First off, thanks to the reviewers that have so far reviewed. I'm always excited to see if there are new reviews. Makes me smile Second, Owl City's Vanilla Twilight has been a constant inspiration so…. Thank you to those peoples as well. Enough mushy stuff. Here's chapter four. (btw: these chapters may look a bit different because I just go Microsoft Word so I can do more, cooler stuff. So excited!)(btw again: unless I say differently, all future chapters will be in Jamie's POV, so no one be confused if I start talking in his POV and it doesn't say; Jamie's POV….. that gets a little annoying to have to keep doing that over and over again.) Okay, I'm done talking, read away, my friends.

Out of It

For the past three weeks, life in the caves has been…. Interesting…. I suppose you could say. There hadn't been a baby here since Freedom was small, that was about eight years ago, and everyone constantly wanted to hold, or feed, or babysit Hope. I didn't mind of course, but sometimes, I think Hope did. She absolutely adored Doc though. No one quite knew why, especially considering all the souls he….. uh…. Yeah. Well, regardless of any vibes she might have gotten from his, she still adored Doc, even going as far as to call him "Unca Doc". Doc didn't mind though. He loved her just as much, and was a frequent babysitter.

Laura was a little over whelmed at the thought of so many humans, but everyone soon wanted to make friends with her and she wanted to be friends with everyone. Games were interesting because Laura had played soccer before the invasion and played really well. She could almost beat Ian and Kyle. However, even three weeks later, no one has gotten used to the fact that I'm a father. Thanks guys. I admit, I did find it odd the first few days to be called 'daddy' but now, I respond automatically. Melanie thinks its funny and got Freedom to yell it one day in the eating area. When I automatically popped up from behind our makeshift serving counter, everyone dissolved into absolute hysterics. I didn't think it was that funny. Life was perfect, that is….. until we started to run low on supplies.

"I want you, Laura, and Hope to come with us this time Jamie." Jeb's voice said. He had called a meeting of all the usual raiders. This included me, Wanda, Mel, Jared, Ian, Kyle, and Jeb, because he's the boss. Laura wanted to come, too and see how everything worked out in terms of "government". I simply told her that Jeb, as the person with the gun, was the leader and we all did as he told us to, she laughed and said that she wanted to see the meeting, she already knew how the chain of command went. So, she, and Hope of course, tagged along with me. And this was what I got.

"No." I said immediately. "No way." I didn't care if Jeb ran the place, this was my family. Not his.

"My house Jamie, my rules." He said, sounding smug.

"My family, my two year old daughter." I snarled at him.

"Jamie." Laura said. Oh jeez. "I think this might be the best time to tell them."

"Oh heavens, what are you pregnant or something!" Wanda exclaimed. I glanced at Laura worriedly but she only shook her head and said she would be right back. Handing Laura to me, she raced off. Now I knew what was happening.

"Oh god." I groaned.

"What!" Jeb barked. "What's she doing?"

"You'll see in a minute." I mumbled. I knew now that I had no say in whether or not Laura would be going with us. She would be, and Hope, too. About three minutes later, Laura arrived and told Jeb to shine a flashlight in her eyes. Bewildered he did, and just about dropped the light. Just as Wanda's eyes did, Laura's now reflected light.

"How the h-"

"Language." I barked.

"Heck. How the heck did you do that." Kyle sputtered.

"Reflective contact lenses." Laura said promptly. "Before the souls invaded, no offense Wanda, I wanted to go into something to do with eyes. I studied everything I could get my hands on. Thinking it would someday be pretty cool to have eyes that shined lights back at people, I created reflective contact lenses, hundreds of them. After the invasion I realized that doing that had been the absolute best thing I had ever done in my life." Everyone was speechless.

"She's going Jamie." Mel said firmly. I sighed and nodded.

"Yeah, I know. I suppose we do need some stuff that would be hard to get without a kid. What's our story then, might as well get that out of the way now." I grumbled. Immediately, Wanda spoke up.

"I think we need to take Freedom with us." She said. We all stared at her. "Think about it guys! Those kids have been wearing scraps for their whole lives! We could send Jamie, Laura, and Hope into a kids store to buy some stuff for Hope and maybe even some toys or learning materials. They can say they wanted to keep Hope human until she was older and Laura wants to home school her. Freedom will come with me and Ian and we'll say he's our nephew. He's old enough to put the contact lenses in so he'll be a soul with us. We'll say we're shopping for new clothes for him and his brother for the school year. It's almost September right? So, we should have absolutely no problem with that. Mel can pose as a schoolteacher for little children and get learning stuff if the thing with Laura doesn't work out and Kyle can shop for guys clothes. He, Jared, and Ian are all the same size, roughly. Then, we'll stop in another town and shop for clothes for everyone else. Lily, Sharon, and Amy are all Mel's size. Jamie and Wes are the same size. Most everyone here is the same size or can make do with a size bigger or smaller."

We all stared at Wanda. She was taking charge and with that agreeable face of hers, I knew everyone would say okay and be done with it. And that's exactly what happened.

"We'll have to ask Freedom and his mother if he can go and wants to go first." Jeb said, "but I think that's a great idea Wanda. Knew you would solve some big problem for us one day." With a laugh, everyone agreed and the small crowd slowly got smaller.

"So." Laura said.

"Yeah." I sighed.

"Don't worry Jamie. It'll be fine." She said soothingly. I nodded.

"Well, at least it will be something that will get us out of this cave." I said dryly. She chuckled and took my hand to pull me and Hope to our room. We had a big day ahead of us and needed our sleep if we were to be rested up tomorrow.

Short? Possibly. It is some 1,190 words long but I do promise that the next chapter will be unbelievably long. So don't worry. Hasta luego!