Disclaimer: As always, 'Mutant X' and it's amazing cast of characters = Not mine. Alexis and Isabelle Fox-Mulwray = Mine.
Author's Note I: To Feline-Feral – as tempting as it sounds, I don't think that I'll be giving Jesse chicken pox just before his wedding. While it would be funny, I just don't have the heart to be that cruel.
Author's Note II: Apologies for the delay in posting this chapter. I've been pretty busy lately.
Words in / / = Thoughts.
Chapter 2.
Afternoon, the lab.
"Mommy?" Lexi gave her mother her best 'kitten eyes' expression. "Will you read me a story?"
The little girl had been making a heroic effort to resist the powerful temptation to scratch the rash that, even after the application of half a bottle of calamine lotion, itched fiercely.
Adam had set up a bed in one of his vacant labs and Lexi was to sleep there while she was infectious.
Shalimar smiled indulgently, sitting down on the bed next to her daughter and lifting her into her lap.
"Alright." She stretched her arm across to the bedside locker where Lexi and Izzy's current favorite book of fairytales was occupying pride of place and retrieved the slender paperback volume. "Which one do you want?"
"Cinderella." Lexi popped her thumb into her mouth and snuggled into her mother's lap, ready for a good bedtime story.
"Okay." Shalimar gently brushed a long blond curl away from her daughter's face before opening the book to the appropriate page, taking a deep breath before beginning to read. "Once upon a time there was a beautiful young girl who lived with her wicked stepmother and her two ugly stepsisters . . ."
* * *
The rec room, same time.
"You don't seriously expect me to wear this, do you?" Brennan was incredulous. "I'll be a laughing stock!"
Jesse shook his head behind his fiancée's back, knowing that any criticism of Emma's meticulous wedding plans could very well be fatal.
"You're going to look very handsome, Brennan." Emma told him firmly in her 'you do not want to mess with me' voice.
"The cravat is lilac!" Brennan had a pained expression on his face.
"And what's wrong with lilac?" Emma asked in a low, dangerous voice.
"Nothing, Emma, nothing at all." Jesse interrupted hastily, hoping to pacify her.
He was rewarded with a smile and a gentle kiss on the lips.
"Wimp!" Brennan muttered under his breath.
Emma looked over at the unhappy molecular, who seemed determined to throw a monkey wrench into her plans for the perfect weapon.
It was time to bring out the big guns.
She laid her hand on his shoulder; giving him the 'little girl lost' look she and Shalimar had taught the twins when they were six months old. "I know that you don't like the colour, Bren, but will you wear it, for me. This day is very important to me." Emma was prepared to squeeze out a few tears if it would make her teammate comply with the dress code she had laid out.
Brennan groaned inwardly. /It's so unfair, hitting me with the guilt trip like that! / "I'll wear it." He said grudgingly. "Happy?"
"Ecstatic." Emma beamed at him. "And wait until you see the adorable little dresses I've ordered for Lexi and Izzy!"
Brennan looked around the room. "Speaking of Izzy, where is she?"
* * *
The kitchen, same time.
Lexi had always firmly believed that the kitchen was the best place to come if you wanted to play a 'harmless' joke on an unsuspecting grown up and, surveying the empty kitchen with it's cupboard after cupboard filled with a treasure trove of ingredients and equipment to delight the heart of the most mischievous child, Izzy could understand her sister's affection for the room.
The adults had yet to find a set of childproof locks capable of coming between the Fox-Mulwray twins and anything that took their fancy.
Lexi had spoken at length about an idea of hers for what she had promised would be a 'super funny joke'.
Izzy was convinced that it was positively criminal for her grandfather to insist that Lexi be kept in bed and prevented from carrying out her master plan and utterly evil of her parents, aunt and uncle to back him up.
/I'll show them! / The little girl thought rebelliously. /I'll play Lexi's game by myself and then I can cheer her up by telling her about it and then we can think of more games. /
Dragging a chair across the room, Izzy climbed up and opened the cupboard above the sink, rummaging for a few minutes before she lit upon the item she sought.
Clutching the precious box to her chest, Izzy climbed down.
