Carlisle was deeply engrossed in a journal article when the light knock on his study door disturbed his peace and quiet.

"Come in."

A bright smile came over his face as he looked up to see his lovely wife standing in the doorway. He never failed to be intoxicated by her stunning beauty nor could he deny the wonder he felt at her capacity to love him and their odd family; so why did she look less then happy to see him right now?

"Good evening, my love. How was the girls' day out?"

Esme raised a brow as she tilted her head to the side with a strange look on her face. Carlisle couldn't help but feel that this must be similar to how their children felt when they crossed the line and ended up on the wrong side of their mother. He promptly found himself racking his brain to try to think of what he could have possibly done to upset her so. He gnawed on his bottom lip while he thought but continually came up blank and Esme, standing there silently and still, offered no help in solving this mystery. Running out of ideas he finally gave up and decided to go with the direct approach while waving her inside the cosy neatly appointed room.

"What did I do?"

With the the grace of a tigress, Esme walked through the doorway, quietly clicked the lock, and stalked towards her mate. Her fluid motion caused Carlisle to purr softly but a small voice at the back of his head told him that this wasn't about pleasure. Coming around to his side of the desk she leaned against the edge while never once releasing him from her smoldering gaze.

"So, you are just going to torture me without telling me why?"

Esme leaned over as if to kiss his cheek but instead whispered in his ear, "You let them play with fireworks? You should have taught them that whenever you play with fire you always get burned."

Carlisle closed his eyes as he leaned his head back and groaned softly. "I didn't let them play with fireworks. I just over estimated their abilities to recognize a bad idea when one comes up. It would seem that at times I simply give our children more credit then they are due."

When he opened his eyes he was surprised to see a sly smirk on Esme's lips. "You really need to keep a closer eye on them when you are in charge of our menagerie."

"Think you could have done better, huh?"

"Of course. A mother always knows when her children are up to something." She smiled at him as she crossed her arms. "Maternal instincts are never wrong and can never be circumvented."

Carlisle chuckled softly. "Well, those maternal instincts seem to be able to put a bit of fear into that collection of delinquents. One mention of how you might not appreciate what happen to the greenhouse put the fear of God into them all."

"Fear of mom is more like it." Esme laughed lightly as she thought about how her babies must have reacted.

The patriarch reached out and pulled his wife down onto his lap, kissing her gently. "I can understand why they would be afraid. You can be most intimidating when you want to be."

"And don't you forget that, lover." She grinned as she swatted his arm then turned serious with a slight sigh. "What are we going to do with them?"

"Well, you know where I stand but I'll leave that decision up to you. I would caution you to keep in mind that they did destroy property that did not belong to them, your property at that. They also put themselves in grave peril." He exhaled in a huff. "When I heard the explosion and then saw the fires..." He looked deep in her eyes and as he spoke she could hear the dread in his voice. "I know they were looking to have fun but they have a tendency not to see the big picture. They could have started a forest fire. They could have burned down the house. Then of course, they apparently have convenient memories and forget that they aren't precisely flame retardant themselves. Perhaps some fire to their behinds will help with improving their memories and decisions."

Esme often found herself at odds with Carlisle in methods of addressing their children's misbehavior. Her mate seemed to have little trouble when it came to delivering a spanking once he deemed it deserved but she hated the idea of corporal punishment preferring much more non intrusive non-physical forms of shaping behavior. She hated to see her children in any sort of pain or distress which generally caused her to lobby for leniency, but she had to admit that for the more severe offensives a sore backside worked wonders where loss of privilege often failed. When she looked at it logically, if you have an eternity to look forward to a couple of weeks stuck in the house really isn't that great of a deterrent.

Carlisle heard her sigh as she tensed her jaw. She had come to a decision that she wasn't happy with but he knew that after weighing her options she found that it was the best course of action to take. As she met his eyes, her slight nod confirmed his observation.

He patted her gently on the thigh before slipping her off his lap then standing himself. He offered her a reassuring hug then spoke calmly as he started towards the door, "Alright, I'll take care of it."

Her hand wrapped firmly around his wrist halting his progress. Carlisle glanced down at her hand and then back up into her eyes as she shook her head. "No. We will take care of it. I don't want them to think that they can do something like this as long as you aren't around to stop them. I want them to know just how much I disapprove of them putting themselves in so much danger."

