AN: Brief mention of the fact that Elizabeth does not attend church. In case someone is sensitive to that kind of thing.

Questions! :)

AHA was down. It's up again now.

Bennets arrived and they will definitely play a significant role in this chapter.

Some people can read 300k words and not notice they were reading a family/romance thing.

Thank you, dears :)

####

"Elizabeth! I simply can't stand this any longer, I saw it yesterday, but I just couldn't ask when he was standing there and looming over us! What has that man done to you!?"

Lizzy looked up from over her coffee, watching in confusion as her mother trotted around the table and started prodding at her bandaged hand.

"Stop it! That hurts... Mother, what on Earth are you about? Please pour yourself some coffee and sit down... Mother!"

"Have you had this seen by a doctor? I mean, I suppose you wouldn't, that always happens, but you have to! The police...!"

"Lizbeth, what is that...? Oh..." Richard stopped in the doorway, surveying the unusual tableau.

"Oh, but this is terrible!"

"Mother, sit down. What the hell do you mean?!"

Elizabeth, in short, felt like crying. A good, proper crying spell would probably do her a world of good. She was tired. The competition had left her drained, she had been focusing on the girls so much. The painkillers made her drowsy. She couldn't even dress herself without William's help. She had to walk everywhere in stupid slippers or ballet flats. She couldn't type, because left-handed typing sucked when one was deeply conditioned to use all their ten fingers and to touch-type. There were no crafts that she could do with only one hand and no kitchen tasks either. And if someone told her once again that she should relax and read a book, she would slap them with the full collected works of sir Arthur Conan-Doyle. In hardback. She knew William had at least two of these, one in the "old collection" and one in the "for reading" part of the library.

Or, if she felt particularly angry, she could use the collected works of H.P. Lovecraft. That one was a shade lighter, being a paperback, but it did have a nicely done embossed and gilded Cthulhu depiction on the cover.

She removed her injured hand from her mother's grasp and replaced it in the sling.

"I slipped after the concert last week," her explanation was as calm as she could make it. "Sprained my wrist. It had been seen by a doctor, yes, and I am supposed to keep this clean and safe and in this support sling. So please stop poking at it."

"Oh, so this is the story?" her mother shook her head. "Lizzy, darling, you have to leave him now if that is what he does to you!"

"Mother! Will you stop this!?"

"Mom?"

"Rose, go to your room, please," she managed to utter. "Richard, take her... make sure no kids come in. And keep William away."

"Will do. But..."

She took a shuddering breath and looked at him pleadingly.

"Just do that? For me?"

The door closed somewhere and she heard Rose's inquiry from behind the thick wood.

"Good, now, tell me what happened? Why... I know he would be bad for you. He was always so... so dark and angry!" her mother was immediately by her side and visibly straining to touch the cast. Elizabeth looked at the older woman mutely.

This was the person who had created her and carried her for months.

Laboured for hours to bring her to this world.

Cared for her when she was tiny.

Dressed her, fed her and probably did other required things.

The same woman who never expressed a shred of trust in Elizabeth's ability to manage her own life.

But never had Elizabeth felt as remote from her as at that very moment. It sounded as if they were speaking two different languages.

"Mother, William doesn't hit me. How could you even think that? Does father hit you?"

"N-no, never! You know your father!"

"Well, apparently not as well as I thought I did, because something made you think William would have hit me. Why then?"

"He is so... tall. And he looks like..." her mother shook her head. "And you look like..."

"Can you please finish the sentence?" Elizabeth moaned as she repositioned the sling. "And no," she leaned back when her mother reached out. "Don't touch me. I know very well that you don't really care for my well-being. You just want me back under your control, because where would I go if I had to leave William? Don't pretend you are really worried. And don't touch my hand!"

"Elizabeth!"

Her mother recoiled at the call and the bang of wood on plaster when the large door was opened and William pushed his way past Richard bodily, removing the soldier's hold on him as if it was a friendly hug. He was by her in a few strides and interposed himself between her and her mother.

