Chapter Two- Elements
About a second after I heard the crash and the two unfamiliar voices talking from outside, things happened inside that distracted me completely. The first thing I noticed was Fang. His eyes had gone a flat black no gold in them at all. But what was weirder was that he was starting to emit a black glow. Lily, who was still sitting on his knee, was staring at him in wonder. Fearing for my baby I pulled her off Fang and hugged her closely.
I turned in my seat to ask Iggy what the hell was happening but his hair had turned into fire. His eyes were a sinister dark red and his skin had gone even paler than normal. He didn't seem alarmed by this at all, quite the contrary; he was looking pleased with himself. I jumped up and away from the table keeping Lily securely in my arms. I had to keep both her and my unborn child safe from whatever was happening to them.
The other four were changing too. Max's hair had gone platinum white with golden streaks through it and her eyes had turned a similar gold. Nudge's hair was short and straight. It had gone dark green with white highlights and her eyes were different shades of green. Gazzy had whitish grey hair and cloudy grey eyes. Angel's usually blond hair had gone sort of watery and was green with dark blue tips and her eyes were the colour off sea water. None of the six of them had pupils.
While they were all changing into these weird things, I was practically having a panic attack. Lily was screaming and big pearly tears were running down her cheeks. She was looking straight at Iggy terrified at what her father had become.
"Dada, Dada, Dada." She shrieked. I stared at him with a stricken look.
"Its okay, look Lils Daddy's fine." Iggy said. I don't think either of us believed him. I mean his hair was on fire! I looked down at my screaming baby. Her dark eyes were wide and full of tears.
"Shh baby shh, Mama's here." She clung to my shirt and relaxed slightly into my shoulder.
"Mama." She whimpered. I stroked her strawberry blond hair. At least she was calmer.
"What's...?" I was interrupted by the door opening. A man, a women and a little boy stepped inside. The man had white and grey hair but he was in no way elderly. He had sparkling black eyes. The woman had light blue hair and her eyes were the same colour. She also looked to be about six months pregnant. The dark haired little boy standing between them looked to be a little older than Lily. He had brown eyes and a red streak in his raven black hair.
"Ally, Jacob where have you been?" Max asked.
"We've been finishing off some business." The man said warmly.
"I can guess what kind of business." Iggy joked raising his eyebrows. Typical.
"Shut up Iggy." The woman said light-heartedly. They all seemed to know each other. Iggy flicked a glance over to me. I was sort of backed into a corner clutching onto Lily for dear life.
"Oh crap um... what's the word again uh... πυρ." He started to go back to normal. His eyes were sky blue again and his hair strawberry blond. His skin darkened slightly. I ran straight into his arms.
"What just happened?" I half growled.
"I'll explain it in a minute." He kissed me on the lips briefly and scooped Lily out of my arms.
"See Lily flower I'm okay." He cooed to her. She gave a little giggle.
"Dada." She said happily and wrapped her arms around his neck.
"Ally and Jacob, this is Violet my sister." Fang said.
"You have a sister?" Said the man who I guessed to be Jacob.
"Yeah, it's a little bit of a long story, and that's her and Iggy's daughter Lily. My niece." Fang said proudly. He adored Lily. And Lily adored Uncy Fangy.
"This is Shadow our son." Ally said gesturing to the small boy. Lily looked at him curiously. After the big paparazzi drama of last year we'd kind of tried to keep her under the radar. She had never met anyone close to her own age. Though soon she would have a constant playmate. I un-consciously touched my stomach.
"So are you going to explain all this?" I said.
"Yeah we'll just change back."
"Αιθήρ"
"Αέρας"
"νερό"
"Γη"
"σκότος"
"σέλας"
"Καιρός" everyone changed back to their normal selves like Iggy had done.
"Well..." Said Nudge. I was shocked. It was just so weird. I stood with my mouth gaping open for a while.
"I... um..." I stammered. I kind of felt like I was going to pass out. I was shaking. Iggy picked up on this and put an arm around me to steady me.
"Don't I look sexy with fire hair." he whispered.
"No, you don't. You look like an idiot who stood to close to the stove." I said weakly. There was an appreciative chuckle throughout the room. Iggy made a face. "I prefer your normal hair." I ran my hand through said hair. "I can't do that with fire hair." He gave me his I'm-gonna-get-laid-later face.
"So you've been busy." Iggy said to Jacob gesturing to Shadow and Ally.
"So have you." Jacob replied raising his eyebrows at Lily who was trying to reach a plate of cookies over Iggy's shoulder. I gave one to her to avoid screaming later.
"I've only got one kid." I felt myself going red as Iggy said this. Ally noticed this.
"Are you sure about that." I made shut up gestures at her. "Uh I mean, yeah one kid." I had to do something to change the subject.
"Max and Fang got married." I blurted out.
"So did you and Iggy." Max retorted.
"Iggy got married?!" Ally and Jacob said in unison.
"Why is that always everyone's reaction?" Iggy moaned.
"Two words man. Venice. Beach." Fang chuckled.
"What happened at Venice Beach?" I said with raised eyebrows. We'd taken Lily there for a day at the beach in the summer. Iggy had never mentioned being there before.
"Iggy had Fang describe the beach bunnies to him." Gazzy piped up. I glared at Iggy.
"Man whore." I grumbled. I hadn't forgotten Tess. We'd run into her once at her at the mall once, a few days before Lily was born, and she was flirting with Iggy. I found it unbelievable she was throwing at herself at a married man whose heavily pregnant wife who was standing just a few feet away.
"Not anymore." He whined.
