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Rich orange faded into deep purple as the last traces of the sunset faded from the western sky, a few tentative crickets letting out cautious chips from their burrows nestled among the roots of waxy-leafed bushes lining a small but spacious house. Delighted shrieking and bubbling noises echoed off the concrete sides of the pool as a tiny deer was swept up into the arms of a towering alligator animatronic, giggling as he shoved his narrow snout under her chin and nosed around, growling playfully.
“Monty!” Dazzle squealed, squirming in her uncle’s hold. “Stop tickling meeee!” Her voice dissolved into laughter as Monty dangled her above the shallow water (at least, shallow for him; the surface only went up to his knees despite being closer to the deep end of the pool), still tickling her with his long nose since the ends of his fingers were far too sharp for that sort of activity.
“It’s over, squirt,” Monty declared, his ridged tail slapping heavily against the surface of the water and sending great glittering arcs up into the air. “You’re in air jail, now!” He laughed uproariously as the wet bundle of faux fur struggled against his steady arms.
“You’re playing the game all wrong!” Dazzle scolded, trying to pry his powerful grip from her and her blue bathing suit. “I’m supposed to defeat you, not the other way around!” She turned to the house and yelled, “Terra! Uncle Monty’s being a bad Loch Ness Monster!”
The sizzling of the oil in the pan Terra was tending to nearly drowned out her niece’s voice, but she managed to pick up on the intended meaning and called back, “Monty, be nice.”
The gator threw back his head, the usually stiff fibers of his mohawk heavy and floppy with moisture, and groaned dramatically.
“I am being nice,” he muttered, lowering the child back to the water. “I’m still playing with my niece when all her games make me the monster.” He leaned down to her level, placing his hands on his hips. “Tell me, Dazzle, am I really that ugly to you?”
Dazzle flashed him a smug, chip-toothed grin. “Yep.”
Monty groaned again, dragging his hands down his face, his tail sagging dejectedly. “I will never win her favor,” he lamented as Dazzle giggled below him, floating surprisingly well on her back for a giant hunk of metal.
“Don’t worry, Monty.” Terra trilled from the kitchen, her voice tinged with humor and sincerity. “You’ll always be handsome to me.” The declaration was immediately followed by a somewhat ominous hiss as she poured a pot of boiling vegetables through a colander, the massive puff of steam that followed completely engulfing her head and making her hair look much larger.
Monty puffed, glancing away from the cook and focusing instead on the orange blob across the yard.
“Jack!” He called, waving to get the pumpkin animatronic’s attention. He blinked as a sudden, familiar yellow glow assaulted his optics when Jack turned his head toward the gator.
“Why don’t you join our game and be the villain for a while?” Monty offered, a note of desperation breaching his gruff voice. “Please, I don’t want to be Nessie forever…”
A faint, warm summer breeze ruffled the trees overhead as Jack stared, thinking for a minute, before plainly stating, “No,” and going back to whatever he was doing.
…which appeared to be staring intently at a random tree trunk.
Monty leaned over to Dazzle and whispered, “What is he even doing? Consulting the dryads?”
Dazzle shrugged. “He just discovered lightning bugs yesterday, and now he’s trying to find other bugs that glow. I think he’s moved on to ants now.”
“They’re called fireflies,” Jack yelled back, still too focused on the tree to turn his head.
Dazzle grumbled and swam over to the other side of the pool so she could be closer to Jack. “No, they’re lightning bugs,” she argued. “‘Firefly’ is stupid! They don’t shoot fire or anything!”
“They don’t shoot lightning either,” Jack countered.
“Okay, but they flash on and off like lightning, so ‘lightning bug' makes more sense!” Dazzle yelled back.
“But some people put them in lanterns to make light,” Jack explained, “and people make lanterns with fire. And fire flickers too, so it meets both requirements.”
“You’re just saying that ‘cause you’re a lantern!” Dazzle huffed, crossing her arms on the pool’s edge before abruptly pointing at Jack’s face. “Look! You’re even attracting moths!”
Monty jumped slightly when Dazzle suddenly tugged on his swim shorts to get his attention. “Monty, what do you think is the better name? Fireflies or lightning bugs?”