"William, I asked Richard to keep you out for a reason," she looked up, into the crystalline eyes that were now narrowed in annoyance. "I need to resolve this... this thing by myself."

"Rose came to fetch me," he said softly, bringing her closer. "She said she was afraid you were going to murder your mother with the tea set. I rather like that tea set so I thought I should come here and stop you."

"William!"

"Sh," he turned her face up and kissed her, in a way more applicable in a bedroom than in the dining room... especially in front of her parents, yeah, because now father decided to join the fray.

"Wil..."

He pressed one more, close-mouther kiss to her lips.

"Will you be fine?" he asked, ignoring his (unknowing) parents-in-law.

"Yes, William," she whispered against his lips. "Now, let me deal with them? Keep the kids away from that... it was wrong of me to involve them before, I think. I have to correct this, now."

He rubbed her nose with his in a mute negation.

"They have to learn that adults sometimes are stupid, too. Just in case it didn't stick after aunt Catherine," he murmured. "But I will. Just... if you need me, I'm here."

"I'll call."

"M-hm," he kissed her again, quite chastely, and turned to look at her parents. "Everyone who wishes to come to church today is gathering in the hall at half ten."

"But Elizabeth..."

"Mother, I'm sure William has managed to notice my non-attendance in the last few months. Now, can we get back to the topic at hand?" she smiled at her husband, who simply closed the door behind him. She knew he would be just behind that thick piece of wood, ready to come to her assistance...

"And that would be?" her father frowned, looking from her to her mother in annoyance.

"Mother thinks William is beating me up."

"Elizabeth! He could be listening!"

"Seriously though, daughter. If there is an issue between you and... that man..." her father said slowly, even portentously. "We will not be adverse to... having you come back to London. You could live in our house, at least temporarily."

"Wait, wait..." Elizabeth sat heavily at the table and propped her forehead on her hand. "You two honestly believe that William is being violent towards me?"

"We have no reason to suspect otherwise," her father said with a smile that looked about as fake as her mother's sudden interest in her well-being.

"What would you like to see as a proof? There is no way to show it any better than telling you that he had never...!"

"So why did you run away from him? The moment I saw you in our drive all these years ago I thought that this... heartless creature must have hurt you!"

"He was so angry during Jane's wedding and kept looking weirdly at everything and everyone. He ordered the waiter around, was short with your mother and got into an argument with some of my cousins," her father pointed out.

Elizabeth stopped herself from performing the most iconic Captain Jean-Luc Picard facepalm, but it did require some strength of will on her side.

"That was because he asked for replacement dish for me and that cousin insisted on smoking in place where it made the smoke go into the main room," she explained slowly, looking over their heads at one of the portraits of William's ancestors. The man was standing with one hand on his hip and another on some kind of bench and seemed to be watching her inquisitively. What are you doing here? he seemed to be asking. Defending your great-great-something-grandson's honour, you stiff, pompous arse. "Have you ever seen him hit someone? Threaten them? Shout at them?"

"Well... He always looks like he would! And why else would you have came back to London, if..."

"When you appeared with... Mina, I didn't want to ask, but..."

They sounded so reasonable. So... idiotically reasonable.

They were quite convinced as to the correctness of their estimation of William.

Seriously, how did we five manage to grow up to be more or less normal!?

"So, because he acted a bit rudely during the wedding, which was the second time you've seen him in your life, and because he disagreed with you openly about that stupid dish, you've created an image of William being... what, forceful? And when I came back, you thought I've run away from a violent partner, but you've never said anything? You never asked about Rose, even though you knew I had had twins. You didn't really care about her, at any point, did you?"

"Well, it was your decision, I mean..." her father made a squeaky sound.

"And when I decided to move back here, all I heard from you is 'he is not good for you', but nothing specific. You again chose not to say anything. Too lazy? Too cowardly?"

"Elizabeth!"

