Standard disclaimers apply. This is a follow up of sorts to Briny Deep and Zoo Day. Be warned, this is a sillyfic and a little mushy, just because I felt like it. So there. FOUR YEARS AND RUNNING Today is a good day to die. Famous saying, that. It's most often heard growled through clenched teeth of a hulking hard-bitten warrior type right before the first shot is fired in the Final Battle. Dramatic though it may be, It isn't always the right thing to say, though. Such kamikaze fatalism isn't exactly inspiring for the rest of the crew, or the party, or the company, or whatever, for most of them have plans beyond the Final Battle, like that party next weekend, or Mom's apple pie on Sundays, or the third date with that hot chick in accounting. Come to think about it, 'today is a good day to die' really is a stupid saying, isn't it? Yeah. It is. Let's start over. ____________ Today is a good day for a birthday party. (Not quite the same ooomph, but much better suited to this story, really.) It is, of course, a good day for a birthday party because it is someone's birthday. Today, the birthday girl in question is Miss Alfred Tallullah Wilson, four year old daughter of Madelyne Pryor and Wade Wilson, terror of her day-care and local Chuck-E-Cheese, and the future human host of a slightly confused, and very naughty, Phoenix Force. The latter, however, is another story for another time. Today is about twenty years prior to the young lady''s launch into celestial avatarism. For the present, and the purposes of this tale, our story opens the morning before her long-awaited birthday party. . . . _________ Allie Wilson zoomed through the halls and rooms of her damnably child-proofed house, deftly eluding the monstrous tables and chairs and sofas that were her mortal enemies only to be stopped only by the inescapable invisible field that blocked her passage into her back yard. She almost ran into the sliding glass door, but fortunately stopped herself before bumping her head on it *again*. "Poo," she cursed vilely, extremely put out by its most inconvenient presence. Backing away, she scowled at it, then sighed in resignation. At least she stopped herself before she could leave hand prints all over the clear glass. Dr. Bong, Daddy's old enemy and their current housekeeper, fussed about her messes, but then again, Dr. Bong fussed at everything. Mommy said it was because he was a recovering Freudian, but Daddy said he just wasn't getting any. Allie didn't know what he wasn't getting, but she thought it had something to do with him losing his sigh-ki-a-tree license and coming to work for them. At least he still had a shiny gold helmet, though, which he was very proud of. After all, Dr. Bong wasn't *all* bad. He kept laying booby traps for Daddy in his work shed, the place Allie Was Never Ever Ever To Go, but Mommy said it was just a game they played and it kept Daddy on his toes so he wouldn't get bored. He made lots of noise, but everybody got used to all the *BONG!* sounds eventually, and he gave Allie cookies when she was good. Allie grunted, and bright green eyes narrowed in consternation as she returned to the task at hand. Chubby fingers pried at the inlaid handle to the locked sliding-glass door, straining to open it just enough to escape the oppressive constraints of her prison. Face pressed against the glass, she threw caution- and Dr. Bong's sternest admonitions- into the wind and beat at the door with her fists, trying break through the thick glass barrier that kept her from her technicolor prey. There was a party outside, you see, *her* party, and her viciously cruel parents had locked her inside to keep her away from the booty that was rightfully hers. Their back yard was full of tables and balloons and party favors, and she thought, she wasn't sure, but she thought, she'd heard Daddy talking about Nate being a pussy about the party. Despite her annoyance at being kept from her prey, she smiled. That was silly. Nate was her brother, he wasn't a pussycat. OOOH! Maybe Daddy meant that Nate had got her a kitty for her birthday, Allie thought excitedly, mind whirling with possibilities. She loved kitties. Loved their soft fur, their little toes, their noses, their whiskers, their tails. She didn't too much care for the smell of their poo, but then, who did, except for nasty old dogs looking for kitty treats? Dr. Bong's poodle-dog Rupert Bong probably didn't like kitties, but Daddy had started making him keep Rupert in Dr. Bong's upstairs garage apartment last month after Rupert started hugging Daddy's leg so much. Mommy thought it was really funny when Rupert grabbed on to Daddy's leg and moved up and down so fast, hugging him, but Daddy sure didn't like it too much. Allie didn't particularly care for Rupert, either. He growled at her when nobody was looking, and he was *mean*. Besides, Dr. Bong had him shaved in funny shapes all the time, and his fingernails painted, and bows in his hair, but something in her distrusted any animal that wore more makeup than Mommy did. Anyway, she much preferred kitties. She'd wanted a kitty ever since they visited Aunt Alfred in Seattle last spring and she'd tried petting Aunt Alfred's kitty, Leon Johnson, who wasn't a nice kitty at all. He'd bit her, she remembered, and all she'd tried to do was poke his eyeballs to see if they felt like as mushy as they looked. Daddy had kicked Leon Johnson, she remembered, and Leon Johnson had hissed mean things in kitty-talk to Daddy. Some kitties were like that. Mama had fussed at Daddy, and Aunt Alfred had fussed at them both, and Leon Johnson had scratched at them all and run away, but Allie had cried so hard that they all took her out for some ice cream, she remembered, and grinned, but other than that they'd had fun, and Leon Johnson *had* let her pet him when they got back, even if Mama had to hold him with her k'nesis first, and he'd run out the window again as soon as she let him down . . . Kitties were *fun*. Maybe Daddy had bought her a kitty for her birthday. Sticking out her fist, she curled out one finger, and then another, then another, counting slowly. Today was her birthday. She was four today, as repeatedly noted in previous narrative refrain. All of a sudden, a deep rumbling voice sounded down the hall. ". . . 