"Where was I, Henry? Did I travel back five years in that flashback?"

"It was not time travelling, it was merely a recording of the past that you could not see for yourself."

"But why? What was with that white journal, the daffodil and that flashback?"

I got no answers after that inquiry. I tried asking Henry again and again but I only got one answer.

"Everything will reveal itself in its proper timing."

Sometimes, Henry really gets on my nerves. Why can't he just balantly tell me what's going instead of making a zig zag of a totally straight path?

Instead of asking Henry about almost everything, I decided to acquire some services from Maddie. I wanted to go to the Central Library but it would have gotten too late at night if I went there.

I only found articles of the past Knightleys, those who introduced new business policies and some that were literally Knighted. But whenever I found something relevant towards 2008, it's only one page long with the same details written over and over again.

Shaking my head, I suppress a shiver as I knock on the door in front of me. There haven't been any rains recently but it's so damn windy all of the time. Even the wooden door of the Ingram household is cold.

A few seconds later, the door flies open with a mop of strawberry blonde hair infront of me.

Allison greets me with a smile but her smile is completely drowned by the cold,
"Hey, hurry in! It's much warmer inside."

She steps aside, allowing me to enter and closing the door behind me.

I heave a sigh of relief as the heating and warmth of the house kicks in and I take my over coat off.

"I am warning you three, absolutely no pranks on my friend today." I hear Ethan's voice from afar.

"Is your friend a she?" another voice comes from the same direction. This one, though, is laced with a fine line of innocence and genuinety.

"Yes and she's Allison's friend, too..."

"Ethan's got a girlfriend! Ethan's got a girlfriend!" three voices start chanting together.

What the...?

"She is not my girlfriend!"

I sure am not!

"Oh, so do you have a boyfriend, then?"

Forget the innocence part of my last sentence.

"B-boy... how do you three even know about stuff like that? If you guys don't behave then I'm not giving the wi-fi password and that's final!"

There is a clamour of incoherent murmuring as I look back at Allison.

What?

She laughs sheepishly and says,
"Another aunt of ours had to go for an emergency shift and left her triplets here. And don't worry, Ethan's straight." She ends her say with a wink.

I suddenly feel my ears going all hot at that last sentence.

All right, this is a wee bit embarrassing...

"Um, exactly how many aunts and uncles do you and Ethan have?" I pull my hair at the sides so that the redness can go unnoticed.

I have this, let's say gift, that whenever I blush, the heat goes to my ears rather than cheeks.

She takes out her left hand and counts on its fingers with her right and says,
"Uncle Archer has four sisters, including my mum. Aunt Nancy has two brothers and one sister. Uncle and Aunt's cousins are also super close so they visit often, making a total of about.... fifteen uncles, seventeen aunts and almost fifty cousins."

"That is a lot of relatives," I say as I slide my shoes off and put them where the rest of unoccupied shoes are.

My mum and dad were both the only children their families had, so I don't have any uncles or aunts visiting.
Though, I still have Uncle Gary, Mum's best friend. He's the type of uncle whom you don't know well, but still kmoe that he cares enough for you, despite the awkwardness. The last time he visited Edenfield was for Christmas.

A sigh escapes at remembering that even he's been more busy lately.

"Allison, who was at the door?" I hear a feminine voice coming from the other side of the house, making both Allison and I realize that we're still standing at the doorway.

"It's Lindsey, Mum!"

"Isn't your mum supposed to be at the hospital?" I ask. Last time, I recall Allison saying that her mum's a doctor who barely has time for her only child.

"Yeah but my dad took my mum with him on business trip. Oh, and I call Aunt Nancy Mum at home."

She is interrupted by the sound of clanging kitchen utensils and a woman in her late twenties appears into the doorway. She is wearing an apron with small daisies imprinted on it and her honey blonde hair is tied in a messy bun.

If she didn't look exactly like the female version of Ethan(except for the hair colour and glasses), I would have thought that she is Allison's mum by the warm smile on her face.