Monty reached up and rubbed his chin with an exaggerated thoughtful expression on his face. Ripples of blue light from the pool danced across his painted scales, changing his color from grass green to washed-out teal. The kids watched him intently, waiting for an answer to their dilemma.
After a long, drawn-out pause, Monty chuckled and made a motion somewhat similar to pushing his sunglasses up his nose, briefly forgetting they weren’t there, and quickly withdrew as if in embarrassment, switching back to his chin.
“Hmm…” he murmured. “I think they should be called… blinky beetles!”
“What?” Dazzle squealed. “That wasn’t one of the options!” Jack merely blinked as his shoddily programmed logical pathways attempted to reason through this response.
“It’s better than either of yours!” Monty declared proudly, tail swinging. “They’re beetles, not flies, so the species is more specific and scientifically accurate! And the name doesn’t contain any references to unrelated stuff like fire and whatnot!”
Dazzle was unimpressed. “You stole that from Moon, didn’t you?” she asked suspiciously, turning back to him and resting her elbows on the rim of the pool behind her.
“What?” Monty looked baffled. “No, of course I didn’t! I’m entirely original!”
“That’s exactly the kind of thing Moon would say!” Dazzle argued, her little ears lowering in confrontation. “He’s the science-y one!”
Monty huffed. “I can be science-y too,” he claimed, his tail slowing to a calm sway. “Why, if you knew the sort of things we used to get up to—”
“Monty.” Terra scolded from the kitchen as she poured cream into the pan. Monty sighed and slid back into the water, laying on his front and letting his limbs dangle.
“Maybe when you’re older, you’ll be allowed to learn a little more of your family history,” Monty mumbled to Dazzle, floating along with only his back, tail, and head visible like an actual alligator.
“I already know plenty!” Dazzle declared proudly as she kicked at the water, her metal hooves clinking gently against the pool’s tiles. “I’ve been watching you from the walls for two years!”
Monty repressed a shudder. “Yeah, I… I forgot you did that,” he admitted, running a hand over his mohawk and glancing off to the side.
Dazzle leaned in, giggling. “I know all about you. I even know about that time you and Uncle Cosmos took a whole gallon of FizzyFaz and—”
Monty quickly placed a hand over her mouth and shushed her, panic overtaking his features. “Not in front of the missus,” he hissed under his breath, glancing back at Terra to make sure she hadn’t heard.
Dazzle continued, her voice muffled by Monty’s hand. “Or that time when you and Uncle Moon called all the S.T.A.F.F. Bots into the atrium and reprogrammed them to—”
“Okay!” Monty forced a chuckle, dunking Dazzle under the water to get her to stop. “You know what? I’m ready to be the Loch Ness Monster again! Go find your sword or whatever!” He cupped one side of his mouth and whisper-yelled, “Jack! Go distract Terra before she puts two and two together!”
“That’s four,” Jack told him, sounding a little confused. Monty groaned, pinching the bridge of his long nose as Dazzle resurfaced and floundered off in pursuit of her foam blade, seeming unfazed by her sudden submersion.
“Just… just go,” he mumbled, slowly sinking below the surface of the pool as he resumed his “epic monster battle” position. Jack obediently turned and marched across the yard into the kitchen, taking a moment to tap his slippers against the edges of the concrete platform to dislodge some dirt that had collected on their soles before continuing into the house.
Most of the steam from the vegetables had already dissipated from the small kitchen, its last traces curling lazily in the corners of the room like little wisps of smoke. Warm lights gently brightened the area as Terra darted between countertops, attending to her various dishes. As always, she’d insisted that she handle the cooking alone since having other people in the kitchen tended to disrupt her pathfinding and task management programs.
As Jack approached, Terra glanced up and frowned at him.
“Jack, sweetie, you’re bringing a bunch of bugs inside,” she informed him, setting down a handful of utensils.
Jack attempted to focus on the moths flitting about his head, but they were moving too fast. “They like my face,” he observed as they buzzed around his glowing features.
“They’ll like my clothes, too,” Terra paused to cross her arms at her nephew. “Take them back out. They don’t belong here.”
