Marriage is Murder

He frowned. He looked again at the clock.

"At 5 am? When is this house asleep at 5 am?" he said. "And I know I smell breakfast cooking. I might have been hit with a tree, but it didn't smack out my brain. I appreciate the pain potion, but I don't need a sleeping potion. By the looks of it, I've slept several hours already."

Marcus was used to working through worse than this. Even though it wasn't comfortable now, he had spent a lot of years working on his own, and he figured he might offend her sensibilities if he mentioned what he'd had to resort to in order to survive. He did understand her need as a healer, but he needed to not be sidelined for days with this.

"Truth be told, I will hurt a lot less if I can get up and get into a hot shower to loosen up the muscles and then stretch just a little. Not a lot but a little would help," he said. "So--as much as I appreciate your caution, you'll be helping me more if you let me up. I promise I don't intend to overdo anything If I have trouble, I'll come back. I promise. Deal?"

Marcus muscled his way up out of bed a second time and did some very light stretching, his muscles unhappy with him. He saw the snow piling up in deep drifts outside in the yard. And it was still snowing heavily but the wind was dying down a bit. He expected to find, when daylight would come in another couple of hours, they were fully snowed in.

To his surprise, when he got out of the shower and came out into his room to dress, there was, beside his suit, a pair of jeans, and a navy pullover sweater that he actually liked. It was thick and warm, and not a sissy sweater. There was no note, no tag, but he, hesitantly put the suit away and chose the jeans and sweater with a pair of tough, sturdy, all weather shoes.

He made his way towards Khaat's room and heard the soft giggling of little girls who were trying to be quiet. He peeked in and saw Abbey and Dakota and Julia disappearing into their mother's closet, one of them dragging a flowing, pink taffeta evening wrap behind them.

He looked and saw they'd made a huge mess in her closet. Dakota had a pair of her red heels and was trying to wear them. Marcus didn't see that a three year old was going to be able to walk in stilettos. Julia had yanked a gold sequined evening gown off the hanger and was putting it on and trying to figure out how to walk in it. Abbey had Khaat's evening wraps out and was trying to wear several different colored ones all at the same time, with strands of diamonds and pearls.

"Oh, lord," he laughed.

"Shhhh!" Abbey hushed him. "Mama sleeping!"

"We want pink pancakes!" Abbey said to Jess happily.

"Yeah, pink!" Dakota echoed.

"Shh," Marcus whispered. "Mama's sleeping."

"No, I'm not," Khaat called sleepily, her voice sounding to Marcus like it was a bit muffled by the warm comforter. He laughed a little.

"Now you did it," Marcus teased the girls. They ran out of the closet at the sound of Khaat's voice. "I'm fine, Jess," he said to her, glancing out of his peripheral vision to see the girls all about to pile up on the bed, and it looked very much like they were going to land on Khaat. "Excuse me," he said hastily, racing to catch Dakota mid air and Abbey and Julia about to leap. "No," Marcus said firmly. "What's the rule?"

"No jumping," Abbey recited it from memory.

"And what were you doing?" Marcus asked.

"Not jumping," Abbey replied.

"Really?" he asked. Abbey pointed at Dakota.

"She jumped. I no jumped," Abbey said. Marcus paused, looking at the kids. Were they supposed to know, at three and a half how to blame things on each other already?

The kids enjoyed their pink pancakes, and the house elves took up coffee and breakfast to Khaat and Marcus.

"I haven't seen Brian today, have you?" Khaat asked Marcus.

"Only briefly," Marcus said, pouring coffee for her. "He mentioned he had things to do."

"But aren't we snowed in?"

"Oh, definitely," he laughed.

"Then what could he possibly have to do?"

"I haven't the foggiest idea," he said.

"Did all my gifts for everyone get here on time?"

"Presuming that Jack and Steven went back for them like they said they would," Marcus said. As they ate, he approached a new topic with her. "Khaat, its Christmas Eve tonight. Surely you don't want to stay up here tonight and tomorrow and miss this with your children, do you?"

"You have a better plan?"

"Actually, getting out of this room however we manage it, is a better plan. Its not like I can't carry you and move you. And you are able to stand and walk a few steps with help. You're not contagious..."

"I get it. You want to take me downstairs."

"Yes. I do."

"Tired of my room?" she gave him a slight smile.

"This isn't about me. Its about Christmas, and your family."

"Alright," she gave in, "as long as I'm out of the way."

He bristled. She was the lady of the house. She didn't need to be out of the way.

"I'll take care of it," he said to her, rather than to argue with her. He figured his best bet was to talk to Jess and see if they could arrange, perhaps to transfigure a chair into a chaise for her someplace, with some pillows and a blanket. That would allow her to be able to be with everyone else and not shut away.

He made a mental note to talk to Jess as soon as he could get a moment with her.

"Speak for yourself," Michael said, coming downstairs with his winter coat. "I have to go out." He needed to go see if Robert was willing to come back yet. Michael knew there were a lot of little kids that certainly wanted their papa home for Christmas.

"In this weather?" Edward frowned.

"Yes," Michael said. "The weather doesn't matter. I have to go."

"Oh, yes," Edward said. "You want someone to come with you? And do you even know where to look?"

"Yes," Michael said. "I have a very good idea where to start. I'm sure everything is fine, but I'm not taking more than one more person with me, and they can't be an energy worker."