Disclaimer: Don't own Shadow Hearts or any of its characters. Do own Isaiah, Anne, and Locke. Heh heh.
**
"There. Food's all out," Margarete said, looking at the buffet they had set out on the tables.
"And it smells delicious," Halley's voice called. "Good, 'cause I'm hungry." Halley, Chris, Sharon, and Joshua all walked towards the table of food.
"Aren't you going to say hello first?"
"Of course. Hey Alice."
Alice laughed softly and caved in, giving Halley some chicken and vegetables. She wasn't too surprised to see that at twenty-two, he had added a few more inches to his height.
"Hi Sharon," Margarete said, greeting the teenaged girl. "Hello Joshua." She eyed him suspiciously, holding a spatula as a weapon.
The boy grinned, chipper as always. "Hello, Mrs. Miss Ma'am!"
Margarete's eyes widened and she turned red. Joshua laughed as he quickly backed away from the spatula's vicious stabs. "You're STILL a snot-nosed brat!" she yelled. Alice sighed, thankful that the children were upstairs and couldn't hear Margarete.
"Just like old times," remarked Zhuzhen.
Yuri glanced at Keith. "Wouldn't that make you Mr. Miss Ma'am?"
"Don't start."
"Yes sir." Yuri grinned and then walked over to Halley and Chris. "So, any news from America?"
"Not really," Halley answered with a shrug. "Mom says hi. She would tell you directly, but then you'd have a headache."
"Where's Isaiah and Anne?" Chris asked.
"Upstairs with Locke. They're in a big room with lots of toys. Trust me, you can't miss it." Chris nodded, then turned and climbed up the stairs. "She's been really interested in the kids," he commented.
"She wants to have a kid." Halley started eating the mashed potatoes.
"And…"
"Well…I don't think I'm ready. But she's all excited about having a baby."
"It's not that bad," Yuri said. "I took it pretty well when Alice told me she was pregnant with Anne."
"Oh yeah right!" Margarete exclaimed, overhearing the conversation. "You kept telling her to stop joking around. You didn't even believe her!"
"Well, it'd only been three months!" Yuri protested. "It kind of took me by surprise!"
"Now, Keith did take it pretty well. Although, he started acting like I was made out of glass. And you, kiddo…" She snickered. "I remember Alice screaming at you to leave her alone for once."
"Okay, so I overreacted and was a little overprotective."
"Uh…how is that taking it pretty well?" Halley asked.
"It isn't," Margarete said, still laughing. Yuri was a little put off by this and started grumbling to himself. Then he noticed Sharon also going upstairs, dragging along Joshua.
"And what about Sharon?"
"Huh-oh, she's been baby-sitting to earn money. She just loves children."
"Poor Joshua."
"I didn't mean it like that! They're way too young!"
**
"Hi! I'm Sharon," she introduced herself. Even though she knew the girl's name, she asked, "What's your name."
Anne grinned. "My name is Anne May Hyuga. Anne after my daddy's mom, May 'cause that's when I was born, and Hyuga after my daddy!"
Sharon blinked in surprise. Few five-year-olds told you why they were named. She doubted many could.
The girl continued. "Mommy taught me how to write my name."
"Really?" Anne nodded and continued looking up at the older girl. "Can you show me?" She nodded again and then raced off to find a paper and pencil. Sharon had to laugh; some kids were so eager to please.
Joshua had replaced Leon in helping Locke demolish the block buildings. Conclusion: boys have an instinctive desire to destroy things.
"Hey Isaiah, what's wrong?"
The toddler stared forlornly at the headless teddy bear. He looked at Chris. "Bear broke."
She had to agree with him. The head had come completely off, with bits of stuffing coming out of both body and head. "Why don't you play with this train?" she suggested, pulling up a large red train.
"No, bear."
"But he's broken."
The small boy sighed, then took both the body and head of the bear and walked out of the room. Chris followed him, watching as he sat on the top of the staircase, then slid off his bottom until he landed with a thump on the next step. He scooted over to the edge, then slowly slid off. Thump. He repeated the process, the bear's body and head tucked securely under his arms.
"Huh." What an odd kid.
