Chapter 17


"Oh my god, this is painful. Just honk the horn." Burk said as he sat in the backseat of the SUV with Alisha. Somehow, Miller won shotgun except he and Green were holding up the trip by staring all cow eyes at their women. Something Burk was envious of as it made him wish he had that. But he did not understand Larrin and Miller. Miller was a nice kid but Larrin was like a ten on the scale of hot and while Miller was like a borderline four.

"Let them suffer through it." Wolf said as he sat in the driver's seat looking at his sister and Miller dance awkwardly around one another. He was half tempted to tell Miller to kiss her and be done with it but then Larrin was his sister and that was a line he didn't want to cross.

"What did they do last night?" Alisha asked in a low voice as they just heard Larrin tell Miller she had 'fun'. Wolf chuckled as Alisha and Burk obviously believed the two had sex given how the two were blushing and being just like puppies again.

"It's not what you're thinking. Miller is still our baby boy." Wolf told her.

"Hey! Come on Miller and Green. Daylight's wasting." Burk said as he tapped the side of his door with his hand getting their attention. Danny kissed Kara one last time and walked towards the car as Larrin pressed a kiss to Miller's cheek and wished him luck. As soon as Miller's back was turned Larrin looked at Burk and flipped him the bird.

"I love your sister." Alisha said with chuckle as Burk gave a 'what the hell?' gesture as he didn't think he did anything wrong.

"You want a crack at her too? Go for it." Wolf said as Miller and Danny got into the car. "Seat belt kids." Wolf added, he counted the tell tale clicks and looked at the back at Burk who ended up squished in the middle seat between Alisha and Danny.

"Dude, I'm not touching Green's ass." Burk told him.

"I'm not having you fly out this very nice front windscreen. I'm sure Kara will understand you sexually assaulted her boyfriend in the name of car safety. So either buckle up or get out." Wolf said, Burk glowered and moved to his seat belt to put it on.

"Dude, a little more to left and scra-ow!" Danny said as he'd moved his ass up to give Burk access to click in his seatbelt. But he'd also been mocking him by shaking his ass just a little only to have Burk pinch him hard.

"Oh yeah, just remember you asked for it." Burk told him.


An hour later,

Halsey had stayed on the front porch, he was waiting for Danny to come back. Larrin, Tex, Kara, and Kat who'd woken up and just finished breakfast all stood in the front hallway of Kara's house looking at the damage. Sure there was ripped wall paper from where the lizards had been extracted but that was the damage under evaluation. Larrin stood in front of them watching on as she tugged on the sleeve of her new chambray shirt waiting for some kind of explosion. If it was her Mum or Dad they would have hit the roof by now.

"Geezus, you said 'fairly bad'. I'd hate to know what 'bad' would look like." Tex said as he spoke first out of Kara and him. Kat was there as more of an observer than judge and jury. She hadn't actually been in the house as was just curious to be involved.

"If the house caved in. It's just a tiny hole -" Larrin started as if saying so would diminish the damage as there was a small hole where the plaster had ripped off the wall with the lizard but apparently the opposite wall they'd all presumed was brick was actually thin sheeting of old drywall which hadn't liked the combined weight of Larrin and Miller as it had a large man sized hole in it. The only upside was that they could rule out asbestos and they now knew the house wasn't insulated and the 70's makeover had been down in the past few years as the wiring was all recent not just the fuse box.

"And what do you call that hole?" Tex asked Larrin as he pointed to the man sized hole to his left. He spoke in a way that said he wasn't angry but trying to not laugh as Kara was looking a little flabbergasted by it all.

"Well, Miller was holding me up while I was yanking this ornery lizard off the wall. I think I should start from the beginning." Larrin started, Kara had to cover her smile with her hand as she just got a mental image of how it would look. Tex looked at Larrin not sure of what to say yet but was willing to hear her out.

So Larrin painted them the events of last night. That she came up with the idea and they'd come over to the house and proceeded pulling all the loose lizards off first and how they took them over to Tex's only realise they needed more lizards to finish the job. So after a couple minutes of her waffling. She threw in erratic hand gestures and facial expression that just emphasized her story to the point Tex and Kara were really struggling to not laugh. Finally, Larrin got to the part they'd been waiting for when she'd been pulling on the 'ornery' Lizard very hard and when it finally snapped off the wall; the force of doing so threw her and Miller off balance where they crashed into the opposite side of the hallway breaking through the drywall exterior. She told them of how they were totally fine and tried to fix the wall but didn't know how.