"Oh, don't 'Elizabeth' me, mother. I'm not sure what you are playing at, but I won't get taken in by your 'concerned parent' mode anymore. Go and be concerned about Lydia, please."

"Please, no," Lydia snorted from the door. "I've heard only half, but do you two really think that Lizzy is a battered woman? Are you serious? This is bullshit. I've heard Rose telling the kids how he carried Lizzy to their car to ride her to A&E. Half of their school saw it."

"Well, they would! That child would say such things - he is the one who brought her up!"

"Oh, God," Elizabeth collapsed on a soft chair by the now-dark fireplace. "No, I've heard enough. I want you to pack," she said finally. "Eat, go upstairs, pack, bring your things downstairs. You can come to the church with us, but you will leave afterwards. No, not you, Lyddie. Just them. Apparently they still can't accept it when I'm telling them how things are and they can't understand that William and I are not something they can pry apart," her mother spluttered and waved her hands wordlessly. "And my children are still some kind of little kobolds to be afraid of, especially Rose. Now, I will let everyone else in so that they eat, because nobody deserves to wait for their breakfast that long just because the family seniors don't have enough brains to share between two persons," her father bristled and made a sound, but she only raised a hand and rolled on, talking over whatever it was that he was trying to say. "You two will keep silent. I don't mean quiet conversation. I don't mean all kinds of supposedly-kind remarks. I mean keeping your mouths occupied with eating and drinking to the exclusion of everything else."

"Elizabeth!"

"I meant it, mother."

#

Breakfast was a strained affair, with the children being very subdued at the 'little table' and grownups eyeing each other uncomfortably at the main one. Only Richard and Evan were bright and happy, seemingly unconscious of Lydia's wide-eyed stare and mother's squint of noncomprehension, pouring each other coffee, toasting a bit of bread, fetching eggs and being in general disgustingly sweet.

Finally, Rose (as the three oldest girls were allowed to sit with their parents), leaned forward and asked Evan something in an undertone and Elizabeth tried virtuously not to ask for them to speak up - it reminded her of aunt Catherine's worst custom of demanding every private conversation to be discussed publicly...

"No, we didn't," Evan answered, a bit more audibly. "I mean, we didn't discuss it with Richard's parents in detail, but it would be on their estate, absolutely. And there is an officiant who lives near Matlock, who is a friend of Richard's brother, so we will try to coordinate with her. Otherwise..." he shrugged. "No details. But..." he glanced at his partner with a small smile. "I think we will be looking for some support in organising it all. A good ringbearer is always needed."

Rose frowned, then sighed "oh" and nodded.

"And if Mina could sing something from one of Richard's favourite musicals...?" Evan winked at Mina, who nodded mutely, her mouth full of scrambled eggs.

"Then we are all agreed," Richard leaned in to kiss Evan's cheek. "We will set it up sometime at the end of school year, but before summer starts in earnest. I don't want to faint in my full uniform again, do I?"

"No, you don't. Even though you would have your handsome husband to catch you by your side then," Evan smiled and kissed him back. "But I still have to make up my mind whether to order a suit or to request approval for using my dress blues."

"Well, that will be rather decorative," William smiled at the duo. "I dearly hope there will be no interesting mishaps during the ceremony."

Jane choked on her tea.

####

Lambton was cold. Not overwhelmingly so, but the wind seemed to behave like a little dog that writhes between humans' legs and bites them at random moments. Rose felt momentary relief at having worn her black trousers, but her sister had decided to put on a dress and was now looking a tiny bit miserable, despite her ankle-high boots.

Once they were all standing in front of the parish church, Mom and Dad had disappeared, leaving them under aunt Mary's care - and their grandparents' watchful eye. Rose led the whole set to the pews on the right, following Dad's instructions, and managed to get the two of them seated as far from the oldest generation as it was physically possible.

That didn't spare them grandma's ramblings. Unfortunately.

"Where is that girl!?" the matriarch turned in her place and surveyed the church anxiously. "She told us all to go inside ahead of time and now she is the one who is going to be late! Jane! Where did Elizabeth go?"

