3:17 Purpose

It was the triplets first day at school. There was chaos thoughout the house, as the teenagers hogged the bathrooms. The triplets had managed to make and eat breakfast in the time it had taken Luis and Shaena to roll out of bed and have a shower, and they had hoped they'd have time to shower before school too.
"There isn't time anymore." Rose stated the obvious as if it had just occured to her.
"I'm just going to get changed. I'll shower after school." Jake said as he raised himself off the floor with his wings, and flew up the stairs making both girls jealous that they only had legs. The schoolbus honked its horn outside, and Kaity began to panic that they would be late for their first day at school. Rose grabbed her wrists.
"We don't need to rush. I'll handle it." She announced, proudly.

As Taylor headed out the door, she waved to her boss. She always picked her up for work, even though she'd been assigned her own patrol car before the triplets were born. Only Shaena noticed what Rose was doing, out of sight of their mother.
"Thank you!" Kaity giggled. She was now fully dressed, and they'd even beat their brother who had gone upstairs to change. It used to annoy Kaity when Rose used her powers, it had felt like she was flaunting how she had magic while Kaity didn't, but she knew that she didn't mean it, and if she had it, why shouldn't she use it?

Madison woke up after the riot left the building. Her first day alone in the house since before Luis was born. It seemed so quiet. There was certainly a lot to do, though. Five children make a lot of mess, and with the party last night it could only be worse.

She made her own bed before heading to Taylor's room to make her bed too. The little faces of her neices and nephew on the shelf taunted her, reminding her how this time last week she had her hands full. She may have complained at times, but at least she felt she had purpose.

After a shower and a light breakfast, the remainder of the morning was spent doing other mundane household chores.

 The teens returned from school, and Luis tried to help Shaena with her homework.
"Luis, there's no point. I can't do this. It's a billion times harder than Elementary. Do they not remember that that's where I was just last week?!"
"Shae, you need to get some self-confidence. You can do this, you're a smart girl." Luis turned back to his own homework, as Shaena sighed and muttered something about not needing self-confidence, but a new teacher.

She made yet another mistake, and glared at her brother when he tried to help her again. She wished she could just get school over with, then she wouldn't have to bother with stupid homework.

_____

It was early evening, Taylor was taking advantage of not having any toddlers who needed attention, and was heading out to Summer's house, when she noticed a gnome by the mailbox.
"Hello, little guy. Where did you come from?" She asked, and wondered at herself for talking to an inanimate object. It certainly wasn't there when she'd come home from work only hours before.

She decided the magical gnome should have a magical home up in the alchemy lab, and after setting him down in the corner, left for her friends house again.

With the house was mostly clean, Madison decided to spend a bit of time reading up on her alchemy. As she got further through the book, it was getting harder to read, and this particular page was blurry. The ancient ink had run together, probably from the previous owner spilling something on it, but she was determined to read on anyway.

She struggled to make out the words, but it looked like the elixir was for life. Not eternal life, but giving live; 'Rebirth' it was called.

Could it be...?

_____

 Shaena rose early the next morning. She felt more awake than she had the day before, even though the sun wasn't up yet.

"What time is it?" A sleepy Kaity asked from across the room.
"I dunno, Kait. Too early, go back to sleep." Kaity happily snuggled down under her covers again, while Shaena turned the lights off again and headed downstairs for some breakfast.

After a healthy breakfast of a cookie, she was surprised when Luis joined her. She still felt angry at him over the homework fiasco the afternoon before, even though he was only trying to help, so she ignored him. Luis didn't care, he was too sleepy to want to talk anyway, and couldn't work out why he was awake so early. Something was going on with the teens in this house.

It wasn't long before their Aunt Taylor emerged for her early morning jog. She looked shocked to see them both up so early, remembering her own teenage years, mainly spent avoiding leaving the bed in the morning, and getting into it at night. She shrugged it off and continued out the door as she did every other morning.

The jogging not only helped her body, which she needed toned for her job, but also helped to clear her head. It had been a while since Kaity had mentioned a nightmare, and she wondered if she was just hiding them or if they had stopped now. Rose seemed a bit ditzy, but other than that she was a normal child, Jake was very quiet, and rarely did anything with anyone. She decided she'd have to plan a family outing at the weekend, and try and find out a bit more about her children. She felt as though she barely knew them, Madison had done most of the childcare, but now they were older she'd have to make an effort to get to know them.

When she returned home, Jake and Rose were both up and had fixed themselves some breakfast. She asked them how they'd slept before heading for a shower.

Madison entered the family room, she was up earlier than she was the day before, feeling more positive about today now she'd made a plan for herself. Jake looked around and realised there were now way too many people for his comfort zone, and so headed outside.

He loved the outdoors, and was delighted when he found a patch of wildflowers growing right next to the house. He picked one, and wondered about putting it in a vase, but he didn't have one, and so put it in his pocket.

Kaity finally woke up, ran down the stairs and threw her arms around Shaena's neck.
"I had a dream about you." She whispered, Shaena could hear the smile and was excited. Something good was going to happen.





Bonus shot of Neville the gnome:

"Hello, ladies..."

 Do you have any idea how hard it is to follow 5 storylines as well as making sure the other two sims don't get left out? This chapter is a lot of nothing at first glance, but I think it will serve as 'the chapter where it all began' in a few more.