"Sharon, Sharon, I got the paper!" Anne ran down the hallway and back into the toy room, clutching the paper and pencil. She lay down on the floor and began, an interested Sharon watching over her shoulder. "A…" An 'A' was painstakingly drawn. "N…"
"Good job!" Sharon said once 'Anne' was written. Anne continued though.
"M…A…Y…" Now her last name. She frowned at the paper and slowly began. "H…U…"
"I think there's another letter before the 'u'," Sharon suggested. Anne thought, then added a line to the u, making it a y. Then she finished and held the paper up for inspection. "That's great! What else does your mom teach you?"
"Math and reading. She taught Locke how to write his name too." She looked over to where Chris, Locke and Joshua were rebuilding for more demolition. "Can we help them build?"
"Sure."
**
Thump. Thump.
"What's that?" Zhuzhen asked, looking up from his dinner.
"Isaiah," Yuri answered. "That's how he comes downstairs."
Thump. The toddler appeared, looking around the room. "Mommy," he called, walking over to Alice.
She put her food down and looked at her son. "What is it?" Then she noticed the decapitated bear. "Is that Mr. Bear?"
"Mr. Bear is his favorite teddy bear," Yuri explained to Zhuzhen. "Even though it's actually Locke's…"
"What's wrong with him?" Alice asked.
"He broke," Isaiah said. "No head." He showed her the damaged toy.
"I see…you want me to sew him up and make him better?" An eager nod. "Alright…but first we should ask if we can take him home. Ask Margarete if we can borrow him." Margarete was only six feet away, but she wanted Isaiah to ask.
"Aunt Margarie, can we borrow Mr. Bear and fix him, please?"
"Well…Locke doesn't play with him anymore, so I don't think he'd mind if you kept him. He'll be all yours, 'kay?"
You'd think it was Christmas from Isaiah's expression. "Thank you!" Isaiah put the teddy bear down and held out his arms to Margarete. Puzzled, she picked him up and was pleasantly surprised by a hug. "Hug." Isaiah gave her a light peck on the lips. "Kiss."
Yuri groaned. "Why'd you have to teach him that, Alice? Now he's gonna grow up and go around kissing girls at random."
"Which I'm sure you've never done," Halley said sarcastically.
"Not at random! Oh-wait…" Yuri began thinking. "There was that one time—"
"We don't want to hear about it," Keith told him.
Margarete put the two-year-old back down. He retrieved the head and body of Mr. Bear and gave to his mother. "You fix him, please?"
"Yes, I'll fix him," Alice assured him. She examined the bear. "Your brother ruined this, Keith?"
"The bats."
"Oh."
Isaiah now yawned and tugged on his mother's blue dress. "Mommy, I sleepy."
Alice smiled and ruffled his hair. "You want to go to bed."
"Uh huh."
She picked him up and then looked at Yuri. "It is kind of late, why don't you get Anne?"
"They're not hungry?" Halley asked as Yuri headed upstairs. He hadn't seen them eat anything.
Alice laughed. "I hope not, they were eating through the whole trip."
Isaiah brightened. "Yeah, sanmiches, apples…and cholate…" He yawned again and rested his head on his mother's shoulder. Alice looked annoyed.
"Yuri, did you give them candy?" she called up the stairs.
"Yes…"
"I thought we agreed, no candy."
"It was only a little," Yuri protested, coming down the stairs with Anne in tow.
Alice shook her head. At five years old, Anne had learned she could get daddy to say 'yes' when mommy said 'no'. Isaiah copied her example and Yuri easily caved in to two children—especially when they were his own.
"Daddy, can I please help Locke build towers?" she asked.
"No, it's time for bed."
"But Locke gets to stay up!"
"Well do I look like Uncle Keith?" Yuri asked. Halley wondered how many times he'd heard a similar question from his mother. The wonderful clichés of parents.
Anne pouted at her father, trying the guilt tactic. "But it's not fair…"
It seemed to be working. Yuri bit his lip, uncertain. "Maybe just a—"
"It's your bedtime now, Anne," Alice interjected, making it clear. She glared at Yuri. "Why don't you go with Anne, Isaiah. Get dressed for bed. I'll check on you in a minute." She put the two-year-old on his feet as he rubbed his eyes, and the children wandered off. Anne and Isaiah knew where they'd be sleeping already; since they lived in Prague, they visited often and usually spent the night.
