A/N Yeah. Busy week! Did get this done, though. Finally. Anyway the other night at dinner we got to listen to the big kid tell us her long rambling story (it was about dinosaurs and dinosaur robots, bizarrely, I think she's been hanging out with the boys at school). Anyway, the toddler wanted to tell one too. She said "I was walking through the forest and I saw a man..." Then she stopped. For quite a while. Trying to prompt her, my husband asked "And was he purple?" The toddler gave her father a look that suggested he was a total idiot. "No" she said. "Was a...sparkly boy-man!" And that was the end of her story. We're counting it as her first foray into Twilight fan-fiction. She's going to make me a fortune ;)

Disclaimer: Not mine.

EPOV

I should have noticed because of the tearful stomping. Tearful stomping was always a sign. There were other signs too. A certain amount of annoyance directed my way, although that occurred at random times anyway. Sometimes it was directed towards inanimate objects. And then there'd be the days when if I went within five feet of Sookie's nipples I was likely to get socked in the jaw.

But in my defence, I wasn't exactly looking for any of those signs in Felicia. Possibly because she was still only 11. And this was her first period. Wasn't it?

"So…uh, it's happened before?" I asked. I hoped like fuck the answer was yes.

"What do you think?" Felicia asked, sounding exasperated and directing a palpable amount of annoyance straight at me. Well, no would be my guess after that statement.

I sighed. "OK, so, uh, what do you need?" I asked, dreading the answer. "I could go and get Amelia?" I suggested.

Felicia looked horrified. "No! I don't want that bossy witch in here telling me what to do and then going back and laughing with her friends at me!"

"I don't think she would…" I tried to say, but Felicia cut me off. "No! Just no! I just want Mum."

"Well, she's not here."

"You could text her. And tell her to come home" Felicia said, looking at me pleadingly. I hated that. She wanted me to make it all better, and I did, I really did, but it wasn't really fair to drag Sookie all the way back from her holiday.

I wished I was at Piha with Sookie. The bach at Piha had a deck. That was a happy memory.

I wasn't sure this moment would ever be a happy memory. "Oh, um, no Leesh. It's not really fair on Sookie." I braced, and sure enough it hit.

"This isn't really fair on me either!" Felicia yelled. "I've barely even got boobs yet, why the FUCK do I have my period?"

Who the fuck knew the answer to that one? And if I could change it, I would. I really, really fucking would.

"Let's just focus on what we have to do…" I tried, but Felicia didn't like that statement either. "What do you mean 'we'? It's not 'we', it's just me! This is happening to me! ME! It's not fair!"

I started to wonder how many fucking years there were until Felicia left home. Pam knocked on the door. "Daddy! Can I have my shower yet?"

"Use the ensuite" I said to Pam.

"Can I use Mum's shower gel?" Pam called back.

"Yes" I said, thankful that Pam at least could be satisfied with something as mundane as shower gel, even if it was the very expensive one I'd bought Sookie on Mother's Day.

"So…?" I said to Felicia.

"I want Mum!" she hissed.

"Dad! Dad, should I take Ivan out?" Sam yelled through the door, which made Felicia roll her eyes and mutter about how rude everyone in the family was.

"Yeah, but just down to the park and back. Take Tray, he needs to go out too."

"Do I need to use the leash?" Sam yelled back. That didn't sound like a good fucking idea at all.

"Don't tie anything to Tray, he'll fucking strangle himself."

"No! Ivan!" Sam sounded exasperated. It would have been much easier to open the door and have an actual conversation with him, but I got the feeling that Felicia's mood wouldn't be improved by it.

"Oh. Well it's illegal to take him off the leash" I called back.

"So don't get caught?"

"That sounds like a plan. But not one I suggested to you."

"OK" Sam yelled back. I heard the sound of his feet running down the hallway.

"Now ring Mum!" Felicia urged. "Quickly!"

"No, Leesh. It's fine. I'm here." I kind of wanted to swap places with Sookie though, even if it would mean listening to Tara moan about JB for the entire night. It was possibly better than being shut in a small room with a now angry-looking Felicia.

