Moo: You all should be thanking me on bended knee, you know. Because I have written a nice, good length chapter for all of you filled with the good, slapstick humor you've been waiting to read for about… how many months?

Sari: Heh…

Moo: Ha. Feel guilty.

Disclaimer: Pshaw. I don't own it. If I did, I'd be at my giant pink mansion getting my toes and portrait painted by some guy in a wig and his nose stuck up at a snooty angle.

"Whoa. Lemme get this straight. You asked Sheena to summon Undine so you could clean the deck quicker?" Lloyd's incredulous voice could be heard at six sharp that morning as he and Colette discussed the flood of water that had completely submerged the deck. According to the screaming babies and adults alike, Kratos guessed that the boat was on the verge of sinking. This was a great way to start off the day.

"Yes! I thought we should get the boat all nice and clean for Yuan's arrival, but now it's drenched and-" but Colette was to horrified to speak anymore, so she decided to sob into Lloyd's shoulder for a good ten minutes.

"I guess this means we should leave our room and go help bail the boat, Simon," Kratos said heavily to the cat. Simon gave him a look that clearly said: it's your funeral.

Kratos tentatively opened the door. All seemed quite dry beneath the deck. Then, all the sudden, baby Zelos came tearing out of one of the rooms, a good two dozen buckets on his head, feet, or hands. He then began placing them wildly about the hall, screaming something about the drips of water all containing "Bubbles' evil Crystafungitis."

Knowing that the worse was yet to come, Kratos walked across the hallway and opened the door to the above deck.

It all happened in about five seconds. First, Kratos was met face on with a huge, ten foot wave that knocked him right off his feet. Water flooded into the under-deck and five children began to wail piteously. Then, when he finally was able to walk up the stairs without any collisions, Kratos found himself on the deck with a good three and a half feet of water swirling around him. Sheena was standing in the corner, her head bowed over the side of the boat, screaming at the top of her lungs at what Kratos guessed was Undine in the water.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WON'T MAKE IT ALL EVAPORATE?" she screeched numerous times.

Murray the dog was slowly swimming through the water with Simon placed on his head. Apparently, they had not finished their food when the giant wave of water attacked the boat, and their kibble was floating along with other items such as hairbrushes, Barbie dolls and-

"Where did I put those Playboys?" the older Zelos kept muttering to himself as he fished through the debris.

Finally, after wolfing down some sodden pieces of toast, Kratos reluctantly grabbed a bucket and began helping Genis and Lloyd bail some of the boat. Their attempts were rather fruitless.

"I don't know what they were thinking!" Lloyd kept exclaiming to himself over and over again, while Genis uttered an unbroken prayer to the goddess Martel for the better part of half an hour.

However, the worst part of the flood was not floating kibble or soggy Playboys. It was Raine. The moment she had seen the water all around her, she had wailed even louder than baby Zelos. To make things even more complicated, she flung herself at the boat's mast and started shimmying up it like some sort of demented monkey.

"I'M NOT COMING DOWN THERE!" she screamed hysterically.

This whole time, the younger Kratos had been sitting way up in the half-broken crow's nest, a bemused expression on his face. It didn't get much better than this, adults running around trying to keep order, and small children changing into their bathing suits and treating it like a pool.

"Idiots," the younger Kratos said to himself, absorbed in some gothic novel filled with angst, depression and hate (his favorite subjects).

It was around two o' clock when the little Raine, who had been trying to talk her mother out of evaporating the water with a hairdryer ("It's our only hope!" shrieked Colette hysterically) came up with the idea that would save them many hours of bucket bailing.

"Just make Sheena summon the Sylph and make them evaporate the water with their wind power!" she said obviously to the group of adults, who now looked murderous.

Of course, her idea was perfect, and all the water had evaporated in no time. The only problem was, there were tons of salt crystals left behind.

"Yummy!" little Presea squealed as she licked it off the deck. She was joined by little Sheena and little Regal while their brother, Zelos, flapped his arms hysterically.

"It's the crystals of Crystafungitis!" he told them severely. "You all may die."

The day had been a long one, Kratos conceded. First, the huge wave, then the intense bailing, then the salt licking (all the kids had gotten splinters in their tongues and needed assistance on getting them out). Now would be a great time to just sleep…

But no, this was not the case. Instead, Colette rallied all the adults for one last major clean of the boat, which left everyone gasping for breath. By the time they had battled the children into their beds, Kratos was ready to sleep standing up.

"These have been the most sleepless two weeks of my life," Kratos said, trying to think of a time throughout all of his four thousand (and plus) years that he had ever felt like such an insomniac.

"Lloyd," Genis groaned. "How do you do it? Living with little Zelos for three weeks is enough to kill me, but three years…? You must be used to his nuttiness by now though, right?" But Lloyd was already snoring huge snot bubbles into Colette's apron. She sighed audibly.

"Living with the older Zelos isn't much better," Sheena put in. Zelos was reading a very soggy looking magazine that anyone could guess the name of.

"Hey," Colette said brightly. "Remember, Yuan is still coming tomorrow! This is so exciting!" Maybe Colette had forgotten about how Yuan had tried to kill them and kidnap Lloyd, but the others hadn't.

"Yuan… the man with that ring? He was in love with the sister of Mithos, Martel? He was a bad man, I thought," Presea said. She was painting her toenails the same shade as her hair, but was not very good at it. It looked more like she had coated both of her feet with bubblegum.

"Oh, he's a good guy," Colette brushed aside the comment. "And he's bringing the child that he is currently sheltering! He sent another letter. Her name is… uh… Zepphie or something of the sort."

At the sound of Yuan and the girl, both the older and younger Kratos perked up. Kratos was looking forward to seeing his old friend again, and his grandson couldn't help but wonder if maybe he would finally find a friend to share the pains of living on a boat with one million kids with.

Later that night, when Kratos was lying in bed, a glint of gold in the bookshelf next to his bed caught his eye. It was a very short bookshelf, with only about ten or so books on it. Kratos, unable to sleep, picked the golden book out and rifled through the pages.

It was a photo album from Lloyd and Colette's wedding, which had been held in Iselia. Most of the pictures were of Lloyd and Colette eating cake or dancing, but there were a few other ones, less professional looking, that had probably been taken by Genis or even himself. Right when he was about to close the album, his gaze lingered on the last picture. It was very messy, with lots of blurs and slightly lopsided. Apparently, whoever was taking the picture was trying to get a photo of Zelos catching the bouquet of flowers (something that still embarrassed him to this day), but they had missed and only gotten half of him. The other half was the crowd of people laughing and jostling about, but when Kratos squinted, he thought he saw the shadow of a woman sitting in a tree, her chocolate brown hair falling to her shoulders and laughter pouring from her mouth. She was neither transparent nor solid, it seemed, but Kratos still knew who she was.

"Anna," he muttered, running his fingers over the photo. Simon perked his ears at the sound of Kratos' voice.

"Maybe it's a sign, Simon," Kratos said in a philosophical way very unlike himself. "I think she's telling me to enjoy my family while I can…" The words sounded silly and kind of unexpected to Kratos even when he just muttered them to the cat lying on his feet. Shaking his head in amusement, Kratos closed the book, set it down, and gave himself to a petunia scented sleep.

Sari: I see no slapstick humor...