Nancy Ingram flashes a bright smile before saying,
"So, you're Lindsey! I have to say that you're just as I pictured in my head by the descriptions my two hooligans gave me." She brings forward a hand to shake with mine, which I accept.

"Thanks, Mrs Ingram," I say.

"Come on, let's go where Ethan is." Allison tugs at my elbow.

"But..."
I look over at Mrs Ingram.

Won't it be a little rude if I just adruptly scuttle along with Allison after I've only introduced myself or rather the two hooligans introduced me beforehand?

Perhaps sensing my discomfort, Mrs Ingram shakes her head and says,
"Go on, I have some cooking to do for supper."

With that, she moves towards her previous position in the kitchen.

I smile at Mrs Ingram's retreating figure. I was a bit afraid that it she may not be exactly like how Allison how portrays her, because honestly, every person described by her tongue seems like an angel or a saint.

Allison and I walk from our current position to where ever Ethan is.

I can't help but notice the general feeling this house radiates. It just feels so warm, and it's like even the walls are screaming and singing, Be Our Guest.

There are numerous family pictures on the walls.

One picture particularly catches my eye because Mr and Mrs Ingram are laughing while Allison and Ethan(who both look like they're only eight or ten years old) are poking, pulling and wrestling with each other.

We reach the centre of the house which looks to be the living room. When I thought that there couldn't be anymore pictures here, there is an entire wall dedicated to photographs in this room.

Ethan is standing at the side, monitoring the three kids doing their homework on the floor, with his arms crossed against his white button shirt. Now that I think about it, Ethan wears a lot of white shirts accompanied my blue jeans.

He lifts his head from skeptically watching them when Allison adruptly coughs and says,
"You know they're not going to burn down the place if you don't watch them."

The three triplets, two of them girls and one boy, also lift their heads and nod, while waving at me too.

"The last time I left them alone, my hair turned green. Green, I tell you!" He flails his arms infront of the both of us.

"It's not our fault that you didn't look at the bucket at the top of the shower," one girl says while the rest of two fold their arms across their chest. The girls both have blonde hair while the boy has red hair.

Wow, there are a lot of coloured hair people here.

"You have to admit, Ethan. Even Mum says green is your colour," Allison says she bursts into a million giggles.

"Yep." The little girl who was quiet before now giggles.

I take a few more steps and bend down so that I'm almost her height.

"And what's your name?" I ask.
She drops her crayon and looks at me with big dark brown eyes.

"Lacey, what's yours?" She opens her mouth to form a smile, with a centre tooth missing.

"Wow, that's a pretty cool name, Lacey. I'm Lindsey." Lacey chuckles, making her long pigtails swirl a little bit, as the words stumble from my mouth.

"Ask me, too!" The little boy excitedly says.

"Okay, what's your name?"

Wow, my voice is coming out really soft right now.

"Kacey and she's Macey!" He points to the sister who was first speaking with Ethan.

"Okay, Lacey, Macey and Kacey."

Hm, that kind of rhymes. Lacey, Macey, Kacey.

"Can I have your number? I have an iPad and everything!" Kacey exclaims.

"That iPad is ours, too!" Lacey and Macey scowl at their brother.

Ethan slaps his forehead while Allison starts laughing again.
Shaking my head, I tease Ethan,
"You've got competition, mate."

Ethan blushes and turns to Kacey.
"No, you can't have her number, Kace. When I was six, I couldn't even ask a girl for a pencil!"

The triplets look at eachother before bursting out,
"Lindsey and Ethan sitting in a tree
K-I-S-S......"

"Oh, shut it." Ethan facepalms himself.

I can't help but giggle a little bit at seeing the out burst between the redhead and cousins. Allison is also sitting next to me, chuckling.

"There will be no profanities here while your cousins are around, Ethan Ingram!" Mrs. Ingram shouts from the other side of the house.

"But Mum..."

"What's a p-prof..." Lacey asks.

"Profanity, Lace. I'll tell you later." Macey say while shaking her head.

"You see, you don't even have to censor anything infront of them!"

A sudden beap comes from the kitchen as Mrs. Ingram says,
"Macey, Lacey, Kacey, come to the kitchen. I have juice!"