"You're not who I want!" Felicia said, and I tried not to feel too hurt by that statement. Then she sat down on the lid of the toilet and burst into tears. Fuck.

"Don't cry" I tried. Unfortunately Felicia was just like her mother and didn't listen to me at all.

"Don't tell me what to do!" she sobbed. You could tell she was related to Amelia as well.

"Felicia, we just, we need a plan here…"

"Stop saying we!"

"OK, well, my part of the plan is helping you. What do you need? And don't say Sookie, she's not here. What do you need that I can get you, right now?" Felicia ripped off some squares of toilet paper and wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

"This isn't netball" she muttered.

"No, maybe not. But I'm not prepared to admit defeat here." I wasn't calling Sookie and telling her to come home if I could fucking help it. As far as she was concerned, everything was fine and I was coping. Admirably.

"I don't think there's a winner, Dad. You can't win at periods! You just get them!"

"OK. Focus. What's the next step?"

Felicia looked up at me. She was looking at me like I was an idiot again. "You know, when they give you the stuff to read about getting your first period, it's never like this."

"No, so we're working outside the accepted practices. That's OK, sometimes that happens. Doesn't mean we have to fall to pieces."

"OK, I don't know if you're trying to convince me or you now" Felicia said.

"Maybe both. Now, back to the plan."

Felicia sighed. "I need some, uh…you know…?" she looked at me hopefully.

"Felicia if I knew, I'd be doing it" I said.

"I need tampons" she said in the end. "So you'll have to go and get some of Mum's."

"OK" I said, thankful that at least we had a plan. It wasn't a plan I was particularly on-board with, because it didn't involve anything I actually wanted to do. But I didn't get a choice, no more than Felicia had had a choice about her fucking period starting right now.

God, she had the worst fucking timing.

I went into the ensuite which, thankfully, Pam hadn't bothered locking. She hadn't bothered getting into the shower yet, either. She was busy lining up all the bottles of shower gel on the side of the sink and sniffing them all.

"That one's not very nice" she commented.

"That one's actually…" I realised that telling her it was lube was probably just going to confuse her. I hoped. "Not a very nice one. Don't use it."

"Is it yours?" Pam asked, wrinkling her nose.

"Yeah, I guess" I said, trying to open the drawer which held all of Sookie's things in the bathroom. Pam's leg was in the way though, which I didn't realise until the drawer collided with it. "Ow!" she exclaimed.

"You're fine." I started moving things around in the drawer, not really sure what I was looking for. I mean, I got the idea, and I was sure I'd seen them…just I hadn't paid a lot of attention, to the packaging, or anything else about them. Fuck.

"Are you looking for the tweezers?" Pam asked. "Because Amelia came and took them, says she's going to do Chloe's eyebrows. Amelia's good at doing eyebrows because hers are so thick. Do you think I should get her to do mine?"

I looked up from the drawer to meet Pam's gaze. You could barely see her eyebrows most of the time; they probably didn't need to be plucked. "No" I said.

Pam sighed. "That's what Mum said too."

"So if you asked your mother, why are you asking me too?" Pam didn't answer that. They never did when they'd been caught out trying to get a second opinion.

I couldn't see anything remotely resembling tampons, unless they were those round things that got stuck to everything else. "What the fuck is that?" I said, holding one up to Pam.

"Velcro roller" Pam said in a voice which suggested I should know. "I like this one" she says, finally selecting a shower gel. "It's the grape and basil one. Mum says they shouldn't work, but they do, and she likes it when she smells kind of fresh. And she has the matching body lotion too, so that makes the smell last longer."

"That's nice Pam" I said, not really listening to her.

"You're not listening to me" Pam said.

I hated it when the kids decided to be fucking perceptive. "I can't find what I want" I muttered. This was hopeless. I'd have to at least call Sookie, and then she'd feel bad and want to come home and we wouldn't have even made it one fucking night without her. I slammed the drawer shut.

"What are you looking for?" Pam asked.