After a few minutes, Alice turned to her husband. "You do know you're absolutely spineless, don't you?"
"I know, I know," Yuri said with a guilty expression. Alice shook her head, both amused and exasperated, then followed the children to their temporary room.
"Poor Alice. She's got three kids to look after."
"Oh shut up," Yuri grumbled. Margarete smirked.
**
Alice sighed, finding Anne looking wide awake and sitting on top of her bed. At least she was in her pink nightgown. "Go to sleep Anne. It's time for bed."
"But what about our story?"
Isaiah opened his eyes. Apparently he hadn't been asleep either. "Story?"
"Please mom?"
"Alright, alright," Alice said. "And then you'll go to sleep?"
Anne nodded. "Can you tell me how you and daddy met?" she asked eagerly.
"First you have to get in bed."
Her daughter scrambled into bed, grabbing the covers and yanking them up to her chest. "Ready!"
"Hmm…Once upon a time, in a far away land…" Anne giggled at the beginning; it sounded so much like a fairy tale. "I was on a train. There weren't many people on the train. In fact, there was almost no one on board." Alice left out her capture by the Japanese on purpose; she felt it would be too confusing to explain everything. Besides, that wasn't what Anne wanted to hear. "And then, on a dark night with a full moon—"
"Albert Simon came!"
"Anne, shhh." Alice looked over to where Isaiah was not quite asleep, his eyelids beginning to droop.
"He was a bad man, wasn't he?"
Alice had told her the story once before, but had tried not to pass any sort of judgment on him. "He was human, Anne. We all make a few mistakes."
Anne looked a little confused, but didn't ask again, instead puzzling it over in her mind. "Albert Simon wanted to kidnap me, and tried to threaten me with a horrible monster. We were at the end of the train, and I had nowhere to run."
"Were you scared?"
Alice nodded. "Very."
"What did the monster look like?"
"Kind of like a human, except it was small and had green skin. It looked sickly. It carried a scythe."
"Kinda like the Grim Reaper?" Anne asked thoughtfully.
"Yes, like that," Alice replied, wondering who'd taught her about that. It could have been Leon or Yuri. She hoped it hadn't been Yuri.
"Then what happened?"
Alice smiled at Anne's impatience. "Daddy came in the car we were in. He had followed Albert Simon."
Anne's smile changed as she tried to fight a yawn. "He wasn't scared, was he?"
"No, he defeated the monster and rescued me from Albert Simon."
"Like a knight. And you lived happily ever after with me and Isaiah, right?"
Alice had to laugh at that. At the time she'd met him, he'd managed to ruin all her 'knight in shining armor' ideas with one ill-placed touch. It'd been a bumpy road for them that first night.
But of course Anne would think of her father as a knight. It was only natural for children to look up to their parents. Hadn't she thought the same of her own father? And Yuri really was a hero, in his own way.
"We lived happy ever after," she told her daughter. Perhaps not right away, but they'd gotten there eventually. "The end." She leaned in and gave her a kiss on the forehead. "I love you Anne. Good night."
"I love you, mommy." Anne wriggled in bed. "What about daddy?"
"I'll tell him to come." As she left, Alice passed Isaiah's bed. Noticing he had no blankets, she pulled them over the toddler and then left.
When she returned, she found some of the adults looking on as two wrestling matches took place. One was a play match between Joshua and Locke, which soon had a victor. Locke grinned at his parents while on top of Joshua's stomach, apparently proud of himself. Joshua winked at Sharon.
The other wrestling match was between Halley and Yuri. When they'd wrestled before, Yuri had always won, physically stronger. But this fight looked almost even, the two men struggling before Halley claimed an advantage and pinned Yuri.
Zhuzhen chuckled. "Seems like you've lost, Yuri."
"Tch. That was just beginner's luck," Yuri said as he got off the floor. "I'll show you. Rematch."
"That will have to wait," Alice told him.
"Why?"
