A/N:

Yeah so this is going to be a bit of a slower chapter, just a few cutesy bits here and there because, like the chapter title says: it's the calm before the storm! Mwahahaha! XD But I hope you like it all the same.

And yeah, as most of you guessed, it was pretty obvious who the psychiatrist was, I don't think there's any prizes for that one, but I'm still keeping you in the dark about the employer! XD

It had been a few days since that incident at the coffee house and thankfully that arrogant idiot hadn't bothered me since. In fact, it was like he was the one avoiding me, which was just great in my opinion. And over those few days, there were two things that surprised me. One, that the phone calls at work had stopped which I couldn't decide if that was relieving or unnerving; the second: it was strange how well the Warner's had fitted into our home. They were like part of the family, and it was pretty good. Of course I knew that the three were sneaking off in the day to visit Flynn and Poppy at school, it was pretty obvious from their little inside jokes and sly looks from time to time and soon enough they even let me in on them. I had to admit that it was great knowing that the toons were looking out for my siblings when I couldn't. And it was such a relief knowing that they were together, safety in numbers and all that. The lack of phone calls was still a mystery to me. Had they given up? Was there another emergency with them that meant I was pushed down the list? I doubted it was over, I wasn't that naïve. But I felt that it wasn't worth mentioning, there was no point in worrying them unless there was something to worry about. I promised myself that if I received another call, then I'd spill everything. But for now, I was just enjoying being happy and having my siblings happy with me.

Thursday was a slow day at the hotel so I was allowed to leave early. There was a sudden glowing satisfaction coming over me at the bemused looks of the teachers that I was actually early. Take that snobs, Talia's doing something right! And in public! HA! However that satisfaction soon changed to shock when we got home. The minute we stepped through the front door, we found ourselves walking in on a warzone. A literal warzone. The Warner's were dressed in combat gear and heavy metal helmets. Dot grabbed my arm and pulled me and Poppy down next to her behind a barricade while Flynn was hoisted over by the boys. Dot lit the fuse of a cannon and covered her ears. The explosion shook the room and was soon joined by a counter attack from her brothers.

"You're late soldiers!" she placed a helmet on our heads and rubbed her hands together cunningly, "Now we have a fair fight!"

"Bombs away!" Wakko announced from the other side of the room.

Dot jumped up with a tennis racket and smacked an incoming water bomb back towards them, "Incoming!" she retorted.

"How did all this happen?" I gasped, ducking as a wave curved over us.

"There was a phone call." She answered as if it was obvious.

"Who was it?" I spluttered, pushing my drenched hair out of my eyes.

"Don't know yet." She shrugged.

"Who answered it?"

"That's what we're trying to decide!" her hand flew to a slingshot loaded with mini-water balloons and she moved at rapid pace to fire them.

Poppy listened carefully and arched her brow sceptically, "But… the phones not ringing anymore."

Everything seemed to hit pause. A deathly silence falling over the warzone, it seemed even the water droplets and explosions seemed to halt in mid-movement. I jumped as the boys peeked their heads over our barricade with knowing expressions.

"I was wondering when someone was going to point that out." Yakko shrugged, "Wakko…"

Wakko nodded and pulled a large sack from under his hat and started loading up the weapons, barricades and water bombs inside of it. Yakko and Dot threw their helmets like a Frisbee, to which Wakko jumped and had to swing his bag in order to catch them, making it into a game. He looked at me hopefully and I shrugged, removing my headgear and span it outwards, watching it vanish into the sack before he replaced it under his cap. Really, I should have been more confused by the impossible amount of space inside of that bag, as well as the sudden dry and clean state of the living room. Wow it actually looked cleaner than when I left this morning… Never mind. I wasn't going to get a better answer than 'it's a toon thing', anyway. But it was becoming part of a normal day now, and sometimes things were more fun when you didn't question them. Most of the time. My siblings stared at their now perfectly dry clothes and added their helmets to the game.

"You weren't doing this all day were you? I would have though you'd visit the school again." I said, smoothing down my suddenly dry hair while switching on my laptop on the desk. There wasn't any particular reason why I was going on the net, but I figured I hadn't been on in a while and wanted to check my emails for any news from my online course.

"They came this morning." Flynn answered.

"But then we got hungry." Wakko added.

"Speak for yourself." Dot rolled her eyes.

"Fair enough, as long as you didn't get kicked out of the school kitchen again. Bags upstairs guys." I finished with a look at my siblings, sitting at the desk and loading up the internet.

"In our defence, the school food had never been better." Yakko said, he tilted his head at me, "What you doing, kiddo?"

