Chapter Text
“Are you sure about this?” Eve asked. She and Flynn stood by the door of Stone and Cassandra’s apartment. Flynn was adjusting his adventure bag and Eve leaned left and right on her tippy-toes to try and see past the other two Librarians, who were currently standing shoulder to shoulder, blocking the entrance to their living room.
“Please,” Cassandra insisted. “You two haven’t been out on a case together in 5 years! Go! Have fun! We’ve got this!”
“But they’ve never spent a whole weekend without us.” Eve worried, trying and failing again to get into the apartment.
“They’ll be fine,” Stone insisted, putting an arm around Cassandra’s waist. “We’re a well-oiled machine around here right Cassie?”
“Right!” she insisted, as the two smirked at each other.
Flynn smiled at them, but Eve still held a look of worry. It was their complete inability to not joke around right now that had her worried in the first place. She didn’t know whether to be more annoyed at them, or at Flynn for not being worried.
“Eve,” he said, grabbing her hand. “Come on; they’re settled in. They’ve been settled in.”
“But…”
“Go save the world.” Cassandra said. “They’ll be fine! That’s what Godpoppy and Godmommy Stone are here for!”
Eve tried to look over their shoulders again, but Flynn nodded at them, took Eve’s wrist, and led her out the door. As soon as it was closed, Stone abruptly locked it behind them and turned around with Cassie.
Five year olds Maggie and Charlie Carsen came prancing in from the guest bedroom into the hallway.
“Alright!” Cassandra chimed, crouching down to their eye level. “Who’s ready for a fun weekend with Uncle Jake and Aunt Cassie?!”
When a case had appeared in Paris that morning, Jake and Cassandra had insisted Eve and Flynn handle it together, having seen the wistfulness in Eve’s eyes as she recounted an adventure they’d once had there. So they’d agreed to take the girls for a few days, much to Eve’s objections who, in spite of herself, still could not help but feel anxious every time she left the twins alone.
“How’s about we order some pizza and watch a movie together before bed?” Jake chuckled, crouching towards the girls as well. “We got some juice-boxes in the fridge, and some veggies if you want a snack.”
“Mommy and Daddy are gone?” Charlie asked.
“Oh just for the weekend baby!” Cassandra said, thinking of course that the girls missed their parents. “But you get to hang out with us instead!”
The girls looked at each other and exchanged mischievous smiles, and before Jake and Cassandra could ask what they were doing, they pushed past them and sprinted into the kitchen. In another moment the fridge was open, and Maggie had pulled a chair to the door, which Charlie was climbing on to grab a bottle of Pepsi from the top-shelf.
Jake and Cassandra were too flabbergasted to do or say much of anything, and by the time they got control of themselves, the girls had moved on to climbing up to the cabinets to grab potato chips and Oreos.
Jake looked at Cassandra panicking, a message of do something in his eyes.
“Um….girls.” Cassandra said, walking towards the kitchen, where the girls were clumsily pouring the soda into disposable cups. “We have some apple juice and veggies for before the pizza gets here! I’ve got carrots, cucumbers, crackers…”
“No thanks we’re good.” Maggie said, pulling open the chips. Cassandra squirmed as a few chips flew out and landed on the kitchen floor.
She looked back to Jake, concerned, as the girls ran to the living room and plopped themselves on the couch.
“Quick!” Maggie chimed. “Let’s see what’s on Animal Planet!”
Jake and Cassandra’s eyes grew wide with panic, and they jogged to the living room, where Jake quickly snatched the remote from Maggie’s hands.
“Hey ladies,” he said, chuckling nervously. “Aunt Cassie and I were thinkin’ we could watch some Spongebob!”
“Or Frozen!” Cassie added.
“Ooh that’s a good one.” Jake nodded. “But if princesses aren’t your speed we’ve got Toy Story!”
“Those things aren’t intellectually challenging enough for us.” Maggie said, talking with her mouth full of potato chips.
