weldedtomyspine | Room 322 [Sunday morning]

It was a relief to find that Mei was smart enough to go to the Trooper station when lost. Though she did show her age when told by her parents that she had to leave behind some book about cows because it didn't belong to them. Two pieces of licorice from Momoko's pocket, however, quickly stalled any imminent tears and Mei was carried out of the station with no complaints.

There were many complaints, however, from Sophia and Elena. About how long it had taken, how they hadn't gotten any candy or cocoa, that it was cold, how hungry they were and how they didn't want to eat anything but papa's pancakes. "With choc'aty chips! The right way!" reminded Sophia, swinging her papa's hand as they quickly walked back to the dorms. Luckily, Jaime was able to find a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips in one of the kitchens, as well as a pancake mix.

Breakfast over ("It's late, so it's really brunch!" corrected Elena, as she smeared her pancake into the syrup.), there was clean up and then a trip back to Momoko's room to feed and torture poor Moshi, and then trooping down to Jaime's room to watch a movie, since he no longer had a roommate. After the movie, was a trip to buy actual clothes, shoes, and coats that worked for the totally not-El Paso weather (bye-bye rainy-day-cake savings) and then an argument about dinner. Momoko was out-voted and it was take-out from Ching Tai that escorted them back to the dorms and to Jaime's room for another movie.

It was during the second movie that Momoko had the hardest time. The rest of the day there had been Thing To Get Done, but now? In a darkened room, with nothing to do but hold Mei asleep in her lap, let Sophia leaning heavy against her, trying so hard to stay awake, and watch Elena tugging on Jaime's arm asking some question about how some machine thing on the screen worked? It was hard to not think about how nice it was, how relaxed, how comfortable...

Which was more than she could say about her situation right now. Momoko frowned and shifted, trying to fall back asleep despite the thump-thump, thump-thumping noise her pillow seemed to be making, and the sound of girlish giggling and a phone being dropped.

"Shh! Careful, silly! You'll wake them and we'll get in trouble!"

[You guys know how this works: door closed, post open.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

hijas_kawaii

Elena's face fell at the idea of not being 'grown up' and she nearly cried when Jaime'd chimed in.

She reached behind her for the phone, handing it over slowly. "Sorry."

Edited Date: 2011-02-14 05:14 am (UTC)

From:

weldedtomyspine

Jaime walked over and knelt next to her.

"And just what were you up to with that, young lady?" His voice was firm, but not critical now.

From:

hijas_kawaii

Elena wibbled. Someone didn't like her papa being mad at her. "Calling people."

From:

weldedtomyspine

"And why didn't you just say that?" he asked in the same tone, lightly placing a hand on her shoulder.

From:

hijas_kawaii

"Cause I'm not s'posed to use the phone without asking first an' I didn't wanna get in trouble." She looked up, still just this side of tears. "But you and momma was asleeps and it was Sophy too but I didn't let her use it by herself and we're not s'posed to wake you up so we couldn't ask and I'm sorry!"

From:

weldedtomyspine

Jaime hadn't ever really thought about how hard it would be to stay firm with a little girl who could make expressions like Momoko's, but it was incredibly difficult.

"What was so urgent that you couldn't wait?" Jaime asked, fighting the urge to pull her into a hug and reassure her that it was all okay.

From:

hijas_kawaii

Elena wouldn't mind that, really! It was totally better than papa being mad or, worse, disappointed.

"We... were bored," which she knew now wasn't enough to break a rule and then lie to momma about it, but it had totally seemed like it then!

From:

weldedtomyspine

His hand squeezed her shoulder lightly. "And who did you call?"

From:

hijas_kawaii

"Aunt... I mean Miss Dinah. But she didn't answer!" Would that help her case any? She gripped her nightshirt, twisting it in her small fingers. "You woke up before we could call tía."

From:

weldedtomyspine

Jaime was about to say something when a thought occurred to him.

"What is my sister's number doing in your momma's phone?"

From:

heromaniac

Elena looked at him with a confused expression on her face and Momoko felt the need to chime in. "Jaime, I've met Milagro, remember? But who's Tia?"

She didn't remember meeting a Tia, let alone having one in her contacts.

From:

weldedtomyspine

His attention was on Momoko now. "Met her, sure... but when did she give you her number."

His eyes narrowed. "'Tia' means 'aunt'.

From:

heromaniac

And now Momoko was the one lying about the phone.

"We went shopping together, remember? Do you think I'd go somewhere with your little sister and not have a way to contact her if she got separated?"

Since Momoko didn't have super awesome alien scanning abilities and all.

From:

weldedtomyspine

That... sounded reasonable, actually. Jaime found himself nodding.

But then Elena's eyes widened. "That's not fair, momma! You haveta tell the truth."

"Yeah!" Sophia agreed. "That's your tricky face!"

From:

heromaniac

Momoko was caught off guard at the wee tiny accusations. Mei even climbed out of her lap to stand and clasp Momoko's cheeks, searching her eyes for a moment before frowning at her. "Momma, no lies. Papa says'a rule! /¿Want inna corner?/"

"Totally not fair!" She was so changing the rules in the future so that she could lie.

From:

weldedtomyspine

Jaime laughed. "Momma doesn't have to go sit in the corner," he assure Mei. "Though she might want to set a good example and tell the truth."

From:

heromaniac

Momoko laughed as well. "/Ah! Papa says no corner for momma, silly little one. What now?/" She reached forward to tickle Mei, making the girl giggle and screech happily and then collapse back into her mother's lap.

A second to make sure Mei was okay, and then Momoko looked over to Jaime with an embarrassed grin. "Okay, okay. The phone number I have for Mila-chan is totally just your house phone. When you dared me to find out your birthday, I talked to DiDi and then snuck in your room and looked the number up so I could call her and ask."

From:

weldedtomyspine

He stared at her, then burst out laughing.

"Ooooooh, you are sneaky."

From:

heromaniac

Momoko's grin grew just a bit evil. "You dared me to find out. I did."

Elena rolled her eyes and Sophia facepalmed. "Papaaaa."

From:

weldedtomyspine

He kept laughing. "I know," he said, looking down at Elena. "That was pretty silly of me, wasn't it?"

From:

hijas_kawaii

"Totally silly." Elena agreed and leaned against him, glad her lecture seemed to be over. "Momma gets mean and tricky when you dare her."

"And you keep doing it!" wailed Sophia. "We didn't eat dessert for a week papa!!"

From:

weldedtomyspine

"I'm pretty sure I apologized about that." Right?

From:

hijas_kawaii

"After a week," Elena sighed. "You kept saying it was nice being healthy, and momma would get madder and then we had no desserts again."

"And it was almost my birthday!" Which was particularly why Sophy remembered it.

From:

weldedtomyspine

"But you still got cake!"

Jaime was pretty sure he'd have made sure of that. And that Momoko would have relented for birthdays.

From:

hijas_kawaii

"I did." Sophia pulled her feet up and pouted at the memory.

"'cause I cried!" Mei cheered from Momoko's lap, kicking her feet happily.

Momoko thought that happy reaction was... odd. "You cried?"

Elena nodded. "It was part of my Plan. And then you finally said you give up and momma won and then she kissed you and then you made a early cake to 'pologize!"