Title: Annoyance Squared
Author: Darkhorse_99
Rating: PG-13 for some language
Genre: Humor/Friendship
Pairing: James Lester/Christine Johnson
Words: 2,060

Spoilers: AU after series 3.

A/N: This was Beta'ed by the awesome and amazing Fred Bassett.

Summery: Sid and Nancy do something incredibly natural and circle of lifeish. In his second bedroom. Sequel to 'Much ado about something'. Set a few weeks after the events in that story.

One fine Saturday morning, Lester woke up to more chirping and trilling than usual. In his early morning state he didn't recognise that the only reason the diictodons he'd inherited could possibly be making so much noise at once was if there were actually so very many more of them.

Oh hell.

James stopped in shock as his brain absolutely refused to allow him to believe what he was seeing. Sid and Nancy trilled proudly as he took in the new herd they had produced. Bloody hell, and it was a herd. A dozen little baby duckling-sized green creatures with stumpy, paddle-like tails darted in and out from their parents' feet. The two adults were taking turns headbutting the baby gate that kept them confined to their room. *Thunk* *chirp* *thunk* *whistle* *thunk*.

"This is not happening. This is so not happening." He shut his eyes firmly and wished to wake up from this nightmare. That was sorted then. He opened his eyes. It wasn't.

He swore vehemently and opened the baby gate. They stampeded past him down the hallway. He followed the herd of into his kitchen for breakfast, wondering how the hell he was going to conceal this from his management company.

The babies were completely manic, darting first one way, then another. Their parents gently herded them where they knew food was. James carefully stepped around them and got out the bags of fresh vegetables he had been forced to start buying in bulk quantities. He was buying in bulk for three prehistoric creatures, now there were a dozen! His grocery bill was about to get outrageous.

When they settled down to eat, they held still long enough for him to count them. There were only eight, and that was still eight too many. Rex swooped around generally adding to the chaos. He landed on the floor at one point and carefully extended his head until he was nose to nose with one of the babies. The baby reached out just as theatrically and they bumped noses, then jumped backwards in surprise before they began romping around each other.

James rolled his eyes as Rex started playing tag with the infants. "What am I going to do with you lot?" he asked them irritably.

They chirped and grunted and whistled and generally carried on without making a useful contribution to the conversation. There was no way he was going to be able to keep them hidden once they were fully grown. Or even half-grown. Or a quarter-grown. This was getting ridiculous. What if they were like cats and could have three litters a year? That was 24 new diictodons a year and if the first litter could reproduce at six months that would actually herald the complete end of the world.

He did the only possible thing he could think of to do. He picked up his phone and called the only other person that knew he had slightly unusual pets in his flat. It was getting annoying how often he had to call her to get him out of trouble.

James could tell immediately that he had woken her up by her sleepy, grumpy, low-voiced, "Hello?"

"Good morning, Christine." He put a little extra chipper in his voice, just for her. It was a trait all morning people shared when confronted with the odd sleeping-in people, "I need you to come over."

One of the babies was crawling over his bare foot. He shifted it off gently and backed away from the madhouse currently happening on the kitchen floor.

"What? Now? It's..." She paused for a second. "Barely seven on Saturday! Why are you even awake now?" Her aggravation at being woken up was very evident.

"I'll owe you one! Another one." he said a bit desperately, watching them disburse throughout his house. "Please?" They were going to absolutely destroy the place, using a sandbox certainly wasn't genetic!

She groaned loudly and threatened him, "You'd better have coffee going. Or I will kill you."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

James wasn't expecting much, given that he'd woken her up and she evidently wasn't an early riser. Still, it only took her about 45 minutes before she was knocking on the door.

He opened the door at her first knock and pressed a cup of coffee into her hands before she could even say anything. "Thank God you're here." He hustled her inside before any of them could escape. "Look!" He pointed around the room. Her reaction was not what he expected.

She squealed. "They've had babies!"

He watched, completely disgusted as she knelt down to pet them.

"Look how adorable they are!" She reached out and stroked the nearest one.

The tiny green creature showed that it had inherited its parents' appalling lack of fear and it bumped its back up against her hand. That was probably why the silly beasts went extinct in the first place. They'd probably walked into the jaws of anything that would hold still long enough.

James let out an exasperated sigh. Now she was picking it up.

"They're so sweet." She cuddled it like a kitten up against her blouse.

James rolled his eyes. "They are not sweet," he contracted her gruffly.

She ignored him and focused on the tiny baby. It was thumping its little green tail against her finger. Christine stroked it gently and the baby chirped at her. She looked up at him finally and asked, "What are you going to do with all of them?"

He narrowed his eyes. "I was thinking about launching my own line of extremely small handbags."