“Okay,” Cassandra said. “Then what about The Magic School Bus? Your Dad tells us how much you like to watch that on rainy days!”
“But we know everything from Magic School Bus!” Maggie insisted. “With Animal Planet we learn new stuff!”
“Plus I get to see all the violence!” Charlie added, reaching for the remote, which Jake promptly held above his head.
Without warning the doorbell rang, and Cassandra groaned loudly.
“Eve I told you,” she yelled, walking towards the door. “We have this under…”
She opened the door and stopped talking. Ezekiel stood in the doorway, holding two pizza boxes in his hand.
“Alright!” he said. “Now the party can get started!”
“Ezekiel what are you doing here?” Cassandra sighed.
“Well you said you were gonna order pizza for the twins, so I thought I’d just bring some over, and then I’d help you out.”
The thief pushed his way past Cassandra into the apartment, and Maggie and Charlie jumped off the couch to run to him.
“Uncle Zeke!” they cheered.
“Um no!” Jake said, pointing at the door. “You’re not running in on this tonight.”
“And why not?” Ezekiel teased. “I’m their favorite Uncle! And who could blame them? I’m awesome!”
“Because Eve and Flynn trusted us with the girls this weekend, and every time you come to help you get them all excited and hopped up on sugar, and then Eve’s mad when they won’t sleep all night!”
“Yes,” Ezekiel said, picking Charlie up and walking with her to the couch. “But Eve and Flynn aren’t coming back until Sunday afternoon, and it’s Friday night. So I think we can afford some fooling around.”
“Alright ladies,” Ezekiel said, plopping himself down on the couch. The girls smiled brightly and perched themselves on either side of his lap. “Whadda we got goin’ here?”
“We were gonna watch Animal Planet!” Maggie chimed.
“No!” Cassandra interjected, stepping in and standing in front of all three of them. “No. We are having some pizza, and carrot sticks and juice boxes and we’re watching Frozen and then you’re going to bed.”
“Lame,” Ezekiel sighed. “Come on then. Fire up the Wii! Who wants to play Mario Kart?”
Jake and Cassandra exchanged nervous looks. They’d spent hours planning out this weekend-trying to be the perfect Aunt and Uncle. And so far it seemed like zero of it was going to go right.
A half-hour later, Jake and Cassandra leaned on the kitchen counter, a box full of pizza crusts sitting behind them. Ezekiel and the twins were engaged in their tenth heated Mario-Kart battle of the night. The Librarian of the three had won every game so far, and Jake and Cassandra had been sitting back watching, exasperatedly eating pepperoni pizza as the girls cried out after every loss. Jake rubbed his forehead in frustration, and was about to say something to Cassie when a loud sliding whistle sound emerged from the TV again, and Jones threw his hands in the air, crying out in victory.
“Woohoo!” he yelled. “And the ever- awesome Mr. Jones takes the gold again!”
“No!” Maggie sighed.
“How are you always in first?!” Charlie pouted.
“It’s your first lesson to understanding the bigger world girls,” Ezekiel answered, proudly swigging his root-beer. “I am the supreme force of awesome that no one can touch.”
“Somebody’s really gotta knock that kid down a peg,” Jake whispered, leaning into Cassandra.
His wife looked towards him, blankly into space, like she often did when she was trying to decide something. She took her cup from the counter and quickly swigged back the rest of her soda, before cracking her knuckles and stretching her neck to both sides.
“I’m going in.” she said. Before Jake could respond, she’d walked over to the living room.
“Hey girls, can I play a round with you?”
The twins cheered and Ezekiel jokingly sized Cassandra up. They started the next race and Jake put his head in his hands, rubbing his eyes; this was going to be a long night.
Ten minutes later, Jake watched the living room scene in abject horror. Cassandra had taken full charge of the game, plowing through everyone and everything. She’d left Jones behind in the dust a long time ago…but that also meant destroying the girls’ games as well.
