The Lost Girl (Complete)

Chapter Thirteen - The Blackbourne Hurricane

"You can't be serious," Celestia spluttered as she watched the three older boys finish hooking in the brand new television and surround sound system in her threadbare lounge room as she huddled into the wall near the door as they all waited for the arrival of the pizza delivery person. "What are you going to do when you have to pack it all up tomorrow? I had a TV."

"No," Dimitrius called from behind the stand. "You had a piece of shit that should have been thrown out before my mother was born. This is top of the line and will be a major investment when we start compiling your DVD and Blu Ray collection."

Once again feeling as though she was dealing with alien creatures, she simply stared in absolute silence until the boys' triumphant cheers had died down and they had moved to settle in front of the massive screen ready to run through the tuning process.

"You can't buy me this!" She burst out, shocked. "I don't need a big TV or lots of movies. God!" She threw up her hands, "I can barely remember the last time I was able to watch a movie." Her eyes going distant, she tried to think back over the past months. "I think we watched a PG film in one of my classes on the last day of school."

"Calm down, chicken little," Mikael laughed as he held his hands up in surrender. "We're just talking about a few. And it's not like any of it will be porn."

"Porn?!" Celestia screeched, her face going so red that it seemed as though every ounce of blood had pooled in her cheeks.

"No," Elias smirked, smacking his brother on the back of the head. "Not porn. As for us giving you things, you wouldn't deny your long lost family the chance to buy you a few gifts to make up for all of the birthdays and Christmases missed, would you?"

"Uh," She replied smartly.

"Not to mention Easter and graduation," Dimitrius added.

"And you just can't forget all of the times where it should have been our duty to help spoil the shit out of you," Mikael rubbed his hands together. "I'm just glad we haven't missed your first date. Our dads, North and Silas, have an awesome gun collection and we can borrow Mum's rocking chair and stick it out on the front porch for that particular night."

"Shouldn't you be busy worrying about that with Sofia and Avery?" Celestia asked desperately, trying to take that all in. When was a family taking care of her going to become normal?

"We don't need to," A completely new voice came from the doorway, startling them all. "The dads will annihilate anyone who even thinks about dating one of our sisters."

"Holy fuck, Alexander!" Mikael grumbled. "Thanks for scaring the crap out of our poor little cousin."

The younger teen smirked as he flicked a finger against his rakish fringe, "Like she was the only one to jump. The Commander and Stone Cold are going to have to run you through training again if you're that easy to startle in the middle of a tiny living room." Eyes twinkling, he winked at Celestia, "Sorry, Lesa. I didn't mean to barge in but no one answered when I knocked and I didn't want to miss the fun."

Nodding as though she wasn't going insane, Celestia looked between the four boys taking over her house, "Is that what you really call your Dads?"

"Oh yeah," Alexander nodded, hands on hips as he surveyed the room and the new equipment. "Not to their faces usually but sometimes we have to use something other than Dad when they're all together."

"You don't call them by their first names or just call your biological father 'Dad'?"

Another round of loaded glances before Alexander cleared his throat, "The triplets, Sofia and I are all adopted."

It was said gently but Celestia still felt completely mortified – it wasn't an obvious thing to pick out since they all resembled one of their fathers – and it also made her feel like her own upbringing had been so much worse because how could one sister be so selfish as to forget about the existence of one child while the other was opening up her home to lost children.

"I'm sorry," She apologised hoarsely, eyes on the floor.

"Hey," Elias murmured, walking over to lay a gentle hand on her fragile shoulder. "It's not obvious and we're definitely not offended since we all think of Sang and her husbands as our only parents. They're the most amazing people I've ever met and I feel proud to be called a Blackbourne kid."

"We all do," Alexander added. "They've never let any of us think that we're not equal in their affections because we're not blood, and we were all already apart of their family before Avery, Mason and Sebastian were born so they've never treated as anything other than their older siblings."

"Avery is Sean's, Mason is Silas' and Sebastian is Luke's," Dimitrius announced quietly, assuaging Celestia's curiosity before she could even think to blurt out the question.

"I'm feeling uncomfortable now," Mikael muttered. "And so very violated."

The others snorted.

"So, original point," Alexander backtracked. "They've never really liked the idea of 'claiming' their biological children which is why we were kind of stuck with names. That's how the 'Alternative Titles' were born – we analysed them and had their names written into our secret shared diary which is now buried in the backyard as part of our family time capsule. Hopefully they'll never know what we refer to them as until they're too old to walk without breaking a hip."

"Or fire a gun," Elias grumbled, beaming. "You'll get used to it all eventually."

"Ok," Dimitrius chopped a hand through the air. "This is nice and all but what the hell are you doing here, Alex?"

The boy shrugged and leaned down out of sight to retrieve a handful of bulging shopping bags. "I was coming over to bug the shit out Lesa for the night because I'm just awesome like that. What are you lot doing except for torturing her with expensive bribes?"

"We planned a sleepover," Elias crossed his arms, irritated that there would be less leftover pizza than first expected.

Alexander brightened, "Sweet. I stopped on the way here and picked up an Xbox One and some games. The sound will be awesome on that surround system.

At that Celestia just walked over to one of the uncomfortable cushions on the lounge and slumped down, wondering how her life had come to this and what else the night might bring. It seemed as though Hurricane Blackbourne had touched down in Sunnyvale Court and was just beginning in its plan to shake things up.