"Oi!" She squawked and yanked the creature even closer to herself. "Don't you dare!" Then she seemed to notice the mischievous look in his eyes and got annoyed at him briefly. "That's not funny, James. Why did you call me over here? I know it wasn't to show off your new babies."

"They're not my babies!" he denied ineffectually.

With a disdainful snort, she stood up with the baby creature held securely against her chest with one hand and her cup of coffee clutched in the other. She went towards the kitchen and made a show of surveying the bare work surface. "What? No breakfast?"

"I made you coffee!" he blustered as he followed her, dodging around the rolling, tumbling baby creatures. "What more do you want?"

She whirled around to face him with a warning glint in her eye that totally belied the fact she was cuddling a newborn creature under her chin, "It's not yet eight in the morning on my day off."

James groaned and opened his fridge. "Shall I do you some eggs and toast then? Would that be acceptable?"

"Sounds wonderful." She grinned at him, then finished her coffee and handed him the cup. "Top me up?"

He managed a baleful look at her while sternly reminding himself that he needed her. "I called you because there's no possible way I can keep them here. Since you object so strongly to my handbag solution then you simply must let me keep them at your house."

"I simply must- what?" she echoed him as she set the tiny creature down on the counter.

He made a mental note to go over it with bleach after she left. He prepared food on that counter!

"You can't possibly be serious." Christine kept her hands carefully around it in a loose circle so it didn't fall off. The baby just sat down and yawned, stretching out its front legs. It then curled up in a tiny ball, ready for a nap. "Look, they're still egg-shaped!" She was obviously enchanted.

James looked up briefly from where he was organizing breakfast. "Quite. So I can keep them at your place?"

"I don't know, James, I don't know if they'll stay in the back garden." She was clearly being swayed by the high cuteness factor right in front of her.

He was desperate. "We can do something about the fence. I'll pay for everything if you'll just look after them for me." He couldn't believe he'd said that, he never offered to pay for things if he could help it.

She was looking tempted, sorely tempted. He attempted to sweeten the pot. "It would be better for them anyway, being out in the sunshine. Sid and Nancy are grown but I don't know if growing up under reptile lights would affect them." He paused briefly. "It would be a shame if they grew up crippled from a lack of natural sunlight."

"Are you trying to appeal to my better nature? I'll have you know that it doesn't exist," Christine retorted crisply without taking her eyes off the sleeping, egg-shaped, creature.

James took a moment to actually really look at her while she was distracted. He realised it was the first time he had seen her wearing something as casual as jeans and simple button-up blouse. She had pulled her hair back in a messy ponytail that cascaded down her back. To put the finishing touches on her casual morning look, she was only wearing a bare minimum of make-up. It made her look cute, and far more innocent than he knew she actually was.

She looked so peaceful and relaxed leaning on the counter that he was tempted to reach out and stroke her hair. He stopped that thought in its tracks. But it was too late, the memory of what it had felt like to wake up with her under him came flooding back to the forefront of his mind. James focused on his cooking and resolutely pushed that type of thought out of his head. He had enough problems without falling in lust with her. He made an instant, silent, resolution to break his dry spell before the year was out.

Christine wasn't paying any attention to him at all, which was perfectly all right with James. She was perceptive enough to notice where his mind had gone if she looked at him just then.

Nancy waddled into the kitchen and whistled loudly. They both looked down at her. Nancy tromped over to Christine, butting up against her leg and chirping worriedly. That she had finally noticed she was missing one was shocking to James. They could count? It was a sufficient revelation that it took his mind off of his current track. Exactly how smart were they if they could count?

"Do you want your baby back?" Christine asked the worried mum. "Here you go."

She carefully set the baby she had been carrying around down next to Nancy and watched as she snuffled all over her infant to make sure that the baby was all right before she started herding it back towards the rest of the clan in the living room.

Christine caught James giving her the eye when she turned back around. "What? You can't honestly deny that they're completely adorable."

James sighed mightily. "I will admit that they are amusing, but I can't keep them here. How about it? We can fix up your back garden a lot nicer than my second bedroom and they can have a proper habitat again." He could have his second bedroom back again. The faint musty smell of creature would finally be gone!

She thought about it. She really thought about it. "I don't even have a cat." Christine brushed a stray hair back away from her face and admitted. "I travel a lot for work. I'm not there for weeks at a time sometimes. You'd have to come by and feed them if I'm not there."

He set a plate of scrambled eggs with a slice of toast in front of her. "Deal." How often could she really be gone? He tried to keep the glee off of his face. They were getting out of his house! He dismissed his brief thoughts of how attractive she looked leaning on the counter as an aberration brought on by the early hour and the stress of having ten diictodons in his life.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The End