“Chamberlain and Chelsea won’t do anything,” Jack defended his insectoid companions, indicating to them as they flew by. “Chester definitely will, though. He’s mean.”
Terra sighed. “Well, it’s too steamy for them in here,” she told him. “You don’t want their wings to get wet, do you?”
Jack shuffled his feet. “...No.”
“Then put them back outside,” Terra ordered, observing Jack as he walked out onto the patio and switched his emissions off, his mouth and optics darkening to a dull gray. He stood there watching Dazzle beat Monty over the head with a pool noodle until the trio of moths lost interest in his unradiant features and fluttered off into the night sky.
“Do you need help with anything?” Jack asked as he re-entered the kitchen.
Terra handed him a pair of oven mitts. “If you could take the rolls out, that would be great.” Jack held out his hands, allowing her to slide the mitts over them before making his way over to the left side of the kitchen where the dual ovens lay.
“Top row,” she reminded him as he peered through the tinted glass doors, trying to locate the rolls. Jack swung the correct door open and carefully pulled out the tray of dinner rolls, their golden-brown surfaces shining with melted butter. Terra placed a pair of potholders on the kitchen island for him to set the pan on top of, supervising their journey until they had safely landed in their designated position.
Terra smiled, though whether it was from satisfaction or relief, Jack couldn’t tell. “Thank you,” she told him, sliding a bowl of colorful boiled vegetables next to the pan.
“You’re welcome!” Jack chirped, moving back out of her way as she tended to her pan of chicken breasts and cream. A few moments passed before he continued in a softer voice, “Did I do it right?”
Terra chuckled. “Yes, Jack, that was perfect,” she assured him, stirring gently. “There are very few ways to mess up moving a pan, and most of them are very obvious.”
“Good.” Jack said, sounding relieved. “Sun doesn’t let me in the kitchen when he’s cooking, so I didn’t really know.”
“Well, why doesn’t he let you in the kitchen?” Terra asked, a touch of amusement infiltrating her voice.
Jack shrugged. “I don’t know. He always talks about my ‘spatial awareness’ or something. I think he means I move too fast?”
Terra hummed thoughtfully. “Something like that.”
A few moments of silence passed between them, Jack leaning against the kitchen island and staring absently at the ground while Terra watched him quietly. The distant sound of Dazzle and Monty splashing about in the pool tickled their auditory sensors as they waited.
“Jack.” Terra said suddenly. “Why don’t you sit down?”
Jack blinked up at her, a little surprised by her sudden interjection. “I’m okay. I don’t really want to right now,” he responded, giving a little halfhearted bounce.
Terra studied him for a moment, then sighed. “Jack…”
Her hand left the handle of the pan as she walked up to her nephew and gently tilted his faceplate up to get a good look at his features. His expression morphed into one of confusion as her eyes searched him.
“I know that face,” she said softly, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I see it in the mirror every morning.”
Jack’s fidgeting stilled. Terra held him for a few seconds longer before pulling out one of the chairs at the kitchen island and ushering him over to it. “Sit down. Give that leg a little rest.”
Terra returned to her pan as Jack settled down in his chair, a little sheepish (with a hint of relief). He fiddled with his hands as his aunt began adding spices to the pan, seeming a bit more relaxed now, as if Jack’s subtle discomfort had been indirectly affecting her too.
“Thank you for…for having us over.” Jack said quietly, glancing out at his cousin and uncle. Monty seemed to be in his “death throes” now; Dazzle clung to a sparkly float nearby and watched victoriously as the alligator animatronic sunk below the surface of the pool in a flurry of bubbles.
“Of course!” Terra chirped, twisting a pepper grinder above the chicken. “In fact, you two should stay over for dinner more often, not just when the boys are out chasing a runaway pizzeria animatronic. We don’t see each other nearly as often as we should, between my baking for the business and your ‘returning to the darkness’!” Her voice went high and raspy with that last phrase in an impromptu imitation of his, her vocal rhythm brief and halting.
Jack let out a somewhat forced laugh, his gaze drifting down to the island’s marble surface.
“You say that a lot around me,” he murmured after a brief pause. Terra faltered in her movements slightly as she fished a few sun-dried tomatoes from their jar.
