Marriage is Murder

Jack chuckled and went to Robert Remus and sat him up then moved to Michael and took out the bunny ear replacing it with a pacifier and chuckled " practice Brian " he said and sat down holding Andrew on his knee as he watched the others and shook his head

Jess pored out every drop including the one in her necklace and picked up a small vile , walking up she found Brian and jack with a floor full of babies and chuckled " Robert wants to now if he can have a sample of Khaats blood so we can find out why she got the head ache when he didn't " she said " I saw it Brian"

"thanks, jack. She only said it was a headache, like a migraine. But when I checked her, she had been holding out on me. Most of the rest of us would have been screaming in pain. If you've never done this, just watch. Its easy." He numbed the skin over the veins in the back of Khaat's wrist and opened the vein, letting the blood flow freely into the test tube. Khaat never moved even an eyelash. "Robert's probably right in asking me to do it. If anyone else touched her, she's a fighter. She'd have been awake and thrusting a wand into their hearts. Me, she ignores."

"Its not ignoring, Mate," Angus said. "Its trust. Dont mistake the two." He looked down just in time to see Abbey take a fistful of butter and shove it into her mouth. "Didn't you eat?" he frowned at her.

"Yuck," Kate laughed. "That really would have been better with the bread she already ate."

"I do try not to," Brian replied to Angus said, putting the little cork in the test tube. He handed it to Jess and then took Khaat's wrist in his hand and closed the open wound by touch. "Does that help?" he asked her.

Jess watched and saw him at work " yes, thank you and Angus is right " she said and moved smiling at Abby as she held the butter in her hands before heading back down to the potions lab and to Robert " got it Robert " she said and placed it in the holder in front of him she sat and watched him wanting to know more.

Jack watched the babies crawl picking up several and facing them back to the middle of the room and the toys that seem to have collected in the middle, James just sat looking around his dummy in his mouth as he held a stuffed cat in his arms.

"Robert threatened to make sure the kids Khaat and I had were sextuplets," Brian sighed. "I really do not need us to have 11 kids of our own."

"Dont you want any of your own?" Kate asked him.

"These are mine," Brian said. "I am the legal parent of these children. They are mine. They don't need to be genetically mine to be mine. I really am good with it. Khaat will not be a baby factory. She's had two very successful pregnancies. If she never has another, I'm fine with it. Look, I am completely contented knowing that the most beautiful woman in the world loves me." Then he paused. "No offense intended to anyone else."

"No offense taken," Kate said. "Its very sweet. Robert and I always wanted Khaat to have someone who loved her. And she has that."

"MINE!" Abbey said, suddenly seeing a sparkle off Angus's wand and snatching it from his pocket and inadvertently aiming the business end of it towards him.

"I really would prefer you point that the other way," he frowned. She giggled. Brian didn't usually react to child antics, but Abbey had sudden bursts of accidental magic,, and he saw real danger as a possibility.

"Accio!" he reached forward his hand and the wand went flying from Abbey's hand and snapped into his hand obediently.

"Thanks, Mate," Angus said. Brian went over to Abbey and showed her the wand.

"Abbey," he said. "Look. Not a toy. No touch."

"Mine!" she reached for it.

"Oh here we go," he sighed. "No, not Abbey's. Angus's. No touch." She stuck her bottom lip out at Brian. He stuck his lip back out at her, unmoved. "I said no."

"Bad daddy," she muttered, unhappy.

Downstairs, Robert took a clean test tube and put a small bit of the potion in it and then a couple of drops of Khaat's blood in it. The fluid in the test tube turned coal black. He sighed heavily, disappointed with his results.

Jack and Steven chuckled as Steven walked over " welcome to the next stage " Steven said and patted his back gently " John was worse" he said accioing a stick " here Abby this is an Abby wand, but big mans wands you mustn't touch ok?" he asked and knelt the stick in front of him a bit of tinsel sat on the end sparkling in the light breeze that came threw the doors.

Jess watched the vile turn black " what does that mean?" she asked not understanding why it had changed color so dramatically.

"It means she's highly allergic to one of the ingredients in the potion. Its acting like a poison in her system. That's the death of the blood cells you're seeing. Now I need to isolate what she's allergic to and see if I can substitute it for something else. Then I have to brew a whole new batch. We can keep this potion, but we can't use it for her. I hope we have a boatload of more of those little bottles." He groaned, disappointed. "This might well be an all nighter for me. I don't expect you to stay. I appreciate your help, but I might well need you to help tomorrow. I am not sure that with my ribs, unfortunately, that I can do an all nighter, attend the calling hours the funerals, and take care of Khaat. It's feeling like a bit much." The truth was, he knew it was a huge thing. If he had been a normal wizard, he would clearly have still been hospitalized in St. Mungos. The surgery was not to be taken lightly. Nor the five broken ribs. He had brushed it off as if he'd been cut and had been knit back together with an episkey. It was about as far from that as it could get.