"Mom, please" aunt Kitty leaned on her. "Everyone is looking!"

"But...!"

"You don't have to make that much fuss, my dear," grandfather added absently. "Everyone already knows you are unhappy, no need to bring even more attention to it."

"Mr Bennet!"

"Mom!"

Rose and Mina glanced at each other.

"Because, really! Everyone will see them being late, and they are living in sin!" grandma hissed while aunt Jane covered her face with both hands and groaned. "Everyone will be looking at them as they walk to us! The whole church!"

"MOM."

Thankfully at that point the door on the side opened and the parson came out, smiling. And then he... winked at them?

Rose turned back cautiously to look for her parents, but at that same moment Mom and Dad appeared out of nowhere and sat next to them on little folding chairs taken by Dad from the rack by the wall. They were both smiling. And holding hands. In church.

Grandma was making dying swan sounds.

"Dear friends" the priest tested the microphone and smiled kindly at the congregation. "Before we begin, I have a few announcements. As you all well know, this year our congregation has been collecting money for the benefit of the elderly care unit in our town hospital. I can now happily inform you that the target sum has been reached much ahead of schedule! The money collected will be used to create a better library for the long-term patients, including audiobooks and text readers for these less than perfectly sighted. Our largest donators, as of today, are Mrs and Mr Darcy. Thank you!"

A small murmur of support washed over them.

"Our next collection goal will be much more prosaic, fixing the wall and the fence around the churchyard, especially from the side of the Church Lane, where the stones are loosened and threatening to fall in many places. We will be holding a small auction for that purpose, on the twentieth of January. I will ask you to kindly donate..." he droned on, but Rose became more and more conscious of the murmuring and huffing coming from the general direction of her grandparents.

"Mrs Darcy?" grandma hissed finally. "When did that come about? How can they claim... They didn't get married! I would have known!"

"Not like Lizzy needed your approval or permission," aunt Kitty answered quietly. "She is old enough to do it when and how she wants."

"Kitty!"

Everyone in the little church quieted, looking at the pews taken by their family.

Rose felt she was going to die of sheer embarrassment.

"Is it possible to cringe to death?" her sister whispered at the same second.

"No idea, but I think we are getting to the moment when this hypothesis may be tested."

That test, however, was postponed. Their grandmother, despite her numerous weaknesses, was socially conscious. At least in the meaning of "What will the neighbours say". And here she was, in the middle of a church, far away from home, and everyone was watching her. Even the parson looked at them for a moment in silence and then, as if nothing had happened, continued the mass.

####

The parson - Reverend Andrew Matthews - had been sympathetic to their explanation when she and William first visited him at the beginning of December, and he presented them with a solution.

"We could just have a private ceremony of blessing in the smaller chapel for you," he suggested. "Not like we do a lot of these, mind you, so I would have to read up on it, but it should be pretty straightforward. You are married, according to the law, so the only thing I can do for you now is to cover the more... spiritual side. I know for a fact that William is a mostly-observant Anglican, but what about you?"

"I suppose you could call me a very much lapsed one," Elizabeth shrugged. "This is mostly for William. "

"M-hm. And your girls? They were baptised in this church, that much I know from the books, and I know that Rose attends - as much as William does... What about the second girl? Wilhelmina...? Actually, what were the two of you thinking? It is a gross unfairness to saddle a girl with a name like this! Who thought it up?"

"Actually, it was my idea," Elizabeth admitted.

"I hope you are very sorry for that," the reverend grunted. "Poor kid. Well, never mind. I will make you an offer you cannot refuse. You give me time to check on the procedures, because I really can't recall the last time someone needed that particular service, and I will pencil you in for after the eleven o'clock mass on Christmas Eve."

"You don't usually marry people during Christmas, Andrew," William pointed out with a tone of surprise.

