as always Gabie,” Alex said with a grin.  How long had it been since he had last seen her?  Probably way too long.

Looked like Heather was behind the bar…Alex gave a polite nod to her, but she was really hard to get along with.  After all the woman had a vendetta against me.  Well that was how it seemed to Alex.

“How have you been?” Alex turned his attention back to Gabrielle.