Disclaimer: "I love those moments! I like to wave at them as they pass by." –Captain Jack Sparrow
A/N: Sorry for the late update! Saturday was very busy for me, so I didn't have a chance to upload the next chapter, and then I forgot that I hadn't!
Part III: The One with More Rom-Com Shenanigans, the Short-Lived Ninja Invasion, and the (Brief) Return of the Stargate.
The romantic dinner is a disaster. Thankfully, they realize this before they actually try to pull it off.
("This," Nick announced, "is a disaster."
"Yes," Laura said.
"I can't believe these people are my role models."
"Neither can I," Laura agreed cheerfully.)
Half of the food is burnt because the cooks were too busy arguing to pay attention to it, and the other half is deemed not fancy enough for a romantic dinner.
("I told you Kurt: you can't have hamburgers at a romantic dinner. Hamburgers aren't romantic!"
"Keety, this is Wade. He thinks chimichangas are romantic."
"NO CHIMICHANGAS!" The cry was unanimous.)
Nick finally puts a stop to the bickering by standing on the countertop and yelling at the top of his lungs.
"Hey," he says, pleasantly surprised, "that still works."
Nick had a very practical way of getting attention when he was a child. Scream Until They Notice You hasn't failed him yet.
"We'll have to try something else," he says more calmly. "Clearly a romantic dinner is out. What else is there?"
The X-Men look at each other and Nick immediately regrets everything.
000
Thus begins Stage 2 of Operation Wetsy –a name that Nick still abhors but doesn't bother arguing about. Romantic movie clichés fill the air. They're getting extreme –no trope is too outrageous.
The serenade is a bust, because Betsy and Wade don't even live in the same building, and anyway, Rogue points out, shouldn't Wade be doing this himself?
They try leaving romantic gifts and notes, but Betsy starts testing the chocolates for poison and examines the notes for fingerprints. Nick rolls his eyes and smacks his forehead.
"Of course Mum would be too paranoid for anonymous chocolates," he mutters. He blinks. "I can't believe 'anonymous chocolates' is a real thing that I actually said."
"Don't feel bad," Kurt commiserates. "I found myself arguing with Kitty over whether or not to get the 'pink' or the 'rose' roses earlier."
000
Locking Betsy and Wade in a closet together is an admittedly desperate move, and it works about as well as expected.
"Did no one remember that both Betsy and Wade are claustrophobic?"
"Unbelievable."
000
They try surprising a confession of love out of Wade by luring him and Betsy to the mall and setting up the perfect Love Confession Movie Scene. Wade is unhelpfully confused about why Kurt and Remy keep asking him about his relationship with Betsy.
"What? Betsy? We're fine."
"Really?" Remy asks skeptically.
"Really," Wade says.
Nick, hiding in the crowd above the food court, snarls.
He's certainly not torn up about this, his inner voice observes calmly.
He is! Nick retorts frantically. He is, he's just… hiding it.
He hides it really well, the inner voice comments, sounding unfairly reasonable, and unnervingly like Jean Grey.
Betsy, on the other hand, is less confused and more annoyed.
"Why all the questions about Wade?" she demands. "Why don't we talk about Remy instead? Huh?"
Rogue goes bright red and stops asking about Wade.
000
Roberto, who arrives at the Institute just in time to interrupt the Closet Incident, comes up with a complex plan involving himself, Bobby, Ray, and Sam, as well as four different kinds of flour, a hammer, two bags of concrete, and an online recipe for fake blood. The plan spans across three poster boards, and is illustrated by string and macaroni noodles glued to the cardboard.
Remy actually cringes at the sight of it. Rogue kindly tells Roberto that perhaps his plan could be used in another way, later.
Like, to apprehend the Brotherhood next time they start acting up.
(Since that was what Roberto had thought they were trying to do anyway (no one had actually explained the situation to him properly), he is fine with that.)
000
They all agree not to talk about the attempted reenactment of the Ferris Wheel Scene from The Notebook.
000
Rogue has the bright idea to recruit Storm to create a rain storm and shove the two wayward lovers out into it. Presumably, they will then proceed to make out and fall in love with each other all over again. Remy beams at her brilliance. Storm is less than impressed.
"Do you really think that will work?" she asks skeptically.
"Yes," Kitty says eagerly. "It worked for Allie and Noah."
