Disclaimer: I own Lillian, TJ, and Deke

Note: Edited :D

Lillian

Episode 2 ~ Parental Bonding

The Nasty Burger was an old, 50s theme, grease burger restaurant that was probably contributing to clots of fat in my blood, but I just loved it. Our house was so full of lettuce and vegetables that I looked forward to my excursions to the NB every day or so. "What can I get you," the familiar gruff voice of a close friend of mine droned without even looking up.

"Hey, Deke," TJ said, discarding the menu on the table. "Let's see if you can surprise us."

Deke looked up, bright blue eyes peering through his long, golden hair to look at us. "Meat based or no?"

"Yes," I responded hurriedly. Both of the boys looked at me like I was off my rocker. "What? Mom's been cooking for the last month." They nodded sympathetically. TJ had personally tasted her creations, Deke, however, had only seen her leftovers.

"'Kay," Deke said. "I'll be back in a few." He moved on to another table and started his habitual script all over again.

I turned back to TJ just in time to see his eyes grow wide. "Umm. Incoming."

"Huh?" I asked, turning around. I was surprised to see my parents walk in hand in hand, and laughing. It wasn't disgusting to witness per-say, it could have been a lot worse, but it was extremely awkward. If it was anyone else's parents, I would have thought they were cute. As it was, I tried my best to hide my face under the booth. TJ just stared at me. "What are you doing?" I hissed. "Hide."

"Oh, hey, Lillian," my Mom said, her violet eyes shining with happiness. "Have you been here long?"

"Hey, Mom, Dad. How goes it?"

"I just successfully rescued every member of the school board from your mother's deep dark mind," Dad said, earning a rather hard punch and glare combo from my mom. He rubbed the sore spot, wincing.

"Congrats, Mr. Fenton. You wanna sit with us?" TJ said scooting over. A streak of fear flashed through me. I'm not sure how my mother would take my weekly burger. She seems to think that I'm as strict a vegetarian as she is.

"Why not?" Dad said, sitting in the space TJ vacated.

I scooted so that mom could sit with as warm a smile as I could muster. She plucked at my black jacket. "I like the color," she said, "But I hope that this isn't real leather."

"Of course not. It's pleather." Suddenly, I saw Deke approaching with our plates. I shook my head, thankful that neither of my parents could see the action because they were busy reviewing the menu.

"Hasn't really changed much has it," Mom said. Ten bucks said that she was only looking at the salad section.

Deke spotted the problem quickly and rushed back into the kitchen. He returned a few minutes later with a salad for me and TJ's plate. I would have to make the abrupt order change up to him later.

"Here you go," he said, wiping his hands on his black apron "Anything else I can get you?"

"Yes," Mom said. "Can I get a salad as well?"

"And I'll have a burger with extra fries."

"All right," Deke responded. "Back in a minute."

I looked down at my salad, stomach churning. I wanted a burger soooooo bad. "So, Lillian, who was that boy?" Mom asked, eating pieces of lettuce from my plate. I had to resist the urge to push it toward her.

In the two years that Deke and I had known each other, I hadn't told my parents that Deke and I were friends, mostly because of his parent's identities. Every time my parents were around Dash Baxter and his wife Paulina they fought. You would think that after a couple of decades, old wounds would have healed.

"He's Deke Baxter. I have a couple of classes with him." Lie. I didn't have any classes with him this semester; he was in all the genius classes with TJ. Both of them were freaking straight A's. I personally wondered which one of them would become valedictorian. Anyway, we only had lunch together.

Immediately, my parents' eyes darkened.

"So... Is there a reason why you guys automatically hate the guy's guts?" TJ asked when he caught on to their expressions. His parents had completely different tastes for the couple, as in, they pretended they didn't exist.

"It's not so much him as his parents," Mom responded. Which was true. She'd never even said two words to the boy. Up until now, she probably didn't even know he existed. Dash and Paulina Baxter where well known in this town as the most beautiful socialites. Well, Paulina was anyway. From what Deke had told me, his dad spent hours camped out on the sofa watching football. A sport that he hated with every fiber of his being, and one that he was being pressured into trying out for. And his mother was always out spending her daddy's money and attending parties. He was pretty sure that she was even having an affair.

"What happened to make you hate his parents?" I asked.

Suddenly, Dad smirked. "With or without the ghost?"

"With," I jumped forward, excited to be getting two stories in as many hours. I picked up my fork and shoveled a bite of ranch-covered lettuce into my mouth.