"Just, uh…" Fuck, how did I put this to someone who didn't know anything about it? "Uh…women's things. For grown-up women…"

Pam scrunched up her nose. "Tampons?" she asked, and I nodded, not quite sure what to say. She opened up the cupboard under the sink and pulled out something small and wrapped in plastic. "Like that one?" she asked. I nodded again. I was having some trouble forming fucking words.

Pam sighed. "I know what they are" she said. "I'm not a baby. Amelia told me. She said you have to stick them up your vagina every month to stop the blood escaping. Sounds gross. Why do you want one?"

It was pretty fucking clear about now that Amelia had a very big mouth and talked far too much at times. And that I really didn't want to stand around discussing vaginas with Pam.

"I just do" I said.

Pam wrinkled her nose, but handed it over. "You can't do craft with them. I tried, but Mum said no. The box is OK though."

"Excellent, Pam. Don't use all the shower gel." I walked out of the ensuite and back to the main bathroom.

"What took you so freaking long?" Felicia demanded.

"I couldn't find them." They weren't exactly an item I had to locate on a regular basis, after all.

Felicia gave me a look that suggested she thought I was pretty fucking useless, and I handed over the tampon. She didn't look impressed.

"Is that all there was?" she asked. I nodded, I had no fucking clue but I wasn't going back there to face Pam again.

"Well, it won't fit" she said adamantly. "So that's no good to me." She looked forlorn and a tear trickled down her face. I wasn't sure what was making me feel worse, the fact she might progress to wholehearted sobbing at any moment, or the horrific mental images conjured by the whole 'won't fit' statement.

I wondered if she'd notice if I just left.

"Aren't they all the same?" I tried, somewhat tentatively.

"You don't know anything, do you?" Felicia said, savagely. "There's different sizes!" There were? And why the fuck would I know that?

"Mum's always here!" Felicia continued, as she got herself really worked up. "She's never not here, and the one time she isn't, the one freaking time, is the worst time EVER! Why does everything bad happen to me?"

Well it didn't really. But I sensed this was one of those times when pointing out the truth wasn't going to win me any points.

"Why can't we use the bathroom?" Amelia's voice yelled from the hallway.

"Not now, Amelia" I said back. "If anyone's desperate, use the guest bathroom."

"But it's a guest bathroom!" Amelia complained.

"You have guests" I pointed out. Felicia was sniffing, loudly. I hoped that was the end of the crying. I was trying really hard to come up with a plan, but it wasn't working.

"What about, you know, one of those pad things?" I suggested. I was sure that Sookie might have one. Somewhere. They'd been around after she'd given birth, although that was a few years ago now. The last baby was now old enough to know where tampons went.

Fuck, this was difficult.

Felicia screwed up her face. "Ugh" was all she said to that.

"What are you doing in there?" Amelia called out. I'd thought, well, hoped she'd left. "You're talking to someone. Is Leesh in there?"

Felicia gave me a 'don't you dare' look, but I did it anyway. "Yes" I called back.

"Why are you in there with her? Was she bad?" Amelia asked, sounding very interested in it all.

"No" I said back through the door. I'd had a lot of conversations through this door by that point in time. I was starting to realise it was a really shit way to have a conversation.

I looked at Felicia, she looked at me. It was pretty much a stalemate. And then Amelia walked in anyway, I hadn't fucking locked the door.

"Get out!" Felicia shrieked.

"No!" Amelia said. "I want to know why you're all in here. Are you upset about Chloe and Yvetta? They can go home, I'm sure they can. If you tell Dad he'll send them home." Felicia looked confused, Amelia looked hopeful, I was pretty sure we'd already had that fucking conversation before dinner.

"I don't care about your lame-arse friends" Felicia said.

"Do you want to someone to stay then?" Amelia prodded. "Because you're right, it's not really fair I'm having a sleep-over and you're not. Pam's upset too, so maybe they should go?"

"Pam's got access to shower gel" I pointed out.

"Then what?" Amelia asked.

Felicia opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. "She's…uh…started her period" I said, and then I put a hand on the corner of the bathroom cabinet. Mostly so I would feel less tempted to run from the room. I'm not sure it worked.

"Oh" Amelia said, looking Felicia up and down. "Is that all?"