Storm still looks doubtful, but she makes the storm anyway. (Nick notes carefully that she does not have to ask who Allie and Noah are.)
At first, it seems like the thing with the rain is going to be the clincher, when Betsy is lured outside with minimal fuss and Wade is strategically positioned by Remy to be as aesthetically pleasing as possible. Remy is cautiously optimistic that this time, everything will work out perfectly.
It doesn't.
As it turns out, Betsy doesn't find being soaked to the skin, with her hair dripping into her eyes to be all that romantic. Wade doesn't really care, but he's definitely not about to rush over and start smooching her, either.
Their conversation, when they meet outside of Betsy's modeling office, goes like this:
"Betsy."
"Wade."
It's a short conversation.
Well, the part of it that their eavesdropping friends can overhear is short. The rest of it takes place telepathically, both of them too chilled to bother speaking aloud.
Their mental conversation goes something like this:
Hi, honey bunny. I've missed you.
Mm. Don't call me that. I've missed you, too. Any idea why our friends have contrived to force us outside in a downpour?
Uh, probably the same reason they locked us in a closet last night at the Institute.
Disgruntlement.
Because they're idiots?
Yeah, basically.
Amusement.
You wanna just ditch work? We can go back to my place and cuddle and watch movies.
No ninjas?
Does Jackie Chan count?
Pause.
Okay, fictional ninja, only.
(At this point, the equivalent of a mental kiss is exchanged, which is exactly as weird as it sounds, and, truly, defies the imagination somewhat for those who are not telepaths.)
I'm glad you decided you don't hate me.
Oh, Wade, I could never.
Never?
Well, I mean I almost could never.
Better.
Because, I mean, I guess you could do something terrible, if you wanted to. Like, you could main me permanently. I don't know why you would, and I really do know that you really wouldn't, but if you did, I'd probably hate you.
That's the spirit. Unconditional love and forgiveness should not extend to purposeful maiming.
But I forgive you for ruined dates and ninja attacks and S.H.I.E.L.D. sending you away to Argentina for weeks on end and Golden Girls marathons at one in the morning and chimichangas at midnight and anything else you do that irritates me sometimes.
Because you love me?
Because I love you.
He stares at her with an expression that, on anyone else, could be described as "sappy." On Wade it just looks really intense and is not unlike the expression he usually wears when he's about to violently murder someone. Of course, violence tends to make Wade unusually affectionate and occasionally amorous, so the two are probably close enough to the same thing for it not to make a difference.
You're sexy when you're talking in my mind.
Please, I'm sexy all the time.
Mm.
Mm.
(Another telepathic kiss.)
They hail a cab and their watching friends scramble to catch up, trip over each other, and lose them in the streets of Bayville.
Nick wonders how it is that they haven't all managed to accidentally kill themselves yet.
000
He's more dejected than he'd like to admit to when he and his aunts and uncles straggle back to the Institute and collapse on the sofas in the rec room, dripping rain everywhere and cringing beneath Storm's disapproving gaze. Nick is so out of sorts that he can't even muster the energy to mentally complain about Jubilee, Tabby, and Amara sitting there being the Hot Aunts Trio.
Wow, too tired to whine? his inner voice sniped. You must be on your last legs.
Oh, shut up, he thinks at it wearily.
"Don't give up, Nick," Kitty says comfortingly from her position sprawled out across the loveseat. "We'll think of something."
He tries to smile, but can't quite manage it, too busy feeling his chest tighten in a way he hasn't really felt in years.
Great, he sighs. I'm having an emotion.
He's kidding, because of course he has emotions, but this is one of the unpleasant variety, and he can't even identify it for a moment, it's so foreign to him. And then it hits and he mentally recoils.
Fear. He's afraid. Nicholas Braddock-Wilson is afraid of what will happen if his parents never get back together. If he's ruined all of their futures and their lives forever.
Fear, Nick decides, is an awful feeling and he doesn't like it and he wants it to go away. Right now, please.
"I think I need to go to bed," he tells them. Kitty looks concerned, but Rogue is understanding and Kurt lays a gentle hand on his shoulder before volunteering to go ask Logan for any help the gruff man is willing to offer. Nick nods his thanks. Logan, or Uncle Jimmy, as Nick usually calls him, has been sort of a sore spot for him the past few days. Usually, when Nick has a problem, Uncle Jimmy will be right there to fix it, from enemies on Nick's tail to missing limbs that need to be held in place to heal properly. But this time, this problem, Logan can't just fix. In fact, he's pretty reluctant to get involved at all, and though Nick shies away from thinking touchy-feely thoughts about Logan, he can't help but feel sort of hurt by the standoffish behavior.