“Yes!” Cassandra exclaimed. “Red shell!”
She hit the appropriate button on her remote, and the power-up went flying into Maggie’s driver of Baby Peach.
“Hey!” Maggie exclaimed.
Cassandra didn’t seem to care. She flew past Maggie and knocked into Charlie…Toad…next. Soon she was in first, sailing through Delfino Square, and bearing no mind to anyone that was behind her. She finally soured through the finish line and threw her Wii remote down on the couch before jumping up to standing and flailing around in what could only barely be called a victory dance.
“Yyyeeesss!” she squealed. “I won! I beat all of you! I won!”
Jake couldn’t take it anymore. Slamming his beer-which he’d taken from the fridge five minutes ago- down on the counter, he walked over to the living room, grabbed one of the remotes, and paused the game.
“Hey!” the others exclaimed.
“Could I talk to you two?” he said sternly, pointing to Cassandra and Jones. “In private?”
Cassandra sighed loudly, like she might as well have been the twins’ age herself. Ezekiel held back laughter, and they both walked away to join Jake.
“Sit tight girls.” he said, making a note to keep an eye on them anyway; the Carsen girls never did as they were told.
Once they were far enough away, he looked at Jones and Cassandra- the latter of whom had her arms crossed- angrily.
“What’s wrong with you two?” he exclaimed at a whisper, making sure the twins couldn’t hear him.
Looking into the living room he saw he didn’t need to worry. They’d already started up the game again, apparently content to leave Jones and Cassandra stranded at the starting line.
“What do you mean?” Cassandra replied. “You told me to beat Jones so I did.”
“Hey!” the thief exclaimed.
“Yes, but you plowed through the girls to do it!”
“The object of the game is to come in first isn’t it?” Cassandra scoffed.
Jake looked down at the floor in frustration, taking a moment to collect himself.
“Is the concept of letting children win lost on both of you?” he whispered.
Ezekiel turned his face away from the cowboy and tried not to laugh, while Cassandra just stood looking nervous.
“I’m supposed to let them win?” she asked quietly.
Jake raised his eyebrows and nodded and to his surprise, Cassandra threw her hands up in the air in frustration.
“See? I don’t know these things!” she exclaimed, throwing her head into her hands. “I’m such a bad Aunt!”
Jake was surprised and tried to suppress the chuckle that was coming through; she was adorable when she was flustered like this. He walked over to her and put an arm around her waist.
“You’re not a bad Aunt,” he said. “I just have more experience with kids. And I don’t think you got anything to worry about anyway. They seem to be just fine with taking advantage of you two.”
Jake indicated the living room, where the girls were neck-in-neck in their third lap, and Cassandra and Ezekiel’s racers still rested at the starting line. Cassandra chuckled; that was just like the girls. Ezekiel, however, seemed to feel differently.
“Um, no bloody way!” he exclaimed, starting to march back towards the living room. Jake grabbed him by the hood and pulled him back.
“Jones!” Jake hissed. “We’re letting the children win remember?”
“Um, no.” the young Librarian sneered. “If I let them win, I’ll be diminishing the level of my awesome. And if they’re not competing against the full level of my awesome, they’ll never learn to be awesome on their own! I’m only helping their intellectual growth here. Eve and Flynn are gonna thank me.”
Jake and Cassandra looked at each-other and rolled their eyes. Sometimes they still wondered how the kid had ever become a Librarian…or at least how he hadn’t yet been arrested. The thief sauntered off to the living room and suddenly Cassandra had a thought. She leaned into Jake and whispered in his ear. His face lit up in a smile, and they ran into their bedroom, Cassandra excitedly pushing at his back.
A few moments later, Jake and Cassandra arrived back in the living room, standing tall shoulder to shoulder, Jake carrying a board-game.
“Alright ladies pack up the Mario Cart.” Jake said.
“Time for Trivial Pursuit!” Cassandra added.
