The next morning, Emil was in the kitchen of the safehouse, making pancakes for breakfast for himself and anyone who wanted them. He and the other guys made meals and did housework from time to time, because they thought it wasn't fair that the girls get stuck with the entire domestic thing. So there was Emil, up to his elbows in pancake batter, heating up a frying pan, when the last person he wanted to see came into the room.

Upon seeing Gris-Gris enter the room Emil groaned inwardly and rolled his eyes at the bowl of batter. Remembering his agreement with Remy to try and not piss Gris off, Emil merely gave the big man a half-smile and said,

"Mornin'. Want some pancakes?"

Gris-Gris raised an eyebrow and shook his head, crossing the room and getting himself a banana. "Non."

Emil shrugged. "Suit yourself. What're you guys doin' today?" He meant Gris and the other Assassins. In spite of the unification, the two groups still had a hard time just hanging out together, and they all still tended to stick with their own. From time to time, they had found they could work together, but both groups had different ways of doing things and sometimes those differences could be vast.

Gris glared at Emil and said sharply, "None of your business."

Emil raised his mixing spoon in a sign that he was backing down. "Okay, okay, I was jus' askin'."

"You talk too much." Gris-Gris commented before turning on his heel and heading back out of the kitchen, leaving Emil standing there, staring after him like he had just spoken Swahili.

He was still standing there, his pancakes forgotten, when Theoren entered the room. Theoren didn't have much of a sense of humor, but he had to chuckle when he saw Emil standing there, holding the mixing spoon, batter dripping on the floor and totally oblivious to the fact that the pancakes in the frying pan were starting to burn.

"Red. Hey Red. You're burnin' de pancakes. Snap out of it."

"Huh, what? OH!" Emil exclaimed, coming back out of his thoughts with a start and clueing in to what Theo had just told him. He grabbed the frying pan off the stove and tossed the burnt pancakes in the garbage.

Theoren just kept laughing. "What were you t'inkin' 'bout, anyways?"

"Jus' somet'ing Gris said a few minutes ago." Emil replied. "Theo, do I talk too much?"

"Well, compared to over half de people in dis Guild, oui. But you always have, it's not like it's somet'ing we all jus' noticed, compris?" Theoren replied. "But it might be somet'ing new to de Assassins b'cause dey haven' been 'round you all your life like de rest of us have. Did Gris say you talk too much?"

"Oui." Emil said quietly, pouring more batter into the pan and listening to it sizzle. None of the thieves were overly sensitive people, but they were human, and sometimes things bothered them. Emil had tried to be civil and nice to Gris, and the assassin had shot him down like a duck.

"An' dat bothered you?" Theoren asked, confused.

"Sort of. I mean, I said somet'ing dat pissed him off yesterday, an' if it wasn't for Bel, I don' know if I'd be here right now, mais, I talked to Remy afterwards an' I agreed to try not to say t'ings like dat anymore. So Gris came in here dis mornin' an' I was nice an' civil an' I didn' say a t'ing he could object to, but he was right short an' mean." Emil replied, concentrating on the frying pan, and not looking at his friend.

Theoren considered the information for a few minutes before saying anything else. "Kid, listen. You can' 'xpect Gris to be nice an' friendly to you right away. It isn' gon' happen like dat. Jus' keep workin' on it, an' maybe he'll come 'round eventually."

Emil sighed bitterly. "I hate dis unification."

"I know. I'm not too fond of it myself. But dere's not'ing we can do 'bout it, 'except deal wit' it de best way we can." Theo told him, taking some plates out of the cupboard as Mercy and Claude joined them, followed by Zoe and Genard.

"Where's Remy?" Zoe asked, putting glasses on the table as Claude got the forks and knives and Genard rooted through the cupboard for the maple syrup.

"He went for a walk," Mercy replied, taking the plate of pancakes Emil handed her over to the table. One by one, the group was sitting down, getting ready for breakfast. "He'll be back later."

The only one who didn't join them was Genard. He was sitting on the floor with his head stuck in a cupboard, still hunting down the elusive maple syrup.

"G, what are you doin?" Claude asked with a chuckle from his seat at the table.