Nodding again, wearily, he takes to the stairs, easily finding his way to the bedroom they've been letting him use.
It isn't the same one he has in the future, though, and it takes him a long time to fall asleep.
000
It's the ninjas that wake him up. Nick would be laughing hysterically at the irony if he wasn't so busy trying not to die.
"You," the lead sock-head accuses, pointing an eskrima stick at Nick.
"Me?" Nick agrees, spreading his hands. He's a bit confused, but he hopes he can be forgiven for that, considering that he just woke up to find his supposedly secure bedroom crawling with ninja.
Nick is seriously going to have to talk to the Professor about his security system.
"You didn't tell us we were going to be attacked by purple fairies," the man spits out.
Nick laughs before he can think better of it. "Fairies? Is that what you guys saw? Mum must've been watching Peter Pan again."
It's Betsy's favorite Disney movie, though she refuses to explain why.
"Never mind that!" the ninja hisses. "We demand appropriate compensation."
Nick stops laughing. "Appropriate compensation?" he repeats incredulously. "It was a job! You got paid! You're ninja. Doesn't this kind of thing come with the territory?"
"Purple. Fairies." The ninja grits out from between his teeth. Nick winces, because yeah, okay.
"Uh, sorry?" he offers weakly. The ninja growls and swings with eskrima sticks at Nick's head. He doesn't bother to duck, simply taking the blow that would have knocked anyone else unconscious and rolling with it over to his weapons, which are piled next to the dresser.
"Okay," he says, baring his teeth in the crocodile smile and brandishing his katana. "Let's go then."
They rush him, all at the same time, thirty ninja in a circle around a not-quite full grown young man, who, despite the odds, holds his own admirably.
Nick doesn't actually want to kill any of them, not only because that would be petty, but also because the carpet in his room is a weird sort of beige that is probably really hard to get blood stains out of and Nick hates cleaning. Unfortunately, his opponents do not share this mindset.
He takes a stab wound right to the center of his stomach and curses extravagantly as he staggers to his knees. The ninja on the other end of the blade looks sort of horrified. Or at least as horrified as someone wearing a black sock over his whole head can look. This is clearly the sort of ninja who does his ninja-ing on the weekends only.
Nick coughs up some blood and grins at him through red teeth. "'S alrigh'," he slurs. "No harm done." And then he reaches down and yanks the sword out of his gut, the flesh knitting itself together instantly. He's nice enough to return the weapon to its shocked owner before incapacitating the weekend ninja with a blow from his katana handle.
"One down," he announces grimly.
He takes down two more by slicing into their biceps. It won't kill or maim them permanently, but he makes sure to go deep enough that their arms will be useless for a while. A fourth, he kicks the legs out from under and quickly and efficiently breaks one of them. Mercifully, he adds another precise kick and the man is unconscious. Five, six, seven, and eight get knocked out by flying furniture before Nick's mostly untrained telekinetic abilities falter. Nine is, amusingly, taken down by one of his own, and ten manages to slice right through Nick's chest cavity before Nick throws him out of the window.
Nick stops counting after ten.
One by one, all thirty ninja go down. Some manage to do some damage before they succumb, but Nick has genetics on his side, and even losing a hand doesn't stop him for long. (It does make him mad though. That ninja receives a whole-hearted stab straight through the right shoulder for that one.) Several of the sock-heads, seeing their comrades fall, decide to sit down by the wall, place their weapons across their laps and, apparently, meditate.
By the time the X-Men arrive at the door to his room, pajama-clad and half-frantic with adrenaline in the middle of the night, Nick is seated cross-legged on his bed, impassively observing the ninjas trying to administer first-aid to their more seriously wounded companions. He is holding his severed right hand to his wrist with his left hand, as the bones re-grow and the skin and muscles and tissues fuse back into each other. He glances up at them when they burst in, prepared for battle and startled by stillness.
Nick looks at Laura, at the front of the pack, claws out and a fierce snarl twisting her lips. His own mouth quirks a little, as if to say I see you there caring about my welfare.
What he actually says is, "I'm going to tease you about this mercilessly one day."