I nodded towards the computer, "Just checking out some stuff on my laptop."

The two brothers snuck up and sat on my lap, looking up at me slyly, "So are we."

"Boys, go fig…" Dot huffed, "What you checking?"

"Just some emails. Done!" I said, turning it off with haste and going to get up, but couldn't as the boys were still sitting on my lap, resulting in me overbalancing and toppling backwards onto the floor with them in a heap. I groaned, "Do you mind?"

"No…" Yakko smirked, wriggling his eyebrows at me while Wakko got up and brushed himself off.

"What if I put a pizza on?" I challenged.

"Depends what you put it on."

I narrowed my eyes triumphantly, "Let me up or no one eats."

Wakko leapt and tackled his brother so that they were scrapping on the floor, "Do what she says! There's a pizza at risk!"

I didn't have Pizza and didn't have enough cash for take-out, but I did have the next best thing, in lots of small parts. I cut the crusts off of sliced bread into circles so that there was enough for four each because they were only small; coating each one with tomato puree and loaded up a plate with toppings. Cheese, ham, pepperoni slices, mushrooms, peppers and sweetcorn. Sure it was no Italian speciality, but it would be fun doing a 'make-your-own'. I hadn't done something like this in years; it brought back a lot of memories. I smiled; Poppy made hers into faces like I used to. Pepperoni eyes, sweetcorn hair and peppers for a mouth, sometimes exchanging sweetcorn for mushroom if she wanted to change the hair colour. Flynn was less focussed on image and instead put a different combination for each one; Yakko doing likewise. Dot formed hers into pretty patterns, like flowers and spirals. Wakko and I were not to organised. I sprinkled whatever took my fancy on top of mine and he formed his into little mounds of food rising a few inches off of the plate. While they cooked, we just nibbled on the leftovers.

"Talia! Look what he did!" Poppy pointed to her brother. I had to laugh, Flynn had scooped some puree on his finger and flicked it on her nose, making it look redder than the toons.

Flynn raised his hands in victory, "She laughed! I'm clear!" but he was soon shown up as a dollop of the stuff smacked onto his forehead.

Yakko dusted his knuckles on his front smugly, "Clear target anyway."

Dot lined up a shot of her own, but Wakko ducked at the last minute so she ended up giving me some unwanted red highlights. Oh, now the games would begin! I leant my head backwards and then snapped it forward so that the gloop in my hair splattered outwards and streaking on all of them. Wakko extended his weirdly long tongue and cleaned his entire face in a single sweep before reaching out to grab the tube of puree with a menacing glint in his eyes. But thankfully, before another all-out war could begin, we were interrupted by the timer going off telling us our pizza-bread was ready. I breathed with relief and handed them out. As much as it would have been interesting to see where that battle would have gone, I really didn't fancy scrubbing it off the walls later…

I was dressing Poppy for bed when she bounced excitably, "I'm going to bring home a book with maps from school tomorrow. Yakko and Wakko can name every capitol, state and country; without the labels!" she nodded as if I was silently doubting it, "They're going to teach me how to remember it too."

"As long as you keep at it, that sounds pretty difficult." I replied.

"Like when Flynn taught me to do my laces." She paused in thought and looked at me earnestly, "If they taught me something that took a long time like Flynn did; would that make them my brothers too? And then that would make Dot my sister. Then, wouldn't that make them yours and Flynn's brothers and sister too? That would be fun!"

I shifted at the question, "It's not as simple as that, but… yeah, it would be fun…" I sighed and smiled at her, "I'll be back in ten minutes, okay, you get into bed."

Five minutes later, I was out of the shower and dressed for bed. I moved along the landing to finish putting Poppy to bed, but found that Flynn was sitting on the floor. Leaning against the wall to the side of her bedroom door; his knee's hugged up under his chin, head tilted as if listening in on something. The minute he laid eyes on me, his finger shot to his lips to shush me. I looked at him quizzically and he pointed his chin towards the inside of the bedroom. Slowly, I tiptoed past him and slid down the wall of the other side of the door to sit, leaning close to the hinges to listen clearer and also get a bit of a view of what was going on. Poppy was tucked in bed and beaming at the three characters. Yakko standing on the floor next to her, Wakko perched behind her head atop the wooden headboard and Dot sitting cross-legged at the foot of the bed. They were singing something that sounded like it belonged in a faster tempo but they were deliberately hushing it to suit the bedtime scenario. It seemed I missed the grand opening, but the ending seemed pretty sweet.

