Heero groaned as Relena cried, “Heero, I’m scared!” and latched onto his arm so he could protect her. Heero didn’t want to protect Relena, or admit that he was a little scared too so he just said. “Go ‘way, crybaby!”

“Is everyone okay?” Zero asked. He had been expecting the storm to get heavy and possibly to have a power outage, so he had planned ahead and brought extra flashlights and candles so he wouldn’t have to find whatever ones Melody had.

Quatre ran over to Zero and hugged his leg. Zero patted his head and then looked at the others. They seemed fine enough.

“Weren’t there two other chibis here?”

“We’re right here,” Milliardo said. He was standing at the top of the stairs and holding onto a book in one hand, a flashlight in the other. Treize was beside him.

“Alright, well…dinner’s done,” Zero said.

“Right, I’ll go put up some flashlights so we can see,” Josh said. He went into the kitchen. In about 15 minutes he came back out into the living room.

“Let’s go eat,” Zero said. He led everyone into the kitchen. It was bright around the table. There were a couple big flashlights and 3 smaller ones on the counter pointed towards the table.

The chibis were impressed as they sat down. Zero began to serve chibi sized portions of macaroni and cheese to them. Duo was looking around as he got his macaroni and cheese.

“What’s wrong?” Zero asked.

“Where’s the ketchup?” Duo asked.

Zero looked disgusted as he asked, “Why?”

Duo pointed to his macaroni and cheese as Josh got out the ketchup. He squirted a little on Duo’s food for him.

Zero had heard about food fights from Melody, and he had told Josh about them. Josh didn’t want to risk Duo squirting anyone. He also knew how sensitive Zero was about his cooking, and would have felt bad if Duo put so much ketchup on his food that ketchup was all he could taste. Zero smiled a little and then frowned as Josh put some of the ketchup on his own food. Josh gave Zero an apologetic smile.

“Anyone else?” Zero asked.

“That’s so gross!” Relena exclaimed.

Zero chuckled and said, “Okay…now, who wants to ask the blessing?”

“I’ll do it,” Milliardo offered. He folded his hands and bowed his head. The other chibis followed his example. Duo was fidgeting a little though from having to sit still and be quiet.

When Milliardo had finished asking the blessing and the chibis and chibisitters had all said “Amen” it was time to eat.

Chibi Relena took a bite of her macaroni and cheese and suddenly looked very unhappy.

Zero looked up at her as she touched one of her teeth. “Are you okay? Is it too hot?” he asked.

Relena shook her head. Zero then observed that she was pushing one of her teeth.

“Aww, you’ve got a loose tooth!” he said.

“I won’t swallow it if I eat, will I?” Relena asked. She sounded afraid to take another bite of food.

“Only if it comes off and you don’t realize it,” Zero said, “Just chew with your other teeth.

Relena tried to chew with her other teeth like Zero said, but then she forgot and chewed with her loose tooth. The sticky cheese and the pasta caused her tooth to feel very uncomfortable.

“I can’t finish. My tooth hurts,” Relena complained.

Zero nodded and got up to put her food away in the fridge. He knew the power was out, but it might come back on before anything spoiled. If it didn’t he’d just clean out the fridge of anything that spoiled before everyone got back. He had to buy some more groceries so he could cook more of his special meals for the chibis, so he promised to replace anything that would go bad, but he hoped nothing would, especially not the left over macaroni and cheese.