Disclaimer: As always, Mutant X and it's amazing cast of characters = Not Mine. Alexis and Isabelle Fox-Mulwray = Mine.
Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews, everyone. They are, as always, greatly appreciated.
Author's Note II: Sorry it's taken so long to update – this is the first time I've been working on two stories for posting at once.
Words in / / = Thoughts.
Chapter 1.
"She caught them when she went to the park, didn't she?" Without waiting for an answer, Shalimar exhaled in frustration. "First they run into Eckhart, now Lexi gets sick! I don't think that I'll ever want to bring them there again!"
"Relax, Shal." Brennan said soothingly. "Chicken pox is not that big a deal."
Lexi glared up at him, outraged. "Yes it is! It's horrible!" She scratched at her chest for a moment before a series of pointed looks from the three adults stopped her in her tracks. "Can you make it better, Grandpa?" She asked plaintively.
Adam shook his head regretfully. "Sorry, sweetie, I'm that afraid chicken pox is a lot like the common cold – it's a simple disease but no scientist has been able to find a cure for it yet. You're just going to have to wait until it runs its course. In the mean time . . ." He looked up at Shalimar and Brennan. "We're all in for a bit of a rough time."
"But chicken pox isn't serious, is it?" Brennan asked, bewildered.
"No," Adam conceded. "Not as a rule, but while feline ferals are very rarely sick, when they are, they usually have a miserable time of it." Shalimar nodded in confirmation. "I'm afraid we'll have to keep Izzy away for a while."
Lexi burst into tears at the thought, burying her face in her mother's shoulder.
"You've both had chicken pox, haven't you?" Adam asked suddenly, as the thought occurred to him. "Because if not, I'll have to ask you to stay away as long as Lexi is contagious – the last thing any of us need is an epidemic on our hands and adults usually have a worse time with chicken pox than children do."
"I already had it." Brennan confirmed. "I was eight."
"Me too." Shalimar looked up from soothing her daughter. "I was three."
"Good.' Adam said, relieved. "I've already had it and I'll check with Jesse and Emma." He smiled ruefully. "Emma loves Lexi, but she would never forgive her if she were to catch chicken pox before the wedding."
"Lexi?" A small blonde head poked tentatively into the lab. "Are you okay?"
Lexi, not wanting her sister to see her in her current pitiful condition, kept her face hidden.
Brennan caught his daughter in his arms before she could run to her twin. "No you don't, Izzy lizard." He told her gently. "I'm afraid that you'll have to stay away from Lexi for a little while until she gets better."
"No fair!" The four year old pouted. "If Lexi's sick, I want to be sick too so we can stay together!"
"Trust me, Izzy, you do not want to catch chicken pox if you can possibly avoid it." Brennan shifted his daughter to a more comfortable position and tuned to carry her out of the room. "I'll see you later, Lexi."
"Okay." Lexi sniffled tearfully. She tightened her hold on Shalimar's hand. "Don't leave, Mommy." She pleaded.
"It's alright, sweetheart." Shalimar scooped her daughter up in her arms. "I'll stay with you as long as you want me to. Do you have some calamine lotion or something around?"
Adam, to whom this question was addressed, nodded confirmation.
"Alright then." Shalimar rubbed Lexi's back. "Let's see what we can do about the itching at least."
Adam watched smiling, as Shalimar and Brennan left the lab and headed in opposite directions, Shalimar carrying a miserable Lexi and Brennan bearing a righteously indignant Izzy.
Even without trying, the twins always seemed to find a way to make trouble for the adults around them.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later.
". . . So Adam said that Lexi will be feeling pretty down in the dumps for the next few days." Brennan explained, rather amused by the horrified expressions on his colleagues' faces. "And anyone who hasn't had chicken pox already is to stay away."
"I've had it." Emma said, relieved to know that it was nothing overly serious.
"I haven't." Jesse looked panicked, as if he was half afraid that Lexi was lurking around the corner waiting to sneeze on him or something.
"How long is Lexi going to be sick?" Emma asked, mentally counting the days until the wedding.
"Are you afraid that you'll end up one flowergirl short?" Brennan teased. "I'm glad to know that you're so concerned about my daughter's health!"
"That's not what I mean . . ."
"Relax." Brennan cut her off before she could launch into a flurry of explanations. "Adam said that while Lexi is probably going to be a very unhappy little girl for a few days, she'll be up and about by the end of the week and she should be fine by the wedding. In fact," Brennan grinned. "This is probably going to be harder on us than on Lexi."
"He's right." Jesse confirmed. "Sick ferals are the worst patients ever – when Shal and I were fourteen, she got the flu and by the end of the week, I was ready to kill either her or myself!" he clapped a hand on Brennan's back. "Good luck, buddy!"
'Thanks." Brennan said dryly, scowling.
"Poor little Lexi." Emma said softly, her voice sympathetic. "Is there anything that Adam can do for her?"
"Not really. All anyone can really do is give her some lotion to stop the itching, but that's it really. To be honest, it's Izzy I feel sorry for – she's not best pleased at having to stay away from Lexi."
"At least with Lexi sick, we might have a few chaos free days around here." Jesse remarked in a jesting tone. "If it was the other way around and Izzy was sick, Lexi would be working overtime to keep us all on our toes! At least Izzy's the quiet twin."
* * *
From her hiding place behind the couch, Izzy could hear every word her father, aunt and uncle were saying.
To say that the little girl was displeased at being kept away from her sister would have been the understatement of the millennium.
Izzy was furious!
She and her sister had been planning a nicely organized spate of pranks – just enough to drive the adults to despair, but without interfering with the wedding preparations – they may have been only four years old but the twins were wise enough to know that wrecking Aunt Emma's meticulously planned wedding would be the last thing that they would ever do – and now all their carefully laid out plans would come to nothing.
It wasn't right!
/Lexi would hate it if we didn't get to play with the grown ups some! / Izzy thought rebelliously. /It's not fair for them to make me stay away and Lexi stay in bed! /
There was no help for it.
She would simply have to rise to the occasion and play the pranks by herself.
If she couldn't match her sister's level of havoc, then her name was not Isabelle Emily Fox-Mulwray.
TBC.
Next chapter: Izzy gets to work.