A/N: Who remembers the Animaniacs song 'Only One of You'? Well, it's back, but only the last part XD

"A lot of little grains of dirt make up this planet," Yakko sang, "A billion atoms on the head of every pin; a million birds that all can fly, a trillion stars up in the sky and all the many different people there have been!"

His siblings joined in at this point, Wakko leaning over to tousle Poppy's hair softly, "But there is only one of you that makes you special, yes there is nothing else exactly like you are! Cuz you're unique and you're terrific and you're kind of real specific, cuz there's no one else the same as the person you became!"

Wakko tilted his head, "In fact you're kind of weird…"

"But we like you just the same!" Yakko added, pulling her sheets up over he shoulders.

The three hopped off the bed and lowered their voices as Poppy's eyes started to droop, "Cuz you the only one of you there are! Baba do, baba do, baba do-ah!"

We ducked into my room before they trooped out so that they didn't know we were eavesdropping; I caught Flynn's eyes, "I'm sure they'd sing to you if you asked." I whispered.

He narrowed his eyes and poked his tongue out at me. I returned the gesture childishly and prodded him with my foot so he knew I was joking. He shrugged, but there was a hint of a smile there, and that was enough for me. I was about to open my door to lead him back into his room, when I noticed Flynn was looking at me as if he was struggling with his words and that he was about to turn around and walk off, but he persisted.

"You know when… You know when we had that talk a few days ago and I told you why…" he swallowed and shifted uneasily.

"When you told me why you were angry with me?" I prompted softly, "Yeah?"

"I guess I never really… Well, I told you why and stuff but, I never really said I was, you know…" he looked at me dead in the eye as if it was going to help him, and it seemed to, "I never said I was sorry."

That took me by surprise, "What do you have to be sorry about?"

He looked at the floor, "All I did was tell you about me being angry about stuff that, looking at it now, really wasn't your fault. So, I'm sorry."

Flynn gave me a look that was almost like he was challenging me to disagree with him. I sighed and tousled his hair, to which he gave me the biggest shock so far. He hugged me. Honest to god, my little brother hugged me for the first time since he was four years old and he mistook me for mom, despite me only being eleven at the time. Only this time, he didn't push away in horror, he held firm, and I found myself returning it. For gods sake, Talia, don't cry you'll embarrass him! I wasn't sure how long we were like that, but he pulled back slowly and scowled at me.

"Enough mushy stuff, you wimp!"

"Okay, then I'll go back to the bad cop." I pointed with mock agitation, "You get to bed right now mister!"

He rolled his eyes and gave a sarcastic salute, "Sure thing, Sir!"

The door closed behind him and my mind started ticking over what had just happened. I never really considered that Flynn should say sorry to me, all he did was tell me how he felt. And I hadn't actually taken offense to what he told me and wouldn't expect him to apologise. But it seemed to make him feel better, and that's all I really cared about. He was growing up, and that was scary. I sighed and left to check in on Poppy who was sound asleep. As I pushed a strand of hair from her eyes, I had to hand it to the Warner's, they really had a knack with children. Maybe it was the cartoon aspect to them, or perhaps it was because they pretty much were kids themselves… in some aspects more than others… Just to be on the safe side, I pressed my ear against the door to my parents' old bedroom, or should I say the Warner's bedroom now? Yeah, I suppose I should. Either way. By the sound of it, they were sleeping. It was quiet and that was a good enough sign for me.

I rushed downstairs and switched the laptop back on to load up my emails. My heart was beating frantically. There had been a reason why I was so quick to turn it off earlier. It was because there had been something in my inbox that I hadn't wanted them to see. I was looking at it right now. A message with its sender clearly labelled 'Warner Brothers Studio'. I gulped and opened it, scanning its contents anxiously. In some ways this was worse than phone calls because it was more personal by email. A direct contact. A cold sweat started to bead on my brow. It was an invitation. There was no name or actual message, but the printable 'free VIP pass' was clear enough. So that quack doctor coughed up my details, stabbed me in the back again… Now the message was clear to me. They wanted me to bring the Warner's to the studio personally. This some twisted way of trying to give me free will so that I'd consent more willingly. This was horrible. Not baring to look at it any longer, I turned the laptop off and held my head in my hands. What do I do now? I could go to the studio alone and get answers, but what about Flynn and Poppy? What about the toons? I couldn't leave them, I wouldn't leave them; none of them. My hands peeled away from over my eyes and I flinched at the cheeky face that was sitting on the desk directly in front of me, its cherry nose centimetres from mine.