"Juice!" Macey and Lacey squeal while Casey is the first to leave the living room, followed by his sisters.

Watching the three triplets scuttle off from the room, Ethan sighs and collapses onto a nearby sofa, running his hands through his hair.

"I'm guessing kids stress you out," I say, still sitting on the floor with Allison.

He shakes his head as he slides down from the sofa and says,
"Not really, it's just these three I can't handle."

He reaches over to the few soda cans on a nearby table and pops the pin off one. He offers me one, which I, don't take. I don't feel that thirsty.

In fact, the episode with the triplets was a refreshing change from the grim normality. Especially, after what I saw about Dylan yesterday...

Thinking about Dylan, I haven't seen him for almost two days now, not even at dinner time.

I guess the sibling time was a bit overwhelming for him as it was a bit uncomfortable for me.

"So, what do we do now?" Ethan asks as he takes a break from sipping into the can. His eyes widen as he places his hand in his jeans pocket.

"Where's A?" he says as his eyes roam across the room.

A?

"Chill out, here's your A," Allison says as she pulls out a phone from her capri pocket. Ethan's phone.

"Hey, my old phone got soaked and Mum and Dad aren't going to give me another if I lose this one."
He takes the phone from Allison outstretched hand and pockets it.

"Oh, and Ethan calls his phone A for some reason, I've yet to discover. I think it's because of Pretty Little Liars." Allison looks at me with a smirk sprawled on her face.

"Hey, you've got to admit that Pretty Little Liars is a cool show but I didn't name my phone after that A. And yeah, everyone related to the Ingrams is pretty weird," Ethan adds with an afterthought.

"I named my laptop Maddie, so yeah, I'm weird too," I say with a shrug.

I know that I'm weird and I admit it head on. Weirdness doesn't necessarily mean that you're wrong and it doesn't, in any way, give anyone an excuse to make you feel put down.

Ethan's lips curl up and his eyebrows shoot upwards for a second before saying,
"Maddie: Madeline. Isn't Madeline Kathleen's middle name?"

That's the first time anyone's used Kathleen name in the present tense.

"Um, yes and how do you know that exactly?" I pull my lips within my mouth.

"Remember when we went to the cemetery to find Matthew and Henry's graves and found your parents and sister's first? I saw it from the head stone."

Hm, he wasn't kidding when he said he's observant.

"Okay... enough with the links intersecting, theories being made, and all. Let's play a game." Allison claps both of her hands together.

After getting no answer from both me and Ethan, she shakes her head and continues,
"I've just realised that we've been to each other's houses, been spending almost everyday with each other for the last two months. Why don't we ask a single question and all three have to answer? But there's a twist: you can't skip a question otherwise the triplets are back here....."

"NO!" Ethan shouts just as a tumolt of giggling comes from the kitchen.

Apparantly, giggling runs in the family.

"Sure." I make a devilish smile as Ethan squints his eyes at me.

Hey y'all! Hope you're all doing great!

Okay, so I had this chapter in mind ever since TGD started and I am lit sqealing right now that I'm writing it:D

Sorry for the late update. My school's opened recently and this year; we have to choose elective subs. And overall, everything's just crazy, I tell you. CRAZY!

This chapter has been divided into two parts since it was exceeding 4k words.

Also, thank you so much for TEN THOUSAND READS, 600+ VOTES AND 900+ COMMENTS! I FRIGGING LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH XX!!!!

Major shout outs to Nevervane and VeIlichor for helping me to polish TGD's blurb. A bug round of applause for these two ladies, people and for yourselves, as well;)

The video above is called 'Anything you can do, I can do better' from the 1950 film 'Annie, Get Your Gun'. I found the vid to be insanely funny and it always reminds me of Allison and Ethan.

As for the sudden entry of the triplets, I really wanted to add kids that were just not flashbacks. I love kids(even though, they can be a bit of a pain like Ethan says) and I couldn't believe it that I hadn't added such characters yet.

Anyways, it's pretty late here.

Avoid weird typos,

Love,
MS Zame