Chapter 8: It's a Small World - ahem - Universe...

~1 1/2 Months Later~

He looks more surprised than anything -_-

Martouf tapped me on the shoulder. "Can I talk to you for a minute?" he asked me. He looked slightly nervous, something which surprised me, because over the last month and a half I had almost forgotten what I had heard in the kitchen. SGE-1 + Marty, as the other-people-who-lived-in-this-house now called themselves had been acting perfectly normal towards us since then. They had made us do chores, and most importantly had forced us to go to school. Robert and I were excelling, as usual, and Romana was doing quite well for her first time. Things at the Manor House (as we now called it) were settling into a daily routine, almost like it had been at home. But not quite. 

Marty and I went upstairs and sat on the rather-alarming-shade-of-yellow sofa, which glowed in the dark and was creepy.

"Grace, I've been wanting to ask you something for a while..." he began. 

"Yeah?"

"Do you have a twin brother named Martin?" he asked, talking very quickly.

"Yeah...how did you know that?" I asked. I didn't know how he could possibly have known that, but I supposed Robert or Romana could have told him...

Martouf  bit his lip. It didn't look like the answer he had been expecting. "What were your parent's names?" he asked slowly, as if he was coming up with this question on the spot. 

"Errr...Sally and Peter, I think. I never really knew them, I've kinda been raised by my aunt and uncle Zoe and Mark."

Martouf's eyebrows shot up. "What? Really?" He actually sounded happy about this, something I hadn't been expecting. 

"Yeah, why?" 

He shrugged. "No reason. You should probably get your homework done." he said, and walked off. I suspected there was more to this than he was letting on, but I let it go and went to my room to get my homework. 

On the way, I saw Marty dial the telephone. It was kind of weird, because I had never seen him use a telephone before. He always claimed that they annoyed him. 

---

What had happened in the study had been nothing. It had been something about Romana trying to make Robert more fashionable, and I quickly forgot about it.

It was around 6 in the evening when I finally finished my homework. Robert had been doing his on the computer, and I was about to go into the study to tell him to hurry up already (he had probably been playing chess half the time) when I saw someone outside the door from behind the stairs. She couldn't see me, but I could see her just fine. 

Oh my god. It's Zoe. She will be so mad, I've probably been missing for ages...how was she here the whole time and I didn't realize it. Oops...I thought in panic and raced to the study, where sure enough Robert was closing his computer.

"Robert she's here!!" I hissed.

Robert turned to me, looking confused.

"Zoe! She's here! How did we not realize we were in the same time period as home? This is going to be a disaster! She's gonna be pissed! And keep your voice down, she'll hear us..."  I whispered to him, looking up quickly to see if anyone was coming. 

Robert's eyes widened. "I forgot to check the device, to check what time period we're in...Oh my god, how did I forget? My mum's going to be so mad at me...how long do you think we've been missing for?"

I shrugged. "Well because we can't cross our own timelines it could be anywhere from one and a half months to ten years...or even more..." I said, getting more scared than I already was. "What if we've been missing for twenty years? What will happen then? How will we explain why we haven't aged for the last twenty years?"

"Let's hope it hasn't been twenty years..." Robert muttered. 

"Hang on, I'm gonna go check what's going on..." I hissed and tiptoed out the door. I peeked out the window and saw Jo greeting Zoe. 

She started coming inside, so I tiptoed down the hall and peeked around the corner. Marty had appeared out of nowhere, and was...giving Zoe a hug? They knew each other?

I turned away to back to the study but I heard a shout behind me. "GRACE JACKSON GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!" 

I froze and turned around slowly, with an innocent smile on my face. "Yes?" I said, noticing that Zoe looked incredibly mad at me. I prepared to zone out for a long lecture. 

---

"...coming home RIGHT NOW!!" she finished, glaring at me. 

I gulped. "No! I can't come home now! Just one more day here, please! I mean, you have to make space at our house for Romana! We rescued her from this guy named Edward, and she needs to come home with us..."

"She could stay here..." Marty added helpfully. 

"Fine." She glared at me, ignoring Marty's comment. "ONE more day. But that is IT. You can stay here with my BROTHER. And I'm not NEARLY as mad at you as I should be. Be grateful. You've been missing for TWO months, for goodness sakes. And how you ended up here I don't know..." she looked around suspicously. 

"We found her in a graveyard..." Marty muttered. 

I gaped at her. "Brother? Marty's your brother?" Wow. It was a smaller world than I had thought. What were the odds that I would find my aunt's brother with a time travel device and happen to stay with him for two months.

---

Romana, Robert and I were in the girls' room. Robert and I were discussing what to do next, and what to do about our horribly mad parents. Romana had no such problems, and happily made unhelpful comments. 

After about an hour, Romana seemed to get tired of listing to Robert and I talk. She had seemed excited at first, I didn't know why, bur that had quickly turned to boredom. "Robert." she said. She sounded excited again. "I dare you to..." she looked thoughtful.

"No." said Robert without thinking. 

"To.." she continued, ignoring him, "kiss...Grace. Cause she's the only teenage girl here other than me, and it would be funny."

"No." said Robert again, and turned back to me. "Anyway, the amount of makeup work for school-"

"Promise me you'll do it later. Or I'll just keep pestering you..."

"No."

"Pester. Pester. Pester..." She continued this until Robert got mad, and went of to bed.

"LEAVING!!" he shouted behind him, and nearly ran out. 

"Well darn." said Romana, looking disappointed. She sadly went to bed. 

I had never known Romana was such a matchmaker...

~

Have a chapter! :D 

This chapter was more planned than the last, so I think it was better. But again, not enough description...D:

Anyway, bonus screenshots!

Seriously, the sofa actually does glow at night...it's creepy...

Err Martouf? What are you doing?

No. You're siblings. STOP IT.

Martouf during Zoe and Grace's argument...

Um Tre'lon? Daniel? What?

Attraction system...this pair is better than the last -_-

Just cause it was funny...weird, she kissed him back...I'm going to use MC to set them back to BFFs :P