Gavin didn’t let go of her until he was gently setting her down on the sofa in his office.  He sat on the floor next to it.  “Are you alright?”  He asked quietly.

 

“I…he just walked right in…walked right into our home like he belonged here…” Grace said quietly, staring at the end of the sofa.  “I heard something and went to check on Nathan…and they were just standing there…”

 

“We’re moving,” Gavin said firmly.  There were too many memories in this house now.  “Someplace quiet, maybe a little bigger… maybe a little closer to Garrett and Cassidy.”

 

“I…I don’t understand why he killed him.  Nathan was four years old…he didn’t do anything to anyone…”

 

“He killed him to take you,” Gavin said gently.  “To hurt us.  And because he was mine.  If Chelsea had been home he’d probably have killed her too.”

 

“It’s my fault… I just…I *stood* there, I knew what was going to happen…I just let him shoot our baby…”

 

“Shh.  You didn’t let anyone do anything.  We’re not set up to fight them off anymore, beautiful.  We did everything but put a sign on the front lawn announcing that we didn’t have anything to do with the organization anymore.  But they won’t just leave us alone… they have to make sure they win.  They don’t quite know what to do about me, I think.”

 

Grace slid off the couch into Gavin’s lap, fairly clinging to him.  “I shouldn’t have let him stay home from school.”

 

“He was sick, Grace.  And if you hadn’t gone they’d have hurt you too.  You didn’t do anything wrong,” Gavin soothed, holding her close.  “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

 

“I didn’t do anything.  I just stood there.  I could’ve done something….I could have…” Grace was about to say grab her gun and shot them all, but she realized neither of them had kept any guns in the house.

 

“There was nothing you could have done.  And if I’d been home, there wouldn’t have been anything I could have done either.”  He kissed the top of her head.  “Shhh.”

 

“I’m sorry…” Grace cried.  “I’m so sorry.”

 

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for, honey.  I’m just glad you’re alright.”

 

“But…our baby…”

 

He gently rocked her back and forth.  “I know, Grace… I know.”

 

~*~*~*~

 

Garrett came home after bringing Cassidy down to the medical personnel to find a small disaster.

 

Ivy seemed to have gotten into Cassidy’s makeup but had rather gone overboard.  Michael, in the meantime, had pinched a lipstick and proceeded to color – all over the wall.  Kayla had tried to cook, and now the fire alarm was going off, and Garrett was happily sitting under the table with the entire bowl of chocolate pudding.  Something of Ella’s crawled up his leg.

 

“Get your little butts on that couch NOW.” Garrett barked at the five children.  “Your mother is down in the medical wing and will be up here in a few days.” He told them once they had sat down.  “If ANY of you give her a hard time, you won’t be able to sit for a week, you got that?”

 

“Yes, Daddy,” five voices chorused at the same time. 

 

“Now, Ivy and Ella, you get yourselves cleaned up and get the boys and Kayla cleaned up.  You aren’t some kind of street riffraff.  Your mother has gone through a great deal and she doesn’t need you all upsetting her.  Once you’re presentable, I want you to clean the messes you made.”

 

“Daddy, I learned to use the potty,” Michael announced.

 

“Good boy.” Garrett paused and patted the boy on the head.  “Now, the rest of you, there will be no arguing, no fighting, no getting into trouble of any kind or you will answer to me.” He paced the room in front of them, giving orders.

 

“Daddy, the boys need haircuts,” Ivy told him patiently.  “And Michael stole Mommy’s lipstick…”

 

“Did not!”  Michael put in.

 

“And he took my turtle out of the toilet!”  Ella said indignantly.

 

“SHUT UP.” Garrett roared at them.  Silence filled the room.  “I will call the barber and have him come over and give you all haircuts.  In the meantime, I don’t want to hear any more complaints from any of you.  You’ve got to get along!” He paused.  “Ella, get your sister and brothers cleaned up.  And for the love of God, get your reptiles out of the bathroom.  Ivy, stay.”

 

Ella took Michael’s hand, and Garrett and Kayla followed her out to the bathroom.  Ivy stayed seated on the sofa.