“Yay!” Maggie and Charlene exclaimed, throwing down their Wii remotes and rushing to the table, where Jake and Cassandra had set down the board-game box
“Hey come on guys!” Ezekiel said, looking dumbfounded. “We were just about to move onto Rainbow Road!”
“Sorry Uncle Zeke,” Charlie said. “We gotta have trivia time.”
“Yeah,” Maggie added. “We can only stint our intellectual growth for so long.”
“Quite big words you’re using there,” Ezekiel teased, rolling his eyes at his friends. “Where’d you learn them?”
“We like to read the dictionary when we can’t sleep.” Maggie explained, pulling her legs into a criss-crossed position and scooting closer to the game board.
“Well, she does.” Charlie added, playing with two of the game pieces. “But she reads it out loud so I’m forced to learn it all too.”
“We usually don’t know all the answers,” Maggie explained, watching carefully as Jake and Cassandra set out the cards. “But we like to learn watching Uncle Jake and Aunt Cassie play!”
“Well you never know girls,” Jake said. “You haven’t played in a few months. Let’s see what you can do this time.”
“No way!” Ezekiel shouted.
“Yes!” Charlie shouted, and moved her piece up the board.
It was twenty-minutes into the game, and the twins were dominating.
“No way you knew that!” Ezekiel said.
“You can find a lot in Daddy’s textbooks.” Charlie teased, smirking at Ezekiel.
“And where in your Daddy’s textbooks does it talk about the Backstreet Boys?”
Charlie sucked in her lip, then turned to Maggie and burst into giggles. Jake went to pick out the next card, but Ezekiel couldn’t let the last moment go.
“This has been going on the whole game!” he yelled. “You two are whispering them answers!”
“Jones I’m offended!” Cassandra jokingly exclaimed, clutching her hand to her heart. “I can’t believe you’d think I’d ever do such a thing!”
“Yeah,” Jake added. “We’d never want to diminish the level of your awesome.”
Ezekiel scowled, but Cassandra laughed, and had quickly moved on.
“Alright Maggie,” she said. “Which building material gets its name from the Arabic for brick?”
There was a moment’s hesitation, until suddenly Jake yawned, and as he did so leaned in to kiss Maggie on the head. Once he was done, the girl’s confused expression immediately turned to a smile, and she piped up.
“Adobe!” she shouted.
“Right!” Cassandra exclaimed, cheering with tiny fists.
Jake and Cassandra continued to cheer on the twins, and Ezekiel gave up, throwing his hands in the air in frustration and walking out of the room in a huff, hoping to find something in the kitchen worth eating out of spite.
“Bye!” Jake said, watching Eve and Flynn head down the walk with Maggie and Charlie in tow.
He closed the door and leaned his back against it, exhaling sharply. Two days later, their kitchen now completely devoid of snack food, their living room a mess of board-games, toys and empty soda bottles and chip bags, Jake and Cassandra were finally done with their babysitting endeavor. Jake looked around at the carnage and thought of the few days that had just passed: the girls snuck snacks and sugar, refused to go to bed, ran around screaming until 11PM and in general kept them on their toes.
“They’re gone darlin’!” he called down the hall. He walked to the kitchen and immediately grabbed a beer from the fridge.
He was sipping the drink when he turned to see Cassandra walking out of the bathroom, her hands held tightly by her waist, her eyes barely fixed on him.
“Reckon it’s gonna be a while before we offer to do that again huh?” he chuckled. “Tell you what. Why don’t you pick out one of your favorite little rom-coms and we’ll curl up on the couch and drink a whole bottle o’ wine.”
“Um…I don’t think so.” Cassandra stuttered. “At least not on the wine.”
“Oh,” Jake said. “Well I thought beer would be less relaxing but I’ll grab another one if you…”
“No,” she said, cutting him off. She looked nervous and Jake stopped drinking for a moment to look at her directly.
“Cassie wha…” he started, but she cut him off.
“I’m pregnant.”