“I think it’s something I said once,” he continued, tracing circles on the island with the tip of his finger. “But I don’t remember it.” He paused for a moment, then sighed. “I don’t remember a lot of what happened back then.”
Terra resumed her cooking, allowing a few tomatoes to plop down into the warm cream gently simmering in the pan. “I understand that,” she reassured him, stirring the contents of the pan with a spatula. “I’ve had my fair share of memory problems in the past.”
Jack glanced up at her. “You have?” he asked, a little surprised.
She nodded, tapping the spatula against the side of the pan before placing it on the countertop. “I had a hidden program in my head that made me forget things. We called it ‘Forgor’; Lunar helped me get rid of it. Father put it there, because of course he did…” She trailed off, pursing her lips as she turned around and scooped up a small dish of chopped herbs from the counter behind her. She dumped the contents of the dish into the pan, stirring absentmindedly, too deep in thought to notice Jack’s sudden silence.
“Aunt Terra?” Jack’s voice was quiet, nearly imperceptible from the bubbling of the liquid in the pan and the splashing from outside.
“Yeah?” Terra responded, stabbing one of the chicken breasts with a meat thermometer to check if it was cooked all the way through.
Jack fiddled with his hands for a long moment, clenching his jaw until the tiny supports in his neck clicked in protest.
“What was Fa… What was the Creator like when you lived with him?”
Terra froze, her fans whirring to a stop. The temperature reading on the thermometer slowly rose as she stood there, her optics fixated blankly on the hunk of pale meat speared on the end of her needle. Jack had just begun to worry her systems had somehow crashed when she straightened again, wiping off the thermometer and folding it back into its resting position.
“I don’t know, Jack,” she said stiffly, pocketing the tiny machine. “Some of—if not most of—my memories with him are entirely fabricated. I can’t tell what was real and what was not.”
“Oh.” Jack’s gaze drifted down, avoiding her eyes. He shifted in his seat as the chicken was transferred from the pan to a white plate, rubbing his ankles together as he considered his next words carefully.
“Did… did he ever—”
He jumped as Terra, who had been pouring the cream back over the chicken, suddenly set the pan back down with a little more force than necessary.
“Jack.” Terra smiled down at him, leaning across the island to get a better look at him. Her tone was smooth and even, almost robotic. “Do you remember why I changed my name?”
Jack shrunk back slightly from her intense gaze. “Um…” He scoured his database and pulled up a few of their past conversations, his internal cursor a little wobbly. “You… you said you wanted to move on from everything that happened back in the old dimension?”
Terra nodded. “That’s exactly right.” She pulled away, turning around and scooping something up from the cutting board behind her. “And I’d advise you to do the same.”
Jack watched her as she carefully placed a few sprigs of rosemary on top of the chicken as a garnish. “Okay, but—”
He froze as he felt a wet, clawed hand fall heavily on his shoulder.
“Hey, there!” Monty greeted the two, grinning toothily down at his soon-to-be-nephew. His snout dripped with residual pool water, a towel slung over his broad shoulders. He gave the boy an affectionate shake, glancing back up at his fiance with a touch of concern in his gaze. “What are we up to over here?”
Terra slid the finished dish to the center of the kitchen island. “Oh, we were just chatting!” she chirped. “Having a little aunt-nephew conversation. And you’re just in time for dinner!”
“I can see that,” Monty observed the collection of food on the kitchen island. “And it all looks delicious, as usual. Nobody cooks better than my Terra.” He reached out, hooking her arm around his and pulling it close. Terra giggled and patted his elbow, leaning into the touch and muttering something directly into his auditory sensor.
“Jack!” Monty said suddenly, patting the smaller animatronic on the back. Jack’s shoulders shot up at the sudden impact, flinching slightly. “Why don’t you run over to the bathroom and bring out a towel for Dazzle? Her fur holds a lot more water than we thought it would.”
Jack’s optics flicked warily between the two before he slid out of the chair, emitting a small noise of discomfort when his foot hit the floor, and quietly shuffled off to the designated location. The moment he was out of earshot, Terra let out a drawn-out sigh, allowing her head and shoulders to drop.
