Believe it or not, I managed to fit the major plot of the story into one chapter. Hope it's worth it.


At least it's going better than the fake spa trip.

This is what Adam had to keep reminding himself. In hindsight, taking a baby to a busy mall may not have been the wisest of decisions. Still, the brothers had accomplished what they set out to do in the first place. Go to B. Dalton to get some books. That was it; that was the objective. That should have been enough. So how did Adam let Barry convince him to go to Sam Goody? Sure, Adam would be lying if he said he didn't like that store either. B. Dalton, Sam Goody; books, music. That's plenty.

"We gotta stop at Spencer's to see my boy!" Barry had protested.

So they did. They also picked up a couple cheap things at the novelty store. All the while watching out for a three-month-old.

"Barry," Adam had to pause to adjust the many bags he was carrying in comparison to Barry's few—though Barry was carrying their niece, "I really think this is enough."

"We did get a lot of stuff," Barry agreed. "Maybe you're right; I think we're done shopping."

"Thank you."

"So let's visit the food court before we hit up the arcade." Adam couldn't help but growl in frustration. "What? Like you're not hungry too?"

Okay, admittedly he was hungry. Adam would have regretted not eating some of that pie, but then he remembered that he (like his father) was allergic to kiwi.

When they made it to the food court, Barry set Poppy down on the table as if he was claiming it. "Seeing as someone needs to look after our niece and she obviously doesn't like you, I nominate you to get us food. Please note that I'm craving chili cheese fries."

"Fine," Adam begrudgingly did as requested. "Here are you fries," he stated upon return.

"Great!" Barry shoved a handful in his mouth.

"I guess I'll hand you one of her bottles so Poppy can have lunch."

"Milk from Erica's boobs does not count as a lunch."

"While that is true, please never speak of our sister's boobs."

"I suppose breastmilk works for a drink, but not food," Barry broke off a piece of his fry. "Poppy, you hungry?"

"Barry, I don't think you can give a baby a fry."

"Why not? It's soft enough." He fed her the piece of fry. "There you go. Besides who doesn't love fries? They're like-" Barry was cut off by Poppy letting out a small whine. He (and Adam) then watched as she spat up all over herself, which made her start to cry. "Oh, Poppy, shh, it's okay."

"No it's not!" Adam argued. "We only brought a change of diapers, not clothes."

"I can fix that," Barry quickly rose from his seat. "There's a shop for baby stuff not too far from here. I'll get a cheap outfit and be right back," off he ran.

"Barry! Barry, you can't leave me alone with her!" When Poppy's crying got louder, Adam looked to her. "Hey, Poppy." He started to rock the carrier, but that didn't seem to help. "Motion probably doesn't help after throwing up," he dug through one of the bags. "Look what I got!" he waved her favorite toy in her face. "Floppy Bunny!" Adam made it seem like the stuff rabbit was waving to her, and he then altered his voice to get into character. "Hi, Poppy; I'm Floppy Bunny. Please stop crying," while she didn't necessarily stop crying, there was a noticeable decrease of it. "Your Uncle Adam just wants to help. He really loves you and wants to be a good uncle." Adam then moved the toy around as if it was dancing. "Happy Dance!" He accidentally got a little carried away and dropped the toy. This got the crying back up. "Sorry!" After bending to retrieve the rabbit, Adam accidentally bumped his head as he came back up. "SON OF A BITCH!" he couldn't help but say as he rubbed his head. "Sorry, Poppy: Uncle Adam didn't mean to say bitch! Dammit, I said 'bitch' again! Shit! I mean...crap? Is that better? Oh balls, your first word is gonna be a bad one."

"I'm here!" Barry announced when he stopped to catch his breath.

"Thank God you're back," Adam put Floppy Bunny in his satchel. "Did you get a new outfit?"

"I got the cheapest one they had, but that's not saying much." Barry took an upset Poppy from her carrier, and immediately, she calmed down in his hold. "I know this pretty much confirms my 'Poppy loves me more' theory—and I will rub this in later—but I really wish she liked you during the disgusting times." He carried her off to the nearest bathroom.