"And people don't usually get married on a Sunday. However, the two of you are already married, you just need a few words from my side. Or would you prefer it to be some Saturday in half a year, because that is the first free slot I think we have... mid-June?"

"We will take it," Elizabeth patted William's hand. "Don't look the gift horse in the mouth, William. You told me that yourself. We will take the Christmas Eve blessing and thank the reverend for such a convenient date."

"Ah, a balm to my ears. Someone to put William in his place, finally. I think, Mrs Darcy, that we will be great friends," he winked.

"Well then, I suppose you can call me Elizabeth," she stood up and extended her hand.

"And you can call me Andrew, like William does," he shook it.

"I used to call you many other things, out there, on the field," William remarked with a grin. "But I will refrain from passing these on to my wife, don't worry."

"I can still beat your sorry..."

"Khm."

"Yes. Very much so. Well then... The twenty-fourth, noon."

"I hope to see at least some of you before that day!"

"I think we can safely promise you that much," William shook his hand. "We will have to come by with the documents anyway, right?"

"That's not what I meant and you know it, William!"

#

Andrew was mercifully succinct in his prayers, probably spurred on by the substantial risk of the mother of the not-really-bride exploding in the back of the chapel. Elizabeth was trying not to hold her breath in fearful anticipation whenever she heard the tiniest rustle from where her parents were sitting and had to forcibly prevent herself from turning to check what they were doing.

William squeezed her hand a few times in the time it took Andrew to go through the ceremony and she felt his supportive warmth reaching out to her every time the noise behind them intensified.

Quite soon they were being congratulated by the reverend and hugged by their daughters, sisters and cousins, while Elizabeth's parents stood by the last pew in the miniature side chapel and looked quite undecided whether to run away screaming or just scream right where they stood. Her mother, specifically, seemed quite furious.

Once they were done and Andrew had bid them all goodbye, Elizabeth turned on her heel and, as quickly as she could, at a brisk walk, she left the chapel, forcing the rest of the family to follow her hastily. William and the girls soon caught up with her and joined her by the Jaguar.

"Grandma and grandpa are leaving now," she informed her daughters tersely. "They behaved... Well, things they said in the morning were way outside of anything I expected."

Rose groaned.

"So why did they come at all? Just to be nasty and see if you call them out on it?"

"No, they..." Elizabeth sighed. "It seems they were assuming some very stupid things about your father all that time, and what happened before breakfast was them giving voice to these assumptions. I tried to correct it and they didn't believe me. End of story."

"So... What now?"

"We say good-bye and they leave. Aunt Lydia and Adele came in their own car and they can stay, but I'm afraid that's it when it comes to your grandparents."

Neither of her daughters seemed very unhappy about that pronouncement.

Everyone else soon joined them and they were now crowding the space in front of their cars on the church parking lot, all relatives watching Elizabeth and William, unsure of what should happen next. The "next" followed speedily, when her parents arrived, slightly short of breath, and her mother started berating her for not having invited them to the wedding and what exactly was she thinking, marrying such a man and what did it mean, register office, this was not a real marriage!

"And this is one of the reasons you are now kindly asked to leave us alone," William stated aloud, amongst his sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, collection of nieces and nephews and his own daughters. Elizabeth leaned into him and closed her eyes. It was supposed to be holidays. Family time. Time of forgiveness. Time of forgetting.

Maybe it would be a good time to finally forget about giving people too many second chances, actually. That would probably be of benefit to all of them - starting with Rose and Mina.

"Just as William said," she pronounced carefully. "Now, we are going back to Pemberley and you two are going back to London. If, at any point of time in the future, you suddenly feel the need to renew the contact, think very carefully about what you said throughout this morning. Think about the accusations you made towards William and... Don't contact us."

"Elizabeth, you can't just..."

"Yes, I can. We can. It is for our own good. We will only maintain relationship with people whose presence in out lives isn't a cause for constant struggle. You do not fit into that category," she took a shuddering breath and squeezed her eyes shut. "I hoped, I really hoped you would be able to accept my life choices. It seems you are not. Why then should I try again...?"

