"The sky's awake so I'm awake!"

Mob had been saying that for as long as she could remember. When she had been little, like Mukai was now. She sued to say that every single time she got up in the middle of the night. She used to wake Sho up, too, to play with her. Sho and mom but never dad. Dad hated it when she woke him up in the middle of the night, he used to even push her back into her room with her powers. 'I am asleep so you too must sleep' dad had told her. It didn't make sense, though, because she and dad were different people. It hadn't made sense then and it didn't make sense now. When Mob was a mom she was never telling her daughter that.

She wasn't a mom now but she was a big sister and she would never tell one of her siblings that, either.

"The sky's awake so I'm awake!" said Mukai as she tugged on Mob's hair. What she wanted to do more than anything else was roll over and go back to sleep. She hadn't been asleep for long, she hadn't slept well since Japan, and she knew it would take a long time to fall back asleep again. She wanted to get right to it but she couldn't.

Mukai needed her.

"Come on, come on. Over there." said Mukai. Mob pulled her hair from Mukai's grasp and sat up. On the other side of the room Sho was still asleep. Good. He needed sleep more than she did. He always got so grumpy when he didn't get enough sleep, even all the way up here. They were nearly at the North Pole and it was nearly Christmas. The only place in the world happier than this was Disney World. Sho could find a way to be upset, though, he was a lot like dad in that way.

"Mukai, be quiet. Sho's sleeping." Said Mob

"Come on, now." Said Mukai. She was at least whispering, that was good. Mob pulled the blankets back and got out of bed. Sometimes it was best just to do what Mukai wanted. She could be kind of bossy sometimes, she got it from dad. Sho did too. Mom hadn't been bossy, not really, just in that mom way. The way where you had to be bossy because you were the one who had to take care of everyone else. Sho didn't know the difference, he said that she was bossy all the time, but that was ok. She didn't mind.

She could never mind her little brother and sister…even in times like these.

"Over here, over here." Said Mukai as she took Mob's hand. Mob let herself be led through the tiny house. They were in a bunch of tiny houses, now, because that was what they had around here. She would have liked it better if they had all been in the same house but that wasn't going to happen. There didn't have any Claw houses around here, just these little hotel houses, so this was one of those times when mom would have said 'you get what you get and you don't get upset'. Mob wondered if she was going to have to say that when she became someone's mom.

Or if.

She put her hand to her stomach, her free hand. When would she be able to tell? She had read that babies took nine months to grow but that might have just been for normal people. She and Sho had birthdays that were only five months apart. It might have been different for espers. Shoko was going to be an esper, she had two esper parents. That must have been how it worked, like if you had hamsters with the same fur then the babies would also have the same fur. She had no idea what color Shoko's fur, her hair, was going to be but she knew that it wouldn't matter. She didn't care what her kids looked like or who they acted like or even if they were espers. She would love her kid no matter what.

Even if they did wake her up in the middle of the night.

That was just what happened when you had kids. She used to wake her mom up in the middle of the night and then when she had a daughter then her daughter would wake her up. Because she would be the mom. Minegishi would have told her that she was being dumb if they had been around, awake, and could read minds. Sometimes she thought that they could, they always knew just what she meant, but then she reminded herself that if they would read minds she would have been in more trouble with them than she had ever been in her life. They would have fought more and…and they would have told Mob that some of her ideas were very bad…

But that was just the way that they saw it.

"Where are we going, little sister?" asked Mob. She could be louder now. It was just her, Sho, and Mukai in this tiny house. She had wanted to have a sleepover and Tsuchiya said that she needed a break. Mob didn't blame her, sometimes when you took care of another person you needed to take a lot of breaks or it felt like you were going to fall asleep right where you stood. She wondered if it was better or worse when you were a mom vs when you were a big sister. She didn't see that much different, of course, since she was the one who took care of the house and of Sho and of herself too.

There must have been a difference, though, and maybe she'd end up finding out.

Mukai was trying to run, now, her feet were sliding around on the floor. She shouldn't have been running in footie pajamas or in the house at all. If she hurt herself then there was nothing that any of them could do. Fukuda was a whole world away, half of one, because he had to help dad with the end of the year boring stuff. That was good because she didn't really like Fukuda that much anymore but bad because if one of them got hurt then it would have been really bad. They would have been f-worded.

