A/N: Here's chapter three. I'm trying to keep up the mysterious element, and keep them all in character. It's kind of hard to do that when they're discussing something serious, so I'm trying to imagine what they'd act like if they actually were serious. Hope it works out. Reviews are very much welcomed - they help me to keep writing.

This Chapter: Dot's Point of View

Next Chapter: Scratchansniff's Point of View

Chapter 3

"It's happening again isn't it?" I asked as we jumped into our tower.

"Probably," Yakko answered, sitting himself down on the floor, and patting the ground beside him. Wakko and I sat down, forming a rough circle on the ground. This was the way we usually plotted our latest sabotage and annoy-all-studio-personnel schemes. But now, it was a discussion circle.

"But what happened?" Wakko asked. Yakko let out a small sigh.

"Picked me up in a bad spot," he said, reaching a hand behind his neck. I jumped up and moved the fur aside, revealing the two small scars that only the three of us knew were there, but Yakko gently batted my hand away. "It's fine, sis," he said.

"So what do we do?" Wakko asked as I reluctantly sat back down.

"No idea. But Scratchy's going to start asking questions soon, that's for sure," Yakko said. He placed his head in his hands; he suddenly looked very tired, and I didn't blame him. It was only four-thirty, but considering the dose of stress that the day had dished out for him, he obviously just needed to rest and clear his head. But Wakko and I still had a few questions.

"Maybe he'll just pass it off as a dislike for being picked up like that?" I suggested hopefully.

"I doubt it," he answered. "He caught me out last night." The look on my face was mirrored on Wakko's, and I began to share Yakko's view on the matter. Scratchy would definitely start asking questions.

"So do we tell him?" Wakko asked nervously. I could tell he was expecting a loud 'NO' from the both of us, but instead of answering, I let my oldest brother do the honours. It was basically his decision anyway. We had kept his limp a secret at his request; and we all agreed that the events prior to his injury would never be spoken of to anyone.

Wakko and I hadn't understood why Yakko wanted his limp to go unnoticed for the longest time, until he told us by example. At the time, we had just moved ourselves into a small town in the state of New York. We didn't know anybody. After arriving, Wakko and I hadn't let up on the subject of the limp; we wanted to know why it had to be a secret, why he didn't just let himself walk in a way that was a bit more comfortable. He had given us a strange look then, and to our surprise, he gave in. He walked in his normal gait about town with us, and as we strolled along and met the people that held residence there, I found that the people kept giving Yakko sympathetic looks, like he was incapable of what they could do just because his leg didn't function quite the same way theirs did. It was a rather bad limp; I'd give them that, but for some reason the looks annoyed me. Over the next week, we got to know our neighbours, and found chores and other side jobs we could busy ourselves with for a small payment. I had been outside reading by the fence that divided our yard from the neighbour's, and suddenly found myself eavesdropping on the conversation Mr and Mrs Harriet were having. They obviously hadn't noticed my presence. Mrs Harriet was speaking in quite a pitying tone, and from what I'd seen and heard over the last week I knew they were talking about my oldest brother.

"...and with two kids to look after. I know he's a cartoon, and Wakko and Dot are helping as much as they can; but I hear it's getting hard for him to find a job due to his... inability..." she was saying. The word inability stuck in my mind, though the conversation had moved on. It made me angry. The only reason Yakko couldn't find a decent job was because the employers didn't believe he would be able to do it. All because of his inability. Now I understood why Yakko didn't want anyone to know, and I had run inside our temporary cottage to tell Wakko. We had left the town that very same night, and I knew it had all been a lesson.

Now, back in the tower, Wakko was waiting patiently, if not a little apprehensively, for an answer to his previous question.

"Do we tell him?" Yakko restated the question as if thinking it over. What came after, I wasn't expecting. "Up to you, sibs." With that, he got up and wandered over to his bed, leaving his green scarf to rest on the headboard. He sat down on the edge of the mattress, the most readable expression I had ever seen him use evident on his features. He was tired and stressed, but the look of confidence he gave Wakko and I as we sat on the floor gave me a strange feeling of responsibility. I hadn't felt that way in a long time. Sure, I'd been responsible for keeping many secrets, but now I was responsible for the decision of whether it was better to keep it or not. Now a thousand questions ran through my head. Could we trust Scratchy? The answer: yes. He knew us better than anyone else in the studio... even if he did get annoyed by our constant trickery and antics. Would he tell anyone else? I didn't think so. I doubted it. And if he did? Would everyone in the studio be able to handle it? I'm sure they could handle Yakko's limping once they'd gotten used to it, they've known him for years. But I knew that that wasn't what Yakko was worried about right now. If they knew, would Plotz and all the rest be able to handle the story behind it?

It wasn't until Wakko poked me in the arm that I came out of my thoughts. Yakko had gone to sleep, something I knew that if he hadn't done it himself, Wakko and I would have made him. Perhaps he knew that too, and that's why he did it. I smiled; responsibility and questions forgotten for the moment, and Wakko and I started up a quiet game of 'What's That Under the Carpet?' It's a game known to most people as '20 Questions', but we revised it into our own extremely complicated game that none of us quite knew all the rules to, and therefore was impossible to win. Especially since one of the rules was to change what you chose to be under the carpet right before someone guessed it correctly. Of course, we made up these rules as we went along.

We were still playing when Yakko woke up an hour later; Wakko had just guessed an aardvark was hiding under the carpet right after I had changed the answer to a ceiling lamp. When I noticed him getting to his feet, I motioned to Wakko. In a flash, we were up and nagging him playfully until he finally agreed to go back to sleep, giving us a well-earned grin. He crawled back into bed, and Wakko and I were satisfied that our mission had been a success.

By seven o'clock, I was becoming a bit anxious again. Wakko and I consulted briefly on the subject, but we hadn't come to an agreement by seven twenty. Yakko had been awake and about for around ten minutes, listening to our discussion, and only stopped us when it was time to leave.