Lori was washing her hands after using the toilet. It was a little past midnight and the light hurt her eyes horribly at this hour. She dried her hands, turned the light back off which was much easier on her now sensitive eyes. But when she opened the door, she bumped into something that caused her to fall over. She looked back and quickly realized by the silhouetted shape that what she tripped over was:
"Lucy! Is it your life mission to give everybody in this house a heart attack?!" Lori hissed at the goth.
"If you kept the light on you might have seen me," suggested Lucy.
"I didn't want to wake everyone else up! Besides, at this hour my eyes aren't used to bright light, they do better in darkness when it's nearly midnight!" Lori hissed back.
"Well, now you know how I feel most of the time," said Lucy. Suddenly, there was a loud scream from downstairs. That was enough to make all the lights in the bedrooms turn on as the rest of the siblings opened their doors. Lily cried at being disturbed.
Lori miraculously got herself up from the floor and ran downstairs to see what the problem was. Running downstairs, she saw Lola curled up in front of their parent's bedroom door breathing heavily.
"Lola! Sweetie what's wrong?" Lori asked as she bent down to see if the six-year-old was hurt.
"It was horrible! Disgusting! I don't know if I can sleep again!" Lola cried. Confused, Lori knocked on her parent's door.
"Mom! Dad! Are you awake!"
"Don't come in! We're not exactly decent!" Rita's voice called back. By this time, the rest of the siblings had come downstairs.
"Lola! What the freak is going on!" demanded Luna.
"I don't want to know!" Lola wailed. That's when the door to Rita and Lynn Sr.'s bedroom opened. Judging by the appearance of their pajamas, they appeared to have got dressed in a hurry. Lynn Sr.'s shirt was badly buttoned and Rita was still trying to straighten her robe.
"Lola, sweetie! It's alright! There's no need to-" Rita started to say, approaching her daughter, as if to comfort her, but Lola stopped her in mid-sentence.
"Don't even come near me!" she snarled.
"Alright! I think we need a family meeting! Everyone in the living room!" Lori demanded. Nobody, not even the parents denied the request. Normally she would call a sibling meeting into her room but since the parents were now involved, it seemed necessary that they be a part of it. Lynn Sr. and Rita stood in front of their children, they looked unnaturally nervous.
"Lola, I think the first thing that has to happen is you need to tell everyone what happened," said Lori, her arms folded as she sat right next to her younger sister on the couch. Lola just looked at her, she wouldn't say a word. Cliff, the family cat walked in and that gave Lincoln an idea. He reached up to pick up Cliff and then placed him on Lola's lap.
"Lola, you can tell us, this is a safe zone," said Lincoln. Lola started petting Cliff and took a deep breath.
"Alright. The truth is I had a really bad dream that woke me up. So, I came down here to ask Mom and Dad if I could spend the night with them. I opened their bedroom door and I saw-I saw-I saw," she started to stammer horribly and looked back at her parents with fear.
"I think I know wut'sh happened. Lola caught our parental unitsh in the middle of-" Lisa started to say but Lori snapped at her.
"Lisa! Let her Lola tell us what she saw!"
"I saw them with their shirts off and their faces were buried into each other! Their arms were wrapped around each other and it looked disgusting! And that's coming from someone who shares a room with Lana!" Lola finally shrieked. The older siblings had their eyebrows raised. Lisa seemed to take a notepad out and was writing something down. Lana appeared dumbfounded. Lily walked over to Lola and started tugging on her nightgown. Lola picked the infant up and had Cliff make room on her lap for Lily who then kissed the princess on the cheek.
"Okay, I think we can all easily assume what was happening. Mom, Dad, is there anything you'd like to say, while keeping this PG-rated?" asked Lori.
"PG? I think it's far too late for that! At the very least this situation is now PG-13!" laughed Luan.
"Luan! It's not funny!" Lincoln scolded his older sister.
"I don't know from a certain point of view this might be funny," said Lynn Sr.
"Lynn! Look we thought you kids were fast asleep, and we probably should have locked the door. But we ourselves suddenly woke up and got into a spur of a moment. When Lola screamed we panicked and tried to cover ourselves and luckily, she slammed the door giving us time to put something on," Rita said. She then approached the six-year-old once again who just looked at her mother blankly.
"Lola sweetie, I'm sorry you had to see us like that but the honest truth is that mommies and daddies sometimes like to hug each other that way," she continued.
"All mommies and daddies?" asked a now curious Lana.
"All mommies and daddies. But this is something that doesn't leave the house walls." Answered Lynn Sr.
"How can a situation leave the house walls? And they're in such poor condition, anything could slip out!" answered Leni.
"Leni! Now is not the time! I understand you think what you saw is uncomfortable right now Lola, that's normal. But when you're older you might think differently about that sort of thing," continued Rita, trying very hard to be helpful.
"In fact, if we didn't like to hold each other that way, we wouldn't have of you kids. And you're the eleven greatest things to have happened to us," Lynn Sr. added.
"Yeah well, just be really careful about it! The last thing you really need right now is another mouth to feed!" exclaimed Lori. Lynn Sr. and Rita turned red in the face.
"How about this? From now on, if somebody gets scared in the middle of the night, don't go to Mom and Dad. Go to an older sibling, I used to do that and it helped me just fine," suggested Lincoln. The four oldest sisters nodded in agreement, remembering how they used to let Lincoln bunk with him when he was little and scared.
"But preferably not Lucy," he added hastily.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Lucy asked.
"No offense, but you're not the most sympathetic or comforting person when it comes to nightmares." Lucy had to agree with that.
"Well, since that's settled, can we all go to back to bed?" asked Lynn.
"I don't know if I can fall back asleep, even in my own bed," said Lola, still hugging Cliff and Lily. Luna stood up, gently lifted Lily and placed the infant in Lana's arms and then picked up Lola and Cliff in each of her arms.
"C'mon luv, you can bunk with me tonight," she said as she walked back up the stairs, her eyes barely staying open. One by one the rest of the siblings followed suit until it was just Lori and the parents.
"Seriously, start locking your door. Also, I literally meant it, there's a lot of us in this house right now, and I don't think this house can handle much more," she told her parents.
"Lori, we understand your point, but I don't think you need to lecture us. We understand this house has been through a lot, and we're not exactly planning another pregnancy," answered Rita.
"Yeah well, how many of were literally planned. I'm just saying, please use caution. Ew, I am literally giving my parents 'the talk!' That's not supposed to be my job!" said Lori as she headed back up to her room. Leaving her parents alone. They went back to their bedroom and went to sleep, not looking at each other. Their moment of passion was gone.