Mountains, Molehills

by lalaietha

Summary:

Technically, David doesn't live here, but that "technically" is starting to get real thin, and he knows it. Which is why he chokes a bit when Lilo puts her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands, and says, "Are you going to ask my sister to marry you, or what?"

It's Sunday when Lilo wanders down from her space-ship room, Stitch not in tow because apparently now Stitch feels that early mornings are not for alien terror-machines or whatever he is. She's still in her PJs and accompanied by her deformed-headed doll.

She doesn't have to have that doll anymore. What with the government aid and Nani's job and David's job, Lilo could pretty much have whatever doll she wanted, although David thought Nani would probably balk at one of those thousand-dollar collector Barbies on principal. But a normal, ordinary kind of good pretty kind of doll, that she could totally have. Nani had offered her one, at that.

Lilo remains loyal to whatever-the-deformed-doll's-name-was, though. While the thing creeps him out, because it looks like a deformed alien (and he should know, nowadays), David can respect that.

David waves at her from where he's sitting at the kitchen table, drinking his coffee. Pleakley makes good coffee. David's never quite sure he wants to know how the skinny, one-eyed alien does it, though.

With the sleepy wave of a girl determined to do something with her morning, Lilo climbs up on a chair, gets her own bowl and the Frosted Flakes down, and takes them to the table. Nani's still sleeping, on the basis that she didn't get home until three AM last night and went to sleep in the guest room with a note that said Anyone who wakes me up in the morning will be killed and fed to the dog, which has a particular kind of meaning in this house.

Technically, David doesn't live here, but that "technically" is starting to get real thin, and he knows it. Which is why he chokes a bit when Lilo puts her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands, and says, "Are you going to ask my sister to marry you, or what?"

"I admit," rumbles Jumba's voice from the living-room (and you really can't but think "rumble" about the guy who's the reason every door in this house except the one up to Lilo's room is twice the size of a normal one), "I haf been wondering the same thing."

David's given up trying to decide if Jumba has a bad imitation of a Russian accent because that's where he learned to speak English, or if it's just that the accent his language gives English happens to sound like a bad Russian accent, or if it's some kind of wonky universal translator thing. He supposes he could ask, but at this point, his life is weird enough.

"I haf been reading about it," Jumba goes on, making his way into the kitchen and pulling out the makings for a breakfast smoothie with surprising delicacy for a guy with hands the size of frying-pans. "And I belief dat your cohabitation has reached the point where most often there is a ring and a question. Pleakley has shown me many pictures of very acceptable rings, although of course I am given to understand that they do not do anything, so in your case I would of course offer the opportunity to make it a much more useful - "

"You know, this is really something I'd have to talk to Nani about," David says, feeling like he's fending off some kind of very threatening army, and also like he wants to take his coffee and run. "I mean, this isn't something you rush into." He almost thinks about asking why Pleakley was looking at wedding rings, but decides he doesn't want to know. "We'd need to talk it over, and that's the kind of thing that would depend on Nani, right?"

"I can just ask her for you," Lilo tells him, rolling her eyes. "If you're chicken."

"Please don't do that," David says, feeling his eyes go wide. "Look, I, um, I have to go to work! Right now. I need to go in early today. It's great coffee. Tell Pleakley thanks for me."

He can't really say he's doing anything but fleeing, but he has the feeling that entire conversation was going downhill, fast, and tempting the kind of fate that would have Nani wander in at just the wrong moment and, well, no thanks.

David realizes he's forgotten his wallet, but taken a normal mug full of coffee, facepalms, and sighs.

 

Lilo sighs, finishes her cereal, picks up her doll and wanders into the guest room, completely ignoring the sign. She crawls up on the bed beside her sister, and prods her with one hand.

"Lilo," Nani says, all groggy from sleep and refusing to open her eyes, "didn't you read what I said about waking me up?"

"You can't feed me to the dog, Stitch wouldn't eat me," Lilo replies, unconcerned. "I have a question."

"You always have a question, Lilo," Nani points out, still not opening her eyes.

"Yeah, but this one's important. I kind of need to know. So I'll know what to do next."

Nani cracks an eye open. "I'm not sure I like the sound of that. Okay, Lilo, what's your question?"

"If David asked you to marry him," Lilo asks, very seriously, "would you say yes, or no? And would how big the ring is make any difference? Or if it could set things on fire?"

Nani's other eye opens, and she seems to take a minute to focus. "First of all," she says, "do not, under any circumstances, make a ring that light things on fire, or anything like that. Do you hear me, Lilo? No, I want you to say it out loud."

Lilo sighs dramatically at her sister. Sometimes, Nani is still a serious stick-in-the-mud. "Okaaaaaay," she agrees. "But what about the other question?"

"You bugged David about this already didn't you?"

"He ran away," Lilo confirms, in a tone of slight disgust.

Nani looks at her sister, sighs, and hides her head under her pillow. "Lilo, please go play. With something that isn't going to explode, or get the police or the special CIA unit to come up here again to tidy up. Let me sleep, okay? We'll have a nice big talk about this when I'm not so tired."

Lilo's eyes narrow. "You and David are making this awful complicated."

"Please, Lilo," Nani says, her voice wafting up from under the pillow.

 

It's warm, he's in a sunbeam, and Stitch doesn't mind in the slightest when his little girl comes and curls up beside him and uses him as a pillow. "I asked David if he was going to ask Nani to marry him," she said, "and he ran away. And then I asked Nani if she would say yes, and she hid under her pillow. I'm worried, Stitch."

Cracking one eye open, Stitch reaches one of his lower arms over to pat her on the shoulder. "Everything's okay," he tells her. He's been telling her this for a while. She worries too much.

David's not going anywhere. Now that Stitch knows how to cross the water, he can find David anywhere he wants.