Jess sighed and nodded as she looked at the vile " ok and don't worry about me I'm fine and I will stay with you" she said and settled in for the night with him " and we do have more " she opened a cupboard to show him at least ten more bottles " these should do till we get to Colorado and ca order more." she said smiling as she sat back down.

Jack saw James crawling behind the couch " ok wheres he off to " he said and went to grab him only to bang his head on the wall and sat down James looked at him and giggled " ow you think that's funny huh" he said and moved to grab him but he just crawled out the other side giggling leaving jack sat on the floor with max who looked rather put out.

"Max thinks you're messing with his litter," Kate laughed. "He thinks they're his. They're all his. If they're Khaat's, then they're his because he believes he owns Khaat. And--frankly, if its a kid thats here more than for a short visit, then Max thinks they're hers, and therefore his. Frankly he thinks you're messing with his kittens."

"He's always been very fatherly," Brian agreed.

"I think to tell him differently, you'd do emotional harm to him," Kate urged caution. "I'd just respect him if I were you and work for getting him to let you think you're helpiing him raise them. I know that isn't always handy when they're your kids, but he loves all the kids. And he honestly does do a good job of parenting them."

"He certainly does," Brian agreed.

"Ok. Thank you, Jess," Robert said. "Alright. Here we go." He accio'd jars and jars of potions ingredients and gave Jess instructions about taking half of the ingredients, in the amount specified in his journal and grinding the herbs he'd given her to a fine dust in a mortar and pestle. He took a similar mortar and pestle and began grinding the other half of the ingredients in the careful amounts specified in the potions formula.

Jack sighed and stood up rubbing his head and looked at Max " ok you get him " he said and the cat padded after James his tail in the air jack sighed and sat down watching the others he smiled seeing max dragging James back into the circle jack chuckled and rolled his eyes as Steven chuckled as he held a sleepy Cassidy.

" ok time we had our three in bed " he said and lifted Fallon, James and jaylen into his arms and walked to the bedroom placing hem down he changed them and covered them over where they soon fell asleep, returning he stood cassidy up and walked her to the bedroom also.

Jess nodded and watched him closely crush and mix the herbs one buy one she made a note of how much he use and whether it worked or failed so they would know what they had done.

Brian wasn't sure what the devil was going on with Cassidy. She had gone to train and get in condition. She hadn't battled werewolves like some of the rest of them but she needed help to walk back to her bed? He didn't make any comment whatsoever. He merely went to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee for himself. He put it on the end table beside Khaat. He picked up Robert and Michael and Kate picked up Julia. Angus took Abbey and Dakota and led them to bed. It took the three of them a bit to change the diapers and clothes on all five kids and put them into bed and get them to sleep.

Tiime marched on rather slowly through the evening. Brian watched everyone wander off to bed, one by one, until he was by himself with Lee's nighttime detail. Khaat was in a deep, sound sleep. He woke her and picked her up. She curled close to him, her head on her chest, and Brian got the feeling she wasn't feeling well. He tucked her into bed and as he brushed her hair out of her face, his fingers detected that her pain had come back, ruthlessly, to the point she was seriously nauseated. He drew it off again, and she fell instantly back to sleep once she didn't have to fight the pain anymore. He stationed Lee's second in command in the bedroom and ordered him to report to him immediately at the slightest change.

Then Brian went back to the empty living room and sat alone in the dark, drinking a cup of Kona, the only light being a couple of large pillar candles that gave off a delicate coconut scent in the night time tropical breezes.

Just as the clock struck midnight, Robert finished the potion. He found Khaat was allergic not to any of the ingredients but the resulting combination of the two binding ingredients. In order to find a substance she was not allergic to, he was forced to use an even more explosive and volitile ingredient. That had meant hard work, flawless, meticulous concentration. And by the time he was finished, he hurt. The pain in his chest was utterly ruthless now. He was tired, and he had a headache from the eyestrain of having to measure even the smallest drop or speck for hours. He made a mental note to himself that a simple wooden stool at a worktable didn't work or a man with five broken ribs. He had decided hours before to transfigure it into a bar height stool that was comfortable and had a back to it and maybe a pair of arms on it.

The new potion was also ruby colored, it turned out. But he deliberately flavored it differently. He didn't want them confused. He used a very powerful lemon flavoring--it wasn't a tart lemon. It was a sweet lemon, like lemon candy. He wanted them to be able to distinguish, simply by smell, which one was, hopefully, harmless to his daughter and which one had the potential to be deadly. He tasted it himself. It reminded him of lemon candy he had bought in Honeydukes when he was a student. Very tasty, actually. And he waited, feeling his fatigue temporarily reduce significantly.

"I could get to like this potion a lot," he said to Jess. He poured her a small dose. "Feel brave enough to try this one?"