A/N: I don't know what's gotten over me, but this chapter was supposed to be innocent until I furthered down writing this. Couldn't stop laughing while I wrote it. The light dirty humor is a bit over-excessive that it makes this chapter unreal. I do apologize for that, but I just couldn't help it (anime is taking over a bit). I do hope you like this chapter though. Thank you stiffkittens101, Every thorn has its Rose, little Green Monster, and IsThisYourCard for your comments. I understand what you mean, IsThisYourCard that there is OOCness on the characters, especially Graverobber. I guess I wanted show a soft side to him. As for Pavi and Luigi, I wanted to show how slowly they are behaving. Being tied up for so long, taking away things that are important to them and the slight abuse Lina gives them was a way to behave. I also apologize if I didn't make it clear on the last chapter or so. Well, I hope you like this chapter everyone! Oh, and there is a very small reference from the movie at the end.

Chapter Nine

Just as Shilo recovered completely, she thought that there was something suspicious going on inside the house. If anything, Lina is the worst at trying to hide a surprise. Her expression was obvious to read with that mischievous smirk on her face, the kind that looks like she was planning something big. Yes, Shilo knew, but she didn't know what was waiting for her downstairs. Like a child, she was half afraid yet half curious as to what she was planning. Graverobber just walked upstairs before Shilo was contemplating whether to go down or not. Graverobber gave her a big grin and wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

"Everyone is waiting downstairs for you," Graverobber told her, "I'm supposed to be some sort of messenger/escort for you."

Shilo looked at him for a moment, remembering yesterday where Graverobber held her in his arms on her bed. She looked away immediately, knowing a blush would come soon enough on her pale face. She refused to have feelings for him, for she was afraid to fall in love with him and become a broken-hearted girl.

"I'm such an idiot," Shilo mumbled softly for only her to hear. It was too soft to the point it could not be heard, and Shilo was thankful for that.

Graverobber looked over at Shilo and noticed how she was avoiding him. Ever since yesterday, she seemed to distance herself away from him. It irritated Graverobber, really. He took care of her for those three long days and not a word of "thank you". Well, she did thank him, but he never expected her to avoid him as she says it.

"So much for being grateful, Kid," Graverobber thought but never dared to speak those words out loud for reasons he does not know.

"Hey, what's taking so long," Lina shouted for both Shilo and Graverobber to hear.

They both got out of their thoughts and started to glimpse at each other, but Shilo immediately turned away.

"This is going to be a long day," Shilo thought before they both started towards the stairs with a rather awkward silence between the two.

Just as Shilo got down and went into the living room, her eyes widened at the sight. A big banner was held up on the wall that read, "Congratulations On Your Recovery!" The living room had been spiced up a bit to make it look like it is someone's birthday. There are balloons that were hanging on the ceiling, and everyone was smiling at her while the children were holding gifts. She gasped before she covered her mouth in surprise, speechless at everything. Lina gave a cheeky smile before she patted Shilo's shoulder.

"The kids want to give you something," Lina told her. Shilo looked over at her shocked, wondering what this is all about. For them to do something as this just because she was sick, it made Shilo feel embarrassed yet warm inside. This was such a heart-warming gesture that it made Shilo started to tear up.

"Eh, don't do that," Lina said, flinching at a teary-eyed Shilo. "Kids, hurry up and show your Mom your gifts before she cries tears of joy."

The children listened and went in line to give their gifts to Shilo. First up is the youngest of the group, Jake. He gave a piece of paper that looked like a drawing with everyone in it other than the Largo brothers, though everyone was made up of scribbling circles. He explained the black circle is Graverobber, the "Daddy" (Jake pointed at Graverobber as he said so), holding hands with a green circle Shilo, the "Mommy". All the other colored circles were scattered around. The small circles were the children while "Auntie" Mia and "Auntie" Lina were bigger than the children but smaller than Shilo. Jake gave a toothy smile at Shilo before he hugged her and kissed her on the cheek. He then ran in the back where Mia stood.

Shilo was quite surprised that Jake thought Graverobber was his daddy, which made Shilo blush quite a bit but tried to not to be obvious. She took a small glimpse at Graverobber and then turned quickly away. Lina snickered before she "accidentally" pushed Shilo to Graverobber. This, in turn, made Shilo fall into Graverobber, who caught her in his arms. She immediately straightened up.

"Sorry, I got carried away by the excitement," Lina lied, though Shilo glared at her. She knew her friend did that on purpose but did not try to get angry in front of the children.

"That's okay, Lina," Shilo said in a forced tone towards her. She then looked over at Graverobber and thanked him. He gave a bright smile and shrugged.

