Nick learned a few things in the coming days. One—he was instantly cool because he knew what Phineas and Ferb was (Nick almost died laughing when Erin and Ellis began to excitedly recall their favorite episodes), two—he was now officially the coolest person in the world because he knew how to make amazing card-houses, three—being a kid automatically made everyone new their best friend (the girls had instantly taken on to calling him Uncle and barely a day after meeting, they had started to tag 'Uncle' onto Ellis' name as well (who about fainted with happiness the first few times)) and four—he was actually pretty damn good at the whole family thing. And it was only easier by the fact that Emily was more intent on making up for lost time instead of dwelling on it. Even Michael had lost some of his uneasiness after a few days together… Yeah, the last six days had turned out to be rather… relaxing…
Occasionally, however, Emily would press him on his life. It was obvious that she wanted to know a few more details about what Nick had been doing all this time (understandably). But he had usually managed to distract her with a new question of his own or by lightly touching on the subject enough to satisfy her curiosity. From what she had gathered, though, he had been something like a traveling musician that often liked to pass their free time with some good ol' fashion game of cards or pool…
Whatever she had pieced together, the answers worked enough to bring her questions to a minimum—however misleading and skewed of an image it was.
He had debated whether even telling her he had been married, but figured it was irrelevant. It had been so long ago and in his younger years. Talking about it would have been like recalling a dream from when you were a kid—a dream that had always vividly stuck with you as you grew up, but as the years went by the details became lost and replaced by whatever your mind figured best fit. Yeah… it was best to just leave her, all the gambling and conning out of it. At least for now...
And because the kids had taken on such an attachment to both Nick and Ellis, Michael had suggested that they let the two babysit the girls while they got a break from parenting for at least a few hours. It had been months since they had last spent time alone and, to be honest, Ellis was probably the best sort of babysitter you could possibly hope to find… Well, fun-wise. Which was why handing them over to both Nick and Ellis was ideal—Ellis was the fun and entertaining one while Nick was logical and malleable. That would keep anything dangerous to an absolute minimum (considering Ellis seemed to really lack any good judgment on such things).
And so, the four found themselves sitting in a small circle, a pile of cards face down in the middle. It was a card game that Nick actually had to have explained to him. Go Fish, despite being orientated towards small children—was actually pretty complicated…
"Uncle Ellis!" Erin called, "Do you have any fours?"
Ellis took a moment to intensely look over his cards before he grinned. "Go fishin'!" The little girl eagerly grabbed a new card from the 'ocean' and gave it a satisfied nod.
Now, although Nick was playing cards (it was still cards, damn it) with an six year old, eight year old and twenty-three year old it still didn't keep him from counting cards or mentally noting where every single card's chance of being was. It did, however, keep him from picking on his nieces. Ellis, though, got the full brunt of every attack.
"Ellis, give me your queens," he said absently, holding out his hand.
Ellis made a noise. "I swear, man. Yer always pickin' on me!" He handed over his three queens, sighing. Nick took them and placed them face up in front of him—now having all four smiling up for everyone to see. He was in the lead with 5 full suits.
"My turn, my turn!" Stacy called, bouncing excitedly. "Uncle Nick! Do you have any eights?"
"Well, look at that, it appears I do." He slid the two eights from his hand and handed them over to her. She beamed, ecstatic to have her very first full suit and laid it down proudly before them.
"All right… Nick." Ellis eyed the conman hard—as if looking at him with such intensity would give him sudden psychic abilities to see if the card he had in mind was actually in the Nicks hand. Nick raised an eyebrow, obviously not intimated in the least. "Do you have any twos?"
"Nope."
"Dang it." The mechanic sighed and grabbed a card from the pile.
"Uncle Ellis~!" Erin sang. Ellis groaned, knowing exactly what was about to come. "Do you have any twos?"
"Why is everyon' pickin' on me?" Ellis whined, handing over his twos. Despite his obvious lack of luck, Ellis was still grinning good-naturedly. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. "I'll get it! No one peek at my cards!" He bounced to his feet and ran to the door, opening it quickly. "Hi."
"Are you… Mr. Gates or Mr. Rafferty?" It was a military man holding a stack of papers in his hand.
"Uh… yeah. The second one."
"This is a notice from the Department of Defense. We will be moving to land shortly and anyone with known Immunities is being given approval to leave the military outposts and return to their homes. Information about the Infection and sanitation processes are included in the lettering. You and Mr. Gates have been approved to leave and it is greatly encouraged that when we return to shore that you will take that opportunity to return to your homes." He handed the letters over. "It will be in one week that all vessels will be returning to docks. Please consider returning to your homes as soon as you can." With a brief nod the man looked at his list and then started down the hall without another word.
Ellis blinked, closing the door. He eyed the letters. "So… we're Immune… so they wanna get us outta here so… tha' they got less people ta have ta worry 'bout? I mean… man, tha' was pretty quick, wannit?"
"Well, I would assume that they've spent the last few months…" Nick hesitated, aware that he had young ears in the room. "…cleaning out the Infection and I can only imagine that there's been a lot of effort into the clean up. They're probably only sending Immunes out right now because… well, we can't get Infected if there happens to be a few stragglers left…" He frowned thoughtfully. "I guess it has been months since the first Infection. I would guess a good majority of Infected simply," he shrugged lightly, "perished from lack of… uh… food."
"Yeah, I guess tha' makes sense." Ellis returned to his spot on the floor.
