A/N: I promise I'm not dead, and neither are my stories. I've just run headlong into the lovely situation of having finals right on the heels of Thanksgiving Break. The next chapter of MBFAW will be up at some point soon, but the update schedule will be rather erratic for a while. Because after finals come Christmas Break, during which my wisdom teeth are being removed. In other words, Real Life is my scapegoat. *hides behind it*

Please to enjoy this drabble by way of apology.
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"Excellent, Joan! What a nice picture and story."

The teacher looked out over the eager faces of her charges as the bespectacled Joan skipped back to her seat.

"Now, who wants to go…"

She trailed off, laughing, as a tiny hand shot into the air. As expected, the hand belonged to a brown-haired boy in a blue polo shirt. The child was practically bouncing with excitement, clutching a slightly crumpled paper in one fist.

"Alright then, Lucas," the teacher said.

As he wriggled our of his seat and walked toward the blackboard, she noted with amusement the not-so-surreptitious glances from several little girls. Oh, he wasn't the first target of playground kissing games, but…

That kid will break hearts someday, she thought, mark my words.

The young woman took Lucas' proffered drawing and carefully taped it to the board.

"Now Lucas," she said to the beaming young artist, "why don't you tell the class about your 'When I'm Grown Up' picture?"

Lucas faced his classmates, looking (at least to his mind) very important.

"First, there's me." He gestured to a short-haired stick figure. "I'm wearing a tie, because I'm a contractor like Daddy and you have to wear ties to the office."

Next, he indicated a figure with a skirt, eyelashes, and long, yellow squiggles of hair.

"This is my wife. She has blonde hair and blue eyes. She's real pretty and nice. She takes care of the house while I'm at work and cooks."

He went on to describe the house (a square with a triangular roof and puffing chimney) and the lawn (green and ostensibly grown with the aid of a smiling yellow sun). It was all fairly typical for a kindergartener's vision of his future, but something seemed out of place. The teacher tried to put her finger on it and failed. Until, near the end of his speech, it hit her.

"Lucas? What's that your wife's holding?"

The boy squinted at his crayon masterpiece. Finally, his eyes found the triangular object in the stick-woman's hand.

"Oh, he said, "that's a knife."

A snicker went up from the class, and the teacher's eyebrows rose.

"A knife? Why does she have a knife?"

Lucas' forehead creased with uncertainty.

"I don't know," he replied. "It just looked right."

"What's that on the side?

"A mouth pear."

"Oh."

The couple stared down at the yellowed sheet of paper.

"And who's…Cuz…" Lucas tilted the drawing to read his wife's long-ago handwriting.

Wednesday buried her face in her hands.

"Cousin Hieronymous," came the muffled reply. "Father's brother's son."

"Got it. Er…what's wrong with his head?" the young man asked.

She looked up and shifted position on the attic floor before saying, "Nothing's wrong with it. He just got hit on the left side of the head with a boulder when he was three."

And indeed, the stick figure had an eye patch and only half a head of spiky hair. Lucas turned to the artist.

"So, you were going to marry your cousin?"

She rolled her eyes. "Have you met my family? The incest taboo doesn't extend much beyond siblings."

"In fact," she continued, "I'm not even sure how I'm related to some of them. I think people just show up at family reunions and no-one bothers to turn them away."

Lucas chuckled. "Alright, I stand corrected."

"What about you?" Wednesday asked, cocking one eyebrow. "Who were you going to marry?"

His mind drifted back to that day in kindergarten, and he heard his six-year-old self again.

"She has blonde hair and blue eyes. She's real pretty and nice."

Black-haired, dark-eyed, and more likely to shoot a rabbit than pet it, his wife sat carefully just beyond a sunbeam beside him. Though he was sure his childhood self would be scandalized, he never wanted to be without her.

But then again, there had been the mysterious knife. Maybe his taste hadn't been too appalling.

"You," he replied, taking her hand. "I was going to marry you."