A/N: This is my Christmas present to all the wonderful writers and readers on the CA fandom. It's been finished for a while, but I'd postponed posting it for an occasion. (Plus I'd been contemplating adding another section, but that doesn't really matter.) Anyway, here is the last (I think) one-shot in this collection. It revolves around Auggie's relationship with the twins. They are ten in this section, so Tom is twelve, and Nora has just turned fourteen.

Situational Actions

I am woken by a heavy, mucus-coated, hacking cough and a sharp poke to my shoulder.

"Daddy!"

My eyes are open immediately and I jerk up, my sudden movement sending my beautiful wife—she'd snuggled into my arms after our the-kids-are-finally-asleep-and-its-been-too-long affair at two AM—unceremoniously back against the pillows with a thump and a surprised yelp on her part.

"Whoa," Benjamin, my barely ten year-old son, exclaims.

"What's wrong?" I register somewhere in the middle of my sentence that my tone is hardened. I sound like the soldier who ran into firefights and dragged bodies off the roads. Annie's warm hand on my upper arm tells me she's noticed as well and helps me slow my thumping heart enough for me to repeat the question in a tone befitting a father of four. "What happened?"

Before Benji can answer, another gut-clenching cough thunders down the hall. I put the sound and my son's presence together and stand quickly, ignoring the momentary dizziness that follows.

I don't wait for Benji; the soldier persona has been pushed beside Doctor Dad.

My foot catches on a backpack strap halfway into the twins' room, and my heart leaps back into my throat.

"Sorry," a croaky voice mumbles from the top bunk.

Normally I'd laugh it off or even raise my eyebrow as a scolding, but not this time. I kick the bag away (probably scattering the contents everywhere) and center myself to my son's voice. "Hey Buddy, when'd you start hacking up your lungs?"

The mental image invoked by the phrase is horrible. Last time I ever use that expression.

"Don't know," Jake replies, his voice cracking out.

"He said he had a headache last night." Annie is next to my shoulder. I didn't hear her come in. "I gave him some child aspirin."

"He woke me up about half an hour ago," Benji supplies from the doorway. I turn back to his twin.

I feel for his arm, before holding out my palm for his forehead. Jake complies. His head burns against my hand. Damn. "What else hurts?" I ask, lifting my hand from his face and stepping aside for Annie to do whatever she has been trying to do for the last thirty seconds. I hear her put her brush the boy's wavy bangs out of the way.

"Stomach," Jake mumbles. He sounds nauseous.

I sigh. Hearing someone vomit is perhaps the worst sound in the world. Especially when it's one of your kids.

"I'll go call Dr. Scott."

Another cough covers Annie's exit.

In the resounding silence, I get a horrible feeling. "Benji?"

"I'm picking them up," Benji's voice comes from the general direction of the corner closest to the door, where I kicked the pack.

"How are you feeling?"

"Jake's the one who's sick."

"I know. Come here." Benji shuffles toward me, and I tentatively feel his temperature. Just as I thought.

There are a more than a couple of not-so-great things about being a parent of identical twins, but by far the most stressful is that identical genes means when one twin gets sick, there is virtually no chance the other is immune. Benji might have been exposed later than Jake, but there is no doubt in my mind that he'll be coughing as hard as Jake soon.

I push him gently toward his bed on the bottom. "Back you go, Benny-Boy." Benji protests while Jake mixes a cough and a laugh.

I head carefully—I'm not positive if Benji finished picking up the contents of the backpack—out of the room, stopping at the doorway to listen for Annie's voice. I find her in the kitchen.

I wait for a break in her conversation with Dr. Scott's nurse before saying, "Benji's got it too."

My wife groans. "Of course he does. Did you hear that, Fran?"

I can't make out Fran's response, but she sounds as tired as Annie. Probably just got in when Annie called. What time is it, anyway? As if by magic, my alarm clock starts beeping. Six-fifty, then. I hurry upstairs to turn it off; the stupid thing would drive a Vulcan mad.

I collapse on the bed, face first, the beeping still echoing in my head.

"Dr. Scott can see them at eight." Annie lies down next to me, nuzzling her nose into my neck. God, I love when she does that. I don't have long to enjoy it, however, because she speaks again. "Can you take them?"

I sigh to give myself time. There's nothing really pressing planned at the Agency today (only on TV do we have exciting missions every day), just a budget meeting and routine paperwork and reports, but I don't want to tell Annie that. I really, really hate the doctors'. Unfortunately, I can't fool my brilliant, ex-agent seductress.

She presses a quick kiss to my cheek and pushes off my back. "I'll go make breakfast. You wake up Nora and Tom, if they aren't already."

