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News of the death of April Dancer's father came as a shock, to her, her colleagues, as well as to his own circle of acquaintances. He'd participated in his usual meetings, social engagements and other activities as late as the previous Friday. In fact, he'd been in what appeared to be perfect health during his last meeting with April, his last trip to New York only three weeks before, the one where he'd once again attempted to cut her down to size and bully her into doing his bidding. She'd heard, yet again, about her youthful obsession with that "blasted obscene journal" and "your mother's unspeakable heathen, barbaric family", not to mention her 'incomprehensible and appalling behavior with Edward Lowry', and her 'ridiculous' job at UNCLE, and most particularly her continued partnership and friendship with a man her father totally despised, Mark Slate. Frankly, he went over the entire list of the ways she had failed in her responsibilities, which it seemed he carried in his mind dating back to the time she was born.Amazing, she was a highly capable, even lethal, agent for a very powerful organization, yet in that situation, a simple private dinner with her paternal parent, she was so much less capable of defending herself than she'd been trained to be against an enemy agent. Well, yes, she COULD have taken some action, but none that would have been approved by the general public, her father's friends, or indeed, her own superiors. They would hardly have understood. She'd come back from that meeting with a raging headache and a bruise on her wrist from when he'd grabbed it hard and twisted, in order to make his point, and considered herself lucky at that. She'd experienced far worse in the past, after all. Sometimes she pondered whether her decision to join UNCLE, to become an agent, hadn't grown from that dichotomy of what her mother's people had felt a woman could be versus what her father had felt a woman's proper place must be. She was still ferreting through all that, trying to make some sense of it in the life she was living now, when the news arrived.Yes, news of his death came as a shock. News of his will, disinheriting her completely, well, it was perhaps a shock as well, considering there were no other relatives, though in a rather abstract manner. He'd had no surviving relatives and April was an only child and her mother had died in her earliest years, so his considerable wealth would have been expected to go to her. She'd made no plans, had based no part of her future on that, though. She'd never given it much thought, to be honest. She'd always considered her future to be of her own making, and considering her position with UNCLE, wasn't all that confident that she'd have a future to worry about in the first place.Now, according to his pursed-lipped attorney, a man who clearly showed how much HE disapproved of her as well, her father's fortune, his property, his belongings would be going to a variety of highly-conservative, most proper institutions, since, as his will stated, "my daughter has seen fit to abandon the values I attempted, unsuccessfully, to instill in her." No, he really did NOT like Mark, or her job with UNCLE, or really, anything else about her. He'd left her the obligatory one penny the lawyer had recommended, just to make it abundantly clear where she stood in his esteem, his affection; just so there could be no argument that he had simply overlooked her in his will, simply ASSUMED the law would settle his assets on her. The superior, very aloof attorney had made it clear, as he carefully placed that penny on the desk in front of her, that there was no chance of contesting the will, and in truth, she hadn't even considered it. It truly didn't matter, though she would have liked to have had her mother's jewelry for sentimental reasons. Well, that penny would suit for now.Somehow, considering their history, neither mattered all that much, his death or his will, though there would be those totally appalled at the notion at least of the first. But in her viewpoint, after all, she hadn't really lost a father; she'd never really HAD one, not to her way of thinking. And his money, his property? She'd never considered that, in any way, hers to begin with, and what her mother had brought to the marriage had long ago been absorbed into the family coffers, ie HIS.Her lawyer had only called her in this early, prior to the funeral being held, because of her father's dictates. His request, ie instruction, also delivered through his attorney specified that April be the last speaker at his funeral, was to read aloud his Eulogy, which he had been so gracious as to prepare in advance. Everything was outlined, down to the manner in which she was to dress - simple high necked, long sleeved black dress of modest length, 2" heels, and a single strand of pearls. April had taken the three sheets of paper, scanned them, noting with an odd sort of calmness, that her father had found numerous ways in which to include all the ways her mother, then April herself, had fallen short. Nothing new there, nothing she'd not heard many times before.Her voice was calm, her face pleasantly serene as she quietly informed Mr. Mayfair that he really would have to get someone else to perform that duty. "I was always a disappointment to him, as you are aware. It all started with him wanting a son, of course. It seems rather a pity to break my track record of failure now. It would be too, too unlike me, you know, and besides, I expect I will be out of town that day." Mayfair sat there with his mouth agape as April left the room, shutting the door firmly behind. "Just as if none of it even mattered!" he complained to his wife later. "Well, it only goes to show he was quite right about her," Mrs. Mayfair stated.It took a few phone calls, nothing too laborious, to determine in which papers the obituary would be posted. The town of his birth, the towns in which he wielded power, and of course, New York, where April would certainly see it, have people comment on it. She had the heads of the Official Notices section read her the copy; all the same, she noted, much as she'd expected. The heads of those Official Notices sections were perhaps puzzled at her wanting to run a SECOND obituary, but they all shrugged and complied. As they well knew, families could do some odd things at a time like this. Perhaps not all of them swallowed their chewing gum when they took down the dictation of that second obituary from the daughter of the deceased; that was probably because only one of them had been chewing gum at the time.Whether that was true for their readers, who can say. Those lucky