Enjoy this oneshot! This takes place before When Even Two Sparrows Fall.
"Sophie, what's 'ohana' mean?" Fitz looked up at her from the shared laptop screen.
The blonde perched on the arm of the couch and glanced at the picture. "Oh, you found Pinterest? Cool! The word 'ohana' is the Hawaiian word for family, I think. It's a huge theme in Lilo & Stitch."
He gave her a confused look.
"Stitch is that blue thing. Lilo is a human girl who mistakes him for a dog. It's a Disney movie."
"Dizznee as in Dex? That doesn't make any sense."
She shook her head. "Walt Disney - spelt D-i-s-n-e-y, not D-i-z-z-n-e-e - was a human movie producer. He died about fifty years ago, but the company he founded is still making movies."
"Can we watch it tonight?"
"Sophie!" Dex called. "Come help! I can't figure out what I did wrong!"
She sighed and pecked Fitz's cheek. "Going Muggle isn't as easy as I thought. It's kinda cute sometimes though. About the movie, sure."
"What's a Muggle again? I forgot already." Biana yelled from the next room.
"You go find out what Dex did." Fitz chuckled, yelling back to Biana, "I think it's a term for people without magic in Harry Potter." He glanced at his girlfriend to make sure he was right.
Sophie nodded, slid off the couch arm, walking through the dining area to the kitchen. "Did you put the foil butter wrapper in the microwave again?"
"No." Dex held up the solid-looking stick of butter on a plate."I did everything you said, but it's still too hard."
"How long did you set the timer for?"
"Ten seconds, like you told me."
Sophie walked around the counter. "You need to do it in ten-second increments to soften it but not melt it. Turn it over and give it another ten seconds"
"Okay." He pulled open the door, put the butter on the turntable and closed the door. "Um, what do I do next? I forgot."
"Put in the number of seconds you want."
He pressed his finger to the one, then the zero, then the start button, grinning at her. "Thanks, Sophie."
"No problem."
"SOPHIE!" Keefe came running into the room. "THE COMPUTER'S FREAKING OUT AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT I DID!"
"Did you press escape? That pulls up the menu in Minecraft."
"Oh yeah. I knew that. How do I go back?"
"Click on 'Back to Game'."
"Hey Sophie?"
She sighed and walked to the bottom of the stairs. Linh was leaning on the railing above her. "Yeah?"
"What's 'takeout'? Tam and I were reading a book and they mentioned it."
"How about I get takeout for dinner and we find out?"
Tam poked his head over his sister's shoulder. "Also what does 'Netflix and chill' mean?"
Sophie bit her lip. "A lot of different things. It depends on the context. What's the exact line the character says?"
He left and returned with the book. "Um, oh, here it is. 'How about we just Netflix and chill and I get takeout?'"
"Okay. What he's asking is 'do you just want to watch TV all day?'"
Linh's brow furrowed. "A TV is that big black screen in the living room, right?"
Sophie nodded.
"I'm still confused."
"I'll show you tonight."
The twins shared a confused glance and went back to their book.
Sophie poked her head in the office door. Keefe was engrossed in survival Minecraft. "Doing okay now, Keefe?"
"A creeper blew me up for like the fifth time, there's a giant hole in the side of my base, which is really just a house made of dirt, and now I have to find my stuff again, but yeah, for the most part. I'm just trying to build a cool house and these stupid green walking bombs won't leave me alone!"
"How about I show you creative mode?"
About half an hour later, Sophie finally had everyone sorted out and sat down to do her own work. She was hoping to find them all human occupations eventually, but for now, she was focused on writing out her life story. All she needed now was a title and a publisher. Everyone had originally been opposed to her idea, but after she explained that it would be taken as fiction and not real and that the chances of it being found by an elf among all the other human books were extraordinarily unlikely, they supported it wholeheartedly.
She sipped her coffee and set it back down on its assigned spot on her messy desk, typing away with one hand. The alarm on her phone vibrated and she took a deep breath, saving her work and closing her work tabs. Linh wanted takeout for dinner, so she opened a search tab for it and scrolled through her options.
"Should we go Pad Thai, Chinese or sushi?" Sophie muttered to herself. "Okay, Linh's decided to stay vegetarian, so we need an option without meat. Dex and Biana prefer chicken over beef. There's a possibility Keefe could be allergic to seafood, so let's steer clear of sushi for now. Everyone else is still getting used to the concept of eating meat but is okay-ish with it, so something that meat can be removed from easily. Fitz likes pasta, but not rice. Pad Thai it is."
"Whacha doing?" Fitz hugged her from behind as if her mention of his name had summoned him. "Talking to yourself again, huh? Not always a good thing."