"No problem, Kid," Graverobber told her, though he was unhappy that she would immediately got out of his arms as he caught her. Shilo seemed to avoid him ever since he woke up in her bed with his arms around her. It was then a revelation popped into his head.

"Don't tell me the Kid found me snuggling against her? Oh, crap. She's going to think I made the moves on her, though that doesn't sound that bad…" he trailed in his thoughts before he mentally shook his head. "Shit, I hope she doesn't think I care. This is going to be bad for my reputation."

He then suddenly felt a thump on his head and saw Lina in front of him. He flinched, taking a step back.

"Can you stop making such awkward facial expressions? It makes you look like a creeper," Lina told him before he went back to concentrate on the children giving gifts to Shilo while he rubbed his aching head.

"…miss you," Amy, the second youngest, finished. She made an angel-like clay figure for Shilo and handed it to Shilo. Even though she was six years old and a very quiet girl, Amy had a knack for art, and Shilo saw it after watching her create many things with clay. Shilo smiled back before softly patted her head.

"Thank you, Amy," Shilo said in a gentle tone. Amy gave a small smile before going to the back like Jake.

"My turn," Ryan shouted happily, jumping up and down anxiously. After he got Shilo's attention, he then held out his gift and said," I made this. It's a super ultra-action figure to fight off all sickness."

He gave out a big smile, showing all his teeth and looking rather proud at his achievement. The action figure was made up of clay. One of the hands had a stick inserted to look like it was holding a weapon. Though Ryan's action figure looked a little awkward unlike Amy's clay angel, Shilo was happy to see how creative Ryan is. Shilo laughed and ruffled his hair before smoothing it out again.

"It is very cool, Ryan," Shilo complimented, "I'm sure your action figure will protect me." Ryan smiled a large smile again and walked proudly towards Mia, Jake, and Amy.

"Here, Mommy," Emma said with a shy smile while she held out her gift.

It was home-made card with the words, "Feel Better, Mommy!" There was each drawing inside and outside of each part of the card. In the front, there was a drawing of a bowl with steam coming out of it. On the back of the first page, there was a drawing of supposedly Emma and Shilo playing ball together. On the bottom, it states, "Thank you for for playing with me." On the other side, there was a drawing of her and Shilo once more except they were holding hands. On the top, it says, "Thank you for holding my hand when I feel sad." On the back of the card, there was a circle that may have been the globe. Shilo's supposed cartoon face (with her name labeled with it) was in the middle with the supposedly faces of other children around it, including Lina, Mia, Graverobber, and surprisingly, the Largo brothers. She even wrote down the names of everyone. Of course, Graverobber's label was "Daddy", and he was right on top of the globe. Shilo sighed and wondered where they got Graverobber being "Daddy" from. If Graverobber saw this, he, too, would feel as awkward as she did. As for the Largo brothers, Pavi's was labeled as a "fox" and Luigi's was called a "monkey". This made Shilo want to giggle, but she didn't allow herself to do that. With the Largo brothers here, it would be a bad move. Underneath the drawing, it stated, "You mean the world to me Mommy! Feel Better!" She made a smiley face using the exclamation dots as the eyes, and made a U-shaped underneath it as the curve of the smile. Shilo smiled a bright smile before hugging Emma and kissing the top of her head.

"I love it, Emma," she told her before Emma smiled brightly and skipped back to where the other children were.

The next and last one was Tom. He had a blush on his face, turning away from looking at Shilo, before he immediately showed his gift to her. He seemed to look embarrassed and tried to hide his blush that slowly creeped on his face.

"It isn't that good," Tom said quietly. Shilo smiled at him before she ruffled his hair.

"I'll be the judge of that," Shilo told him. Tom looked up at her and she gave him a reassuring smile.

She opened the only wrapped up gift. It was carefully wrapped, she noticed. She always noticed how Tom liked to do things perfectly when his mind was set on it. Because of how beautiful he wrapped it, she carefully opened it, trying not to damage the wrapping too much. Just as she opened it, there was a beautiful painting of a butterfly with different color hues of oranges with some black and white on the canvas.

"Danaus plexippus," Shilo whispered, a large smile placed on her lips at how beautiful and perfectly it looked. It looked just exactly like in the books.

"Not that good. I ran out of time, so I made this. I know you liked insects, and Mia helped find me a book about it. Hope you like it, Mom," Tom said. Shilo ruffled his hair and gave an appreciative smile.

"It's beautiful, Tom. Perfection never exists, only true beauty of hard work exists," Shilo told him before Tom's face reddened even further before he turned around and ran to the other children.