individuals were faced with two obituaries for Franklin Mercer Dancer. One, quite lengthy, as had been inserted by the estate manager, listing the lineage, accomplishments, appointments, positions and all else that could be expected. The other, as inserted by Miss April Dancer, the daughter of the deceased was more succinct. And of the two, the second was the most memorable, even though it was the shortest by far. **Franklin Mercer Dancer, life-long worshiper at the alter of propriety and the social status quo, died unexpectedly on XX/XX/XX, perhaps in reaction to having learned for the first time that, some fifty years prior, women had been given the vote. He was long predeceased by his wife, Elizabeth Denise Fergus, a woman of considerable merit, if one unappreciated by the husband who preferred her financial and social estate to her own self. He is survived by a female child, daughter of Elizabeth Fergus, conceived inadvertently during his marriage to Elizabeth Fergus in opposition to his prior instructions that any child was to be a male, and who was of an equal disappointment to him.** That was all shocking enough to make a few people choke on their morning coffee, but really, perhaps the most memorable part was that last line of the single paragraph - **Omit Flowers, Grieving Optional**She and Mark had worked on that a couple of years ago, as a bit of catharsis after another of her father's visits; it almost seemed like fate when she reached into her desk and found it waiting there, just like she'd remembered. She found she was in complete agreement with Mrs. Mayfair, even though she'd not heard that lady make her dismissive statement. However, the question did remain, in the short term, even the long term, what DID matter, now that she was an orphan in fact, not just in spirit?Well, for one thing, the call from Caeide O'Donnell, her very distant cousin on her mother's side, mattered. The call reminding her she was not alone, that there was still Family, still those who cared, who considered her their own. Offering a place, now, then, or in the future. "Family, you are, April; Family, you will always be. Welcome you will always be. You are, for better or worse, of OUR blood, far more than of HIS! That is what he resented most, you know, my dear. It was not you who offended him so much, except that he could see us, the Clan in you, however faintly, and his Outlander blood and mentality would not, could not make peace with that, dear child. It was no failing of yours. I would be proud to have called you daughter, am proud to call you Cousin now."Another thing that mattered had been an unexpected, if surreptitious, visit from a heavily-pregnant red haired young woman, oldest daughter to Caeide's younger sister, who fed her chicken soup, and honey and nut pastries, freshly made in April's small kitchen, along with bread and Irish butter purchased from the specialty bakery on the corner, and brought her an ornately-framed, detailed miniature of a polyptych of a dragon to keep and treasure and ponder over, urging her to "eat, grow strong, cousin. Soon you will have a treasure to protect, as I do, and you will need to be at your best for that challenge. I have Seen it in the fires."April was grateful for the visit, the words of comfort; she was also grateful that her however-distant-cousin showed up alone; the sight of her cousin's love, the supposedly deceased Mr. Ecks, would have totally freaked out the entire of UNCLE New York if he'd been spotted.There was a wise knowing in M'Coury's smile, a wry look that told April there would be surprises aplenty in her future, but the kindness in her cousin coming to her at all, taking such a risk, was a warming experience. It seems her 'Family', at least her mother's side, had a rather different take on things than her father did. M'Coury might not be the warm and fuzzy type, except with her immediate family or those she called 'my Treasure, my Ashtore', but she was solidly reliable, dependable, (along with being utterly fierce and dangerous and deadly!), and April felt the bulwark of her support upholding her, giving her strength.It mattered that her partner finished his mission and without taking time to rest or eat or anything else, crawled onto the first plane available, a cargo holder, not a passenger plane, to be with her. She would never discount the warm embrace from Mark, arriving bleary-eyed, dirty and exhausted, with duffle bag in hand, fresh in from an assignment in Egypt, parking himself in her flat and showing little interest in removing himself anytime soon. His chivying her to eat nourishing meals, bringing movies she loved to watch, games she'd always enjoyed playing, books they'd liked reading together, having him there to pillow her head against as they fell asleep watching old movies, all of that gave her comfort and reassurance. Yes, that mattered.The invitation from Illya and Napoleon to a dinner at Venara's, her and Mark and the two senior agents together, talking quietly at the table for four, adjourning back to her place for the sharing of a companionable bottle of wine along with some shared memories, that left her with a solid sense of 'self', a sense they valued who she, April, had become to them, no matter that that person had been a disappointment to her father. That mattered.The day came for the funeral, a full three weeks after his death, to allow for all the pomp and circumstance, all the traveling of various important people. Mr. Mayfair looked in vain for a young woman, supposedly to be dressed in black, repentant, wearing a single strand of pearls, carrying a hand-written eulogy. Since the copy Mr. Mayfair had, just in case the irresponsible young woman had forgotten her own, was all written in the first-person and was highly disparaging to the reader, he prudently, if somewhat reluctantly, sat it aside in favor of the more measured one he'd held at the ready, just in case.Meanwhile, Mark and April spent the day on a dusty road in Algieria, making what amounted to a milk run, albeit somewhat off the beaten track. When they'd slowed to let that flock of goats, complete with goatherd, pass, she'd grinned over at her partner, knowing her own face was as dusty and sweat-streaked as his was."Mark, darling, I swear, you take me to the NICEST places!"He'd grinned back, honking the horn gently in farewell to the waving boy in the tattered clothes. "Well, April-luv, I do try. Maybe I'll even spring for a pot of tea at the next place we see, really do it up right."She'd laid her head back and laughed, "well, if you insist." She turned and gently tossed a small handful of change, including that sole penny to the boy, as they drove off in a cloud of dust.