"Just ordering dinner, silly. How does chicken Pad Thai sound?"
"Yummy." He pecked her cheek. "One with tofu for Linh?"
She grinned. "Yup. I have the one with tofu for her. I can split with her if she can't eat it all. I'm guessing you want chicken Pad Thai?"
"Yes please," Fitz laid his head on her shoulder, gently nuzzling the side of her neck. "With lots of spice."
"Dex still likes his spicy enough to kill, right?"
"Mmhm."
"Okay." She ignored his hands sliding down her ribs and around her waist and added two orders of chicken Pad Thai, one with level two out of four heat, one with four out of four heat.
Sophie reached out telepathically to Keefe while repositioning Fitz's wandering hands. Ordering Thai for dinner. What do you want to eat?
Is there curry?
Let me check.
She pulled up the menu again, then glared at Fitz over her shoulder again and moved his hand.
Getting flustered there, Foster. Keefe's tone was teasing.
She rolled her eyes. There are red, green, and yellow curry options. There is also yellow curry fried rice.
Ooh, that sounds good. Yellow curry fried rice, please.
Chicken, beef, pork or tofu? Sophie fought hard to keep her mental voice calm.
Keefe snickered. Baconses precious.
It was such a big mistake to let you watch Lord of the Rings. But pork it is.
Sophie cut off the connection. She grasped Fitz's hands and firmly removed them from her body, standing around and turning as she did. "Really?"
He gave her a sheepish grin. "Your skin is soft. I like the way it feels."
"Did I give you permission?"
"No." His grin turned to a playful pout. "I sowwy."
She sighed. "We're gonna be watching Lilo & Stitch tonight."
He grinned like an excited five-year-old.
"But I have to finish ordering food for everyone, so if you're going to hug me, please keep your hands still." Sophie replaced his hands on her waist and reached out to Tam. Ordering Thai. Curry, noodles, rice?
Umm… I'm not super hungry. Are you getting spring rolls?
Spring rolls and cha yor, which are those little wonton meat things.
Add cream cheese puffs to that and I'll be fine.
I got Pad Thai with tofu for Linh. Is that okay with her? She knew she could just contact Linh, but she didn't really feel like it.
Tam's answer surprised her. She says she wants something with shrimp or seafood instead, please.
Sophie scrolled through the menu options. How does mixed seafood fried rice sound to her? That has crab, shrimp, squid and mussels.
She said that sounds great, but she's not sure about squid.
Okay. She kept the tofu Pad Thai for herself and added seafood fried rice before asking Biana. Thai for dinner. What do you want?
Pho Noodle soup, please. With enough spice to burn the devil.
Do you want me to specify that?
I want to see what they do.
Sophie sighed, specifying 'enough spice to burn the devil' on the soup. "There. That's dinner ordered. I'll go pick it up and run some errands in a bit."
"Can I come?"
"I don't think that's the best idea. Let's get you better acclimated with American culture first. Tam and Linh can get away with it by the skin of their teeth because they look Chinese, so if they don't speak English, people automatically assume they've never been here before. You look like you're from an English-speaking country, so you don't have an excuse for not knowing."
Fitz nodded and pecked her on the cheek. "See you later then."
When she returned an hour and a half later with food and groceries, everyone was downstairs. Someone, probably Dex, had figured out how to work the remote without her and they had discovered what appeared to be a TV show Sophie recognized.
"Call the Midwife? Really?"
Six heads turned her way and each reacted differently. Dex was out of his seat as fast as he could and she didn't have to be a Telepath to know the only thought on his mind was food.
Fitz got up a little more slowly, looking slightly queasy. "We didn't realize that's what it was when we found it."
Linh stuck a bookmark in her book and stood, setting it in her spot. "Yay, food's here."
Keefe was curled up in the armchair, looking pale and a bit sick. "How do women have kids? That's a fake TV show and that was awful!"
Sophie chuckled. "How about food then movie?"
Everyone nodded and immediately relieved her of all her bags. The boys put away all the groceries as Sophie and Biana separated out everyone's food.
"So this is takeout?" Keefe sat down, poking his rice with a fork.
"Yup." Sophie picked up hers and twirled the noodles around her chopsticks. "It's just food you get from a restaurant and take home. That's why it's called takeout."
"Huh."
Dex was the only one to sit with Sophie at the table with his food. Everyone else curled up on the couches with their food. "Seriously, you guys? Eat at the table like normal people."
Sophie laughed. "Don't worry Dex. We're gonna watch a movie while we eat."
He picked up his food and they sat with everyone on the couches.
Fitz pulled Sophie onto his lap. "So Biana, how's the soup?"
