Heero’s alarm clock rang, muffled because it was under his pillow. He woke everyone up. “She’s sleepin’ now so let’s go,” Heero instructed as he switched on his flashlight. “It’s almost time for Tegan’s birthday so we don’t wanna miss it.”

“What do you think’ll happen?” Quatre yawned and blinked sleepily, the bunny ears on his jammies bobbing. “I never seed anyone get growned up b’fore.”

“I dunno,” answered Duo as he stretched his arms, clasping his hands above the horns on his cow pajamas. “That’s why we’re gonna go ‘n watch it happen.”

Relena joined the boys in the hallway, having been awakened by her own muffled alarm clock. As Heero reached for the doorknob on Tegan’s door she said, “We can’t have the flashlight on in there while she’s sleepin’ ‘cause she’ll get waked up an’ then she’ll send us back t’ bed an’ then we’ll miss EV’RYTHING.”

Heero silently agreed and flipped the switch to OFF. It was such a rare occasion for him to agree with anything Relena said that she hugged him to show him that she was VERY happy. He pushed her away without saying a word.

“Is there gonna be ‘nough light in there to see her with without the flashlight?” Trowa wondered.

“There’s moonlight and streetlights comin’ through those big windows of hers,” Wufei responded, pushing the orange bill on the hood of his ducky jammies back a bit to make sure it wouldn’t block his vision. “We’ll just open the blinds a little.”

“An’ ‘sides, at just the time she was borned the pixie dust will make it all light in the room an’ we’ll be able to see her just fine then,” Relena said with all-knowing conviction.

“What makes you think there’ll be pixie dust?” Wufei asked skeptically, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “I sure hope there’s not.”

“’Course there’ll be pixie dust,” Relena insisted crossly, putting her hands on the hips of her lamby jammies. “It’ll be just like Fiona in ‘Shrek’—‘member how she was spinned in the air with pixie dust? I’m sure that’ll happen to Tegan on the minute she turns into a growed up person, ‘cept she won’t be a ogre.”

“What time is it?” Quatre asked softly.

“It’s 3:40 in the middle of the night,” Trowa answered, checking his digital watch. “I heard Melody say she was borned at 3:49 in the night so we only gotta wait nine more minutes.”

All six of them quietly entered the room, which was more of a challenge for some of them than for others, being that not all of them were quiet by nature. They lined up on both sides of Tegan’s bed, watching her as she slept, and waited for Trowa to tell them the exact minute of Tegan’s birthday. It seemed like forever as they anticipated Tegan’s expected transformation.

“It’s 3:49 now,” Trowa announced, holding his watch up to the light streaming in the window and everyone looked expectantly at the sleeping new adult.

But nothing happened.

“Maybe your watch is wrong. Are ya sure you got the right time?” Wufei whispered.

“Yeah,” Trowa whispered back. “I had John set it up so it was ‘zactly the right time ‘ccording to the official time clock.”

“Maybe we just couldn’t see her good ‘nough without more light,” Quatre suggested.

“Here, gimme that,” Relena insisted, wrenching the flashlight out of Heero’s grasp and shining it directly on Tegan’s face to get a better look at her.

“Hey, what’s going on, guys?” Tegan sat up as she was rudely awakened, blocking her eyes from the sudden beam of light. “Are you sick? Did you have bad dreams?”

“No,” Relena sniffled. “We’re just here t’ see you get growed up but we didn’t see pixie dust or nuthin’.”

“What’s she talking about?” Tegan asked the boys as she reached out to comfort Relena; she cuddled the sad little lamby.

“We’ve never seed someone get growed up before,” Duo explained. “So we wanted to see what it looks like.”

“So we been watchin’ you all week to see if you changed any b’fore you get to be ‘fishully growned up,” Quatre added, solving the mystery of why they had been following her around lately. “But we didn’t see ya change even one bit.”

“Relena thought there would be pixie dust,” Trowa said. "But there wasn't anythin' at all."

“Jus’ like Fiona,” Relena said mournfully without removing her thumb from her mouth, which only puzzled Tegan more.

“Fiona?”

“I was hopin’ there’d be fireworks or some kinda ‘splosion like that,” Duo said with obvious disappointment.

“Why didn’t nothin’ happen?” Relena asked after dislodging the wet thumb. “Are ya sure you got growed up yet? Maybe you got the time wrong.”

“No, the time is right,” Tegan smiled at all of them, thinking about how cute the bewildered little ones looked in their animal pajamas. “But nothing happens on the outside when a person grows up. It happens on the inside.”

“Do ya feel any diff’rent?” Duo asked, taking the flashlight from Relena and blinding Tegan with it again.

“I guess I kinda do,” Tegan said, trying to keep a straight face. “Let’s get you guys back to bed.” She took possession of the flashlight and led the way down the hall, seeing spots before her eyes.

“An’ we were ALL here t’ watch ya get growned up,” Quatre said with great satisfaction.

“Even if nothin’ cool happened when ya did,” Duo added.

Tegan gathered them into a group hug. After she tucked them into bed Duo called out, “Hey, Tegan! Now that you’re all growed up can you take us to see PG-13 movies ‘n stuff like that without Melody ‘n John knowin’?”

“Not a chance,” Tegan laughed.