"I guess she really does love Barry more," a dejected looking Adam sat there as he waited for them to get back.

After a few minutes, Barry returned with a newly attired Poppy. "Look who's all clean and ready to-" he noticed his little brother, "-you alright, Ad-Rock?"

"You were right, Barry: my niece hates me."

"Adam-"

"Although she does tolerate me when I have things to block her view of my face like a camera or a stupid toy." He watched Poppy let out a yawn. "And when she's not upset at me for no reason, I bore her!"

Barry placed Poppy back in her carrier before taking a seat across from Adam. "You still believe everything I said about her hating you?"

"Nothing I've said or done has proven otherwise."

"I don't really mean that. I'm just having fun at your expense. Just spend a little more time with her and Poppy will come to love you as much as I do. True, I may still be her favorite uncle," Adam rolled his eyes at that, "but she does love you. She just needs time to realize it."

"You think so?"

"I know so."

"Bare, do you think we can go home now? I'm getting kinda tired and there are some things I gotta do."

"Sure," he helped his brother collect some bags and they said nothing more as they went to the car. "If we run out of room in the trunk, you can load our bags on the driver's side. Poppy's carrier/car seat thing goes on the passenger side though. Think you can help get it set up?"

"If she doesn't scream at me, sure." Adam set his stuff down to get the carrier, but didn't see it. Trying to keep cool, he searched the perimeter of the car. Nothing. "Uh, Barry…I don't know how to ask you this."

"Ask me what?"

"Where's Poppy?"

"The hell kind of question is that? She's right here." Barry turned to where he intended to prove he was right, but he was soon proven wrong. "Where's Poppy?"

"Oh, balls! Balls! Balls! Balls! Balls! BALLS!"

"I know this doesn't look good, but it's not all bad."

"Not all bad? What the Hell, Barry?! WE LOST A BABY!"

"Yes, but at least we know where we lost her! We just went to one place."

"With several other little places in it!"

"And the last place we were in was the food court. We must have left her behind trying to get our other bags. We didn't leave that long ago; she still could be there. Just stay calm."

"Stay calm?! We lost our infant niece. If Erica finds out about this, there's no telling what she'll do to us! It'd be worse than whatever our parents do."

"Whatever it is, they'll all be tame compared to what Geoff would do."

"Why did you say that?"

"Adam, there is a reason the JTP calls him Madman Schwartz."

"He didn't get mad after you accidentally stranded me and Erica in the middle of nowhere when she went into labor."

"Me helping safely deliver his daughter balanced that out. He also overlooked you not stopping me from going in the first place because you were the one who got in contact with him thanks to your stupid nerd stuff."

"I also filmed the birth."

"But he made it in time, so that counts for nothing. There's nothing we can do this time to stop him from going into Madman Mode if he found out we lost his daughter. That's why we need to stop doing what we're doing and go back and get her."

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea," Adam and Barry hurried back into the mall. Upon returning to the food court, they discovered the carrier—and baby inside of it—was not there. "Oh, this isn't good."

Barry stood on the table and cupped his hands around his mouth. "ATTENTION MALL PATRONS!"

"Barry, please don't-"

"HAS ANYONE SEEN AN ACCIDENTALLY LEFT BEHIND BABY?"

"Hey!" a security guard called for attention. "Can you not do that?"

"Officer," Barry jumped down. "Can you help us? We accidentally left our niece behind and-"

"Yeah, we got her."

"Oh, thank God."

"Follow me," the Brothers Goldberg did as instructed. "I'm gonna take you where we bring lost children. Your niece is bound to be one of the two in there."

"One of the two?"

"It's not like people haven't lost babies in a mall before," he unlocked the door and gestured for them to go inside. Barry and Adam hurried over to where two babies in carriers were waiting.

"Uh, Barry…" once again, Adam wasn't sure how to ask what he had to ask, "…which baby is our baby?"