"Peek-a-boo!" Yakko announced before retracting to sit up straight, "What's up, kiddo?"

"My heart rate!" I answered dryly, recovering from the shock.

"I have that affect on the ladies." He finished with a growl, "Grrraow!"

I rolled my eyes and got to my feet, all the time aware that he was still waiting for an answer. But I couldn't give him one. There was no point, I was going to ignore the email, it just made sense that by sending it to me, they weren't willing to make a big enough fuss to come themselves. So there wasn't any point in causing panic when there was no need to. Ignorance is bliss so they say; and looking at how happy everyone was lately, I could see why. In fact I wish I was ignorant as them.

"Hey kiddo, if you try to be the strong and silent type much longer you'll be the next Thinker statue." He jarred me from my thoughts and to satisfy him I flashed him a smile. He tapped the computer sceptically, "Online dating?"

I scoffed, "Yeah right! No I was just checking emails."

"Again?" he arched an eyebrow.

I had to divert this somehow, "Well for me checking emails is like looking behind the shower curtain before you lock the door. Seemingly pointless but could be necessary."

"Exsqueeze me?" He looked like he was going to snap in half from laughter, "This isn't a horror movie, kiddo, you really do that?"

I folded my arms and looked at him dryly, "I never had to before…"

A shrugged in a 'what can you do' kind of way; "So what's up?" he asked a second time.

"The ceiling?" I deflected the topic again, hoping he'd get the hint.

"Careful borrowing my material kiddo, I might need that some day." He joked, "Besides I'm the wise-cracking master in this tale."

"And does that make me the damsel in distress?" I scoffed, "This isn't a cartoon, you know."

He eyed me with a knowing expression, "Oh I know this isn't a cartoon."

There was something in his amused tone that made me nervous, "You make it sound like it's not reality either…"

"Stranger things have happened." He winked.

"Goodnight, Yakko."

He was trying to mess with me, but I couldn't disagree with him either. There had been a lot of strange things going on and the toons were only a fraction of it. But I refused to get into that right now. Right now I just wanted to forget about the email and the studio and just sleep it off. Maybe I would be able to have a clearer head in the morning. I trudged back into my room and felt my eyes dropping as I curled up under the covers. But there was something weird about my bed. It was warmer, and it felt like something was taking up half the room. My eyes shot open and I nearly screamed if it wasn't for the surprise taking over me.

"Darling you've been gone so long!" Yakko announced in an oddly girly voice and batting his eyes before planting a signature Warner kiss on my forehead.

I cringed and tumbled out onto the floor in an effort to get away, I glared up at him, "Get out of my bed!"

"Mwah! Goodnight everybody!"

"Yes, goodnight!"

"You're jumpier than usual, kiddo, should we hide the baseball bats?" He eyed me as I got to my feet but didn't budge, "You're gonna start to stink if you spend too much time down in the dumps."

"I'm fine." I sighed and smiled at him, genuinely grateful for his concern, "But, thanks anyway."

"No problem, Pinocchio." He arched an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced.

Yakko stood up to sit down on the window ledge, allowing me to reclaim my bed. Yet, he still wasn't leaving. I sighed and rolled over with my back to him.

"I think we both know by now that I'm not going to give this up." He mused, "I can go on talking all night, you're going to have to spill at some point just to get rid of me. It's happened before and it looks like it'll happen again! Like this one time -"

Oh my god we wouldn't shut up! Now when he had done this before when I told him about my parents, it was different. There was nothing at risk and no panic to cause, it was just him giving me someone to talk to. With this, it was revealing a threat and that would lead to more questions that I didn't have the answer to. So it was best to keep quiet for now. Like I said before, if I got another phone call, then I would tell them. For now, I fumbled under my pillow and found my mp3 player. Slowly, so that he wouldn't see me, I plugged the headphones into my ears, muffling his voice under the music. I lifted my hand out of the covers to give him thumbs up before settling down to sleep. But I had to laugh; true to his word, the next morning he was still perched on the window ledge, fast asleep and yet still muttering a one sided argument.

A/N:

Thanks to 'frumouttamimind' for giving me the bedtime song idea, sorry I didn't use 'Yakko's world', but I did give it a shout out XD

Okay, next chapter, it's all kicking off! There will be new characters (from the show) coming in, suspense and panic shall be caused… and things take a turn for the worse. Here's a clue who one of the characters are: "It's definitely gonna get worse, yup, definitely!"

Sorry it was s slow chapter, but this was my last chance to get some of the cutesy ideas down before the fun begins. Hope to hear from you soon!