Joyce Knightly March 10th,20XX

Aaron looked like he had a lot to talk to me about, but I was too frazzled to sit still and allow him to speak.

The doctors had said they were okay, but that didn't change the fact that they were hurt. Even though the twins tried to hide it, I could tell how much their ankles hurt when they'd tried to keep pace with me.

Ahh, I couldn't believe I'd let them keep standing while we had lectured them. Even if I had been angry, that was unacceptable behavior on my part.

The doctors had run a few X-ray scans I would need to have Danka recall. None of the scientists had mentioned the twins looking different than anyone else under their skin, but I couldn't risk having their files open to the public.

Thankfully they were still minors, and my father was their primary guardian on paper. It would be a minor issue to have the hospital surrender their scans and delete them out of their systems.

How was it that every time I was left alone with the children, they managed to get hurt?

It wasn't like I was tossing them up into the air or putting them into dangerous situations!

The realization that they always ended up in worse shape when they were left with me as a supervising adult than they did when they got into actually dangerous situations was harrowing and unpleasant.

Aaron suddenly pulled me down onto the bed and placed a warm hand on my shoulder. Before I could brush it off, he tightened his embrace and refused to let me go despite my half-hearted resistance.

"Calm down Joyce, this wasn't your fault. They're kids so they're going to do reckless things. All we can do is watch out for them when it happens and help them understand what went wrong so it doesn't happen again."

Hearing him quote the opening chapter from the parenting books I'd sent him did its job of putting me in a better mood, but it wasn't enough to pull me out of the mental fog of stress I was in.

"But weren't we too harsh? They were crying!"

It wasn't like I'd never lectured a teenager into tears before, but Cherry was very different than these kids.

"They were also laughing up a storm half a minute ago when Destia was in there. I didn't like seeing them cry either, but doesn't that just mean that they took our words seriously? We can make it up to them later but for now I think we did okay."

I felt even worse since I'd forced Aaron to take on the biggest burden in the lecturing, but I was also the one breaking down and forcing him to comfort me.

We'd retreated to our room since I hadn't wanted the kids to see me like this. There wasn't much we could keep secret with a mind reader and a pair of kids that specialized in studying other's behaviors so they could replicate them, but we still had to try.

He was right, as he more often than not was. All I could do from now on was to try harder to make sure they didn't get hurt. And, maybe I had overreacted a bit. This accident hadn't happened because of their powers or because of anything I could have controlled. They had decided to race up and down an elevator while I'd stepped away for a minute and had gotten themselves hurt.

It was unfortunate, but I think they understood how dangerous their actions had been.

I indulged myself and stayed in Aaron's arms. His breath was heavy, and the rhythmic sound filled the room and pulled my mood away from the cloud of stress I'd been trapped in.

I debated how willing Aaron would be if I suggested we booked another suite in the hotel for the night when a loud bell rang through the air, and my phone's ringtone added to the cacophony.

Aaron let out a dry laugh and gently pushed me off him. His reluctance to do so made me re-evaluate my chances of luring him to another room for the night, and I suddenly grew the tiniest bit frustrated at my younger sister's infamously terrible timing.

She was lucky I'd missed her so much.

Destia got to the door first and cautiously used the intercom to interact with the stranger outside.

"Hello?"

"HELLO! CAN YOU LET ME IN! MY ARMS ARE ABOUT TO FALL OFF."

Cherry's signature loud voice pierced through the uselessly high-quality speakers and attacked Destia's poor ears. The teenage girl was temporarily stunned and froze in place, but she quickly gave way when I dashed out of the room and hurriedly opened the door.

While I wasn't here on official Squire business, I didn't want to let the public know I was here through a noise complaint.

As soon as the door opened, Cherry dropped the tens of bags in her arms and dashed into mine.

"JOYCE!"

I would usually have held her at arm's length until she calmed down and lowered her volume to a human level, but I was just as excited to see her for the first time in almost a year and a half.

She'd insisted on going down this path despite my numerous offers to create a position for her at Squire. It was the first time I'd ever seen her so determined about anything, so I'd wanted to help, but I knew my younger sister was the type to falter when she thought she had a fallback plan.

So the only help I could give her was regulated to doing things in the background, like helping fund this music festival and personally funding her group's fan club... not that she knew about any of that.

I knew Aaron went down to visit her quite often and would make sure she was okay, so I wasn't too worried about her. But it had been hard to let go of the kid that had once absolutely refused to leave my side.

"Ah! Don't cry! See? If you'd miss me this much, then why didn't you just come visit me?!"

She finally stopped screaming, but her voice was still plenty loud.

Shoot. I hadn't meant to cry.

I pushed them back and pulled her away from me so I could take a good look at her.

"Ah, you've grown so skinny. And no, that's not a compliment. What is that company of yours doing? And how is your physical health? I told you to go to the hospital for a checkup at least once a month but you haven't sent me any records for four months now. Don't think that you can ignore my orders just because I'm not living with you."

My mood suddenly flipped to angry as I remembered all the worrying the little brat had made me do. I pinched and twisted at my baby sister's ear just hard enough to make her feel it but not enough to actually hurt her.

She hammed it up as well and screamed like she was being beaten until I let go.

"Ah! Joyce I'm an adult now! You can’t treat me like a twelve-year-old anymore!"

"If you're an adult then act like one and don't make me worry about you so much!"

I calmed down enough to realize we'd gathered an audience and tried my best to resume my act as a responsible adult.

"You are okay, right? Even though I'm not going to help you in your activities, I am still your older sister. If anyone dares to do anything to you, you aren't allowed to hide it from me."

She softened as well and nodded. My little sister was such a chatterbox that her non-verbal responses were usually much more trustworthy than anything she could say with her mouth.

"I understand, but where are they?!"

Cherry perked up again and whipped her head around so fast her short hair hit her in the face. Her vision landed on a bewildered Destia, and she took her by the hands.

"It's not you, but nice to meet you too! I've watched all the stuff you have up on Squire and its SOOO fun! I'm a little bit jealous since I feel like Joyce could have let me do this when I told her I wanted to be a star, but I won't hold it against you!"

Destia looked completely lost but returned the enthusiastic handshake.

"Cherry we don't live in your head. You have to explain what you want to know."

Aaron popped his head out of the room, having changed out of his pajamas and casually ruffled Cherry's head. The two had grown a lot closer, which I appreciated, but I could tell Aaron was still a bit awkward around my younger sister. I couldn't really blame him, considering how openly hostile she'd been to him initially, but hopefully their relationship would heal with time.

"Where are my little siblings? Or would they be my nephew and nieces? Ahh, I just wanna meet them! I've been soo excited and I’ve watched alll the stuff Archer has up! which is only one episode, Joyce you aren’t mistreating him right? but then again, the episode was pretty long and he's just a kid. Joyce you aren’t overworking him, right? I read up on ALL the child labor laws you know? and I won’t hesitate to take you to court if I need to!"

Never mind the bitter bile that rose to my throat as my baby sister proudly stated that she wouldn't hesitate to throw me in jail on behalf of someone she'd never met before, I could see how excited she was to finally become an older sister.

On top of being the baby at home, Cherry was also the youngest member of her team. I was sure the desire to 'take care' of someone younger than her had been torturing her.

I was hesitant to introduce the two shy kids to her, but I figured it would be better to control the situation before she dashed into their room and scared them like she had with Destia.

"Archer! Eva! Could you two come out here?"