Both of the babies were both resting in similar looking carriers. And while their pink hats were different in shade, their outfits were very much identical.

Barry pointed to the baby on the right. "I'm sure this is the right baby."

"Oh, good."

He then pointed to the baby on the left, "And that's the left baby."

"Dammit, Barry!"

"ALL BABIES LOOK THE SAME TO ME!"

"Do you remember what the carrier looks like? I mean we barely took her out of that thing, surely something about that would stand out."

"The carriers look the same to me too! Should I start wearing my glasses again?"

"Yes, but I don't blame you for not paying attention to carrier details. I do blame you for buying the cheapest outfit at the store that appears to be popular on other accidentally abandoned babies!"

"I have an idea! Go stand closer to them. Whichever one is Poppy-"

"-will scream bloody murder! Yes, of course!" Adam approached the babies. The only response he got was blank stares. "This would be welcoming under different circumstances."

"You're near both of these babies and neither of them are crying? Poppy chooses NOW not to cry?!"

"She's a baby, Barry. It's not like she's doing this on purpose!"

"What if she is? What if our sister passed on her manipulation tactics and mind game playing abilities to her child?"

"Oh balls, is that possible?!"

"What do we do now?"

"I may have an idea!" Adam reached into his satchel and pulled out, "Floppy Bunny!" He got into character again. "Hi…babies. I'm gonna do my happy dance now and hope that Poppy responds." And while Poppy did respond with a happy coo and a smile, so did the other baby. "That essentially did nothing," Adam tossed the bunny aside.

"Well Adam, looks like we're gonna have to make a real life Sophie's Choice."

"Um, Barry, do you actually know what Sophie's Choice was?"

"Hang on: I've got one more idea I think is gonna work," Barry took the bright pink hat off the left baby.

"What are you doing?"

"Trust me," he then took the darker pink hat off of the other baby. "Yep," he picked up the baby on the right. "Now I'm sure this is the right baby."

Adam quirked a brow to him. "Really?"

"Really."

"How do you know?"

"If you know the Schwartz family as well as I do and as long as I have, you can recognize a Schwartz Curl. While I hope it grows out more like her Aunt Joanne's curls, the little ones she's sprouted are similar to what her father had in his younger days before his hair straightened out. Check it," he twirled a piece of Poppy's hair in his hand, "this is a Schwartz curl. Ergo, this is a Schwartz baby."

"Oh, thank God," as if an instinct took over, Adam took his niece from his brother and held her close, smoothing her back in a comforting manner. "It's okay, Poppy, we got you." After Adam kissed the top of her head, he noticed she relaxed more into his hold. "Hey! Hey, she's not crying!"

"Because she loves her Uncle Adam."

Adam looked down at his niece. "You love your Uncle Adam?" Poppy gave out some sort of verbal coo as a verbal cue. "I'll take that as a yes." She then started making bubbles from her spit. "Aww, Uncle Adam loves you too."

"And Uncle Adam will never speak of what happened today."

"Excuse me," a male voice spoke before pushing past them and picking up the other baby. "There's my Jamie!" the man then turned to Barry. "May I have my son's hat back please?"

Barry held up the bright pink hat. "Wait, that baby was a boy the whole time?"

"We accidentally put his white hat with some red clothes! Why do people get so pissy because a boy wears a pink hat? It's not a big deal!"

"But he's also wearing a girls' outfit."

The man looked over the outfit. "This ugly outfit? It was cheap and it was unisex; and that's good enough for me." He snatched the hat from Barry. "And I don't think you're in a position to judge if that's your baby in the lost and found."

"Ha! Then I can be judgy because that's not my baby; it's just my niece."

The man gave an incredulous look towards Adam. In response, Adam held up one hand in defense and said, "I'm just glad none of those babies screamed at me."


Kind of a call back to the first fic in the series with Chapter 6 titled "Stop Doing What You're Doing".

We may have gotten the main plot out of the way, but there are still two chapters to go.