"Lookin' for somet'ing…" came the muffled replied, followed by a loud "Ah-ha!" and then an "Ow!" as Genard moved too quickly an' banged his head on the top of the cupboard as he was getting up. He sat there, holding his head with one hand and triumphantly showing them the maple syrup with the other. "Can' have pancakes without dis."

"You're nuts, Genard. But are you okay?" Mercy asked, concern in her voice.

"Genard shoved his glasses up on his nose as he got up off the floor and nodded. "Yeah. I'm fine. Jus' hungry."

"We can' tell dem, Fifolet, you know dat." Gris-Gris said.

Fifolet nodded, his long black hair falling into his face, his brown eyes dark and brooding. "Oui. Dey wouldn' understand. Dey don' understand us anyway. I don' see why we have to keep playin' dis unification game. You know none of us wants to do it. Even dey don'."

Gris sighed and glanced around to make sure they weren't been watched or eavesdropped on. "We have to keep playin' it 'cause Bella Donna says so. She wants it, or at least she t'inks she does. Personally, I jus' t'ink she wants to spend more time wit' LeBeau. She jus' hasn' figured dat out yet."

Fifolet laughed. "Well, you can be sure it won' work in de long run. Dere's only so much hangin' out wit' thieves dat we can do b'fore dey push us too far. 'Specially dat red-haired twit, Lapin."

"I will deal wit' him. I don' care what LeBeau says, de second Lapin says somet'ing else he shouldn', he's gon' get it. I'm outta patience wit' dat mouth of his."

"Remy won' be too happy if you do anyt'ing to Emil…dey're friends." Fifolet warned as they walked up the stairs of the safehouse. They wanted to get behind closed doors as quickly as possible to avoid talking to anyone other than the other assassins.

"If LeBeau has a problem, I'll deal wit' him too. He has no control of de assassins, an' if he t'inks he does, he's sadly mistaken. De unification does not given him de right to tell us what to do."

The two men knocked on one of the doors and waited. A muffled "C'min" told them to enter, so they did, and were greeted by Questa, their friend and fellow assassin.

"Well? How'd it go?" he asked.

"Check dis out." Fifolet said, pulling out a small bag from his pocket and tossing it to Questa.

Questa opened the bag and poured out the contents into his hand with a whistle. "Wow. Dese are some nice diamonds, guys, I'm impressed. Bel an' Singer will like dem."

"Oui, dey will make lovely necklaces and earrings for de girls, won' dey?" Gris commented. "An' it wasn' hard to get dem either. Of course, de two people who got in our way might have a different opinion…if dey actually could have an opinion at dis point."

Earlier that day, Gris-Gris and Fifolet had gone into downtown New Orleans and entered a jewelry store they had scoped out a few days beforehand. The store was the only one in the city that carried unset diamonds, and that was what the two assassins were after. They didn't just want to have jewelry made for Bella Donna and Singer, but they also wanted to sell some of the diamonds on the Black Market. They could get a nice sum for them and they knew it only too well.

There were two people working in the store when the assassins went in. They attempted to stop the two big men from stealing them, but they were unsuccessful. Both Gris-Gris and Fifolet were trained killers, and it didn't take them long to put the two store employees out of commission, permanently. It was that information they wanted to keep from the thieves. The thieves, of course, wouldn't have a problem with the robbery itself. After all, the thieves stole more things than the assassins did. But the thieves didn't believe in killing people for any reason other then self-defense and they wouldn't approve of the fact that Gris and Fifolet had killed two people just because they were in the way during a job.

As the three assassins talked about the job and their feelings about the unification, they didn't realize the door of the room was still open slightly and that they were being listened to. Standing outside the door was the one person who could get himself killed if they caught him. He was also the person who might not be believed if he tried to tell anyone what he was hearing. He had been listening to Gris and Fifolet since they came home, in spite of Gris checking to make sure no one was around. Emil was very good at hiding and had managed to listen to almost the entire conversation between the assassins without getting caught.

Emil, deciding he had heard enough, silently slipped away from the doorway and went down the hall to his own room, thinking about the information he now had, and trying to figure out what to do about it.

"I guess de only one I can tell if I have any hope of bein' b'lieved is Remy. But he isn' gon' like it. An' I'm not sure I like it either. I t'ink I have to start watchin' my back more den we t'ought." He said to himself as he sat on his bed to wait for Remy to come home so he could tell his friend what was going on.