Masami was not a fan of unexpected guests.

Especially not these two boys. They, or at least the Japanese one, were neighbors of hers…if you could count them as neighbors. The Kageyama's lived several blocks, city blocks, over. The blond boy was just a friend of his. They had crossed paths many times, apparently the apple tree in front of her house was simply an irresistible climbing spot, and each time had been more aggravating than the last.

But, of course, she couldn't let it show.

"Now isn't a good time, boys, Mari is-" said Masami as she opened the door. Juro peered at them from behind her skirt. Madoka was jumping through the house excitedly. She couldn't just kick these two out, Eiji would have wanted to know why she was suddenly so inhospitable. He loved kids and she, supposedly, did as well. Her own kids.

Her own perfectly normal kids.

"She should be done napping by now, I know her schedule." Said Ritsu, the shorter of the two of them. The blond boy, Teru was it? He at least knew to look apologetic.

"Sorry to bother you, ma'am." Said Teru in the most polite voice Masami had ever heard in her life. Little ass kisser that he was. She sighed. She really had no reason to say no. Eiji…well he had made his opinion known and she didn't want to fight with him about this. She should have liked the help, he'd said, and it was nice for the kids to have someone older to play with. He always omitted, though, the fact that he and Ichimaro Kageyama had apparently made friends in the time between the earthquake and now…

She should have been happy.

She should have been happy that she was married to a man who was capable of making friends. She should have been happy that she was living in a place where she could have guests. She should have been happy that her kids actually mixed with people outside of the house. She should have been glad that this house was in an actual neighborhood with people that she knew, not just a cage on a hill, or a terrarium. A little world, small and sequestered, where she and her children could live safe from the outside world. If there even was such a thing as safe. Touichirou seemed to think that there was. He seemed to think that if he locked her away-

He took a deep breath.

Inhale. Exhale. There was another tug on her skirt. Madoka had stopped her jumping around now. She was tugging as hard as she could on Masami's skirt. Juro, on the other hand, had run to the top of the stairs. She'd heard him stop. She didn't need to look to know that he was there, his face pressed to the bars, while he waited for his mother to asses the situation. He was always so jumpy, Sho had been so…Juro was his own person and he just so happened to be a jumpy one. When she was jumpy he was jumpy. When she was annoyed he was annoyed. When she was angry he was angry. It was almost as if the doctor's hadn't done a good enough job cutting the cord…

Good. She didn't want it cut.

"Mari woke up, mom! She's awake and she crying!" said Madoka as she jumped up and down with Masami's skirt clutched in both hands. She was getting too old to be doing this. Masami pulled her skirt free before Madoka wound up tearing it. She was a strong child, like Sho had been at her age. Back when he'd been six…she could remember it like it was yesterday….

"I can hear her, Madoka, I can hear her…fine, you boys can come and see Mari after I've gotten her situated." said Masami as sighed and stepped to the side. Well that was that, then, now wasn't it? Mari was up, and now she had company. She had a very active social life for a baby. These two boys who fancied themselves as big brother, the children at the park who flocked to her, the other babies in her Mommy and Me exercise group, the other babies in her swim class even though she didn't do much more than kick and cry…no matter where they went Mari always managed to make a new friend.

She should have been happy about that.

She went upstairs, the boys had been here enough times to know the drill. Off with their shoes, sitting in the living room only, and any fighting would result in an instant ejection from her house. She wasn't playing about that. Madoka and Juro did not need any more reason to fight. Sometimes those two were worse than Sho and Shigeko had been…she wondered if they still fought. They were at that age, weren't they? Shigeko had just turned thirteen and Sho would be there in half a year…teenagers. She had two teenagers.

She'd had two teenagers.

The sound of crying got louder as she reached the top of the stairs. Mari. She was still a long way away from her teenage years. So were Juro and Madoka. Masami had been so close to the finish line but now…now she was back at the starting gate. Forty three years old and still chasing after kids…still having babies. Touichirou had wanted some more but he hadn't even been able to handle the two that they'd had. He hadn't been able to stand the crying when they, or rather Sho, had been babies. He used to walk right out the nursery door and leave Sho to cry…even if Masami was busy. Even if she was making dinner or ironing his shirts or taking a bath…it had all been her responsibility…

She had been their mother.

The walk to Mari's room was a short one. She shared with Madoka, first at the top of the stairs. Then Juro's room, which was really more of a large linen closet, and then her and Eiji. The hallway was a short one. Easy to take care of. She could see the end of it, the window. The little table with the pictures of their family. That wallpaper segment that hadn't been laid perfectly straight. Her eyes were drawn to it every single time she went upstairs with fail. She looked away. She had enough to do, she didn't need to add hanging new wallpaper to her list of chores.