She, of course, didn't want anyone to be f-worded, especially Mukai, so she did her best to keep them safe.

"Slow down, you're going to slip and fall." Said Mob as she held Mukai's hand. She tried to break free and ended up sliding down onto the ground. Not hard, though, she didn't even cry. She just tugged so hard that Mob was having trouble holding onto her.

So she let go.

It was important, maybe, knowing when to let go of someone. Like when she and Sho had been little, like Mukai was now, and mom had taken them to the pool. Sho used to be able to swim, he even used to like it, and he had always been much better at it than her. One time, when mom had gotten tired and went to the chairs to read her book, Sho decided that he was going to swim over to the deep end. Mob hadn't been in charge of him back then so she'd had no choice but to go with him. He hadn't been scared once, not even when they got to the part where their feet stopped touching the ground. He just kept on swimming. She'd hung onto him, of course, she hadn't been nearly as brave as he had been back then. She managed to hang onto him until they got to the rope that divided the shallow end from the deep end.

That had been the hard part.

Sho had been able to swim under the water back then, this had been long before dad had put him in the Awakening Lab, and for him it had been nothing. Mob had been scared to put her face in the water. It had been so deep that she hadn't even been able to see the bottom let alone touch it with even her tiptoes. Sho had called her a baby and tried to swim under on his own. He had told her to let go, she knew that she should have let go now, but at the time the thought of letting go had been so scary that she hadn't even been able to imagine it let alone try it.

So she didn't.

She held onto Sho for too long. He could go under water on his own just fine but not with a whole other person hanging onto him. She had been scared, too, even more scared than Sho was of the water now, and she had hung onto him with both her arms and her legs too. It had been kind of like she had been moving without thinking. The only thing that she had been able to think of at the time was that she hadn't wanted the water to take her…but in the end it almost had because she hadn't been able to let go. Mom had been the one to save them. She had pulled them out herself….and she had been mad…

But at least Mob knew when to let go of someone now. When it was for their own good.

"Let me go!" said Mukai

"I just did, now come on. You have to go back to bed. The sky isn't even awake yet." Said Mob. It was still dark out. Sometimes Mukai got up with the sun. Mob would have stayed up with her in that case, if the sky was truly awake then it was alright to be awake too, but this was not the case. Mukai was little and she needed all the sleep she could get, especially with her body's clock being all messed up became of the time change. She needed sleep or she'd not only be as grumpy as Sho but she'd stay little forever, too.

Mob didn't want that.

She loved Mukai just as she was now, all loud and little and stuff, and she had loved Mukai when she had been a baby too. She had been even louder when she had been a baby, she hadn't known what words were yet or how to use them, and she had thrown up all the time too. Not to mention all the diaper changes and midnight feedings. Mob had loved Mukai when she had been a baby but she was…well she was happy that Mukai was two. She'd be three in February and Mob….she knew that it was selfish but she might have liked Mukai even more when she was three. When she could talk and listen better. It got easier, she figured, to take care of kids when they got older. Maybe she and Sho had been hard to take care of and maybe that was why mom had left. She couldn't imagined having two Mukai's to take care of.

She really hoped she didn't end up with two Mukai's too take care of.

She hadn't had Mukai for very long when she'd been a baby. With Shoko it would have been different. If someone tried to take her daughter away from her then there was no way she would have been able to control her powers…and no way that she would have wanted to. She would have hurt anyone who tried to take her brother and sister away so of course it wouldn't have been any different with her own baby. She would have loved Shoko the most out of everyone in the world but babies…they needed a lot…and Mob already did a lot….but also they loved you a lot too. Besides, they didn't stay babies forever. Mukai had grown into nearly a whole new person after only two years. Sure she could be loud and she pulled hair and hit and bit and made messes but Mob loved her and nothing could ever change that.

Not even if Mukai got her up in the middle of the night for every single night of their lives.

"The sky's awake! Come and see!" said Mukai. She tugged on Mob's nightgown. She let herself be followed. She wasn't led far, only to the big window. Mukai didn't let go of her until she got there, and then she started pointing out the window.

Oh. The sky really was awake.

