Doug woke up under Valentine's bed. It took him a moment to remember what had happened the previous night. He had comforted Valentine until she had fallen asleep. Then anxiety had taken over so he had crawled under her bed for his own comfort.

Like some kind of animal, he thought.

He pulled himself out from under the bed and saw that Valentine was still sleeping. The blanket was pulled down to her waist and her pillow was being held loosely in her arms. Doug smiled at this scene. She seemed to be sleeping peacefully, and he didn't want to wake her up so he quietly left her room, shutting the door behind him.

Just as he started toward the restroom, he was slammed against the wall with a blade held at his throat. Spencer was glaring at him with dark eyes.

"What did you do to my sister?" he demanded in a cold tone.

"W-What?" Doug stammered. "I-I didn't do anything! I swear! I was only comforting her!"

"You didn't touch her?" Spencer continued to interrogate. "Tell me the truth or I'll make this worse for you."

"I-I-I swear!" Doug said. "Honestly, Spencer! I-I love your sister!"

Spencer looked at him with surprise. "You do?" he asked. "Really?"

"Y-Yes! Now could you please put your knife away?"

Spencer withdrew his switchblade and put it into his pocket. "Well, that changes things," Spencer said. "Sorry about that. I had to be sure."

"I-I'm, uh…Can I go to the bathroom now?" Doug asked nervously.

"Oh, of course!" Spencer said with an embarrassed smile. "Yeah, go ahead."

Doug hurried to the bathroom, did his business, and stayed in there until his heart stopped racing. Then he went into the living room where Spencer sat drinking coffee.

"Sorry again about holding a knife to your throat," Spencer said.

"You wouldn't actually kill me, would you?" Doug asked, sitting down in Valentine's chair.

"Probably not."

Doug looked around. "Where are Wheatley and Marie?"

"I sent them out to have breakfast," Spencer said. "I didn't want Marie around for when I had to rough you up."

"Oh."

"So you really think you're in love with my sister?" Spencer asked.

"Uh, yeah," Doug said. "I-I think so. I'm still sorting everything out in my head."

"Just don't lead her on," Spencer warned. "She's already had her heart broken once. Did she tell you what happened to Marie's dad?" He didn't give Doug time to answer. "He left her to join the Combine soldiers when he found out she was pregnant."

"I….I would never do that to Valentine," Doug vowed.

"Yeah, you better not. You hungry?"

"Not really."

"You do realize that it's almost 10:30, right?"

"What?!" Doug exclaimed. "Crap! That doesn't give me a whole lot of time!"

"Until what?" Spencer asked.

"I'm having lunch with my dad at noon," Doug explained.

"Your dad? So you came across him recently?"

"Yeah. He wants to have lunch today to catch up."

"It doesn't sound like you want to," Spencer pointed out.

Doug grimaced slightly. "I have nothing against my dad," he said. "I just don't want to see my mom."

"Why is that?"

Doug didn't respond.

"Was she abusive?"

"I wouldn't say that exactly," he said. "She just did things that I didn't like."

"Touchy subject?" Spencer asked.

"Yeah."

"Then I'll shut up."

"She used to shoot up a lot," Doug blurted. "Heroine. Sometimes I thought she was dead because she was so unresponsive. It scared me seeing that needle go into her arm and push a liquid into her veins."

"You know, Uncle Phil use to do that, too," Spencer said. "He still does from time to time but not nearly as often as before."

"He does?" Doug asked, shocked. "I never would have guessed." Doug couldn't recall a single time that Phil had acted as strangely as his mother would.

"He had learned to hide it when he was at work," Spencer explained. "He had worked too hard to open the place, and he didn't want to have to choose between the restaurant and his addiction. It was pretty embarrassing during family get-togethers like for Christmas or Thanksgiving."

"That's how I felt with my mom," Doug said. "But….You and Valentine seem to get along with your uncle so well."

"Well, when we were kids, we tried to avoid him as much as we could," Spencer said. "We would tell our dad that Uncle Phil was too embarrassing to be around and that he freaked us out."

"But you and Valentine seemed to get along with him just fine at the diner," Doug pointed out.

"He's still family," Spencer said. "After the invasion and when our dad didn't come home, we realized how much we needed each other as a family. People were being executed left and right for the pettiest of crimes, and we didn't want our uncle to die thinking that we didn't like him."

Their conversation ceased as Wheatley could be heard in the hallway with Marie.

"If dragons existed then where are they now?" Wheatley demanded.

"The knights in the mid-evil times killed a lot of them," Marie said. "The others are hiding. Duh!"

"Mid-evil times?" Wheatley asked. "What, as opposed to the low-evil times? You said it wrong. It's medieval."

"Well, you're a jerk!"

"No, you're a jerk!"

The door opened and in they came. Marie was holding a stuffed dragon that had a lopsided face and long, floppy wings.

"Look!" she said, running over to Spencer and climbing onto his lap. "Look what great-Uncle Phil made for me! It's a dragon!"

"Ooh!" Spencer said. "He made that for you! It looks great!"

"You're kidding, right?" Wheatley scoffed. "I could make a better toy than that!"

"Prove it," Spencer said with a smirk.

Doug pushed away his anxiety before asking Marie, "Uh, w-what's the dragon's name?" He wasn't used to talking to children, but he wanted to be able to get along with Marie for Valentine's sake.

"I named him Killgore!" Marie declared excitedly. "He's the strongest dragon ever!"

"Killgore?" Doug asked, smiling. "Where did you get that name?"

"I dunno," Marie said. "Mommy was talking about someone in a book named Kilgore Trout. I think it's a cool name for a dragon cuz it has the words 'kill' and 'gore' cuz dragons like to kill stuff."

"Why can't he be a nice dragon?" Wheatley asked. "Why does he have to be evil?"

"I already have a nice dragon," Marie explained. "Her name is Samus." She suddenly looked around curiously. "Hey, where's Mommy?"

"She's still in bed," Spencer said. "Mommy's sleepy."

Marie looked Doug in the eye. "Did you make my mommy feel better?"

"Yeah," Doug said. "She's feeling much better now. She was just a little sad last night."

"Can I go in her bedroom?" Marie asked.

"Probably not," Spencer answered for Doug. "Let's let her rest for now."

"But whyyyy?"

"Because I said so. Come on, let's read a book."

"I wanna read Goosebumps!" Marie said excitedly.

"Which one?" Spencer asked.

"Monster Blood! I wanna read Monster Blood!"

"Well, let's go get it," Spencer said, heading for her bedroom.

"No! I wanna get it!" Marie ran ahead of him and loudly rummaged around in her closet.

"Keep your voice down, Marie," Spencer said. "You don't want to wake Mommy, do you?"

"I'm sorry," Doug heard Marie say in a very sincere voice.

"So how was breakfast?" Doug asked Wheatley.

"God almighty! That little girl can eat a lot!" Wheatley said in a low voice. "We only got here so late because she kept asking for more cottage cheese! By the way, what is the deal with that stuff? It looks so odd and chunky. Nothing appealing about it whatsoever."

"Did you try it?" Doug asked.

"Didn't you hear me?" Wheatley said incredulously. "Doug, it looked disgusting! Why in the world would I want to put it in my mouth?!"

Doug shrugged and tried to conceal a smirk. Wheatley was such a child.