She was the mother, here, she had enough to do.

"Mari, Mari, come on. Time to get up." Said Masami as she opened the bedroom door. A doll cried out as she stepped on it. 'Mama!'. Madoka had insisted on getting new baby dolls to prepare for the arrival of her new sibling. Baby dolls and karate lessons…she was so like Sho. She had seen him do it before, play with Shigeko's dolls when he thought she wasn't looking, and he had always been so careful and sweet with his animals. He had always been such a sweet boy…he would have loved Mari. He had always wanted a little brother or sister, he had begged her for one every year around his birthday and Christmas, and she had always told him that Santa didn't have room for babies in his sleigh. That babies made bad birthday gifts because when you got a new one it shared your birthday. That another baby just wasn't in the cards for them. They'd had a complete family. A boy, a girl, a mother, and a father. One of each…Sho would have loved it, though, another sibling…even if she had been a little sister and not the little brother he'd been asking for…even if she did wake up from every nap full of tears…even if she didn't do much besides cry and throw things…even if….

Even if she pulled hair.

"None of that, now." Said Masami as she picked Mari up. Immediately Mari's hands went to her hair. She hoped, sometimes, that she would rip out the grey strands. She didn't have a full streak, not yet, just strands of grey that caught the light on occasion. Madoka and Juro had called it her glitter hair. Shigeko would have gotten a kick out of it, too. She had always been a little princes…all costumes and play jewelry. Such a perfect little lady…she wondered if they would have battled, later, when it came to clothing.

That was what happened, naturally, when they became teenagers.

"Come on, let's get you out of that onesie. Look, see? You drooled all over yourself in your sleep again. Silly baby." Said Masami as she put Mari down on top of her dresser. Sho's had a real changing table in a real nursery…but it hadn't helped one bit. He'd fought just as hard as Mari when it came time to change clothes. All kicks and scratches and cries…Shigeko had been a lot easier. Well, she had come to them past the point of needing a nursery and a changing table…but it had been easy to change her clothes. Once you realized what she liked.

She was a lot like Touichirou in that way.

He so rarely changed his suit. Sure he had others but they were all the same. Rows and rows of the same suit coat, the same pair of pants, the same white shirt, even his tie was the same. He didn't own pajamas, he slept in an undershirt and suit pants, and he never wanted to. He didn't see the point, he said, about changing clothes. It was more efficient that way….efficient for what she didn't understand. She'd gotten him new clothes at the beginning of their married. Day clothes, pajamas, different suits…but he never even touched them. He had just left them hanging in the closet, folded in his dresser drawers, tags and all. She had looked every single day but he never touched a single thing she'd gotten him…he'd been so stubborn…

Maybe it was an esper thing.

Shigeko had been stubborn in the beginning. She had hated pants, would have rather ran around naked than put on even the loosest pair of sweatpants. Tights were out, too, and leggings. Winters had been…challenging….but once she realized that Shigeko liked dresses and skirts then things had gotten a lot easier. Dressing her, anyway, getting her to cross her legs the right way, or even just to sit the right way, had been a nightmare. She had loved chasing after Sho…climbing after him…even just climbing. She had been quite the climber when she'd first come to them. On top of the counters, the garden wall, the fridge…Masami used to joke that she had been raised in a tree…because of the climbing and the fact that she'd been climbing and asking about her family…

That had gone on for much longer than the battle over clothes.

"See? You didn't have to fight, now did you? It was over before you knew it." said Masami as she did the last of Mari's snaps and sat her up. She brushed some of Mari's hair away from her forehead. It was closer to Shigeko's…closer to Eiji's. Closer to what hair should have been. Madoka had gotten her…she had curls. A head full of impossible to manage curls. Juro had gotten lucky, his hair had been brown when he'd been born but it at least wasn't as wild as Masami's…Sho had maybe gotten it from her. Mari was the lucky one. She was so…Mari was lucky in so many ways. She was cute. She was small. She was a baby…she was loved…she was the most loved baby in all of Japan.

She had the most active social life of any baby in all of Japan, that was for sure.

"Come on, Mari, your friends are here to see you now." Said Masami. She picked her daughter up and left, careful not to trip over any toys. She had told Madoka twice today to pick this room up. She'd have to tell her twice more before the message sank in. She was a lot like…she was messy in that way. Maybe she got it from Masami, when she had been young her room had been a disaster area. It had gotten so bad that her parents had gone in with a garbage bag and thrown everything away….stripped it bare…

She wouldn't ever do that to her kids.