"What do you mean, is that all?" Felicia asked angrily.

"Well, you're not the first person it's happened to, you know" Amelia said, with the air of someone infinitely older and wiser. That didn't go down well with Felicia.

"Shut the fuck up, Amelia" she said. It was exhausting just being in the same room with her, the swings from misery to aggression and back again were starting to wear me out.

"Look, do you want my help or not?" Amelia demanded.

Felicia shrugged. "Dad's helping" she said. She didn't sound that sure that I was. "He got me this from Mum's ones." She held up the tampon. "I don't think it will fit though." I really fucking wished she'd stop saying that.

"It won't" Amelia assured her.

"So what am I supposed to do? I'm stuck here, with my fucking period, and you're all just standing around looking at me!" Well, I thought that was unfair. I'd been trying to help.

"That's the hormones" Amelia said to me. "She can't help it."

"No, it's you! Because you're a pain in the bum!" Felicia yelled. I couldn't understand how Amelia, as someone at the mercy of the same hormones, thought it was a fucking good idea to mention them to Felicia. Even I knew when that was a fucking stupid idea. Amelia was going to get killed right in front of me and there wouldn't be anything I could do about it. How the fuck I was ever going to explain that to Sookie, I did not know.

"Look, just be thankful it's not like it was when Mum's Gran was a girl, and you're not stuck using rags in your pants that you have to wash yourself." Amelia sighed, and looked knowledgeable about it all. I couldn't really comment.

"Will you stop talking to me like I'm a child!" Felicia said. "You're three years older than me, big whoop. And I'm still stuck with a period and only a tampon that looks like…well, I don't know. Does Mum really use this?" She held it up to me. I tried to maintain an expression that gave absolutely nothing away.

"Oh, hang on" Amelia said, and then she pushed past me and left the bathroom again. I wondered if I could leave. Felicia was muttering to herself so maybe she wouldn't notice?

Amelia was back quite quickly though. "Here you go" she said, holding out a box to Felicia. "Use one of those ones. You can have all of those, but make sure you give the box to Pam when it's empty."

"Is she making miniature theatres again?" Felicia asked. I realised that the females in this house had some kind of secret club that I wasn't party to, and it wasn't just because I didn't menstruate.

"Yep" Amelia said. "And little tiny people out of tinfoil. So do you need help?"

"With what?" Felicia asked, looking horrified.

"Well…it's not that easy, the first time. To get one in. I can hang around, if you want. You have to make sure you give it a reasonable shove…" I walked very quickly out of the bathroom and did not look back.

APOV

Poor Felicia. It wasn't her fault her period arrived right now, when Mum's away and she's stuck with Dad to try to help. He wasn't really helpful, he just seemed completely lost. He could not organise a piss-up in a brewery, as Mum would say when someone was being incredibly useless. And not only did I have to help Felicia get hold of some tampons, but I had to put up with her yelling at me about it too. She should have been yelling at Dad! He was the one who was just standing there, leaning on the corner of the vanity.

If only it was as easy to get rid of Chloe and Yvetta. It wasn't that I didn't like them, well, I liked Chloe. Yvetta was, like, a huge pain in the bum, quite frankly. But I just wanted to be alone. I wanted to get into my pyjamas and chat to Riley on my laptop and have a quiet night. School is really hard work and on Fridays, I just want to chill. I don't want to have to deal with everyone else's problems.

"I can't believe he did that! She's horrible!" Yvetta wailed, when I went back into my room, after I'd finished with Felicia. God, so she was still on about that. On and on and freaking on.

I wondered if I could yell at her and blame it on hormones.

"It was just a text…" I said, and Yvetta gave me a horrible look, like I was big freaking idiot. I wasn't, because the big freaking idiot in this house had gone to make himself coffee and probably rock in a corner. I was the voice of reason; at least I thought I was. Mum always said she was the voice of reason when she tried to stop Dad let the boys do stupidly dangerous stuff, like climb onto the garage roof to get grapefruit off of Kennedy's tree. Kennedy would give us the grapefruit for a start. Dad just didn't think things through.

