Modern Family: More than Family Chapter 24 24: Rain

Los Angeles almost never rained.

Which was exactly why the entire city seed unprepared when it finally did.

Traffic slowed to a crawl.

People drove like they were escaping a natural disaster.

And the Dunphy house lost power for twenty minutes during the evening because the electrical panel was affected by the rain."

Gael sat at the kitchen counter with Haley leaning against him, eating cereal directly from the box.

Outside, rain tapped steadily against the windows while the house glowed softly under candles and backup lamps Claire had dug out from sowhere upstairs.

Honestly, the atmosphere felt strangely nice.

Warm light.

Soft conversation.

The sound of rain wrapping around the house.

Everything moved more slowly tonight.

"This feels like camping." Haley said.

Alex looked up from the couch imdiately.

"You've never camped."

"I spiritually understand camping."

"Ewww, that sentence physically hurt ," Alex replied in her sassy way

Gael smiled faintly into his coffee.

The power outage had sohow trapped almost the entire family together tonight:

Haley,

Alex,

Luke,

Phil,

Claire,

and Gael.

Which ant the evening had gradually devolved into board gas, argunts, and Phil attempting ghost stories badly.

"Okay," Phil announced dramatically from the living room. "True story. A man once bought a condominium…"

Luke groaned loudly.

"That's not horror."

"You haven't heard HOA fees yet."

Claire walked into the kitchen carrying more candles while muttering sothing about insurance rates.

She looked more relaxed than usual tonight.

Less tightly organized.

Less rushed.

Probably because the storm forced everyone to stop doing things for once.

Gael then went to check the panel to see if he could do sothing before the electrician ca to check it. When he realised it was just that the main circuit breaker was activated due to moisture passing through the enclosure. He just dried the panel before switching it back on.

The lights flickered once.

Then steadied.

"You know," she said while setting candles on the counter, "you're becoming like the man of the house now that nobody even questions it anymore."

Haley imdiately pointed at her mother.

"See?"

Claire blinked once.

"What?"

"You like him."

"I like that he knows how electricity works," Claire corrected imdiately.

"That's basically attachnt for this family," Alex muttered from the couch.

Gael nearly laughed while Claire looked mildly offended.

"Oh my God. I ant he's useful."

"Still attachnt," Haley replied.

Phil pointed proudly from the living room.

"That's how your mother got ."

Claire stared at him.

"You electrocuted yourself fixing a blender."

"And yet here we are."

The room dissolved into overlapping laughter again.

Honestly, the thing about this family was how quickly every conversation beca chaos.

Luke suddenly ran into the kitchen.

"The Wi-Fi died again!"

Phil stood imdiately.

"I shall descend into the darkness."

"You're going to the garage," Claire corrected.

"Every hero has a cave."

Gael laughed quietly as Phil disappeared down the hallway carrying a flashlight like a man entering battle.

The rain outside grew heavier.

For a while, everyone settled into smaller conversations again:

Luke playing cards badly,

Alex correcting him aggressively,

Haley curled beside Gael beneath a blanket while watching tv.

"You always show up when stuff goes wrong." Haley murmured quietly against his shoulder.

Gael smiled faintly while absently tracing slow circles against her knee beneath the blanket.

The intimacy between them had beco almost invisible now.

Claire noticed that too from across the room while sipping wine quietly.

How comfortable the silence between them had beco.

Real relationship thing.

That was the part Claire found herself trusting him more every week.

Then thunder cracked loudly outside.

Luke yelped.

Phil shouted sothing heroic from the garage.

And Haley startled hard enough that cereal nearly flew everywhere.

Gael caught the bowl instinctively before it hit the floor.

Haley blinked at him.

"…Okay, maybe you are secretly Spiderman."

"That's the only logical explanation," Alex agreed.

"Finally," Phil yelled from the hallway as he got back from the garage.

Another flash of lightning briefly illuminated the room.

For one quiet mont, everybody stopped talking to watch the rain against the windows.

The house felt different during storms.

Smaller sohow.

Closer.

noise.

Warmth.

Familiar chaos.

Then his eyes briefly t Claire's from across the room.

She smiled faintly over the rim of her wine glass before looking back toward the rain.

Simple mont.

But sohow, sitting there surrounded by family noise—

Gael found himself wishing the storm would last a little longer.