Three weeks later...
She was in a exhaustion-induced coma. That was the only logical explanation for it. Three weeks of severe sleep-deprivation had been known to cause hallucinations in the past, and so this must have been one of those cases.
Why else would she have one son who was a giant and one who was a shrimp. It just didn't make sense. They were identical to each other in every other way. Why should their be such a variation in weight?
Somewhere in the darkest recesses of her brilliant mind, a sneaking suspicion that perhaps unequal feeding might result in such a discrepancy began to rear it's head, but she quickly suppressed it. That was ridiculous.
She was very careful to feed her children on a rotating schedule. Heck, she even made a long spreadsheet hanging on the refrigerator in front of her. Her methods left absolutely no room for error. No, it must be something else that had tampered with her sons. Some sort of rare childhood disease maybe.
Whatever it was, she was going to have to talk it over with Jeffrey, though. Because if she considered herself a protective parent, Jeffrey was three-hundred times more so. She had been known to, in the confidentiality of Dr. Sarah Snyder, refer to her husband as a "momma bear", a term he would undoubtably not appreciate.
As if summonsed by her thoughts themselves, said maternal beast threw open the kitchen door, tossed his backpack on the table, plopped down in the closest chair, and sighed. Before she even had the chance to ask what was wrong, Batty stomped in behind him, slammed the door, and, with a withering look thrown in her brother-in-law's direction, proceeded to storm out of the room.
For once in the twenty-four years of her life, Skye Penderwick was at a complete loss for words. Jeffery and her sister always got along. To the point where it was sickening, really. Never in all the time her family had known him had he been out of sorts with Batty. To be perfectly fair, he had never argued with anyone but herself, but still. Batty?
Unable to contain her confusion any longer, Skye, true to her nature, burst out the first thing that came to mind.
"What the heck happened?"
He just sighed. "Nothing."
"Oh, sure. Because you always sigh and look downtrodden and dejected, and Batty is famous for her talent with slamming doors." He just looked at her. "Oh, come on, Jeffrey! Give me a little credit, will you? Something is going on and I would like to know what it is!"
He shook his head slightly. "Sorry, I can't. It's the whole confidentiality statement thing."
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and so she fell back on her age-old ally, the glare. Unfortunate, having lived with her for more than a year now, and knowing her well for much, much longer, Jeffrey had developed a rare form of immunity to her weapons.
He just chuckled slightly and walked over to her. Resting his hands on her shoulders for a second, he flashed her a small smile. "And yes, that does apply to wives as well. Sorry." Dropping a quick peck on the corner of her mouth, he yawned. "I'm going to go try and get some grading done."
She smiled softly. "Okay, just be quite up there please. Everyone's asleep. Finally."
"Good. You should lay down, too. We need to rest when ever we can, seeing as our children don't like to comply to normal sleep patterns."
"That's the understatement of the year. They're practically nocturnal. But I really want to get some work done while I have the chance. We got some interesting satellite images back yesterday that I haven't had a chance to look at. From what everyone is saying, it looks like we might have actually gotten some clear back shot photos of A14!"
He just stared at her.
"And you have absolutely no idea how exciting that is, do you?"
"Nope. And sorry, but I'm much too tired to care."
And with that, he practically stumbled up the stairs.
It wasn't until sometime later, having gotten distracted by the images on the screen in front of her, that Skye realized that she hadn't brought up the issue of their sons' size. Tearing herself away from the computer, she made her way up to their bedroom, trying not to think about how nice it would feel to take a nap. Now was not the time for napping. She had bigger problems on her hands.
And it wasn't until she reached he bedroom door that she realized just how big the problems were. As she slowly made her way down the hall, voices from the master bedroom reached her ears. They were hushed, but there could be no ignoring the anger and the conviction behind them.
So Jeffrey and Batty were having an argument. Well, she had suspected that much before. But when she opened the door to see what it was about, all noise ceased, and the room was engulfed in a painful silence. With a final glare, Batty retreated out of the room, shoving Skye out of the way as she went. And then all was quite again, and husband and wife were left, staring at each other.
"Don't ask." He beat her to the punch. "Just, don't ask."
But she couldn't help herself. "What's going on?"
Rolling his eyes in exasperation, he sighed again. "Nothing, really. Just that I was forced to fail your sister on her latest test, and she annoyed."
He winced, waiting for the storm of sisterly protection to commence, but Skye had honed in on one thing and one thing along.
"You guys have TESTS?!"
He rolled his eyes. "Of course! What do you think we are, kindergardeners?"
"No, I just got the impression that the artsy types didn't do tests. How do you even give a music test?!"
"They're performance based-usually. The students all have to play a piece of music."
"I hate to break it to you, Jeffery, but those aren't tests."
"Sure they are."
"No. Tests are things you have to study for, that involve questions you don't know are coming, and require some sort of study-skills. Not getting up in front of a few people and playing a song that you've practiced a thousand times already."
"Seriously, Skye. Just because you're accustomed to tests that require rote memorization and too many numbers to count doesn't mean that that's the only kind there is. Our tests are challenging, and your sister just failed one."
"How did she do that?! Not pick out a piece?!"
He sighed. "She picked out a piece, and it was good, but then, at the last minute, she decided that it didn't fit her current mood and so she changed it to a dreary, depressing song. The assignment was, 'a work of music that best displays a cheery day in April,' and she played the death march. I had no choice but to fail her!"
"Why on earth would the death march fit her current mood?!" Though she had never claimed to completely understand her sisters, this took "in the dark" to a whole other level.
Jeffrey just looked at her as if she was blind, though. "What planet do you live on?! She and Dylan just broke up and she's been sobbing for a week straight."
She blinked. "Seriously?"
"Yes, seriously! Do you really mean to tell me that you haven't noticed?!"
"Well, I guess I've just started to tune out all extra crying. Or I'm becoming so used to the sound that I don't even notice it any more."
"Well, the fact remains that she's heartbroken, and it's harming her academics severely. I think we need to do something about it."
"Oh, come on, Jeffrey. Get realistic, will you? What can we do about it? It just has to run its course. She'll get over it."
He flashed her a mischievous smirk, the one that had always made her heart speed up just a tad. "We find her a new boyfriend."
Well, sorry for the long wait everyone. I really appreciate you all sticking with me. This fall has been a bit crazy, and I've been writing a ton lately. I finally started that novel I've been meaning to write, I'm taking AP language, which is basically all writing, and I started tutoring writing on the side. Yikes! :-) I will try and a be a bit more regular in the next few weeks, but no promises.
Also, it just hit me today that this story is now 44 chapters long! Gosh. I don't know how many of you knew this, but I had planned on this being a oneshot. Ah, well. That just shows you my planning abilities... :-) Anyways, 44 chapters into it and I'm starting to run out of ideas. Please, please, please communicate to me what you would like to see in this story. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is going to be a never-ending story that I will still be writing this when I'm 80 years old and completely grey. :-) I apologize in advance...
On a different note, would any of you be interested in reading a slightly stronger T Skye/Jeffrey fic. It certainly wouldn't go further than any of these chapters, but it might include more detailed descriptions of the kissing. I realize, of course, that I have already sort of pushed this fandom to it's furthest limit as far as romance goes. If that is as strong as you want it to go, I will not take any offense. I just thought I'd throw it out there. There just isn't very much fluff for this couple, and I thought it might be fun to try my hand at it. Again, no pressure, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.
Sorry for the terribly long author's note. You guys are the best!