“Hey,” Monty said softly, following her as she propped her palms on the kitchen counter and stared at the rosemary stems still laying on the cutting board. “You okay?”
Terra closed her eyes for a moment before answering. “I’m fine, Monty.” She gathered the remaining intact sprigs in one hand and dumped them back into their container, pushing it in the direction of the fridge for later collection. “I’m just… conflicted, I guess.”
Monty’s brows knit together. “About what?”
Terra paused for a moment, then turned to face him. “How much of that conversation did you hear?”
He shrugged. “Not much. I know that Jack was pushing you about something. Do I need to talk to him? I can take him home if you—”
“No, Monty.” Terra cut him off, placing a hand on his shoulder. “It wasn’t anything like that. Thank you for offering, though.”
“What was it, then?” Monty questioned as she drew away again to rearrange the dishes on the island.
Terra took a moment to respond, shifting the pan of rolls so that it was closer to the center of the table. “He was asking about our father.”
Monty’s mechanical jaw swung shut with a snap. “...Ah.”
Terra uncovered the pot of rice and gave it a quick stir. “I just…” She paused, staring down at the faint whisps of steam curling up from between the grains. “I want to help him. I want to help all of them, but…”
She faltered, then sighed. “It never seems to end well, for them or for me.” Her gaze drifted down to her legs, a wince tightening her shoulders.
Monty followed her eyes, his own widening slightly. “You don’t think Jack would hurt you, do you?” he asked, lowering his voice.
Terra’s optics flicked back up to meet his, a distinct tiredness lingering in their lenses. “I didn’t think Nexus would, or Cosmos.”
Monty looked away, with something resembling regret gracing the features of his face. “...Yeah.”
A few moments of pensive silence passed before Terra buried her face in her hands. “I…I do my best to help,” she mumbled, her voice beginning to break. “I talk to them, try to be honest, follow this counseling programming I was born with, and—and then I get shot, or threatened, or called a bad therapist, and they get disowned or sent to space or tortured by Dark Star things they can’t even fight back against, and I don’t know what to do because I still love them and want to forgive them but I can’t forget how much it hurt, Monty!”
Thick sobs began to infiltrate her sentences, her shoulders shaking. “It hurt so badly. It still hurts, all the time, and I can’t get rid of it and I have to wake up with it every day knowing he did this to me, and then I feel angry and guilty and sad and so tired, because all I ever wanted was for everyone to be okay, and—and now poor Jackie doesn’t know what to do with himself because my dad decided to be a jerk again, and he wants my help but I’m too scared to give it to him because I mess everyone up!”
Monty gently gathered her into his arms as she cried, pressing her face into his shoulder. “Hey, hey, hey,“ he shushed her, rubbing her back with his knuckles to protect her from his claws. “It’s okay. You don’t mess everyone up.” A note of gentle humor came into his voice, and he nudged her head until one of her optics was free. “Look at me. Do I look messed up to you?”
Terra sniffled. “But—but Nexus…”
“Nexus made his own mistakes,” Monty told her. “And yeah, we did too. But that doesn’t mean it all falls on your shoulders. It’s not your responsibility to fix everyone.”
Terra re-buried her face, disguising her tears with the pool water already on Monty’s casing. “But I’m the only other one who’s had that relationship with him,” she mumbled thickly. “So…maybe if Jack and I talked about it, it would make him feel better…”
Monty combed a hand through her hair. “But would it make you feel better?”
Terra thought for a moment, still crying softly. “I don’t know. I just don’t want him to feel alone, but I don’t want him to end up the others, either.”
“He’s not alone,” Monty reassured her. “He’s got his dad, and the whole rest of the family with him. He’ll be fine.” He raised his eyebrows, a faint grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “And besides, there’s really no way to reason through your father’s behavior.”
Terra giggled weakly. “I guess not.” She pulled away slightly, supporting a little more of her own weight. “He’s always been like that.”
Monty grunted in agreement, shifting Terra to one arm and offering her a tissue with the other. “The kids are probably hungry,” he observed, glancing outside to where Jack and Dazzle were sitting on the edge of the pool, the former having somehow made it to the backyard without passing by the couple. “I can take care of them for a while if you want to rest in your room.”
