The Files of the Big Damn Principal

It was a beautiful day on the Isle of IKEA, flowers rising high between the pieces of Swedish furniture. The flags flickered happily in the afternoon sun, and even the island's usual silence was broken by the arrival of some visitors - or customers, as the case would be. Cable's boots stalked firmly across the wooden boards, his fingers entangled with little Jan's. A gun was strapped to his back, but that wasn't anywhere out of the ordinary.

He needed toddler furniture. It was one of those days.

Zoe had opted for a stroller for Grace, and she'd left her gun at home, but she was on a similar mission on the Isle, searching for furniture that was childish, but not pink. Anything but pink would do, and while having Grace with her actually made shopping more complicated, Zoe figured that if a pretty, pretty princess gene had somehow managed to get passed down to her daughter, this would be the place to discover it.

Nathan Summers was much more for blue, himself. Blue and yellow. Which made his options even *more* limited. He was standing by an outrageously baby-blue bedframe, Jan's hands coming out to - almost religiously - touch the edge of it, when he noticed Zoe. He looked up. "Baby shopping?" he guessed.

He did not look like a man accustomed to baby shopping.

"Yes, we are," Zoe said, grinning and watching Jan with amusement. "It's amazing sometimes how much they need to just get by. I wouldn't have expected to see you here; you don't strike me as the IKEA type."

"I might as well make use of the isle seeing that it's here," he said, "Or it's my love of Swedish furniture..." Nate was going to work surveillance equipment into every inch of that bed.

As Jan touched it, a little flower sprung up, brilliant blue and yellow, all for her. She giggled.

"Is that a sign of approval?" Zoe asked as the flower came up. "I wish I could get commentary that was that concrete, besides the word 'no' over and over again." In the stroller, Grace was sitting quietly, like she knew now would be a good time to be on her best behavior.

"I think the Isle might have been left desolate for too long," Nate replied, considering it. More flowers were starting to grow around Jan's feet; some of them were settling alongside the stroller. "Interesting..."

Zoe took a step back, pulling the stroller with her, and more flowers sprung up to take up the space. "Is it just me, or does it seem like maybe this isn't the best time for shopping?" she asked.

"Might want to postpone it," Cable agreed, one hand going for Jan's, the other for his gun. "Move."

Sure, it was only a plague of flowers upon their children, but you could never know for sure.

Zoe wasn't quite as concerned, but it hadn't been long enough since Grace was taken that she was willing to take a chance on her safety. "I'm right behind you. Let's go."

And with that, they abandoned the Isle to its own affairs, even though a trail of flowers followed the children as they went. In their wake, the Isle of Ikea seemed to swell with great joy as every colour became more and more vivid.

Cable, predictably, didn't look back.

[Preplayed with the lovely, if paranoid, spring_lost. Establishy and NFB!]