I'll Protect You (Original Version)

I used to love story time--until I found out that I had amnesia.

"When there's a horrible rain storm brewing outside your doors, you stay inside," I snapped as I handed Alec The Idiot Darkwood a cup of steaming hot tea. The pale faced, forehead sweating, trembling lips, sunken eyes boy reached for the cup.

I took it out of his reach. Yeah, like I'd let a person on their death bed handle a cup of tea.

Alec was shaking all over, unable to stay warm by merely curling into a blanket, and had proceeded into turning himself into a freaking maraca. Elijah and I had buried Darkwood in ten blankets (all of assorted colors and patterns). Black and white pillows were stuffed around him, along with boxes and boxes of tissues. I had laid out about six water bottles as well, hoping that some sense would finally kick him upside the head and he'd drink them all.

Let me rewind this ordeal.

Last night (and by last night, I mean the whole darn day), there had been a shockingly dangerous rain storm raging in Paradise. You had your howling wind, glass-shattering rain, malevolent black thunderclouds that boomed all night long. The whole shabam for a perfect scary rainstorm.

Zen and Minnie had been over, helping me research the Fell family. Logan was back at his own house (cough, mansion, cough), looking through the archives of XYZ's missions, trying to see if the Fell family had been recorded for anything dangerous.

When Professor Xavier Fell had unsuspectingly landed himself on the list of Possible-Stingy-Kingdom-Wanting-Losers, Elijah had instantly phoned...everyone. My mother and father had been called. Their vacation was going to be cut short, and my father was on his way to Paradise while my mother was flying towards Cimeria.

XYZ had been notified, and that meant Caterina and Lancelot Cross were given this new piece of information. Instantly, Professor Xavier Fell had to take a four day long "sick leave." Agents had raided his classroom and office after school hours to search for any evidence.

We were awaiting a call from Caterina to see if anything worth knowing had been discovered. So Alec had taken the job of staring broodingly out the rain-soaked windows like he was in some kind of depressing movie.

A few several hours later, the phone rang. It was Caterina, saying that she needed to speak to us. Alec volunteered himself to go get it that very moment, even though the four of us (Elijah, Zen, Minnie, and the lovely Park) had urged him to wait until the storm cleared up.

Alec the Idiot ignored the wise sayings of the Great Four and traveled in the rain anyway. He came home with a very large file on Xavier Fell and the very presence of death.

Not two hours later, he started coughing up this nasty storm of germs and was immediately put to bed. Again, I had to nurse him because Zen and Minnie were too busy reading the file (but, hello, I'm the one that's the target of assassination here!), Elijah had to run out to the shop because there had been an accident, so I had been stuck feeding Darkwood chicken noodle soup and stuffing his pillows.

Okay, now we can go back to the present again.

"There's school though!" Alec protested. "I'll fall behind if I stay home!"

"Alec, if you dare change into that atrocious uniform, I swear, your death will either be delivered by sickness or me!" I snapped. "Just go to sleep! Elijah is bringing my father home this noon, so you won't be alone for long."

A knock on the door proved me long barely moments later.

Alec and I heard it through the thunder rolling overhead and pounding rain. At first, I lazily got up, thinking it was Logan, with Sophia the Annoying glued to his arms. But when I opened the door, never would I have expected Xavier Fell, my father, and Elijah to be standing on the doorstep.