His sister took a sip of the broth. Her eyebrows shot up and she exhaled hard. "Woo! That's some spice high. They really took the instructions to heart." She took a few deep breaths. "Could somebody get me some milk?"
Tam waved his hand, telekinetically retrieving a jug of milk and a cup for her. " Soph, what are we watching?"
She gave him a very Keefe-like grin-smirk. "Well, elves seem to like a lot of legacies…" She trailed off, watching their reactions.
Keefe groaned and took a large bite of his food to prevent himself from speaking.
"There's the Vacker legacy and Keefe's legacy. Don't you think Dex should a turn?"
Her cousin gave her a death glare. "I hate you."
"Please go to the back of the line." Sophie nabbed the remote from Fitz, pressed the menu button, and opened Netflix. "You guys want to see what the Disney Legacy is?"
Linh put her book away and stabbed a tentacle with her fork. "As long as it is not giant mutant trolls, sure."
She laughed, pressing the button. "Then enjoy."
After the opening logos, the screen went black before fading in to the Galactic Federation Headquarters.
"Oh. I forgot about this part."
By the time the opening song started, everyone in the room was certain this was a horror film.
Then Lilo explained that it was Sandwich Day.
"Like a lobster!"
"Lilo, you lolo? Do we have a lobster door? No, we have a dog door, we are getting a dog!"
Several bouts of laughter, followed by 'Eww's, then more laughter, and back and forth for the next five minutes.
"Dad said ohana means family. Ohana means family and."
"And family means nobody gets left behind."
"Or?"
"Or forgotten. I know. I know."
Total silence.
The movie was mostly a roller coaster [Pun intended] of laughter, 'eww's and uncomfortable silence. Linh thoroughly enjoyed Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride, Keefe would probably be whistling Devil in Disguse for a week. Biana may or may not have cried just a little bit when the Galactic Federation almost kidnapped Lilo.
So everyone was more or less shaken when the end of the movie rolled around, about an hour and a half later.
"Does Stitch have to go into ship?"
"I- yes."
"Can Stitch say goodbye?"
"Yes."
"Thank you."
Linh sniffled, although that may have been Dex.
"Who are you?"
"This is my family. I found it all on my own. Is little, and broken, but still good. Yeah. Still good."
As the credits began rolling, no one wanted to break the uncomfortable silence. Fitz and Biana were staring at their laps, pretending to be invisible, although Biana actually didn't vanish.
Sophie swallowed the last of her food. "Does anyone want to watch another movie?"
Almost everyone shook their heads.
"Do you guys want to talk about the movie?"
Fitz leaned his head on her shoulder, sighing. "Not really. It's just…"
"If a five-year-old -I'm assuming Lilo's five- can love a mutant alien experiment so much that she overlooks every flaw until he betrays his reason for existing, to destroy, what does that make us?" Biana finished.
"People. People who feel betrayed and hurt." Sophie answered. "Feeling that is okay. It's whether or not you make your decisions based on that hurt is okay in the scenario. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not."
Dex shifted in his spot, resting his chin in his hands and his elbows on his knees. "You know, Alvar actually never did anything to us directly. I was looking into Alvar's registry feed on a whim a couple of years ago, I noticed that the dates that synced with our kidnapping in Level Two" -he gestured to Sophie- "his feed for that entire week or so was clean. He was in the Lost Cities the entire time. I know the trick the Neverseen use to cover their tracks. He was clean. Every time we encountered the Neverseen, his feed was clean, except for the times we saw his face and knew it was him."
"Huh." Keefe leaned back and pulled his knees up. "That explains why he never seemed to leave. The only time I'm not sure he was there is when I wasn't there unless Fintan sent him on a mission, which it often took a day longer than it should have for him to complete. But every time, his excuse was solid. Fintan would ask me to check if he was lying and every time he was sincere. It was really weird."
"Hey, Sophie, what's Frozen?"
"Huh?"
Linh pointed to the TV screen, which now showed several other Disney movies.
"It's about a girl with ice powers who freezes her entire kingdom."
Keefe wrinkled his nose. "That's it?"
Linh made a face. "How about The Princess and the Frog?"
"A black waitress in the 1920's who's working to get a restaurant and kisses a prince who's been transformed into a frog and then she turns into a frog and has to find a way to fix that."
"Ooh, can we watch that one?" Linh asked at the same time her twin asked, "Can we get dessert?"
Sophie laughed. "Yes to both. Fitz, can you hand me my laptop? I have a contact in the human world. I'm gonna have him bring us some cheesecake."
Thanks for reading! I'll be publishing more oneshots about the shenanigans the Keeper gang gets into while in the human world.