Someone had to be the voice of reason when Mum wasn't here, after all.

"He was texting my mother!" Yvetta said. "And she says that she wants someone to look after her, and Dylan has a job so of course she'd want him." Dylan had a crap job, I thought. I didn't say that.

"Danni kept on texting the butcher down in Nelson" Chloe said. "About meat deliveries. And then she ran off with him." Oh, that wasn't helpful. Chloe had no idea how to comfort someone.

"She's just jealous of me, because I'm still young and she's all old and has saggy tits" Yvetta said. Yeah, that wasn't a nice thing to say about your mother. Yvetta was really mean to people and it wasn't nice to be around, at all. She was totally bringing me down, and I'd been feeling quite good because I'd helped my little sister with her first period and stuff. I was a nice person and I didn't need to hang out with someone who was awful half the time. It wasn't that long ago she'd been awful to me.

It was just that I felt bad for her when she was upset. I wanted to make it better, which was an annoying freaking feeling to have. I wasn't the one who got her into this mess in the first place. God, I hated being like Mum. Next thing I knew I'd bring home some absolutely freaking useless foreign person and let him live with me.

"Well, you can get someone better then" I suggested, although it would have to be someone who liked bad dye-jobs. Yvetta had pinched my idea to dye her hair black, too. And you could bet she'd deny she ever told me it was a stupid idea, now she'd be all like 'no, I was going to do it ages, ago'. She's so two-faced sometimes.

"But I love Dylan!" Yvetta wailed, and she burst into tears. God, I wanted to go and hang out with stupid annoying Felicia and not Yvetta. At least Felicia had an excuse. And she might need comforting. It wasn't much fun getting your period. Mine always sucked, and the freaking period pains were horrible.

"I'm going to go and check on Leesh" I said, and I left them to it.

EPOV

The boys arrived back home, both of them, and Ivan, so that was a good thing. There was a lot of banging about in the hallway by the front door and the sound of the bags being moved, but not actually picked up. Someone tripped over one I thought, and there was a thud. Tray yelled "Get off me!", Ivan barked, Sam laughed.

By the time I got to them, they'd moved it into their room and both of them were on the floor. "You're not in charge" Tray said, but his words were kind of muffled as Sam was pinning him down at the time, and trying to punch him on the shoulder as many times as he could before he got thrown off.

There might have been a lot of aggression in that room right then, with Sam and Tray wrestling each other to the death. There might have been the distinct possibility that if I got too close to them, I'd just be collateral damage. But I would so much rather be here, with them trying to kill each other, than back in that bathroom, with all the tension and simmering anger Felicia was displaying, any fucking day of the week. I'd be happy if I never in my life had to have another conversation about the size of a tampon again.

"Guys, knock it off" I said, and they ignored me, Tray continued trying to throw Sam off. "I said…" And then I realised it was a losing battle, and if I couldn't beat them, I might as well fucking join them, and I pinned both of them to the ground.

I felt better after that, and I wasn't sure whether it was because I'd managed to prove that even when the two of them took me on together, they still had a hell of time trying to pin me to the ground, or whether I'd just needed something to counter all the, well, fucking female-ness of the evening up to that point.

I sent the boys off to get ready for bed and then I went into the kitchen to finally have a cup of coffee. In peace. I sat at the table, and I looked at the ship in a bottle which now sat on the windowsill. I liked having it there; I always found it peaceful looking at that ship and fuck knows most of the time there was very little peace in this kitchen.

Although the kitchen was lonely without Sookie. I missed her. The ship in the bottle was good, but it wasn't as good as Sookie giving me a shoulder rub.

But I couldn't change it. I drank my coffee. I looked at the ship. I patted Ivan's head when he came and sat next to me. I moved Edward off the kitchen table three times when he couldn't understand his presence wasn't fucking required. I read some of the latest news on my phone. I pretended I couldn't hear Pam hurling insults at her brothers and Felicia yelling at all of them that she just wanted them all to shut up and stop acting like babies and was that too much to ask?

I did my best to enjoy the peace and quiet I had in the kitchen. But then the phone rang anyway.

Thanks for reading!