"Uncle Nick, are you leaving again?" Erin asked.
Nick shuffled his cards in his hand to distract himself from those big-worried eyes. "Well, yeah…"
"But, we just got to meet you!"
Nick shifted uncomfortably. "Well… there's still…uh… Christmas."
"We just had Christmas, Uncle!" Erin reminded, not buying it. Stacy nodded in agreement. They both now stared demandingly at him.
"Um…" Nick looked pleadingly to Ellis who shrugged unhelpfully. God damn it… What comes next? December is Christmas… January is New Years, well shit, already did that. February… nothing… March… nothing… April… Easter? "Uh… There's always Easter?" He didn't even celebrate Easter.
"Are you gonna come visit us?" Erin asked hopefully. "You and Uncle Ellis?"
"Uh…"
"O' course we will!" Ellis chimed in. "Ain't nothin' more we'd like ta do. Though it's gonna be real hard movin' 'round fer a while, but we'll keep in touch an' stuff ta make sure we can see ya'll again real soon, okay?"
"Promise?" Stacy questioned, tugging at Nicks sleeve.
The conman let out a little chuckle. "I promise…"
"Cross your heart!" Erin piped.
Nick rolled his eyes. "Cross my heart," he said, making a cross over his heart.
"Now pinky swear!" Stacy insisted, holding out her pinky.
Nick laughed. "All right, all right. I pinky swear too." And he did. Satisfied, Erin nodded to her sister who nodded back, both convinced that they had just sealed an unbreakable contract with their Uncle. But, to be fair, Nick had no intentions of breaking their promise…
…Three Go Fish games later (Nick won all three and everyone had given up) and a half hours worth of cartoons in (something with a sponge talking that really made no logical sense to Nick's badly confused brain), Emily and Michael returned to retrieve the kids who had fallen asleep watching the television. With a few quiet thanks yous and promises to meet for dinner, they all left.
Nick quickly went to work picking up the cards and every other little thing the two (three) kids had managed to misplace. "Jesus, it's like they had to touch everything." He frowned, picking up their alarm clock that had for some reason ended up on the ground. He set it back onto their nightstand.
"Man, we'd be such good parents, Nick."
"Uh-uh. That conversation joins the banned "m" word conversation too." Nick shuffled the cards back into their case and then tossed it onto the nightstand too. With a sigh he fell onto the bed backwards next to Ellis.
Instantly the young man reached over and began to thread Nicks hair through his fingers obsessively. "Nick…? Are we gonna like… leave when we get back ta shore? Jus' up an' go? Ya jus' got back with yer family an' stuff…"
Nick let out a suppressed sigh. "I know, Ellis. I know… I mean… I'm glad you talked me into not running away from seeing her again… But I can only handle it for so long, you know?" The look Ellis was giving him told him that, no, Ellis hadn't a clue what he meant. "I really don't know how you stand being around people all the time, Ellis," Nick said with a short laugh. "You're like a social butterfly. I can only grin and bare it for as long as I can."
"I though' ya was enjoyin' it though?"
"I am. I just need… breaks, you know? That's why families move out and away from each other and only come back during holidays. You love them, but you just don't want to be constantly entertaining them." Ellis itched the back of his head, frowning. He looked like he was trying very hard to comprehend exactly what Nick was talking about. "God, it's like you've never gone a day without talking to your family."
Ellis blinked down at him. "I di'n't."
"…Oh." Nick frowned slightly.
Ellis leaned down and kissed the other on the forehead. "So, ya better have a good phone an' all, 'cause Imma be callin' yer family all the time. Okay?"
"Fff… Well, who knows if the phone lines even work… Jesus, I still can't believe they're already trying to kick us out into the streets again." He tilted his head around so he could look at the papers lying on the nightstand, still unopened. "Why don't you grab one of those and see what bullshit they've got hidden inside."
Ellis stretched across the bed to grab one of them and then tore it open, handing it to the other. Nick read it in silence, making a few noises of ridicule the further into the letter he got.
Finished he huffed and waved it in the air. "Jesus. So I guess they're practically giving incentives for anyone willing to leave the safety of the military outposts and begin to help with the clean-up and whatnot. They'll provide a vehicle of transportation as well as a month worth of supplies… Although they're still pretty unwilling to hand over any firearms… But, fuck that, I'm not going anywhere Infection or not anymore without a god damn gun." He shrugged at Ellis who gave him a puzzled look. "Everyone's crazy now, Ellis. I don't trust people."
"Ya never trusted people."
Nick shrugged again. "But… yeah… wanna get a jump-start on the masses?"
"Sure." Ellis shrugged slightly. "How are ya gonna get into the house though?"
"Break a window?"
Ellis rolled his eyes. "Nick."
"I left my key with my landlord… Though whether he's still alive or not I guess is the question at hand… I'm sure we'll find some way to get in."
"Well… okay. If ya wanna go, then we'll go. Sooner we're home the better…"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." Ellis smirked, leaning down again to kiss the other softly on the lips. "An' don't ferget my cat."
Nick laughed. "I wouldn't dream of it, Ellis."
A/N: I summed up a lot of their 'family time' because it's way too many OC's to be burdening the story with and it's really not that significant to the storyline.
They played go fish where you have to get every single suit of the number before you get to lay it down. I personally like the pairs one… but it seemed easier to Nick to pick on Ellis when you had to have all four. LOL