000
Meanwhile, twenty years in the future…
"We can bring him home now," Fury says casually, as if he's not delivering news that they've been anxiously awaiting for three days.
"Then what are we waiting for?" Betsy says instantly, then tries not to punch him in the face when he replies, "Your presence, madam."
Sometimes, Nick Fury can be a real git.
The Stargate is all fired up and ready to go. Betsy stares at a little blinking light on a screen that is supposedly her son and swallows hard.
"Okay," she breathes, squeezing Wade's hand tightly. The scientist taps a couple of keys and turns a knob.
The portal flares…
000
Twenty years in the past…
Getting rid of the ninjas is surprisingly easy. Dr. McCoy simply offers medical aid to any who need it and the lot of them gather each other up and troop down to the infirmary.
"There's no sorrier sight than a bunch of subdued ninjas," Nick says cheerfully, not sounding sorry at all. His hand is completely reattached and he rotates his wrist gently, relishing the way Bobby's wide eyes follow the motion.
With the excitement of the Short Lived Ninja Invasion over, Nick soon returns to his worry over his parents.
"What do you mean, they're coming to breakfast?" he yelps. Kitty does not look sympathetic.
"It's Saturday," she says, like this should explain everything. "Betsy and Wade always come over for breakfast on Saturdays."
Nick pauses. "Oh. Right," he mumbles, because of course they do. They still do that, in his own time. Saturday morning breakfast has been a part of Nick's life since before he was born.
"Just keep your head down," Kurt suggests helpfully. "Do not draw attention to yourself."
Nick certainly has no intention of doing that, so when Betsy and Wade do arrive, he makes sure that he is sitting on the same side of the table, with Remy and Piotr in between them.
Of course, that seating arrangement soon becomes confusing when the couple easily sit down right next to each other as though nothing has happened. As though they weren't in the middle of a tragic breakup. Everyone else glances at each other awkwardly, wondering if they should say something.
Finally, Rogue clears her throat.
"So, erm," she starts, "Betsy. You…"
Betsy looks at her politely, absently buttering a biscuit and handing it to Wade. Rogue's voice stutters to a halt.
"You and Wade seem… happy," Piotr steps in unexpectedly. Rogue shoots him a pathetically grateful look.
Wade stops eating and exchanges a bemused look with Betsy. "Uh, yeah?" he snorts. "Why wouldn't we?"
"Well, the break-up," Piotr continues, seeming not to notice the sharp intake of breath at his side or Remy banging his head on the table because of the lack of tact.
"Break-up?" Betsy sounds both confused and amused at the same time.
"You and Wade," Piotr clarifies calmly, and Nick feels his heart stop suddenly because just hearing it is horrifying.
But then…
"What?" Wade is snorting again. "We didn't break up!"
"Where on earth did you get that idea?" Betsy turns an astonished gaze upon all of them. Her eyes narrow the next second. "Oh my gosh, that's why you've all been acting so strangely all week! You thought we'd called it quits!"
"Well didn't you?" Nick bursts out before he can help it. "In the restaurant, you two called it off."
Used to finding strangers sharing the breakfast table at the Institute, Betsy doesn't bother to question the sudden appearance of the blond-haired teenager who was currently clenching his fists and glaring at her challengingly. If she'd been looking harder, she would notice that he looks an awful lot like the boy who had crashed her date with Wade a few nights ago, but she isn't. She misses the hint of desperation that softens and brightens into hope at her next words.
"Of course we didn't! I was mad, he was upset, and we just needed some time to cool down is all." She looks around at all of her friends and gives them all a reassuring smile. "I promise you all, Wade and I are just fine."
Wade reaches up and pulls her to him the two of them stumbling away from the table a little, kissing her soundly as if to say See? We're good and I can prove it.
Nick feels his knees go weak with relief and he sinks into his chair, for once glad of his parents' tendency to get so wrapped up in each other so quickly. Their PDA usually makes him want to shoot himself in the eyeballs, but right now he's just glad that they're too busy to properly pay attention to him, or to notice that he is the same person that landed on their restaurant table four nights ago.
Remy nudges him. "It worked!" he says cheerfully. Nick rolls his eyes, snapping out of his relieved stupor quickly.
"It didn't need to work, Swamp Rat," Rogue retorts. "They never broke up to start with."
"But because of us, they are now back together!" Remy beams.
"You mean, in spite of us, they are now back together."
