A flock of teacups bobbed out of the kitchen door. Pink blue red and green. The saucers followed. Rotating slowly in opposing directions. The cakes were depleted. Crumbs left as shadows of the slices. Sandy Misslethorpe took advantage of the lull. Maybe Andy's figures would magically add up differently if he had a slice of carrot cake. Maybe they would not but he would feel slightly better about spending another hour on them.

He held casual chit chat with the witch behind the counter. Feigning more interest about her caravan holiday than was truth. About her dog's love of the beach. He lifted the dainty plate of carrot cake and reinforced his thanks. Successfully negotiating his way out of the conversation. He turned back to the collection of tables. Mostly pockets of families and friends visiting patients. But one stood out to him. The new healer from creatures. Canadian. French sounding surname. Bird name. Robin... Lou...

"Louvelle." Greeted Sandy. Unintentionally towering over the new hire. Carrot cake in one hand. Figures in the other. His pot of tea would follow in a minute. "How are you surviving?" Sandy was wearing his green robes. With the gold trim of the Deputy Head Healer. "Misslethorpe. We met briefly. About the time the Head Healer grilled you."

He had changed out of his Healer robes after the working day shift, and slipped up to tearoom for a moment to himself.

Robin wasn't entirely at home yet. It was weird, starting out somewhere new this late in life - and starting out with an eye to settle down, no less. His nomadic lifestyle made it easy to adjust to new environments but it was hardly a week since he arrived from Paris. There was still the nervous focus on trying to understand different accents, the awkwardness of smiles exchanged with colleagues still strangers.

He didn't like to return to Balfour's right after work. Robin was apartment hunting in London and it was London he needed the most getting used to; better to linger here, and then to walk Diagon or visit shops.

            "Louvelle."

The wizard glanced up from his tea and book, where he'd been casually making notes for a case study.

"Misslethorpe!" he repeated the name with a laugh of recognition. "I recall. Join me?" Robin nodded at the spare chair across, drawing his notebook back in and closing it. "Kind of you to remember me, Deputy Healer."

The hospital was ruled over by a terrifying creature married to one of Johann's relatives; and at her side, this guy. Robin wasn't sure of their dynamic. He assumed Misslethorpe was the good cop in a good-cop-bad-cop situation. But even good cops weren't all that good.

"I'm getting by alright," he blew on his tea before taking a quick sip, eyes on the other man. "Just trying to get comfortable." Robin smiled loosely as he stuck his quill behind his ear. "Been a while since I worked at a hospital this big."

"Thank you." Said Sandy. He took the seat. Slid his folder of figures to one side. The rectangular slice of carrot cake beside. He slid a fork from his inside robe pocket. Set it down neatly on the china plate. Everything just so. "Likewise." He said to the kindness of memory. Andy often handed off the hiring paperwork to him. She was just interested in grilling people in person. Robin had made the cut. Or survived the oven.

"Oh? Where did you practice before?" Asked Sandy. "I understand you have traveled around. London must seem mundane." A steaming red rose teapot materialized out of thin air. Or so it seemed. A matching teacup and saucer rattled as they appeared to emerge out of the table itself. Sandy turned to nod thanks to the witch behind the counter.

He observed, lips twitching into a smile, the fussy mannerisms of the Deputy Head Healer. Some people were tough to read; they hid themselves behind flashy gestures and depthless eyes. Misslethorpe seemed the opposite: his existence announcing itself for what it was.

"It was a Healers beyond borders deal," Robin answered as he thoughtlessly ran his finger around the rim of his teacup saucer. "Most of north America, some of south."

A good run, he thought. A life without commitment to anything besides one's own ethos, and the correspondence of friendships. "Most of my clinics were near beast sanctuaries, that kind of thing."

Robin drank some more tea - it was strong, like every cup he'd been served since arriving in this part of the world. His smile widened a little at that; it felt ludicrously English to be taking tea with another grown man. The clinking of porcelain and silverware.

"London might be my biggest challenge yet," he raised his eyebrows. "Cities are no less wild, are they?"

"People can be beasts." Agreed Sandy. "But we have fewer manticores in London." He turned the plate with the carrot cake on. Admiring or contemplating it. It was not clear. "You must have got handy at solving problems with limited resources." Presumed Sandy. St Mungo's had a lot at hand. Smaller field hospitals had to make do with what they had. "Or am I mistaken to a stereotype?" Sandy had never visited the places Robin worked for. He had only read accounts in healer digests and papers. "Any notable cases?" Beast healers always had the most gruesome stories. It was best not to eat before hearing them.

            "Or am I mistaken to a stereotype?"

"Nah, you hit the nail on the head." Robin shrugged, stirring his tea for no particular reason. "You learn to make do with substitute potions, or putting things together to form a whole. I'll have to get used to the little luxuries of St. Mungo's..."

There was always another Healer or Mediwix to help around here as well; sometimes he found things for the Mediwixes to do, unused to them standing in the periphery, awaiting an order or exclamation.

"I guess it depends on what you mean by notable," he hummed in deliberation and leaned back in his seat. "Dragons have given me some of the worst, patients almost literally torn in two."

For a moment he thought of Balfour and had to repress a sigh; to this day, some of the most recklessly begotten wounds. But Robin passed from the thought quickly enough. "One time a we had a patient come in with a confounded Hidebehind," he laughed.

"She was hunting one with a Pukwudgie, they stunned the damn thing but not into unconsciousness..." Robin smiled wider as he spoke, remembering. "It was harmless, confused, kept shifting into the shape behind the witch. Wouldn't leave her. I had to treat her with the thing getting in the way every five seconds."

It was a great story, usually one he told beast handlers who could never get over the idea of being in same room as Hidebehind.