Paige woke a few minutes later, sitting up and looking around briefly. Her shoulders slumped a bit.

"I was kind of hoping that had been a bad dream," she commented. "Losing the apartment and everything."

"Yeah, I know." Crystal sighed. "Well, we can look for a new one today, head over to the library to look up apartments and jobs. See how far we can get today." She was feeling a little on edge again; she could hear the kids downstairs already.

Paige nodded.

"Yeah," she said. "The library isn't too far from here, we can probably catch a bus or a cab or something."

"Yeah." Crystal sighed. "I wonder if I can find my clothes again. These are a bit too loose." Not that she wasn't grateful for dry clothes, but she kind of wanted her clothes back to go job hunting again.

"We can go ask what happened to our things," Paige said. "Someone around here has to know."

"If we have to," Crystal agreed with a sigh, heading for the door. "Might as well get this over with."

Paige nodded and followed her. She was a bit glad that some of the halls had marble floors; she felt a bit more secure with her bare feet in contact with a good solid material like marble.

Once she got to the kitchen, Crystal stopped. The kitchen was a scene of barely controlled chaos, with kids of all ages trying to eat their breakfasts, drink tea, draw, run, pester other kids, or do homework. Plus Erik took up a lot of space, especially when he turned to look at the two newcomers.

Paige lingered in the doorway a bit, a little intimidated.

Charles turned around, smiling warmly.

"Ah, good morning," he greeted. "Did you sleep well? Please, sit down, what would you like for breakfast?"

Crystal found the seat as far away from the little ones as possible (which was still only maybe five feet) and slumped down a bit in her seat, trying to make herself a smaller target. There was really no way this whole place was real; it was just too crazy.

Paige hesitantly sat down at an empty seat next to her friend. Charles glanced at Darwin, who nodded and slid over to Crystal.

"May as well get some breakfast," he said. "Papa's going to mother-hen over you even more if you don't."

Crystal hesitated for a moment before she sighed. "Can i just get some toast?"

Erik snorted at them but stayed quiet otherwise, already putting more water on to boil. Since more tea would be required by Charles.

Charles beamed.

"Of course," he said. "Jam, eggs, anything you like with it? Don't be afraid to speak up!"

Paige hesitated for a moment, and then tentatively raised a hand.

"I wouldn't mind eggs and toast," she said.

"That sounds good," Crystal agreed. Erik just got out a few more eggs as well since he'd taken over cooking. Crystal still wasn't sure if this was real or a very nice dream.

Confident that Erik had the cooking well in hand (and not about to admit that he himself wasn't a very good cook), Charles sat down at the table as well.

"Did you both sleep well?" he asked. He knew the answer, of course, but smalltalk was never a bad thing.

"Yeah, fine," Crystal lied easily. "Nice bed." She didn't look straight at him though.

Charles raised an eyebrow at the lie.

"I'd imagine it was rather hard to sleep after all of the stress you were under yesterday," he said. "But I am glad the beds were comfortable enough."

Crystal nodded. "Well it was great for the night," she said with a bit of a pointed look. "But we'll be out of your hair soon."

"You're welcome to stay as long as you need," Charles said. "There's more than enough room."

"We don't want to be any trouble," Paige said. "I'm sure your family would like to get back to normal soon..."

"This is normal," Erik said dryly. "Charles has a habit of adopting people." He set plates in front of the two, along with the tea.

"Adopting people?" Paige asked. She shook her head. "No, really, we'll be fine, we just need to find a new place, that's all."

Erik shot them a pitying smile. "That's what Alex said a year ago."

"Except they really actually adopted me," Alex piped up from his breakfast. "They got Hank even earlier than that. I'm the newest one around here, for now."

"True," Erik conceded.

Crystal looked at Paige, increasingly worried.

"We won't force you to stay," Charles hurried to reassure them. "But we do want you to feel safe here."

Paige just looked equally as worried as Crystal.