"They were never not together," Kitty interrupts, "don't you two ever listen?"
"They are making me lose my appetite," Kurt announces, scowling pointedly at his plate. He had looked up two seconds ago and seen Betsy sucking on Wade's bottom lip. He is scarred for life, he is certain.
"This is what I live with," Nick reminds him, silently agreeing in disgust. Rogue is eyeing the couple freely. She looks like she is mentally taking notes. Remy is watching Rogue with that sappy look on his face. Kurt looks like he wants to throw up.
"Stop yanking on me," Nick says suddenly to Kitty, who is sitting on his other side.
"What? I'm not!"
"Something's pulling on me!"
"Shh!" Remy hisses, glancing over his shoulder at Betsy and Wade. "Come on." He ushers them away from the table and the dining room, the whole lot of them, with Nick in the middle.
"Now," he says, when they are all safely in the kitchen, "what is going on?"
"Something is yanking on me," Nick insists. He hunches his shoulders and Kurt grips them tightly.
"How? What?"
"I don't know! It feels like someone is holding onto me and pulling."
"Like, holding onto your arm or something?" Kitty asks. Nick shrugs and twitches.
"Yeah, except that it's more like around my waist. Like someone's trying to pick me up and haul me around."
Uncle Jimmy used to do that to Nick a lot when he was younger and smaller. One minute, Nick would be standing on his own two feet, and the next he'd be flying through the air, Uncle Jimmy's hands gripping his waist and tossing him high overhead. Nick would laugh and shriek and fling carefree telepathic giggles at everyone around.
(Okay, so Logan still does that to Nick sometimes. It's harder now that Nick is nearly nine inches taller than Logan, but the other man is still much stronger. Nick's dignity wouldn't permit such treatment, except that he really doesn't have a choice. When Logan decides that he's going to be playful with the kid he calls his nephew, then you either play along or get left behind.)
"Well, first things first," Rogue says, taking charge of the situation like the mature and responsible adult she is, "does it hurt? Because if it hurts, then we should probably do something about it immediately."
"It doesn't hurt," Nick sighs. "I don't… hurt, remember? It just… it feels weird. And also a bit like my insides are about to fall out."
"Why are your insides falling out?" Laura says from behind him and Dark Lord of the X-Men, he wishes she would stop doing that.
"Dark Lord of the X-Men," he hisses, "I wish you would stop doing that."
Laura shrugs, unrepentant.
"Why are your insides falling out?" she repeats.
"They're not," Kurt tells her. "He's just whining."
"Hey!" Nick says indignantly. "You try having some unseen force grab you around the middle and yank you around and see how you like it!"
"Kurt does that with his tail pretty much every single day," Kitty puts in. "I've learned to just roll with it."
"I do not!" Kurt sputters. "Not every day!"
They all look at each other.
"No, no, I'm pretty sure it's every day."
"It really is."
"You do grab her a lot."
"I have noticed this trend," Laura puts in.
"Guys!" Nick half-shouts, half-yelps, drawing their attention back to him with an almost audible snap. "Can we get back to me? Mysterious force trying to pull me off somewhere –ahhhh!"
"What –" Remy and Kurt start at the same time.
"How –" Rogue looks concerned.
"Are you –" Kitty reaches out to grasp Nick's hand tightly.
"I will kill it," Laura announces, unsheathing her claws, and this is when Nick starts laughing.
"I love you," he tells her, because that's innocent enough, right? He loves all of them, it could mean anything. He tells them all he loves them, just so that they know.
"I love you guys. You're all great uncles and aunts."
"Awwww," Kitty and Rogue both say. Rogue looks surprised at herself.
"Gosse," Remy starts, sounding worried. Nick waves him off.
"Sheesh, I'm not dying," he snarks. "I just… I just want you guys to know that, someday, you're gonna be really awesome at this."
"I think we are awesome at it right now," Laura says. Nick glances over at her and somehow manages not to crack up.
"Er. Yep. You… totally awesome. Uh-huh. Aunts and Uncles. Yep."
Oh, Stan Lee, no, his inner voice whispers in horror.
Another tug at his midsection, and then Nick gasps, because a glowing portal just opened up in the ceiling.
"Uh," says Kurt.
"What the heck is that?" Rogue stares.
"I think it's the Stargate," Nick suddenly realizes.
"The what?" Remy asks.