"It amazes me that you could end up married with children." I snapped at him.
"Children?" Iggy asked. Damn it.
"I mean child. See we've only got one." I pointed at Lily. Now would be a good time for Iggy to show his typical denseness.
"Is there something you want to tell me?"
"No." Lily yawned giving me an excuse to leave. "I'd better put her to bed." I took her out of Iggy's arms and went out the back door to our house.
"Time for beddy-byes Lily flower."
"No Mama. Teddy." Lily protested tiredly.
"Did you leave teddy at Uncle Fang's house?" She nodded. She couldn't sleep without her teddy. "Okay let's go get it." I sighed and turned around.
"Sorry Lily forgot her teddy." I saw that Iggy was passed out on the floor. Only one thing could have done this. "Okay who told him?" I passed Lily to Fang and knelt down beside Iggy.
"Iggy sweetheart, wake up. I can't do this alone." I pleaded, his eyes fluttered open. He sat up rubbing the back of his head.
"Why didn't tell me you were pregnant?" he asked.
"Why did you tell me you had freaky elemental powers?"
"Touché. Do you want to go home and talk about this in private?" I nodded. Iggy stood up and took Lily off Fang. I grabbed Lily's teddy off the table and passed it to her. We went out the back door and set off down the path to our house. He held my hand the whole way. I unlocked the door and sat on the couch. Iggy went to put a half-asleep Lily down for her nap. After a few minutes he came back out.
"Well that's her asleep. Gives us a couple of hours alone." He said sitting down beside me and I leaned into him.
"I only took the test this morning. I was planning on making you a really nice dinner and telling you after Lily had gone to bed." I murmured to him.
"It'll be okay. We've done it before. We did a good job with Lily."
"Yeah I guess we did."
"So, another kid. That'll be hard work." He said relaxing into the couch and putting and arm around my shoulders. "What do you want? Boy or Girl?"
"Um... I don't know. A healthy baby."
"Come on you know you've got a preference."
"Well, I'm not sure because we've got a daughter, so maybe a boy to change things but we've got such a great daughter. So I'm not sure..."
"We do don't we. I'd like a son to teach about girls and making bombs..."
"Hell no! There is no way you are corrupting any child of mine with that dirty mind of yours."
"You know you love my dirty mind. So where are we going to put this baby?"
"The spare room, I guess. It's not like anyone ever stays there. Most people we know live close to us."
"But where's my home gym going to go?"
"Home gym? You mean all that exercise equipment you brought when you were sick and stuck watching nothing but infomercials and that you've never used?"
"I have used it... Once. What about all our other stuff that we keep in there. I thought that room was our crap room?"
"I think we'll move all that stuff into the garage. We don't actually need a crap room but we do need a nursery. I've actually been meaning to go through all that stuff for awhile now."
"So, you're using our baby as an excuse to feed your cleaning obsession." He jokingly made a tutting noise in mock-disapproval. I whacked him on the shoulder which just made him smile and laugh.
"Glad you find me so funny. So Ally and Jacob, care to clue me in a little bit?"
"It would be my pleasure. They are just old friends from before you were around. They left the flock about a week or so before you showed up."
*~*~*~*~*~*
Our conversation was disrupted about an hour later, by crying from down the hall. Lily was awake. Iggy and I both went to get her. She was sitting up in her cot clutching onto her teddy bear, which was creatively called teddy, in one hand and her toy pig, Mr Snuffles, in the other hand. She was incredibly attached to both of them and she would burst into tears if they weren't around at bedtime. When we walked into the room, she dropped them and reached for us to pick her up. I picked her up out of the cot.
"Hi darling." I greeted her hugging her tightly. Iggy kissed the top of her head.
"Did you have a good sleep?" he asked. She nodded and pressed her face into my shoulder. I looked at Iggy over the top of her head.
"Should we tell her?" He asked quietly, almost mouthing the words. I thought about for a moment then nodded. It would be stupid to keep this from her and would only result in difficult questions in a few months time, such as Mama, why is your tummy so big and Mama, is this a new doll for me? We went to sit back down in the living room again. Lily sat on my knee on the couch and Iggy crouched down in front of us.
"Lily, I need to tell you something really important. okay?" he said to her.
"Okay dada!" Lily nodded.
"After your next birthday, when you turn two, there is going to be a new addition to our family." Iggy said this slowly and carefully. Lily processed the information for a moment and then broke into a wide smile.
"We getting puppy?!"She exclaimed happily. "Or kitty?!"
"No, no, sweetheart." I laughed. "I'm going to have a baby. you're getting a little brother or sister."
"Baby?" Lily said incredulously. "Like that." She pointed to a plastic baby doll.
"Sort of but a little bit more real. It will move around and eat and drink and sleep and talk... someday." Iggy explained to her.
"Oh," Lily went silent for a moment before piping up again. "We play now?" she asked sweetly.
"Course we can." Iggy said. Lily jumped off my lap and started pulling Iggy and I down to her bedroom. She left us standing in the doorway while she rummaged around in her dress-up chest. She pulled out two tutus, three tiaras and three pairs of fairy wings.
"Dada, you be Fairy king, Mama, Fairy queen and me be Fairy princess." She bounced up and down while talking.
"Lily, I'm not really much of a fairy... or a queen." I said apologetically. Iggy nodded in agreement. Lily pouted and gave us puppy dog eyes.
"Pwease?" She asked innocently. Iggy and I exchanged long suffering glances and sighed in unison. We could never resist her when she looked as cute as that.
"Give me that tiara." Iggy instructed and Lily broke out into a heart-warming smile.