'd damn well better be here or I'll magnetize his friggin' arm to the left cheek of his metal ass. . " Daddy! Allie tilted her head, instinctively turning to the beloved voice. A deep sigh. "He'll be here, Wade, he promised me. Now play nice, please." Mommy! Hearing the familiar sounds of her parents' banter coming up the hall, Allie grinned, momentarily forgetting that her parents were the inhuman oppressors who were taking malicious delight in keeping her from her party. quickly spun away from the door, blinking several time to forcibly turn her pout into a powerful smile. Red pigtails bobbing up and down, she turned to run toward her parents, grinning from ear to cutely freckled ear. Clad in a Hawaiian shirt and clashing pink shorts, the former mercenary-turned-family-man Wade Wilson beamed, and stooped to pick up his daughter, his firstborn, his reason for living. "Allie! Come to Daddy!" Madelyne Pryor-Wilson, former airline pilot, bane of the X-Men, Black Queen of the Hellfire Club, and mother of two, smiled broadly at her youngest child, taking her in her arms and embracing her tightly. "Sweetie, you look very nice, but what in the world could you have found to get on your face in the two whole minutes since you slipped away from us?" Turning to her husband, she murmured "Get me a wet cloth, will you?" Sketching a bow, he answered, "I live to serve, O love of my life,"then turned down the hall into a nearby bathroom. Poised on Madelyne's hip, Allie debated whether or not to ask about the kitty right then. Studying her mother's lovely features, she decided against it. She loved Mama very much, and Mama loved her very much and was the best Mama in the world, but she was, well. . . Mama. Daddy might let her eat pudding for supper and watch cartoons all night, but Mama made Allie eat broccoli and go to sleep and turn off the TV *early*, and then there was that whole Inferno thing everybody kept whispering about when Mama wasn't around. . . On second thought, maybe she'd wait to ask Daddy about the kitty. "Here, Maddie, catch!" A yellow washcloth came flying down the hall, and her mother telekinetically snapped it out of midair like it was nothing, and began carefully cleaning her daughter's smudged face. That face split in a wide grin, and then carefully pulled itself into a sweet smile as Daddy's funny bumpy face came into her view. Daddy. Daddy was just as sweet and fun as Mama, but he was much easier to get what she wanted out of. All she'd have to do was pretend like she was going to cry, and she'd get whatever she wanted. Mama would let her cry as long as she wanted to, but Daddy couldn't stand it. In other words, Daddy was an easy mark. "Daddy!" She squirmed out of her mother's grasp, arms outstretched towards her father, who took her very gently in his arms. "Wanna kitty." Wade looked at his daughter and the heart that cooly watched hundreds draw their last breath melted like Little Richard's makeup under the hot summer sun. "Ah, Maddie, look at her. She wants a kitty. Can she have a kitty?" There was a long pause. "No." Madelyne finally answered, checking her reflection in a hallway mirror. "She cannot have a kitten, Wade. You know very well that she'd mangle the poor creature, and then we'd have to explain why little Fluffy doesn't play anymore, even when she pokes him with a sharp stick, and I'd rather postpone that conversation for a few more years, if you don't mind terribly much." Wade grinned, and quasi-prophetically proclaimed, "Hey, with this family, the cat'd come back from the dead, probably a celestial avatar from another time line or something." He paused, weighing the consequences, and was unable to stop himself from motioning his arms up and down, mimicking the Phoenix Effect. "'I am Fluffy! Feline Incarnate! Fetch me a plump and juicy mouse, puny mortals!'" Allie giggled delightedly at Daddy being silly, the elusive kitty all but forgotten for the moment. There was a moment of pause, and said Daddy wondered if perhaps mention of his wife's estranged 'sister' probably wasn't the smartest thing to say when she was already stressed from party preparations. He spared a moment to be grateful that they'd spent the extra bucks to buy a comfortable sleeper couch. "Wafer-thin ice, buddy," Maddie finally warned, eyes narrowing at her beloved. "Now shut your trap and go check on the decorations. I want this perfect for our little girl." Allie watched her father sighed in relief. "Aye-aye, Cap'n," he saluted, then kissed his daughter on the forehead. She craned her neck and watched him leave, expression curdling as her Daddy easily unlocked the sliding-glass force field and stepped out onto the deck into their yard. Wriggling to free herself, Allie batted her eyelashes at Mama in a last-ditch effort to impress upon her mother the profound importance of obtaining immediate feline companionship. It didn't work. "No kitty," Mama repeated slowly, but Allie sensed her resolve weakening, a sure sign that Allie was going to get her way. Maybe it was a surprise, and they'd already gotten the kitty for her. . . Her small face broke out in a wide grin. The kitty would be hers. Oh yes, it would be hers. With that in mind, she demurely submitted to her mother's ministrations. The childish thoughts buffeted the astral plane like a blow, and Maddie blinked at their sheer unadulterated enthusiasm, then smiled, a slightly feral expression which was actually very similar to the one worn by her daughter. The child got that determination from *her* side of the family. _____ ===== -DuAnn Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you. Not as the world gives, give I unto you. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. -John 14:27