"Anne wants her goodnight kiss."
Yuri turned red, grumbled something about how humiliating it was, before finally going down the hallway to their room. Alice knew he was only complaining because the others were here.
**
"Isaiah's asleep?" Yuri asked, looking down at the boy. The sleeping toddler murmured something about Mr. Bear and Yuri shook his head. The teddy bear again.
"Uh huh."
He grinned and then sat on Anne's bed. "You want a kiss goodnight?"
"Yep. I love you, daddy."
"Love you." He gave her a light kiss, also on the forehead. "Now go to sleep."
She beamed and covered herself so only her face could be seen. "I will." She closed her eyes.
Yuri walked back to the hallway, back to the laughter and Locke's stubborn protests to his own bedtime. He turned in the doorway and looked at both of his children as they slept. He had a small smile as he shut the door, blocking the last rays of light from their innocent expressions.
**
Author's Note: Okay, enough of the fluff and sap and mushiness. Onto the good stuff! In the next chapter, the story should become darker, and Greyfriars, you'll probably find out some of the plot.
About this chapter…actually, the chapter was supposed to be about something entirely different. But I tried typing it out and I just couldn't figure out how to make it work. So the chapter was kinda changed…and the next chapter will not be the reunion. (Yes. We're moving on.)
About ages right now:
Yuri: 31
Alice: 27/28 (I want to say 28, but it all depends on when her birthday is)
Isaiah: 2.5
Anne: 5 (Just turned five)
Keith: Uh…407?
Margarete: ??? (I have no clue what her age is in the game)
Locke: 4
Halley and Chris: 22 (assuming Chris is about Halley's age)
Sharon and Joshua: 13-15 (it all depends what you place their ages in the game at, though I think they would be about 14 now)
Zhuzhen: Seventy, maybe? Older? I don't know…
Oh yeah…I took some of Isaiah's habits from my little brother who just turned three. He doesn't do it as often now, but he did give people hugs and kisses (he'd even, if you weren't looking at him, take your head with his hands and make you turn your head so he could give you a kiss on the lips). I think my older sister actually taught him that. I also asked him to pronounce some of the bigger words that Isaiah says, which is how I got 'Margarie' and 'sanmiches' (I didn't have to ask him about 'cholate'. He's always asking for 'cholate').
**
Reviewers:
Kimgrasshopper: What Yuri thinks? Let's get his reaction…::gets muse from Shadow Souls:: So Yuri, what do you think of the fact that Isaiah has white-blonde hair?
Yuri: Uh…he takes after his mom?
But, you know, that's kind of impossible with you as his father.
Yuri: Oh…are you suggesting Alice cheated?
::shrugs:: I don't know. I thought that was kind of what grasshopper was implying.
Yuri: But…I can't see her cheating.
I can't really either. (Can anyone imagine Alice cheating on Yuri?)
Yuri: I mean, it just seems like she'd spontaneously combust or something first.
Regina: I can help with that. ::holding a fireball::
…Regina, get out of here and get back into Shadow Souls, right now.
Regina: Or what?
Or I won't give you your scene with Yuri next chapter.
Regina: Damn! ::goes back to Shadow Souls::
Yuri: What did you promise her this time???
Heh heh…you go back now too.
Greyfriars: Anne looks kind of like…well, how li'l Anne does. And li'l Anne looks kind of like Yuri (at least, I think Yuri takes after his mom in both hair and eye color. Not sure about hair.)
Araschid: Sorry. I guess I am kind of stressed with finals. (One more day, and I'm FREE!)
Hmm…fic about Yuri and Keith being pregnant. What about Halley now? Let's just make all the guys pregnant. ::scary mental images of Zhuzhen pregnant pop up:: Okay, maybe not Zhuzhen…
Nights Mistress: Heh heh…you know how you said to e-mail you about drop bears? Did you get my e-mail? Did you send a reply?
…Well, I was kind of suffering from a brief lapse of stupidity, because I was logged in as someone else. (Actually, I was logged in as my stepmom. She's probably not very happy.) So, I didn't get your reply. Could you just leave it in the reviews? Or e-mail me at kokiaru@aol.com.