She was a good mother. She was doing her best with the kids she had and…and she held Mari close. Sometimes there were times in life when things…when they didn't work out. She had done the best with what she had and…and Sho was supposed to have been here. He would have been as old as those boys downstairs. Twelve going on thirteen. He would have been here and…and he would have been friends with those boys. He had always been good at making friends, at least school friends. Shigeko had never been one to make friends…she was a lot like Touichirou in that way. Touichirou had never had a friend in his life, she imagined, it wasn't like he was good company or anything like that. Far from it. Even when they had been dating he had always been so quiet and…and disdainful…of everything around him…or just bored….

Whatever.

She had been thinking about Touichirou a lot lately. This always happened when she had another one, she'd get better once Mari got older…and when it got further away from Shigeko's birthday. It had been back in March, her birthday, and now it was July…and it wasn't as though it had been the first birthday that she'd missed. She'd missed six birthdays so far. Six of Shigeko's…and six of Sho's. She'd missed half of his life…and she'd miss the next half of it too. She held Mari tighter…

This was just the way it had to be.

"…bent a spoon! But with my hands, only, not my brain-" Madoka's voice caried up the stairs. Masami got to the bottom landing and frowned at the backwards shoes in the genkan. The younger boy had just kicked his off again…well that was kids. They were messy, they were loud, and they didn't always listen.

Even if you told them to do something a thousand times.

"Madoka, leave them alone and go clean your room. This is the third time I've asked you about this today." Said Masami. The room didn't need to be cleaned right away but…but she didn't like the conversation she'd just overheard. At some point Madoka had picked up the idea for an esper game, with her as an esper of course. The boys played into it…and she liked to believe that this was just some game that the kids had come up with. When she had been a little girl the popular thing to have were yo-yo's and the most popular thing to pretend to be was a crime fighting yo-yo girl…well now espers were popular…and fiction. As far as the rest of the normal population knew espers were just invented works of fiction….

Though she did wonder sometimes about those two….

"But mom-" said Madoka

"No buts, get to it. If you had wanted time to play then you should have done as I asked before." Said Masami as she sat down on the couch. Mari immediately reached for Madoka's hair. She pulled it back behind herself and held it with both hands. The blond boy did the same. He had long hair for a boy, his mother really should have seen to getting it cut, or he should have done it himself…or just not dropped in on a family with a baby that lived to pull hair.

"Alright…bye Ritsu, bye Teru…by Mari…but not Juro! And he knows why!" shouted Madoka. Masami shook her head as Madoka stomped away. Well that was either going to be really adorable or really…really bad, later. Those two…they fought like cats and dogs sometimes. Juro crawled out from under the coffee table, looked around, and then sat right beside Masami. He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her shoulder. Either he was scared or tired, she would have believed either.

This was not the time for visitors.

"Ok, you two can visit with Mari for half an hour but that's it, and don't get her over excited either. She just got up, she's kind of groggy." Said Masami as she passed Mari to Ritsu. He held her in his arms like he was afraid that she would shatter. Teru eyed her wearily and scooted even further away. The Kageyama's really needed to give Ritsu a sibling, then he could have stopped bothering her thrice a week, or maybe he and Teru could have one of their own when they got old enough. Then maybe her kids could drop by unannounced and interfere with their entire day…

She needed a drink.

She was…maybe this had to do with the caged in feeling. It felt like being back at the old house, sometimes. A boy, a girl, and a baby. A house that needed twenty four seven care. A husband that worked long hours to put bread on the table. This was her life…not much different from her old one…but here she could at least leave. She could, if she wanted to, get back to work…even though it didn't make much sense. She'd be working to pay the sitter…well she was losing valuable years in her career, but she was forty three years old and hadn't had any kind of a career to speak of up to this point but…but the option was still there…and it was a comfort…

She wasn't trapped anymore.

This wasn't so very bad. Sure she didn't want the company…and if she'd had wanted any company it would have been adult company, but…but this wasn't so bad. They were just a couple of lonely, only children. She knew how that meant. That was why she had been so happy when Touichirou had told her that he wanted to open their home up to an orphan, so Sho wouldn't have had to know the loneliness of being an only child. If she closed her eyes she could even imagine that it was Sho come to see Mari, that it was her son holding his little sister, that Fukuda had finally brought her boy back to her…though when she opened her eyes reality set in.

Masami wasn't a fan of unexpected guests but she'd make the best out of this.