The first two years of Madeline Pepperjack (Previously Madeline Fischer) and William Pepperjack's marriage were, by all regards, incredibly annoying. The young couple had never moved past the honeymoon stage, it was beginning to irk the neighbors. True, it gave the elderly couple next door faith in the next generation, but it quickly became argument fuel for the rest of them. "Maddie and Will don't fight," they said, "I'm sure Will would change little Timmy's diapers." It was true, the couple hadn't had a single big fight until they brought Elijah Leslie Pepperjack home from the hospital.

Madeline had wanted to name the boy after her grandmother who had come to America as an infant to during the start of WWI. Madeline had just gotten her degree in phycology at the time. "It's detrimental to a child's emotional health," she had argued "to be exposed to girl and boy stereotypes at an early age. Leslie is a fine name."

Will, a practical man, understood her reasons. He also understood that the Olsen's down the street were football fanatics who had no such qualms. Their oldest son, only nine at the time, had taken to hitting the younger boys whom he had deemed 'too girly'. The young father had only been trying to prevent his newborn son from being the target of bullies when he scribbled 'Elijah' in front of Leslie, changing the disaster of a first name into an embarrassing middle name.

Understandably, his wife was not happy about this.

Fighting ensued, and the couple across the street stewed in the knowledge that Mr. and Mrs. perfect weren't so perfect after all. Much too their dismay, it blew over quickly as they became too concerned with the abundance of diapers and lack of sleep to properly yell at each other.

Little fights popped up after that, most of them concerning parenting. Mainly about how Will had no idea what he was doing, and how Madeline was reading too many parenting books.

"Counseling isn't parenting," Will had argued, "I doubt there's a single book on what to do when your five year old flushes your wallet down the toilet claiming a water gremlin has his teddy bear hostage."

Things really came to head when, at the ripe age of eight and a half, Eli had a run in with the youngest Olsen, who pushed him off the swing set for still believing in fairies. (He had tried to warn the older boy about a pixie nest underneath his house)

When he came home crying, Madeline reaction was to hold him and tell him that boys could believe in fairies too. Eli ran to his room. "It's pixies! Faeries are almost extinct!" Will's reaction was to dig up his old boxing gloves and haul the sobbing boy to the garage.

The next day, there was an angry note on the counter, and the gloves, his old baseball bat, and anything that could be used as a weapon had been thrown away.

Not one to give up easily, Will bought his son another bat, a crossbow, and a chest full of Ninja stars. He made Eli keep them a secret, and taught the boy how to use them on the nights that his mother came home late from work. Eli was absolutely horrible at using the bar and crossbow, but he was scarily good at wielding the ninja stars. (For an eight-year-old at least)

You could imagine what went down when Madeline heard about that.

The next two years and a half years, their arguments grew steadily louder, and their marriage steadily deteriorated. Their growing rift wasn't because of Eli, it was the lack of communication that had caused those incidents. They fought over jobs, cleaning, politics, and just about everything there was to fight over. It was when they finally realized the invisible line that had been drawn through the middle of the bed that they finally decided to get a divorce, and went their separate ways. Madeline got the school week, Will got the weekends, and they each got every other Easter.

Things were hard the first year, but they were on much better terms now. Somehow, the split had forced them to communicate more than they had while they were married. They both hated the other's parenting styles (and each other), but they swallowed their hatred for the sake of Eli. That begrudging communication was what sparked the current conversation.

"…and he won't answer any of my questions! He's just so… ugh!" Madeline's voice came over the phone. "I don't- and then there's that Lake boy, you know the one Mrs. Nuñez always complains about?"

Will nodded, forgetting that Madeline couldn't see the action. "How couldn't I?" He worked a low pay job in the parks department. He'd worked with (although for was a more accurate description) Mrs. Nuñez ever since she was elected. They were trying to clear the mysterious piles of rubble that had popped up all over town, creating major roadblocks, and especially in the forest.