~OOOOOOO~

"They've got a bug." I automatically put my hand on one of the twins' shoulders so that I can concentrate on telling their mother that they've got a doctor-sanctioned skive for the next two days. "He gave them something for the symptoms," I continue. You'd think after all the medical and technical advancements we've made in this century, we'd have found a cure for the common virus.

I listen to Annie with one ear while paying attention to the boys.

"Do you need me to stay with them?" Annie's voice comes loud and clear. I pause and Benji halts in the middle of a step. I grin while he regains his balance, still speaking (conspicuously in Spanish) around his lollipop to Jake. I turn my attention back to Annie's question.

I really want to tell her that she needs to watch them, but when she came home last night, she was so excited about this new artifact the history department asked her to try to translate. I can't pull her away from that. Not when I can help it. I steel myself. "They know to call me if they need me."

"So that's an 'I can watch them'?"

I nudge Benji forward (it is handy having kids). "Yeah, but I expect—" I stop myself, remembering present company. I switch gears. "I'll call you if they set the house on fire. Love you. Kisses!" I make sure to sound extra flamboyant to tease my boys. I'm not disappointed.

"Dad!" Jake and Benji say in unison. I'm not sure if they actually care or if they're just mimicking their teenage sister, but either way, I can't help but laugh.

I open the back door of the car. I finally caved after the last fiscal year and hired a company—taxis are just too difficult to find and much too expensive nowadays. The boys pile in and I shut the door before going to sit up front.

"Back home, please, Kathy," I greet my CIA-cleared (she had to be, even though she only ever sees the guard gate of Langley—the Agency's paranoid) driver.

"Everyone okay?" Kathy asks, starting the car.

"No school for two days!" Jake exclaims. It never fails to amaze me how much better you feel when you know you can spend the rest of the day in bed—or, in the kids' case, running amok.

"Lucky bugs." Kathy turns the car and my bag slides into the side of the door. I pull it into my lap.

"Nope, Dr. Scott said they'll be dead in twenty-four hours," Benji interjects. I'm not sure if he's trying to make a joke or not, but it's funny anyway.

"So are you going to work today?" Kathy asks me.

I shake my head. "Probably not today, I think."

"I'll stay in the area, then. Just in case."

I smile. She's only been my driver for a few months, but she already reads me like a book. I've decided that reflects positively on her rather than negatively on me.

Kathy drops us at the house.

"Beds or couches?" I ask as I unlock the door.

I feel the twins silently consulting each other before they pass me and their footsteps tell me they've chosen the living room. I put my cane in the dish on the table by the door, pat Havoc—the family lump of a dog who's so old, he camps in the foyer—and follow them.

"So, what do you want to do? Watch something?" I ask.

Jake coughs again, but the medicine Dr. Scott gave him seems to have had some effect, because it's not a throaty cough. I can live with that. "No," he replies after a moment.

The springs of the older (Jake must have claimed the newer while I was greeting Havoc) couch squeak a little as Benji nods in agreement.

"Okay, how about some tea?" Both Annie and I are normally coffee drinkers, but I grew up in a house where tea was essential and all curing. Old habits die hard.

"Let's play The Game!" Jake cries, ignoring my previous question.

"Yeah!" Benji replies, jumping energetically onto his knees.

"I don't know," I say slowly, sitting on the arm of the club seat in the middle of the two couches. "You guys are sick."

"No we're not!" Benji defends, just as Jake says, "So what?"

My lips quirk up at their perfect timing, but I hold my ground. "How will you hold your own?"

"We're not sick," Jake replies.

"We can do it anyway," Benji says at the same time.

I laugh and slide down to sit in the armchair correctly. "Fine, you win. Induction or situation?"

"Situation!" Both say at once.

"Situation, then." I am not surprised. Since Tom and I made up the game after he saw his first Sherlock Holmes film when he was eight, The Game has been a family pastime. It used to be just for building induction skills, but we've since added another section, situation, based on the classic television show MacGyver—the twins' favorite oldie. "Are you two going to work together or alone?"

The twins usually play as a team, especially when the whole family plays. They are almost unbeatable that way. Neither hesitates when they say, "Together."

I rub my chin like the Thinker (what do you know, I missed a spot shaving), contemplating the best setting. "Okay," I draw out the last syllable to add to the suspense. Benji's couch gives another groan as he pushes closer to insure he catches everything. "Train station, nine o'clock in the evening. The station is almost deserted, but the next train arrives in three minutes. You have to open a locker without any one giving you a second glance."

"What's in the locker?" Benji asks.

"Not relevant," I answer after a moment of thought.

"How old is the building?"

Jake's question surprises me. "Does it matter?" I ask.

