When We Grow Up
Summary: He was older and smarter so he knew the meaning behind her words, even if she didn't.
"When we grow up…" He's heard the beginning of this sentence a hundred times he thinks, or some variation of it, and he knows she's young and can't know that she won't live with her brothers forever, even he can't imagine not being with his mom and dad and siblings, but he's smart and knows one day they'll have to move out, so he doesn't correct her. She'll learn eventually.
It's the images she paints inside his head with her words that worry him. She talks of grown up things and what they'll do when mama and daddy can't tell them what to do anymore and he smiles at her conviction, but he knows better; it hurts a little that the pretty pictures won't come true.
Alex stomps her foot in the petulant anger that only the five through seven year olds seem to possess. She's mad at their mother for not letting them stay up late; somehow she's become convinced that all the good cartoons come on at night. Personally, Justin's upset cause he's bedtimes the same as his little sister's, and he cried and yelled, but his mom still didn't budge. "You know," she says, her arms crossed over her chest, "when we grow up and have our own place, we can stay up all night to watch cartoons."
The picture comes unbidden to his mind, and it hurts a little to think that she won't always want to be with him, stay with him. "What about Max? Will get to stay up too?"
"Max'll have his own place. He can do whatever he wants, but at our place, we'll stay up late." She says it so matter-of-factly that he finds himself believing her words and his heart does a happy little flip at the thought before he reminds himself that she's too young to know what she's saying.
She stops taking about it when she's eight, and Justin thinks she's moved on.
He's building a robot, the parts scattered all over the kitchen table, but he's got less than a year left before college and he's determined to get a second one done in time for graduation. Alex comes down the stairs, stopping for a second to glance at the mess he's made before heading towards the refrigerator. "We're going to have to have a second bedroom in our place, cause there's no way I'm dealing with all this stuff," she makes a vague gesture at the parts scattered on the table, "in our kitchen." He freezes as she grabs what she was looking for and heads back upstairs, but he can't stop the smile that spread across his face at the thought.