 

“I’m putting you in charge of cleaning up the house.” He told his daughter in a fairly softer tone.  “We have to help your mother out, and that means helping her clean the house.  I want you to go through every room that is a mess and assign your brothers and sisters jobs to do and clean up.”

 

“But Daddy, we can’t fix all of it,” the eleven-year-old told him.

 

“What did you break?”

 

“Well Kayla flushed a frog down the toilet and now it’s broken – the one upstairs, I mean – and Michael scribbled all over the wall with the markers from your study *and* with Mommy’s lipstick and Garrett got chocolate pudding all over the white carpet in the living room and it won’t come out, I even tried, and then Ella tried to fix it with the bleach but she dropped it on the tile in the hallway…”

 

Garrett looked at his daughter in astonishment.  How could five little kids cause that much damage in such a short amount of time? “Is that it?”

 

She hesitated, then shook her head no.  “Umm… Garrett was playing in your study, and the big computer’s broken, and I don’t know what happened to the little one… he and Michael were playing and they broke one of the desk legs… I think they had a hammer,” she offered.

 

Garrett closed his eyes a second.  They were just little kids who didn’t know any better…they were *his* kids…and if they didn’t know any better it was probably his fault.  “Clean up everything else, I’ll have some people come in and fix everything that you just listed.  And make sure you tell Garrett and Michael if they come near my office again, there will be hell to pay.”

 

“Mommy told them that they wouldn’t get dinner for a week… but that was when she was crazy.”

 

“If they go near my office, I’ll give them more than no dinner for a week, and I’m *not* crazy.”

 

She paused a minute, as if she was afraid to ask.  “Are you drunk?  ‘Cause… well… you’re kinda scary, and we get scared when you’re drunk…”

 

Garrett stopped and looked down at her.  “No, angel, I’m not drunk.”  He put a hand on her shoulder.  “Just make sure everything gets done.”

 

She nodded and got to her feet, but she gave him a hug before she left the room.

 

~*~*~*~

 

A few days later, Garrett came upstairs to find the house as spotless as it had been when Cassidy had still had the energy and the drive to tend to it.  The children looked quite a bit more like children and less like animals.  Freshly trimmed hair and soapy clean faces were to be found in the living room, where Ivy was braiding Ella’s hair while Ella brushed Kayla’s red hair into neat little pigtails.  Garrett was sitting on the couch having a cookie, which he was carefully holding over a plate, and Michael was sitting on the floor playing with two or three toy cars.  There wasn’t a single sign of chocolate pudding on the carpet and not so much as a crumb anywhere else.  The tiles in the hallway were spotless and Garrett’s study was back in order, a new computer sitting neatly on the desk.  There wasn’t so much as a stray napkin in the kitchen and the dining room walls no longer bore multicolored marks of lipstick and permanent marker.  There were no scaly or slimy creatures in the bathrooms, and the toilets upstairs worked fine.  Even the children’s rooms were spotless, beds made and toys where they belonged.  Ivy had even made the desks neat. 

 

When Garrett came back downstairs, Michael hopped up and gently tugged on his pant leg.  “Is Mommy coming home today?”

 

“Yes she is, I’m going to get her once I finish checking the house.” Garrett told his youngest son.  He walked past one of the guest bathrooms and stopped.  There was a certain stench coming from the bathroom.  “ELLA!” He bellowed.

 

Ella appeared, her hair in a neat braid; clearly the girls had finished.  “Yes, Daddy?”

 

He pushed open the door to reveal the bathroom, and opened the bathtub curtain.  “What is this?”

 

The tub was full of water, almost to the point that it would overflow, and within the tub, there were fish, tons of them, a few already floating along the top.  “They’re fish, Daddy,” Ella explained patiently.

 

“I know that, what are they doing in the bathtub?” He asked.

 

“Swimming.”

 

“Why aren’t they swimming outside in the pond, where they belong?”

 

“They didn’t want to play outside anymore, it was raining and cold and they didn’t want to get wet,” she explained, as if this should be obvious to him.

 

Garrett clenched his teeth and tried to control himself.  This was just a nine year old girl.  “Sweetie…I don’t think the fish really care if they get wet…in fact, I think they actually like it.”

 

“Well it was still cold outside,” she insisted.  “They’re happy, see?  Some of them are sleeping.”