"Mom always says arci—" Benji stumbles over the word, but I'm not fast enough with the correction, so he skips it. "Changes the way things are done."

"And everyone knows how the thing is laid out changes how you're supposed to act," Jake adds. They've melded into their talking-over-each-other habit that used to drive Nanny-Stein crazy.

I nod my head in understanding. "Okay, you win. The station's like the ones your mother and I would have seen when we were your age."

"What's that mean?" Jake asks.

I grin again. Sometimes I forget just how much technology has changed. "Actual key locks, like the ones we had in the old house, remember?"

"The ones that Nora taught us how to pick?"

"Nora taught you how to pick locks?" I don't bother to hide my surprise this time. I didn't even know Nora knew how to pick locks.

"Shhh! We weren't supposed to tell them!" Benji scolds Jake in a half-whisper.

My grin is wide as I say, "Yeah, that kind of lock." I lean back into my comfortable chair. "Have you got enough to go on, yet?"

There's a long pause during which, I assume, my sons are sharing looks. "What is around us?"

My smile turns sly and I lower my voice conspiratorially. "There's a night guard at the information desk around the corner from the locker room."

"Why?"

"Nope, that's all I'm going to say. It's up to you two now." I push myself out of the cushions. "While you guys think about how you're going to get the locker open, I'll be in the kitchen making lunch. Find me when you think you've got it."

~OOOOOOO~

I am just about to pour the chicken soup into bowls when I hear the twins coming to a conclusion. I've been listening to them debate for the last twenty minutes; it's always entertaining to hear their theories. I get the bowls and prepare for their entrance.

"We'd steal the guard's gun," Benji begins.

"—By doing that move Mom used on you that one time," Jake interjects. I blush. Annie and I had been sparring, as we often do (got to keep the romance alive somehow, right?) in the basement that we had converted into a gym, when she'd gotten in a (lucky) shot to a pressure point and stunned me for a good couple of minutes. We'd thought we were alone—we usually exercise together early, before the kids get up—but apparently not. God, I hope they hadn't been watching the whole time…

I force myself back into the present to catch the rest of the boys' plan. "…And then we'd shoot the lock off," Benji concludes like Jake hadn't interrupted.

"How would you explain the gunshot?" I place the steaming bowls on the table and go back for the juice I left on the counter by the fridge.

"What gunshot?" Jake asks, his voice angled downward in the direction of his food instead of me.

"Guns make noise."

"We said we'd muffle it."

"You did?" I don't remember them mentioning that.

"Yeah, we said we'd—What were we going to use?" Benji asks Jake.

"A book, Stupid," Jake replies through a mouthful of apple.

"Don't call him stupid," I reprimand automatically. I take a slice of the apple too, and add, "There's something wrong with your plan."

"What?" Jake sounds skeptical, even through his lunch and with his still-croaky voice.

I shrug and finish off the last of my soup. I love chicken noodle. "The cameras."

"You said it was an old station!" Benji cries, spitting his juice across the table in his haste.

"I think I said a building that your mother or I would have seen when we were your age."

"Yeah, so no cameras!"

I laugh out loud, even while I'm wondering just how old our kids think we are. "There were cameras when we were your age."

"Hrmph." Benji and Jake both lean back against their chairs, most definitely scowling.

"You finished your lunch?" It hasn't been fifteen minutes since we sat down, but we've never been slow eaters.

"How would you do it then?" Jake asks me accusatorially. Benji chimes in with a "Yeah!"

"Alright," I hold out my hands for their plates. "I'd use my key."

It takes them a full twenty seconds to get what I mean, but when it does, both of them are on me like I cheated. "Hey, hey, I never said the locker wasn't yours!" I cry, waving them out of my path to the dishwasher.

"You can't do that!" Jake's voice goes out again. It must be time for me to give them another dose of the medicine Dr. Scott prescribed. Where did I put the bottle again?

"Why not?" I reply, going back into the hall to get the medicine out of my bag.

"You just can't!"

They've both scrambled off their chairs to follow me down the hall. I turn around to face them. "Never go for the complicated solution." I melt into instructor-mode almost seamlessly. "The more complicated the answer, the greater the chance of failure."

The mood is decidedly more somber in the moments following my pronouncement. I hadn't meant the statement to be profound, but no matter.

"You should have told us we could unlock it," Benji finally says, breaking the tension.

I shoot them a sly grin and return to looking for the medicine. I shrug over at them. "Next time you'll know."

"We still won, right?" Jake asks, perfectly seriously.

I suppress a smile. I love my kids. I really, really do.

A/N: I'm sorry it's not as involved as the others, but I was kind of running out of situations. Please review and tell me what you thought.