It painted a brilliant mini movie in their heads as Kara and Tex knew Miller so well that they knew how he would have acted. He would have been a blushing and bumbling fool as he helped Larrin to her feet. Judging by the blush on her cheeks there was probably a moment where he tried to brush the dust off her and ended up inappropriately touching her with them both blushing and getting awkward before they turned their attention to the wall. The reason they knew it was like that was Miller was too polite to even try use the accident as an opportunity to kiss Larrin.

After she finished telling it; she looked to Tex and Kara who was just bewildered as they weren't sure how to take it. After a few moments of digesting the events of last night, Tex stroked his beard in a thoughtful moment before he spoke. Kara's eyes were wide as and her lips pressed into a fine line as she really didn't want to laugh as she refused to be the first one to break between her and Tex.

"You know what? If it weren't you and Miller. I would never believe that story." Tex said with a smile as it was crazy but also cause he really felt he needed to have a sit down with Miller and tell him how to woo a woman.

"Why not?" Larrin asked with a frown not understanding as she figured she'd be in big trouble but Kara and Tex just looked amused. Kat just looked bemused by it all but then the humour was a little lost on her as she didn't know Miller or Larrin well enough to find it hilarious.

"Are you two ok after all that?" Kara asked as she coughed trying to keep from laughing. The need to laugh was dying even if the humour of it hadn't dissipated.

"Yeah just a minor scrape and some bruises. I'm really sorry about the wall." Larrin said sincerely because she did feel bad about it even if she enjoyed the hell out of Miller's company and their lizard adventures. It was just fun to be so carefree again.

"Don't worry about it." Kara told her as she looked at the damaged wall. She didn't care, while it did add extra work. It wasn't like it Larrin and Miller were malicious in making it happen. It was just an accident.

"Ok, so what are we going to do about the damage?" Larrin asked.

"We can replace the wall with drywall again or knock right through. There looks to be no structural damage but I'm no expert." Tex said to Kara as he inspected the wall and gingerly pushed at the edges of broken panel that remained in place.

"If we knock it through, what will we do with the wiring?" Kara asked Tex.

"Move it or find a way of covering it that's a little more aesthetically pleasing. Though it begs the question of how many of these walls are hollow." Tex said as he just assumed it was all bricks. It wasn't like he and Danny went around tapping them all as they'd been looking purely at the surface of the house.

"You think I could have open plan like yours?" Kara asked feeling a little bit hopeful. She'd be happy with anything that looked to opposite to the original house they were in. But she couldn't help but hope that maybe more could be done to redeem the house.

She looked to Tex who was thinking it over for her. She was grateful he knew more than she did. Her knowledge were the basics of turning off an overflowing toilet, water systems, how to change a light bulb and to check the fuse box when the power went out. As far as tearing a house about and messing with it's interiors; that was a little too outside her wheel house.

"Maybe, but I'd recommend getting the plans for the house and talking to a structural engineer and an will of course cost money." Tex told her.

"To be expected. Once the banks are working, Danny and I will have bay pay owed to us. I'll ask around maybe see if someone on the ship will do it for a free meal and a beer." Kara said with a shrug as they were like a family on the ship. She knew if any of the crew came to her for help she'd give it and vice versa. It was just how it worked.

"Ok, well until then we can keep stripping out the carpets and melting the wall paper off. Strip it back to the basics and see what we got to work with." Tex said to Kara making plans for the renovation.

"Alright, I'll see what I can bring to the table to help." Kara said as she knew she could requisition any tools they needed from Air base that was currently inactive. She needed to feel useful in her own house's renovation. Tex gave her a smile.

"Well, I think I'd feel better if you took care of yourself and the baby first. Then the meals and my house in trade for me slogging over here." Tex said in a hopeful tone to Kara. He figured it was better to let someone who knew how to cook actually do so then him making a mess of it.

"I'll help with house too." Larrin said to them, it wasn't like she had anything better to do.

Tex shook his head as he knew Larrin to a smart woman and he wasn't going to let her hide in Kara and Danny's house. Her smarts would be needed in the future.

"I want you to find a part time job that uses that brain of yours." Tex told Larrin. She made a face at him not liking the idea of it. Tex looked to Kat.

"You are going to go back to school." he told his daughter, in that moment he felt like he'd just adopted Larrin. Kat gave a shrug not even fighting his decision but then she was probably banking on there not being any functioning schools to go to.

"I broke the wall." Larrin reminded him as she remember Milowsky's dismissal of her and realised she was not going to end up with a job as great as the one Rachel had offered her.

"Yeah, I know but you can't waste your brilliance. Dr Scott wouldn't have wanted that and I think you need to at least try and make the most of it. This world needs more scientists than dumb grunts like me. Ok?" he asked her.

"Ok, but the world needs the dumb grunts because they know how to fix things us smart asses can't." Larrin argued.