A bonus chapter! Set before the events of the story, when the boys were smol.

Lucille hushed the baby as she rocked him back and forth, but his crying wouldn't relent. He continued to wail as the rain pattered against the window, and he only got louder and more upset each time thunder crackled outside.

"Mommy?"

Lucille looked up to find her second youngest standing in the doorway to the living room. He was holding onto his cuddly squid and was rubbing his tired eyes.

"What are you doing up?" Lucille asked him as she tried to reposition Alan on her lap into a more comfortable position.

"The rain is scary," Gordon said with a fearful shake in his voice. He squeezed his squid closer to his chest. It was almost the same size as him, and he practically hid behind it.

Lucille was worried that the baby was what had woken him up, which was the main reason she had been trying to get Alan back to sleep, but she had forgotten about the raging storm outside that would scare her second youngest awake.

"Do you want a cuddle?" Lucille gestured to the spot next to her on the couch, and Gordon nodded quickly.

Gordon climbed onto the couch and tucked himself into her side, with his squid between them. Lucille wrapped her free arm that wasn't holding Alan around Gordon, and started rubbing soothing circles into his back.

Alan continued to cry in her arms, but since Gordon had arrived, it had lessened a little bit. She hoped that maybe he was finally tiring himself out.

Thunder clapped loudly outside the window and Gordon burrowed into her side more. She could feel him shaking, so she tightened her arm around him.

Through the noise of Alan and the raging storm outside, a few minutes later she heard the creaking floorboards of the stairs. She kept her eyes on the living room door, and sure enough, a few seconds later another face appeared in the doorway.

"What's with all the noise?" Scott yawned as he came into the room.

"Alan can't get to sleep because of the storm and neither can Gordon. I'm sorry if we woke you," Lucille apologised. She had been trying to keep the noise down, but she was so far unsuccessful with Alan, and there really wasn't anything she could do about the storm outside.

"It's fine," Scott shrugged as he came to join them on the sofa. He sat next to Gordon and also wrapped an arm around him, so his little brother was squished protectively between them. "The storm was loud anyway."

Just as the four of them were getting settled, Lucille shouldn't have been surprised when her two remaining sons came into the room shortly after.

"You two couldn't sleep either?" Lucille asked them as Virgil and John entered the room, holding hands.

Virgil shook his head.

"I heard Scott get up and went to check on Gordon and John because I knew they'd be scared. Gordon wasn't in his room, but John was awake. I figured you would all be down here."

Lucille smiled proudly at her son; whose first priority was always his brothers.

"Want to join us?"

Both of them were eager to climb up onto couch, on the other side of Lucille. John sat next to her and curled up as close to her as he could, and Virgil wrapped himself around his other side.

"Does anybody want a song?" Lucille offered after a moment. The storm had quietened down a bit and Alan had finally stopped crying, but she didn't think any of her sons would be getting to sleep anytime soon. At least not on their own.

Four heads nodded in unison. Even Alan let out a small gurgle that she suspected was a yes.

She chose a song that they had all heard before. A lullaby, that helped put them to sleep when they'd been sick or sad. She knew they all liked it, and so she started to sing.

The effect wasn't instantaneous, but as she looked down at each of her sons' faces, she soon saw eyelids start to droop and limbs begin to grow heavy and limp.

Before she'd reached the end of the song, all of them were asleep. She didn't stop, though, and when the song had finished, she moved onto another lullaby.

When that one was done and she was sure she had five sleeping boys in her arms, Jeff poked his head around the door.

"Are they all asleep?"

Lucille nodded and then looked back down at her boys, just to make sure they really were all out.

"Time to get this lot back to bed then."

Jeff then came over to them, and one by one he scooped one of their sons off the couch and deposited them back to their respective beds.

Soon, all Lucille was left with was a sleeping Alan in her arms. She put him to bed herself, and made sure to tuck him in his crib so he was cosy and warm.

Then, she made her way out of his room, and left him to sleep soundly in peace now that the storm was over.