#

The lunch was quiet, oppressively so, even. Finally both of her daughters excused themselves, gathered Adele, Jackie, Bella, Nat, Aggie and Yola and dragged them upstairs, leaving the grownups with the youngest kids. Elizabeth felt like curling up under a blanket in a darkened room, but couldn't manage to pick herself up from the chair, so she sat, a bit hopelessly, staring into the darkening horizon outside.

"Daddy," Evelyn clambered into Charles' lap. "Why did grandma and grandpa go home?"

"Because they behaved badly in the morning, darling."

"But..." the little elf scrunched her nose. "They didn't want to say sorry?"

"No, they were pretty stubborn about not saying sorry," Elizabeth provided quietly.

"But couldn't you just, like, put them in their room for a time out?"

"Well, I suppose I might have tried that, yes," Elizabeth felt William shaking with laughter next to her. "But I don't think they would have stayed put."

"Evelyn, this is like with Bernie from your preschool. Remember Bernie? He used to pull your ponytails. Imagine you invited him to a birthday party..."

"No. I will not invite Bernie to my party!"

"I didn't mean you to really have him over, but just imagine that you invite your whole class and Bernie too. And he promises to stop pulling your hair, but he does it anyway and it hurts a lot. We can't put him in time out, because he will break everything in the room he is kept in. So, I'd say we could tell him to leave with his parents. What would you do with him?"

"Bite him onna leg!" Evelyn had maintained her wide, hopeful smile as she declared that and adults couldn't help but laugh.

#

Sometime during the afternoon the youngest ones started dropping off, so they were gathered for a nap, meanwhile the oldest set, excluding Mina and Rose, took over the bigger table and eagerly set up three separate games. Evan allowed himself to be invited to play Monopoly with Jackie and Kitty's twins while Elizabeth decided to join Adele and Bella at The Kids of Carcassonne. That left Yola with no partner for her deck of Serpentina, but that was soon resolved with her own father coming back once Johnny dozed off.

Several rounds were played in quiet cooperation before Elizabeth thought to ask for the whereabouts of her own children.

"Rose asked us to give them two hours of quiet," Jackie informed them as she rolled her dice. "Sugar. Prison again. I suppose they wanted to deal with some, you know. Preparation."

Ah, well. Probably they were wrapping gifts like crazy. Mina had had time to take care only of the gift for Teddy - poor boy! - so whatever it was that they had gathered as presents for the family was probably being dealt with right now.

They were definitely entitled to these two hours - and the bribe they used to get their cousins to leave them alone was quite smart, too.

"Aunt Lizzy, wake up, your turn," Adele waved her hand in front of Elizabeth's eyes.

And that was the other thing.

Adele.

Behaving like a normal kid. More or less.

She pouted much more than the other oldest three and she did seem a little picky during the breakfast - but so was Yola, Bella and Evelyn, each in her own class - and maybe clinging to Lydia more than Rose and Mina would cling to their parents - but she was in a strange place, so...

And Lydia decided they should stay. As Elizabeth had watched their parents getting into their car - wounded expressions of persecuted innocence and all - she saw Lydia pushing Adele slightly to where the other kids were listening in fascination to Rose telling them about some picnic organised by the parish two years previous.

And they stayed.

Kitty tried to question Lydia's reasons, but only got a slight eyeroll and a mumbled "Would rather stay here, where Adele has someone else to talk to," and Elizabeth told her to lay off. If Lydia wanted to stay, good. That was the whole point of this invitation after all. To make sure they were spending this time with family...

And if it managed to get Lydia to think more about her future, living with their parents or not, all the better.

She even asked her youngest sister if she wasn't afraid of the consequences, but Lydia just shrugged. "They won't throw me out - not with Adele - the neighbourhood would eat them alive. I will patch it with them somehow, more or less," she sighed. "But I'm definitely not going back to London until I need to. Delly will be much better off here. Thank you for inviting us, Lizzy," she added in an undertone. "I mean it."

