The cave door opened with a slow sluggish creak to reveal a very sleepy looking Wembley rubbing his eyes with a voice halfway between a yawn and a groan.
"Morning…Red..What are you doin' here?"
"Where's Gobo?" Red snapped, grabbing Wembley's nose with her free hand in a business like fashion and lifting him upward an inch to stare eye to eye with the trembling fraggle. "It's really really important."
"Oh, oh..well, he's n..not here right now." Wembley sputtered. "I think he had to get up extra early to teach the volunteer fire department how to start a outerspace fire..or how to put one out. I can never remember…"
Red let the younger fraggles light green nose go, sending him tumbling back to earth with a sigh and a thump.
"Why does he always have to go somewhere when I really…?" She mused to herself, as her gaze fell on Wembley with a glimmer of hope.
"Say Wembley…" Red began, her voice sounding strangely smaller and softer than it ever would normally be, even when she was not shouting orders.
"Yeah Red?" He replied with a yawn.
"Do you think I'm…mature?" She finished, titling her head to the side and curling the end of a bedraggled pigtail around her finger nervously as she glanced at the ground.
"Gosh…" Wembley began. " I…think…"
"You can tell me the truth" Red added with an over-dramatic flare, bracing herself. "I can take it..No, I deserve it even…"
"I think..you're..very mature Red." Wembley blurted out.
"Wha?" Red peeped, taken aback by the normally soft spoken fraggles defeat answer…and his green hand which happened to now be placed more than supportively over her own yellow one.
"No..in fact, I think, I think, you're beautiful Red."
"Oh. My. Gosh. Wembley I please tell me you're not actually…" Red said flatly, rooted with shock to the spot.
"I think you're the most attractive fraggle that ever lived." Wembley added, his voice low as his mouth parted in a cocky smile.
"..You are actually." Red concluded with a nervous attempt to pull away, only to find herself suddenly pulled back, nose to muzzle with Wembley.
"Here!" Red peeped quickly, raising little Poppy up like a living shield between them and passing him off into the green fraggles arms as she skillfully wiggled out of them herself.
"You. Baby. Turn to look after. Bye!" She yelled over her shoulder, and was gone into the distance in a flash.
"Red?" Wembley yelled, his voice cracking slightly as it regained its nervous edge.
"Red, I didn't mean to…That is..Aw, Red I don't know anything about babies! Where are you goooing?"
"To the trash heeeap!" Came a faint reply.
"Oh no, oh no..!" Wembley chanted to himself, holding the toddler away from his body as if it were some strange alien life-form that would explode at any moment, and starting to make his way down a back tunnel screaming all the way.
"Gobo, Gobo, help! He's leaking everywhere…!"