"Are you sure that you are up to this?" There was no hiding the worry that her mate was feeling.

"No, I'm not sure but I think that it's something I have to do. Besides, one of our troupe thought that she could lie to me and get away with it."

Carlisle raised an eyebrow. This new transgression was news to him. "Alice or Rosalie?"

"Rose. The shopping trip was a ruse to keep me distracted so in as such, it was a lie."

Carlisle shook his head in frustration. His kitten should have known better but then so should have all his brood.

He was still hesitant about Esme's involvement with the children's discipline knowing how hard it would be on her. He struggled with the aftermath of guilt regardless of how much he knew punishment was warranted and he would shield his love from the experience if he could.

"I can still deal with this alone, sweetheart. If you want to make sure they understand your disapproval we can lecture them together and then leave the rest to me," he offered hopefully but was answered by another shake of her head. He gathered his thoughts for a few minutes then asked softly, "How do you want to proceed?"

"Let's gather them in the living room. I think the idea of a tag team lecture to the entire group is sound and it will cut down on us having to continually repeat ourselves."

Carlisle nodded his agreement before giving her a cautious look. "And then?"

"We send them to their rooms and deal with them there." She inhaled deeply while looking down at her hands. "There are five of them and two of us. I'm not sure I can handle ..." Her voice faded off as she already found dismay creeping into her heart about what she was imposing upon herself to do.

"You deal with Jasper and Alice. Neither is likely to try to skirt responsibility for the part that they played. I know for a fact that Alice already has guilt worrying her so she is most certainly not going to fight you and Jasper... well, he just never does.

I'll handle the other three."

Esme couldn't believe that she was even entertaining the idea but she heard her voice before she realized that she was speaking out loud. "No, Carlisle. Emmett is the one who started this and Rosalie lied directly to me. I feel that it would be best if I punish them."

"But, Esme, those are the very reasons that you shouldn't. Emmett, as the instigator, needs to be dealt with very firmly. The same goes for Rose's lying." There was a questioning look in her eyes as she listened to him which caused him to cringe. "I'm not doubting your commitment or abilities, love, I just don't want to see you beating yourself up over this later."

"It's not something that I want to do at all, but it is something that I need to do. I just have to trust that they won't end up hating me when it's all said and done."

Carlisle wrapped his arm tightly around her shoulder pulling her into his embrace as he kissed the top of her head. "They could never hate you, Esme. No one in their right mind could. There can never be any doubt that all you ever do is act out of love. The kids know that. They will respond to it."

He held her tightly for a few moments then gently asked, "Are you ready to do this?"

"No, but the sooner we start the sooner it's over."

Her mate smiled and gave her a little squeeze before releasing her. "You are a wonderful mother. You'll do fine and I'm always right there if you need me."

They headed out into the hallway, his arm protectively around her shoulders. Oh, but this was going to be a long hard night. Carlisle couldn't believe that his children could have come up with something so harebrained that would end with everyone of them in trouble. Usually it was just one misbehaving at a time, maybe two, but they had to work hard for all five of them to be facing the music at the same time. He also still wasn't happy with the idea of Esme taking part of this burden upon herself but he knew that once her mind was set there was little he could do to change it. Did she really have to tackle Emmett? He could understand Rosalie but he simply could not envision his gentle delicate love correcting her baby bear. Something was definitely wrong with the world right now. Perhaps those fireworks had knocked the entire planet off kilter and this was the result. He sighed slightly as he steeled himself for the regrettable task before him.

"Family meeting downstairs in ten minutes," Carlisle called out as he led Esme towards the stairs. Those few precious minutes would give them a little bit of calm and quiet to work out the rest of their game plan. Maybe he would give it one last shot at trying to change Esme's mind about her chosen pair of miscreants before their children joined them and the real fireworks of the night began.

AN: And we are off to the races. Thanks for all the comments and compliments. *grins* Since there was a unanimous interest in putting Carlisle back to work... there ya go. Even though he gets three of the trouble makers, Esme has the challenge of dealing with the worst offenders. Luckily, Momma bear is up to the challenge of showing her cub the errors of his ways. Rose might be a little more difficult depending on how her attitude goes but I'm sure Esme can rein her in.