"Eli thinks Lake's the Trollhunter. And don't you think it's strange that he only started acting like this a week after Jim was mysteriously cured of 'Jim Lake Disease'? Talking back, acting out, disappearing. He wore face paint, Will. And that weird helmet too, I saw that Palchuck kid wearing the same thing."

Will sighed, "What are you getting at?"

"I think he's in some sort of cult? I mean, that Darklands stuff he keeps talking about? Doesn't that sound like some millennial voodoo stuff? I don't think he's just trying to get out of trouble, not anymore. I think he really believes what he's saying."

Will was going to make a comment about being paranoid and overprotective, but he bit it back. "The kid still thought Santa Clause was real until last Christmas."

Madeline huffed. "Yeah, when he found a receipt in his Christmas present. Your gift to him if I recall."

Will ignored the comment. "You sure it's not, I dunno, some elaborate prank. That kid's a master if the last April fools are anything to go by. It took me a week to get the everything out of my hair."

Will could practically hear Madeline rolling her eyes. "Uh, huh. He crashed my car."

Serves you right. Once again, he had to refrain from saying something he'd regret. He decided on something safe. "Did you see with the psychiatrist yet?"

"Yeah, I called in a favor. Took him to Dr. Reynolds today, before I dropped him off at yours. Reynolds, well, he didn't give me much to go on. Said he'd try to meet sometime next week."

Will frowned, switching the phone to his other ear, to ease up his cramping hand. "He doesn't know? Isn't he the best in the state?"

"Just the county." Madeline corrected over the phone. "But he's good. He can usually get a good picture of what's going on in the first meeting. I guess this is more complicated than we thought."

Will was about to comment when the smoke alarm went off. Crap. He'd forgotten about the frozen pizza he'd thrown in the oven. "Gotta go." He said quickly, shoving his phone into his pockets. He grabbed mitts from the drawer and pulled open the oven. Even with the mitts on, his hands still burned as he dropped the tray on the counter. He shook off the mitts and ran to the living room, grabbing a pillow to swat at the smoke alarm. After a minute of frantically waving it back and forth in the air, the high pitched beeping finally stopped.

"Eli! Dinner!"

He frowned when Eli didn't come down. Eli had a habit of getting so absorbed in his studies that he forgot to eat. He grabbed a paper plate from the pile and scraped a few charred pieces onto it. He carried it up the steps, gently opening the door to place it on Eli's desk.

Will blinked in shock when he wasn't met with the scratching of a pencil or the ruffling of papers. In fact, he wasn't met with Eli at all. He shivered as cold air blew in through the open window. His eyes narrowed. He'd been a teenager once too, he understood what an open window and empty room meant.

Until that moment, he'd thought this was all another case of Madeline's paranoia. After all, this was Eli. True, he'd had more attitude recently, but for Merlin's sake, the worst thing he'd ever caught the kid doing was pouring flour all over the floor so that he could get evidence that Santa had been there. He drummed his fingers on the desk, accidentally knocking a red sharpie onto the floor. As he bent to pick it up, he noticed a crumpled piece of paper that had narrowly missed the trashcan. His curiosity getting the best of them, he smoothed it out. Scribbled in red ink was the following:

2755, Ellington St.

Bring Gaggletack

I want to reiterate that it wasn't Eli's fault that they separated, it was Madeline and Will's lack of communication regarding how to best raise him. In my head, Madeline is the strict, hands on parent, that does most of the actual parenting. Will is lax, and tries to be the 'fun dad', but has no clue what he's doing. Madeline is too paranoid, and Will doesn't know how to discipline. We don't see much interaction with either of them, but seeing how Eli interacts with Flip, his 'child', gives an idea of how his mother raised him. I based Will off the comment about frozen pizzas because that was all I had to go on.

With school back up, I'm going to begin posting once a week, every Friday. So if you follow this story, check your notifications then.

Thank you all for the wonderful comments, and as always… and POV suggestions?