"Oh-OK. You're welcome to stay until New Year, just like everyone else. We are leaving on New Year Eve, but Jane and Charles will be here until the third or so."

Lydia blinked.

"Where are you going? Don't you need to, like, get the twins to school or something?"

"Lyds, they are fourteen. They walk to the stop in the morning, they catch the school bus and they manage it all quite by themselves. Georgiana will be here to make sure they get out of the door on time, but that's it. They will survive for two weeks without us."

"B-but... Aren't you like, afraid they will get lost?"

She looked at Lydia closer and tried to understand what was worrying her sister.

"Oh. You still go with Adele everywhere, right? Or mother does?"

"Well, yes. Basically. I don't think I will ever be able to just, you know, let her go."

Oh, Lyddie. Lyddie.

"At some point you will have to - and you know it! Maybe... Let's treat this week as training ground, what do you say? There is a forecast of some snow for the next few days, so most of the kids will be outside. Well, all of them, I suppose. So if you've packed some snow overalls for Adele and you can stand not hovering over her for a few hours each day, she may get some taste of self-managing in the company of other kids. You will get some training at letting go in a controlled environment and Adele will get some exercise outside with the kids. Just remember, Mina is a menace with a snowball."

####

Presents wrapped and their special project finished, the twins relaxed on their beds, making use of the temporary freedom from their lovely, lively little cousins. Mina checked her mobile once again, making a face at the screen.

"How is he?"

"Sneezing or sleeping. His mom is terribly unhappy with him for just putting the scarf on without checking. He says he just forgot because the scarf was so fluffy."

"No way."

"What? I saw it, I was there. He totally forgot."

"No, I mean - he used adjective 'fluffy' in a written conversation?"

"Oh, shut up."

"He is probably feverish. But this may be a perfect blackmail material, you know. If he doesn't do something you want, you can threaten to show it to his rugby mates."

Mina pushed herself up on her elbow and looked at Rose with disdain.

"And you claim to be the older one, Rose Darcy."

"What?"

"If I want Teddy to do something, I ask him. If he doesn't want to do something, he says he doesn't. I'm not going to blackmail him into thing, thank you very much."

"You are no fun."

"None at all."

They rested for a moment in silence.

"Rose?"

"Hm?"

"Do you think they will like it?"

"I bet they will. Better yet, they need it."

"Good thing aunt Jane could bring them."

"Good thing you thought of the idea."

"Good thing you asked aunt Mary to buy the book."

"Yep."

A minute passed. Or ten.

"I think we should go downstairs before they start looking for us."

"Definitely. Monopoly?"

"Monopoly."

####

In the middle of the night, two slight figures sneaked out of their room. Bare feet made no noise on the stairs and they uttered no sound as they slithered down the stairs with a bag of tiny rustling packages.

Only the door to the dining room squeaked as they pulled it open, surprising two people already inside.

"Uhm," Mom said as she straightened up from where she had just been kissing Dad, sitting on the carpet by the Christmas tree.

Rose just grunted something about 'grownups' and pulled Mina inside, shutting the door. They quickly deposited their little heap - carefully! - next to the other small hills of packages and several bigger boxes and turned to their parents.

"Just don't try to peek, is it clear?" Rose threatened, while her sister mimed "I'm watching you" at their parents.

####

I suppose I could quote a well-known meme and say "that escalated quickly", but I think it had been brewing for ages.

Next:

Christmas week

The trip

The rest of January

And the Epilogue.

Yep, if everything goes according to my CURRENT plan, 4 more posts and we'll be done.

However! Due to birthday-heavy week in my family and with me expected to bake 2 birthday cakes, I can't promise you anything sooner than than 2 weeks. Unless I catch a cold, of course ;

Comments, of course, welcome. And if you see I've used an Americanism instead of UK phrase, please let me know. I will argue about a lot of stuff, but l will always be happy to accept this kind of correction.