"You were right." Said Mob as she looked up at the sky. There was some green, there, not a lot but enough to notice. She had never seen that before. It was like in Frozen…oh! Mukai remembered. She remembered that part of the movie and she remembered that she and Mob were sisters. Mob wished that she had been wearing her Elsa nightie. She couldn't wear it, of course, since it was so small it was a summer nightie now. She was just in blue and Mukai wasn't in her Anna nightie, just her red footie pajamas. If they had been dressed like Elsa and Anna then it would have been….well not perfect…

Frosting.

You didn't have to frost the good cookies. If you made good cookies then they would taste good on their own. Mom had said that back before she had gotten sick, back when she had still been able to make Christmas cookies. Mom had made really god cookies…perfect ones…but the frosting had been nice. Frosting was always nice. When her brother and sister, or her kids, wanted frosting then they could have all the frosting that they wanted. Nothing was ever all the way perfect, of course, but…well perfect was in the eye of the beholder.

To Mukai this was perfect…and it was perfect to Mob too.

"You're right, Mukai, the sky's awake and now we're awake. Just like in Frozen." Said Mob. The colors weren't as bright as they had been in the movie but movies weren't real. Well documentaries were but Frozen wasn't a documentary. If it had been then it would have been more realistic. Anna would have had powers too since powers ran in families, there wouldn't have been any magic, and also Elsa and Anna would have never stopped being friends. It was impossible to be sisters and not best friends, even when your little sister woke you up in the middle of the night.

"Look! See! Green!" said Mukai. She pointed up at the sky and jumped. Mob didn't make her stop, Sho was still fast asleep in their room, and she wanted Mukai to have a good memory of this. Mob could sort of remember being Mukai's age. She could remember being in the room with Sho and he was in his crib and he cried…and she was crying for some reason….she couldn't remember why. She could just remember crying and being sad…she had a lot of memories of being sad and alone and stuff…she didn't want Mukai to have those sorts of memories.

She only wanted her little sister, both of her siblings, and her kids too…to only have good memories.

"That's the northern lights. Dad says that it has something to do with magnets. It's still nighttime out but we can be awake if you want." Said Mob. Dad would have told her exactly what it was, why it happened, and then they would have been up all night looking at it. Dad liked stuff like this. He liked to share the stuff he liked, too, but…but maybe not with her anymore. Maybe he would have sent her to bed and stayed up with Mukai. He liked her better now…and Mob didn't mind….

Not very much.

He wasn't smothering her anymore. When she had been little, littler than she was now but not as little as Mukai, dad used to love her more than anyone else in the world. He had wanted to only talk to her and spend all his time with her, too. They used to watch TV all night and play Minecraft and sometimes just talk. That part was over now and…and Mob had wanted dad to leave her alone, before, but now she wanted….she didn't know what she wanted. For dad to stop treating her like she was a baby. Mukai was a baby, sort of, and he should have enjoyed her while he could. She would grow up the same way Mob had….and the same things that Mob did she would do…

Mob held her close.

She was too little for all of this. Mob didn't know what she would do if Mukai came to her one day saying that she had done…all the things…with a boy that she had thought that she had been in love with. She would have said that she was having a daughter and…and she was too little! Mukai was little now and she would be little when she was Mob's age. She was still only twelve and a half…but she didn't feel little….well she had to grow up fast. Mukai would be little for as long as she wanted to be….but that was up to Mukai now wasn't it…

She really didn't know.

"Out! Outside! Let's go!" said Mukai as she tugged on Mob's nightie some more. Mob wanted to tell her no, she could feel it growing on the end of her tongue, but she swallowed it. Sure it was cold out and dark but…but it would have been fun. If Mob had been little like Mukai was now she knew that she would have been playing out there in the snow with Sho. She had memories of that, playing in the snow and in the night, and they were good memories…

Mukai deserved to have good memories.

"Um….ok. But only for a little bit." Said Mob as she used her powers to grab their coats and shoes. She didn't want to wake Sho up so they would have to be quiet…but you could have fun if you were quiet too. She could play outside for a little bit…and she could have fun, too. Like Mukai…like a little kid. Like she would have been able to when she had been little and she didn't have to worry about taking care of anyone or….or the other stuff that she did. Back when she had been carefree. She couldn't be that person anymore…but she could be awake.

After all, the sky was awake so she could be awake too.