"Hey daddy..." a young girl called as she walked into the kitchen of their white, three story house.
"Yes baby girl?" the man in question answered, whilst silently praying that his six year old daughter had not been spending a great amount of time with her Uncle Henry as his name spelled trouble to with a capital T.
"How did you and Mommy meet?" the child asked her father, her long blonde curls, which she inherited from her father and both grandmothers, falling to the middle of her back. Her piercing blue eyes, just like her mothers, he thought, were searching his own eyes, ever so close to reaching his very soul with their burning questions and curiosity, another trait of her mother's.
"Well sweetie, it went a lot like this..." he said, lifting the feather-light child into his arms and carrying her to the lounge-room before settling them both on the large couch to start his story.
"With an earphone in one ear, Will lugged his school bag on his broad shoulders and made the thirty metre trek to the bus stop by his house. The sun was hidden behind clouds today, but Will squinted anyway. His contacts seem to have been playing games with him and he was struggling to read the text that his ex-girlfriend, Meggan, had sent him.
His bus was running late as usual and he fidgeted with his iPod. Little Red's song 'Rock it!' was by far his most favourite song at the moment. Nodding his head to the rhythm of the song, he watched his bus come down his street. The bus jerked to the left moments after he had gotten on and he felt his guitar case slipping from his left hand. The low hollow sound rang in his ears as he tried to balance himself. Picking his guitar up, he hurried along and made it to the middle of the bus and sat down. He sighed. It was going to be a long day.
Down the station stairs, he walked, with a guitar case clutched awkwardly in his right hand. "Doors closing. Please stand clear." He moaned in frustration as he missed a train. He was going to be late for his band's final rehearsal this morning. Calmly, he waited on the platform. He stood there in silence as his iPod played 'Bad Day'. He was deeply annoyed at this coincidence and immediately changed the song. A strong draft started blowing from his left and as he looked up, the 7:31 train had arrived. He picked up his guitar and school bag and boarded.
A young blonde girl stepped into his carriage. She was wearing a white tee shirt that read 'Love, Peace and Liberty' with a graphic of a gun expertly drawn below it. She had matched it with a crimson cardigan and black skinny jeans. On her feet were black and red ankle high Chuck Taylor's with a bejewelled key at the front. She looked stunning. In one ear she had an earphone in, and with the other, she appeared to be talking to someone on the phone. Will smiled at her guiltily. His eyes lingered at her jet black skinny jeans. Her slim legs seemed to go on forever.
The flawless figure had beautiful round eyes and had coated her long lashes with thick layers of mascara. She wore purple eye shadow and a red lip gloss, similar to the colour of her cardigan. Her skin was unblemished but her expression was irritated. She seemed to be in some sort of debate on the phone and this made Will feel uncomfortable. He fidgeted with his iPod again and changed the song to 'Beautiful' by Christina Aguilera. After all, the doll in front of him was just that.
The train came to a slow halt. Looking outside the window, Will realised that his stop had come. He glanced at his watch. 8:05a.m. Shoot. He was already late."
"And Elisabeth Jade, that's how I met your mother." William said to his daughter.
A soft sigh was heard from the doorway and the pair looked up to see a young woman in the same clothes described by Will, the same hair and the same smile.
The only difference being, that she now held a three year old baby boy on her hip, Logan James Zimmerman. That and the fact that beneath the shirt that her husband had gotten redesigned in a larger size, she was carrying the couple's third child; a beautiful baby who would either be Sarah Rose or Michael Henry Zimmerman sometime in the coming weeks.
"Hey baby girl, did you enjoy daddy's story?" She asked her daughter.
"Yeah mommy, it's gonna be my favourite story forever and ever and ever!" she exclaimed in the way that only six year olds can.
"That's good baby girl, do you think that you could go and get me the phone whilst I sit down for a minute?" she asked
"Sure mommy, I'll be right back!" she said sprinting off. Ashley carefully lowered herself into the embrace of her husband and the miracle couch they had bought; her forty week pregnancy and three-year-old making manoeuvring successfully, a little difficult.
When Lizzie returned with the cordless phone in hand she passed it to her mother and curled up with her brother at her feet on the monstrously large couch whilst Ashley typed a string of digits into the device, only pressing call after having shown the caller ID to her husband.
"Hey mom, it's Ash, do you think you could get Lizzie and Logan's rooms sorted out for us and maybe clear a bed in the infirmary?" The young woman asked. Will, having realised what Ashley said to her mother and what was going on, then carefully moved from behind his wife, went to the hall cupboard, grabbed the family's coats and helped his two young children into them.
"Yes mom, I'm fine for now but we will be heading over shortly … you too, we will see you in a bit mom" Ashley finished as Will reached out his hands to help her back up and into her coat.
He then turned to Elisabeth, "Lissa sweetheart, can you go to the hall cupboard for daddy and get the bag that is just inside the door for me honey?"
Once the family were in the car both adults let out a sigh of relief, this time had gone much easier than the last two. Liz's startling arrival had caused pure panic in the young couple and their family whilst Logan's stubbornness had been a definite trait even in his birth, with the excruciation labour pains his mother had experienced and the forty-nine hours of labour which had awaited them.
As a large castle-like manor (if you could call it that) loomed into their view, William turned the car into the driveway and activated the front gate. Ashley felt a shiver pass over her as they entered the courtyard and mentioned to Will that they would need to remind her mother or big brother to disable the EM shield for her father before their child entered the world.
A sense of euphoria washed over the adults as they entered, this was Ashley's home, where she grew up, where she was born, the second place she had met Will and the place she felt most safe. This was the Old City Sanctuary and the woman standing on the porch who looked not a day older than she had in 1888, with a worried though excited expression, was her mother, Helen Joy Magnus.
Ashley also noticed that her father, Montague John Druitt, also stood with her mother and her team, this put her at ease as she now knew that he would be there for her with the antidote in his system to witness the birth of his third grandchild … one hundred and seventy-four years after having met her mother in London England.
Ashley and Will were home and that was what mattered most at that point. Not Uncle Henry, Aunty Erica, Uncle Declan and Aunty Kate rushing to get their surrogate niece and nephew out of the car. Not Helen and John helping Ashley out of the car and down to the infirmary using John's magnificent powers and not even the Big Guy whacking Will upside the head for attempting to get the bags out of the car.
None of that mattered because Ash and her Night in Shining Nubbins were home and they were about to welcome their youngest child into a world of abnormals, humans and all around craziness and love that could only be described as their family.