What are men to rocks and mountains

The acceptance

Alison left the Captain and Havers alone for a while as she answered the phone to Mike, who she could hear swear softly on the other end of the line. She could hear a ruckus in the background as well, the unmistakable grinding and grunting laugh that could only be Robin, and the hiccupping chihuahua that definitely belonged to Julian.

"Hello, Alison?" Mike all but yelled before she could even greet him. She could hear the annoyance in his voice.
"Mike?" She answered
"Yes, hello? Alison" He asked again. Alison rolled her eyes but couldn't stop the smile that crept onto her face. Her husband could be such a dork.

"Mike! What's wrong?" She yelled back, grabbing his attention. He sighed shortly from the other side.
"These pricks have been making this day much harder than it has to be. They keep messing with the lights. The decorators are scared to death. No pun intended."

Alison rolled her eyes. Typical, the ghosts hadn't had all that much to do lately, and even though they'd had some events, the ghosts were restless. Especially Julian and Robin, she guessed a person could only take that many games of chess on any given day- even if they were dead and had technically nothing better to do. She could hear Julian speaking up in the background.

"Alison! We scared off this decorator bloke earlier- right pansy-"
"Yehs! We make light go on and pansy go AHHHHHHH!- It was funny." Robin interrupted him, a sentence that Alison could barely make out.
"Put me on speaker please, Mike." Mike complied, putting his wife on speaker and holding the phone up to the empty room.
"Right, guys. I need you to stop harassing the workers, we've been over this. Remember last time?" Alison said sternly.

Julian laughed as he remembered. "Ah yes, the yoghurt incident. Marvellous."
"No! Not marvellous, the poor guy. Listen, we can't miss out on the money these guys are paying us, so the least we can do is let the decorators do their job in peace." She continued.

She could almost see them roll their eyes as they sighed, honestly- they were like children. "But we boreeeeed." Robin's voice came through the phone.
"Tough luck, play some chess or something. I gotta go now, but if Mike has to call me again I swear to god there'll be no TV for a week! And I'll hide the chessboard!"

"You wouldn't dare." Julian scoffed, his politician voice seeping through. "We'd just bother you more if we didn't have TV or chess." God he was infuriating, but he was also kind of right. Curse politicians!

"Just-... Behave!" Alison snapped. Mike raised his eyebrows and hesitantly brought the phone back to his ear when she fell silent.
"Thanks." He said, looking around the room- specifically the ceiling. Just before he hung up Alison could hear Julian muttering "We're down here you nonce."

She couldn't help but chuckle as she put her phone back down. She hoped her warnings would help, but with those two you never knew. She turned around and started to make her way back to the two men she left by the bridge, but as she got closer she saw the two men in what seemed to be a serious conversation. They were talking softly, frowns on their faces. She didn't want to ruin the moment- god knows she'd unintentionally done that before, so she halted in her tracks and softly backed up, giving them a little more time to talk. Being out of a familiar setting may make it easier for both of them to open up, especially the Captain, who had been inside of Button house for so long.

She quietly walked back down the bridge, finding a good spot where she could barely see them and they couldn't see her, and waited for them to finish their conversation.

The ride back to Button house was mostly silent. Both men had had a lot to process for the day, and Alison was exhausted as well, dragging them around London all day. Captain especially, wasn't very talkative.