 

“Ella, those fish are dead.” He told her as calmly as he could.

 

The child seemed to be very upset at this.  “No they’re not, they’re sleeping!”  She cried, running upstairs to her room.

 

Garrett sighed and followed her up to her room, making a mental note to clean the fish up later.  “Ella?” He said, sitting next to her.  “Ella, I want to make a deal with you.”

 

“Mommy *likes* fish, she used to like it when I showed her my turtles, I thought she’d like the fish,” Ella wailed.

 

Garrett hugged the child hesitantly.  “How would you like it if I got you a goldfish of your very own?”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yeah, and a little tank to keep it in.  It can even stay in your room.”

 

“It can?”

 

“Yeah…you’ll be in charge of it…you’re going to have to feed it and clean the tank when it gets dirty.”  Garrett wondered why his daughter couldn’t like kittens or puppies or something small and furry instead.  Girls weren’t supposed to like scaly things.

 

“I can do that!  And Mommy could play with him too!”

 

“Yup, but I’ll only get you the fish if you do something for me.”

 

“What?”  She demanded, sounding rather like her father.

 

“You’re going to have to promise me you’ll keep all your other pets out of the bathroom.  Mommy doesn’t like it when she finds your frogs on the toilet.”

 

“She didn’t like the turtle I put in the washing machine, either… and the turtle didn’t like it in there…”

 

He nodded.  When had she put a turtle in the washing machine? “You have to keep them in your room and make sure they stay in their tanks or I’ll have to take the goldfish away.”

 

Ella nodded.  “Do… do you want me to bring the fish back outside?”

 

“How did you get them into the house?”

 

“I borrowed mommy’s bowl.  The big heavy one she uses when your friends come over… it fit all of them at once, and it held all the water, but I had to move them slow.  I almost broke it,” she admitted.  “But I didn’t.  And I cleaned it up after.”

 

“Good girl.  Get Ivy to get you a plastic bowl to bring them back out in.”  Garrett told her.

 

“I can get one, it’ll just take longer to move them,” Ella explained, then hopped off her bed to get a bowl for the fishies.

 

Garrett nodded and went back down to the other kids.  “I’m going to go get your mother… Behave… Ivy, I’m leaving you in charge, alright?”

 

Ivy nodded. 

 

Garrett made his way down to the medical wing to Cassidy’s room.  He hesitated before knocking.  He’d been so busy with the kids and getting the house back in order he never got a chance to get down before and see her.  He knocked on the door and opened it.  “Cass?”

 

She looked up, startled, and didn’t really relax when she saw him.  “Hi.”

 

Garrett looked around the room and walked in.  “How are you feeling?”

 

She shrugged.  “Alright, I guess.  They’re letting me leave, aren’t they?”

 

He nodded.  “I came down to get you…” He stood by the bed and wasn’t sure if she’d let him get any closer.  “Cass… I’m…I’m sorry.”

She simply nodded.  It wasn’t alright, he had scared her… and she wasn’t looking forward to what was waiting when she got upstairs… five horribly messy little kids and a trashed house…

 

“Do…are you ready to go?”

 

“Yeah… I guess.”

 

Garrett waited as she got out of bed and changed.  “Let’s go.” He said, holding the door open for her.

 

She left the room and let him lead her upstairs to the door that separated their living quarters, the “house” so to speak, from the headquarters.

 

Garrett opened the door and let her pass through, closing it behind him.  “KIDS!” He shouted.  “Mommy’s home.”

 

Little footsteps pattered down the hall and Michael fairly threw himself at her legs.  “Mommy!  Mommy come see!”

 

Garrett suddenly hoped that Michael didn’t mean Ella’s fish as the child grabbed Cassidy’s hand. 

 

“Where are we going, little man?”  She asked him, astounded as she glanced around. It was clean… there were no empty bottles in the kitchen, no toys tossed in the way, and Michael at least looked clean and neat.

 

“Mommy! We made something for you! Come look what we did!” Michael hurried down the hall, pulling Cassidy behind him.

 

“You made something?”  She asked as he pulled her toward the playroom. 