“No,” Terra told him, scrubbing at her face with the tissue. “I want to eat with you. I just need a few minutes, first.”
“That’s perfectly fine.” Monty smiled and pulled out a chair for her. “Take a seat. You’ve been working for quite a while now. You must be tired.”
Terra settled down, pausing for a moment to wipe a strand of wet red hair out of Monty’s face. “I am a little. But I enjoy it.”
Monty began washing a few of the various pieces of cookware used to create the meal while Terra cleaned herself up, the gentle clinking of pots and pans echoing through the small kitchen and nearly drowning out the soft murmur of the children’s conversation outside. The last traces of daylight had finally faded from the sky, the yard only illuminated by the various floodlights perched along the house’s corners, the faint blue glow emanating from the pool, and the brief flashes of the “blinky beetles” fluttering about the neighborhood. Dazzle’s towel was slung around her shoulders, her form framed by its watermelon-printed fuzz as she chatted awkwardly with her former best friend, her ears pinned back slightly with wariness.
Eventually, though, Monty stepped out onto the patio, resting a hand on the overhead shutter that could be pulled down to separate the outside from the interior of the house, and called, “Kids! Dinner’s ready!”
“Oh!” Dazzle jumped up, gathering her towel around her, and rushed over to him excitedly. “What is it? It smells really good!”
Monty chuckled. “How about you go see for yourself?” He ushered her inside, watching her skip up to Terra as she bubbled with questions about the meal before turning back to the lone figure still perched on the edge of the pool.
“Jack?” Monty inquired, approaching the boy from behind. “You coming?”
A few moments of silence passed before Jack let out a miniature sigh reminiscent of his father, drawing his knees up to his chest and crossing his arms over them.
“Is Terra mad at me?” he asked quietly, avoiding Monty’s eyes.
Monty examined him, searching his form for…something—Jack couldn’t tell—before gently lowering himself to the ground next to his soon-to-be nephew, his long tail thudding softly against the concrete.
“She’s not angry,” Monty affirmed, tilting his head at the smaller animatronic. “She’s just… not ready to talk about that sort of stuff right now.”
Jack waited a few seconds to answer, resting his chin on his folded arms as he stared out over the pool. “Okay.”
Monty’s gaze hovered over Jack as he seemingly spaced out again, eyelids hovering half-closed like Solar’s while his fingers dug into the tough casing of his upper arms. Monty was just about to hoist himself up again when Jack suddenly spoke.
“I didn’t mean to hurt her.”
Jack’s arm tangle came apart as he slid his hands into view and stared at them, the slits on the ends of his fingers outlined in the deep blue glow of the inner pool lights. “I didn’t…I just wanted…”
He drooped, his limbs going slack as he moved his gaze to his feet. “I’m sorry.”
Monty sighed and patted his shoulder, glancing back at the house to check if they were being missed yet. “It’s okay. You didn’t hurt her. The hurt was already there.”
Monty’s eyes flicked back to Jack as he gently but firmly hooked a claw around the pumpkin-themed faceplate and tilted it to face him directly. “But,” he continued, tapping the rim of Jack’s head and accidentally prompting a tiny purple ray to shoot out for a split second, “if you ever want to have that kind of conversation with her, make sure I’m around first. I want to be there. You understand?”
Jack blinked up at him, a hint of vague acceptance settling over his features, and nodded slightly, his neck mechanisms barely moving. Monty withdrew, pulling himself to his feet and stretching with a wince.
“Dazzle really put a hurtin’ on me, eh?” he muttered to himself, arching his back and rubbing at his shoulders. His endoskeleton clicked as it readjusted, tiny support bars slipping back into place and moving his spine into a more ideal position. He turned back to Jack, who had returned to his curled-up position. “What do you say we go inside and snatch some of that chicken before Dazzle eats it all?”
Jack wordlessly stood up and followed Monty back inside, nudging a pool noodle out of the walkway with his foot as they traveled back to where his cousin and pseudo-sister were chatting and laughing over platefuls of home-cooked food, tears already forgotten in favor of connection with a loved one.