This was going to be so much fun!
* * *
The Lab, twenty minutes later.
" . . . And so Cinderella and the handsome prince got married and went to live in his palace where they reigned as King and Queen . . ." Shalimar paused in her reading and sighed. /Do all fairy tales have to have this corny ending? / " . . . And they all lived happily ever after. The End."
She looked down at her one-woman audience, who was now fast asleep, her cheeks rosy with sleep flush, her small arms wrapped tightly around her mother's waist.
Lexi looked so peaceful that Shalimar simply couldn't bear to disturb her.
Shifting her child's weight slightly, Shalimar stretched out more comfortably on the narrow bed, resigned to serving as her eldest daughter's pillow.
Soon, lulled by Lexi's soft, even breathing, she drifted off to sleep herself.
* * *
Ten minutes later.
When Adam next entered the lab that was currently serving as a quarantine room he found the woman he thought of as his daughter curled up on the bed with her daughter, both of them fast asleep.
He didn't have the heart to wake them.
Covering them both with a light quilt, Adam dimmed the lights and stole out of the room.
* * *
The kitchen, five minutes later.
Grumbling under his breath about always being the one stuck with the job, Brennan brewed a pot of tea, filling a small jug with milk, taking down four cups and saucers and the sugar bowl and assembling them all on a tray.
From her hiding place under the table, Izzy watched her father's movements, almost trembling with anticipation.
She waited a moment after he had left the room before following him, powerless to resist the temptation to see the results of her prank up close.
* * *
The rec room.
"So how's Lexi?" Emma asked, accepting a cup of tea and the milk jug from Brennan.
"Still pretty under the weather." Adam, to whom this question was addressed, answered honestly. "And I think that we'll need to buy the pharmacy's entire stock of calamine lotion, judging by the amount she's already gone through, but I think that she'll be okay. In another week, she'll be tearing around Sanctuary again, driving us all insane."
"Good to know." Jesse quipped, adding milk and two spoons of sugar to his tea. "I can't catch it from you, can I?" He asked worriedly, looking up at his mentor and father figure as though he was carrying the plague. "I mean, you were with Lexi."
"No, Jesse, you could only catch it if you were with Lexi for a long period of time. For Heaven's sake!" He laughed at the look of apprehension on the younger man's face. "If you're that nervous I can dig out one of the hazmet suits!"
"Yes please." Jesse nodded eagerly.
"I was joking, Jess."
"Right." Jesse blushed a little.
"Will Shal be joining us?" Brennan asked, looking up from adding his fourth spoon of sugar to his tea. "Sugar?"
"Yes please." Adam accepted the bowl and added sugar to his own drink. "And no, Shalimar will not be joining us." He smiled. "She and Lexi are both sound asleep."
"Well then," Emma lifted her teacup in a mock toast. "Let's drink up." She grimaced as she tasted her tea.
Brennan took a quick swallow and promptly spat it out.
"Too hot for you, bro." Jesse asked, half teasingly, half sympathetically. "Needs more milk." He took a drink of his own milky concoction and proceeded to set a new world record in the projectile tea category. "Uggh!" He shuddered. "Brennan's trying to poison us!"
Emma looked like she was going to be sick. "This isn't funny, Bren!"
"I didn't do anything!"
Adam smiled knowingly, picking up the sugar bowl and sniffing it's contents. "Dishwasher salt." He announced, relieved that he hadn't taken any of his tea. "I'd say that the milk's been tampered with too." He added. "I think we all know by whom."
"ALEXIS MARIE . . . Sorry." Brennan said sheepishly. "Force of habit. "ISABELLE EMILY FOX-MULWRAY, YOU GET IN HERE THIS MINUTE, YOUNG LADY!"
* * *
From her vantage point behind the couch, Izzy stuffed a small hand into her mouth to quench her giggles, not perturbed in the least by her father's angry shout.
Lexi was right. Food – or in this case, drink – pranks were definitely the most fun.
Her twin would be proud.
TBC.
Is there anything anyone would like to see Izzy do? Suggestions will, as always, be most welcome.