"Hmmm. Where to start... Oh, I know. Okay, so it was the day my dad invented the Fenton Fisher. I had unknowingly gone downstairs to the lab and saw him playing with a fishing rod that had a glowing white string. It didn't take ol' Jack Fenton long before he told me about it. Naturally, being a teenager, I didn't really care. Suddenly, he got up and shoved the rod into my hands. It's hardly twenty seconds later when a giant, blue, ghost dragon passed through the portal. It was a relatively easy battle. We fought for a short while and the dragon turned into a ghost girl with green skin.

"Thankfully, Dad came back and I went to school. It was boring." Mom slugged him on the arm for the comment, but I knew that she thought much the same when she was in high school. How could she not? "Anyway, we get to lunch and start talking-"

"When suddenly your dads fall silent and I'm talking to myself," Mom cut in. "They were both staring at the school's beauty queen Paulina Sanchez. The sight made me sick, but neither would relent, so I pushed your dad over to her, thinking that he'd make a fool of himself and learn his lesson. He became a fool when his pants fell down, but he did not learn his lesson. Long story short, the dragon became a dragon with the use of a magical amulet, which had fallen into Danny's backpack that morning."

"Boy was I surprised when Paulina came up to my locker," Dad said, taking back control of the story. "But I didn't have time to say anything before Dash shoved me in my locker and started flirting with her. I got mad and invisibly fazed out of my locker. Somehow, the action resulted in me being sucked into his body and overshadowing him for the first time. I made him look like a dork and then returned to the locker. Paulina opened it, I fell out, and everything tumbled from of my bag and scattered all over the floor, including the amulet. She took one look at it and was mesmerized, so, in an attempt to make myself look good I told her it was a gift and asked her to the upcoming school dance. She said yes.

"Later, we're at the mall when the dragon shows up again. I throw it to God knows where and it doesn't come back, but I get suspicious and we start researching."

"You should have heard it when he found out that the amulet could turn Paulina into a dragon. 'I'm going on a date with a dragon!' Those were his exact words." Mom had to stop to laugh, and I found myself fighting back hysterical giggles myself. TJ looked about ready to burst and Dad just appeared amused.

"Anyway, I was multitasking. I had to keep my dad from making a fool of me while he was chaperoning – it was good exercise for my new overshadowing ability – and I was trying to get the amulet away from Paulina. I had an emergency with my dad and I asked your mother to keep an eye on Paulina."

Mom took it as her cue to continue. "I followed her into the bathroom and found out that she thought that she was stealing your dad away from me. At the time, we weren't dating, but she thought we were. I got the amulet back, then I she p – made me very angry and I turned into the dragon. After that I don't remember much."

Dad finished the story by recounting his fight with Mom and how he turned her back into a person. He included gestures and a soundtrack. Thank goodness he had brought the Fenton Fisher along with him. "The end!"

TJ and I clapped, thanking them for the story. I looked at the clock and realized that Deke was about to get off work. I had been hoping to talk to him about my earlier transformation, but the darn boy was always working. I caught TJ's eye and he nodded, a sign that I wanted to ditch my parents. "That was an awesome story, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, but I've got to be going now. There's a show on tonight that I can'tmiss." He wasted a few minutes talking science fiction nonsense that neither of my parents understood, then he asked me to walk with him.

"Shouldn't it be the other way around?" Mom asked. I could practically see the anxiety gathering behind her eyes.

I pulled out a silver tube of lipstick. A gift from my parents when I turned twelve. It was even better than a tazer and a gun combined. "I'll be home before the sun sets," I promised my worried parents. Amity Park wasn't normally a dangerous place, thanks to my dad, but it still worried them if I was out alone. I kissed them both on the cheeks and walked with TJ out the front door.

Deke was sitting by his bike, leather jacket, ripped pants, and steel toed boots had replaced his tame NB uniform. "Yo," he greeted. We waved back and approached. "You guys said there was something you wanted to talk about. Better make it fast, I have to get to my job at the box store."

"That's okay. We'll tell you at school tomorrow," I said. At first he looked puzzled, then he shrugged and sped away.

"I think he's hurt," TJ remarked.

I looked at the dark skinned boy quizzically. "Why's that?"

"Your parents don't know about him, and he knows that you haven't told them. Do you know if his parents know that he's been hanging out with us lately?"

"No. I don't think so." I shook my head, wanting to banish all the dark thoughts and feelings that had invaded it. I wanted to tell my parents a lot of things, about Deke and the transformation, but I couldn't. I don't know how they'd react, and I don't like doing things without knowing. I didn't get to be a straight B student without knowing things. "Anyway," I said, striving to make my voice light and carefree. "We'd better get you home that way I can keep my promise."

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- LeAcH