 

“Look, look, look!” He pointed to Ivy and Kayla who were holding up a big sign.  “And we even cleaned up after too!” He announced proudly.

 

The sign, made out of glued-together construction paper, read “Welcome home Mommy!” in multicolored letters.  It seemed to be made of honest-to-God craft supplies, and sure enough the room was clean.  Each of the kids seemed to have colored in addition to helping with the letters, for she was sure Ella had had something to do with the goldfish and Garrett the cookies.

 

“I made the cars!”  Michael told her.  “Ivy did the letters but we colored them.”

 

She glanced around at the spotless house and the tidy children and the banner, and then she dropped to her knees and gave her son a hug.  “It’s beautiful,” she told them.

 

Ella came running into the room and jumped up on her father.  “Daddy, daddy, I moved the fishies back, can I have my goldfish now?”

 

“We’ll go later, sweetie.” Garrett told her, setting her down.  “Give mommy a hug.”

 

Cassidy, upon lowering herself to child-height, had fairly been tackled by Garrett and Kayla as well as Michael.  She was laughing, letting the kids hug her, and she gently kissed the top of each little head.  “Look at you all, you’re so nice and clean… Ivy, are you wearing my makeup?  Don’t you look like a little lady?”  Cassidy pulled Ella into the hug.

 

“Daddy wouldn’t let me use your makeup anymore.  He bought me some of my own.”

 

“Well you’re just getting to be a grown up girl… but you’re still little enough for a hug, get yourself over here.”

 

Ivy walked over and squeezed Cassidy tightly.  “We’re sorry we made you crazy.”

 

“Oh, kids, it wasn’t… it’s okay,” she assured them.  “It’s not your fault.”  She sat down on the floor, half expecting someone would knock her over soon anyway, and gently kissed each cheek in turn.  “It’s okay.”

 

“We’ll be good for now on.” Little Garrett told her.  “Honest.”

 

“You *are* good.  You’re such good kids…”  She suddenly wanted to cry.  She’d missed them…

 

“Why don’t we all go have some lunch?” Garrett suggested.  “We can go out to eat.”

 

“Go get your jackets, it’s raining outside,” Cassidy told them, and the kids trooped upstairs to get their raincoats.  Cassidy stayed on the floor.

 

Garrett wasn’t sure whether he should offer to help her up, so he just sat down next to her.  “Cass…I’m so sorry for scaring you… I want to make it up to you.”

 

“Thank you for looking after them…”  She seemed to ignore what he’d said.

 

“They’re my kids too… I just had to explain that you weren’t feeling well and they needed to help clean up.” He told her, trying to get her to look at him. 

 

“They’re good kids, really, but they’ve got a lot of energy and with five of them and other things to do it’s hard…” She trailed off.

 

“Cass… I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have just thrown them all at you… I want to make it up to you…”

 

“I tried, I tried to take care of them and be there for you and still do things… God knows I wanted us to be perfect…”

 

“I should have helped you…shouldn’t have expected you to just handle it like you always do…”

 

“I wanted everything to be perfect for you,” she told him, finally looking up at him.

 

“I know, baby, and… I want to make it up to you…I never should have… I had no right to—“ he couldn’t make himself say it, as much as he wanted to…he couldn’t make himself say he’d hit her.

 

“I didn’t know what was happening to you, to us, and it scared me, and then…”

 

“Let me make it up to you, somehow, please, I love you, Cass.  I don’t want to hurt you… I don’t want you to be scared.”

 

She slid closer to him, sitting on the floor by his side, and rested her head against his shoulder.  “I love you too…”

 

He helped her stand up after a minute.  “I want to protect you.” He told her.

 

She seemed to hesitate and then kissed him softly.

 

Garrett kissed her back, pulling her close.

 

There was a giggle from outside the door.

 

“Shh!  Mommy and Daddy are kissing!” Ivy hissed at her siblings.

 

“Again?”  Michael asked, making a face.

 

Garrett smiled and kissed Cassidy’s forehead.  “Come on.” He opened the door.  “All ready to go eat?” He asked the kids who were standing outside the door.

 

“Yup,” Little Garrett told them.

 

Cassidy picked him up.  “Well then come on, little man, let’s go.”

 

 

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