"The… time-travel, portal thingy. The thing that sent me here. I guess…" he brightens, "I guess Mum and Dad finally realized that I was gone and went to S.H.I.E.L.D. to get me back!"
"Then that means…" Kitty starts.
"Operation Wetsy worked!" they shout together.
Everyone stares at Nick. His face reddens.
"I mean –"
"Nope!" Kitty yells. "No taksies-backsies!" She points at him. "You said it, you said it and you can't take it back!" She does a little dance and wiggles her finger at Nick.
"Kitty!" Rogue yells. "Focus! Portal? Time travel? Remember?"
"Oh yeah," she sobers instantly and looks up at Nick with a mournful expression. "I guess you're going home now, right?"
He smiles down at her. "Guess so."
"Don't worry," Remy says cheerfully. "Did ya see Betsy and Wade in there? He'll be along shortly."
"Ew!" Nick, Kitty, and Kurt all recoil. Remy smirks and reaches out to ruffle Nick's hair.
"See ya, gosse," he says. "You'll be shorter than Kurt when next we meet."
"Bye, Oncle Remy," Nick replies. "I will be sure to tell future you that I now know all your dirty secrets."
Remy looks confused. "But… you don't."
Nick shrugs. "Yeah, but future you won't know that."
Remy grins. "I'm so proud of you. But what if I remember this conversation?"
Nick scowls. "Can't I win just once?" Remy laughs again and flicks him in the nose.
"Just once," he says. Rogue reaches out and grabs Nick in a spontaneous hug. She releases him almost immediately, looking extremely startled at her own daring. Nick smiles wide and pulls her back.
"Bye, Tante," he whispers in her ear. "My birthday is May 2nd. Use your knowledge wisely."
Kitty grabs his arm and spins him away from Rogue and into a fierce hug. "Ugh," she moans, "why can't you be born yet? I'm gonna miss you so much until you're here!"
Nick snorts, hugging her back. "Um, okay?" he says, looking over her shoulder at Kurt, who shrugs in response.
"I don't know, man, this whole conversation is freaking weird." When Kitty finally lets go, Kurt offers Nick a fist bump. "I guess we'll see you when we see you," he says. Nick smirks at him.
"Bye, Uncle Kurt," he says. "Bye, Aunt Kitty. Bye Oncle and Tante." He waves to all of them in turn, feeling sort of silly. He's a little bit sad to say goodbye, but mostly he feels profoundly relieved, because if he's being called home, that means there's someone on the other side to call him home. It means he exists in the future, and that his parents are still very much together (and probably furious, but Nick will take that over the alternative any day) and that he hasn't screwed too many things up by this little jaunt into the past. He's more than ready to go home.
Nick looks up towards the portal. "Okay," he mumbles to himself. "So how do I…"
"Hey," Kurt calls. "What about Aunt Laura?" He's giving Nick a very pointed look. Nick mentally promises to kick Kurt in the face when he's finally born.
"Goodbye, Nick," Laura says. She offers him a quirk to the corner of her mouth. For Laura, that's practically a beaming grin. He coughs.
"Goodbye, Laura," he says, ignoring the way everyone looks confused by the lack of a title. "I'll be seeing you."
"Yes," she says, ever practical. "You will."
"Okay then," he says, glancing up at the Stargate again. "Um. I'm ready? Action? Up, up and away? Oh, I know! Beam me up, Scot –"
And he's gone.
000
Twenty years in the future…
"You are in so much trouble."
"I know."
"I cannot believe you would do something so irresponsible."
"I know, Mum, I'm sorry."
"Your father and I were worried sick."
"I know, I'm sorry."
"Your Uncle Nick was practically tearing his hair out."
Pause.
Snort.
"Wade that was terrible."
"No, no, look at his face, Betsy, look at it. It's perfect."
"Wade, apologize to Director Fury."
"Sorry, Big Nick."
"Don't. Call. Me. That."
Beat.
"I'm glad you're home, kid."
"Thanks, sir."
"You ready to go home, kiddo?"
"Yeah, Dad. Um. Mum, do you know if Laura's back from her mission yet?"
"I think she is. Why?"
"No reason. I was just… wondering."
A/N: I hope you all appreciate my terrible humor.
One more chapter to go, folks.
Additional, No-Longer-A-Spoiler Disclaimer: I do not own The Notebook. I also don't own Disney's Peter Pan. As usual, I also don't own Stargate.