Lina chuckled before she went over to Tom and ruffled his hair some more before she ruffled all the children's hair. She then walked over to Shilo and put an arm around her shoulder.

"Good job, kids. Now that the beautiful moment of exchanging gifts is done. There is one more gift," Lina started before a big wide smile appeared on her lips, "And that is, my puppet show!"

"Puppet show," the children asked in awe, even Shilo and Graverobber seemed rather shocked at the news as well.

Lina gave a proud nod and said, "Yep, but the puppet show will begin three hours before dinner, so everyone must wait until then."

After that, Shilo smiled a bright smile. She watched and observed everyone here. The children seemed excited about the puppet show as they conversed about it. Mia and Lina were conversing about something, and Mia seemed rather unhappy about something though it was hard to tell unless you look real carefully (took Shilo a long while to figure it out). Pavi seemed excited about something while Luigi seemed really pissed off about the whole ordeal. Shilo noticed the two seemed much calmer than their usual selves.

"Guess those two being in their binds really helped them to behave," Shilo thought, "Hope they stay that way when we free them from being tied up."

Afterwards, Shilo looked over to Graverobber who was staring right back at her. Shilo was surprised and immediately looked away. She hurriedly excused herself to the kitchen before her face slowly turned red as she did so, and she could feel her heart race and wondered why Graverobber was staring at her. The thought of Graverobber's arms around her body returned to her mind. And still one question remains, did they do that together?

Just before she thought of so many dirty thoughts, Lina creeps behind her and slyly whispered a "boo". This made Shilo jump and looked around to see Lina chuckling away with Mia behind her. Shilo pouted while Mia let out a tired sigh.

"You know, if you get any redder, you might have a nosebleed," Lina whispered teasingly. Shilo punched Lina on the arm. Lina held her arm before rubbing at it.

"For such a small person, you pack quite a punch," Lina said, putting her sleeve up to see a faint redness to her skin.

"That's because you tease me too much," Shilo said, looking quite upset.

"She's been doing that a lot lately, including me," Mia said, almost rather too angry.

"Really? For what," Shilo asked, now curious and slowly forgetting about her predicament just a moment ago.

Mia stayed quiet herself before a blush formed on her face, looking away so that the two girls wouldn't see. Lina rolled her eyes.

"You know, the more you try to look away, the obvious it becomes," Lina told Mia before she looked over at Shilo, "And you? Why are you so suddenly shy around that guy friend of yours? And the way you blush, it looked like you were thinking up some dirty thoughts." Lina then slyly smiled, making Shilo see how venomous Lina could be. "Are you?"

"N-no, of course not," Shilo said, a tad bit too loud. Lina became more suspicious and so did Mia (as she slowly forgot about her predicament just now as well).

"Stuttering, I see," Lina said with a smile before she sang, "Someone is lying."

"I-I am not," Shilo defended though she noticed that she stuttered again before her face turned red from embarrassment and anger. She just recovered and Lina already tried to tease her so much. Oh, her life, when did it get so complicated?

"Really now," Lina questioned before she got closer to her, "Then why are you turning more red than usual?"

"Lina," Mia warned before she pushed up her glasses and looked at her with a glare, "Leave Shilo alone."

Lina shrugged before she sat down in the dining room.

"You guys are so easy to read," Lina said with a sigh, "I just can't help it."

Mia then turned to look over at Shilo before she whispered, "You and that guy didn't do anything. I assure you."

Shilo's eyes widened before she looked back at Mia.

"T-then how did I have a change of clothes," Shilo whispered back.

"I was the one who changed them. You were sweating too much that I had to," Mia answered. Shilo's eyes widened before she blushed once again at the misunderstanding.

"What are you two talking about over there? My, oh, my, we have too much dirty-minded people here," Lina said teasingly with a smirk to show her mischief.

"When will you stop," Mia asked, rather annoyed.

"Ah, just until I find something better to do," Lina said with a smile before she stood up to face them.

"Well, it's not like you don't have a dirty mind either," Shilo argued before Lina gave out a shrug.

"Never said I didn't. It's just fun that the two most unlikely adults to have such thoughts have them," Lina said. This added a blow to both Shilo and Mia. They looked at each other for a moment before they let out a surrendering sigh.

"You suck," Shilo and Mia said both in unison.

"Ah, even your comment is so dirty," Lina said with a wink. And just like that, Shilo and Mia blushed knowing the underlying message. Lina is, truly, the most dirty-minded person of the three women.

"How did I become friends with her," Shilo and Mia thought.

"So easy. You've just got to smack it," Lina thought teasingly in the most innocent way.