Steps One Shots (ish)

Flee - Double Trouble

I couldn't get enough of Imogen, Abigail, Benjamin, Faye and Lee so I had to write another short about them. I have more flashbacks (long sections in italics) here and I can't say I'm sorry. Short italics sections are what people say over phone/video calls.

Setting - 2020 I kinda had to have a little story about Lockdown, because I can just imagine how chaotic that would be with old enough to know, too young to understand twins around. Ben's 11, the twins are 6 going on 7.

Faye:
The fun part was that for the foreseeable future all five of us would be at home with no excuse. That was also the not-so-fun part. Twins and an eleven year old with no escape for... well who knows how long. And home schooling, because I was obviously going to do wonderfully at that. What do year 6s even get taught other than how to pass the SATs tests that aren't happening? Well I was going to find out over the next few weeks. The good news was that I was pretty sure I could still do year 2 level work, so at least the twins' education was in safe hands. But other than home schooling what were we going to do? Craft stuff and play games presumably.
"Why do we have to be off school?" Imogen asked me, sitting down next to me on the sofa.
I sighed. "Because there's a nasty horrible illness... and... urhm... it's safer for you not to go to school until it's under control."
"But I wanna go to school." Imogen pouted. "I want to get to see Millie and Beth cause they'll be lonely without me."
"Oh sweetiepie! Millie and Beth won't be at school either, nobody will Immy baby. But I'm sure it'll be alright and you'll be able to go back soon." I told her.
"What if it's not?"
I bit my lip. I hoped it was, if only because I wasn't sure how long I could make it in the house without seeing anyone else before I went mad. "No I... I'm sure it will be." I assured her softly. "Where's Abigail? We could play Mario Kart if you wanted."
"Can we, can we?" Imogen replied.
"Yes, but where's Abigail? I know she'll want to play with us."
Immy pouted but answered my question anyway. "Hmmm... she might be in her room."
"Can you go get her?" I asked.
She nodded and left while I was left to set up the game. I couldn't find the other set of controllers anywhere. They weren't on the charger dock, they weren't in the draw with the games and all the other things. I eventually found them, of all places, hidden behind a pile of DVDs.
"What you doing?" Benjamin asked as I sat trying to get the controllers to connect to the console.
"Well if they ever come back downstairs and this controller ever connects, I'm going to play Mario Kart with the twins." I told him.
"Can I play?" He asked.
I sighed. "Yes, if you don't mind sorting out the controllers." I told him, handing him the other two controllers.

After brief moment he got both the controllers sorted.
"How is it they just work for you?" I moaned as he handed me the yellow controller.
"I'm just good at this. Nah. You had the black grips on the wrong way round." He replied.
The twins finally turned back up and each took their controller (Imogen's was blue, Abigail's was neon pink), Benjamin was left with his lucky green controller.

For about an hour the four of us played, intermixed with numerous arguments over who was going to be various characters, before I took the girls up to bed. Lee smiled at me as I sat and read them a bedtime story, sitting down opposite us in the hallway. Today it was his turn to tuck Imogen in and I had Abigail. As I sat on the edge of her bed and tucked Abigail's teddy up to her I groaned.
"That's Immy's bear." She moaned just as I realised.
"Yep." I replied. "Stay there I'll go get yours." I headed across to Imogen's room with the teddy, where she was asking Lee difficult questions like the ones she'd been asking me earlier.
"...you see Immy it'll be okay." I heard Lee say as I came into the room.
"Teddy swap." I announced, taking the pink and yellow cat off of Lee and handing him the pale purple and baby blue (almost marbled in pattern) bear. Yes we'd even colour-coded their teddies when they were little kids.
He looked at the two. "Oh yeah okay." I smiled at him, kissed his cheek and then left again, taking Abigail her teddy. I sat down with her again and gave her the teddy, watching with a smile as she snuggled up to it.
"I can't go dance can I?" She asked.
I shook my head sadly. "No honeybunny." I replied.
"But yous not going away now are yous?" She checked.
"No, both me and dad are going to be here with you three for a while." I told her.
She smiled. "It'll be nice." She said.
I smiled. That's not what I'd expected her to say, but she'd always been more family based than Imogen.
"Yeah it will won't it." I said. "Anyway, night night Abigail." I kissed her, standing up and tucking her in.
"Night night mama." She replied. I shut the door and headed downstairs to find Benjamin playing Minecraft. I sighed, but said nothing and sat down with him.
"Now the girls are out of the way, are you alright with all this that's happening? How do you feel about it all?" I asked him gently.
He shrugged. "I don't know." He said, putting the controller down and hugging me. I slipped my arms round him and hugged him tightly as I could tell he was trying his best not to cry. "I know I'm scared, but I didn't want to tell you earlier because I know you have the girls to worry about and they're more important because..."
"Benjamin, I don't care that they're younger or littler or whatever other words you might have chosen to put there. You're a very special little boy and are very important to me and your dad. So if you're ever sad or scared or anything you can always tell us okay?" I assured him softly.
He nodded and I kissed his head.
"Do you think I'll get to go back to little school?" He asked me.
I bit my lip. I didn't want to even think about the fact that my baby boy was going off to Secondary School in September. I wanted him to be little forever. "July's a long way off yet so lets hope so." I replied.
We stayed like that until Lee came down, and then the three of us played Mario Kart together (Lee being naughty and using Imogen's controller). Eventually it was time to stop and send Benjamin up to bed with the promise one of us would come and tuck him in when he was ready.