Hi everyone! It's been a pretty long wait, so I hope you enjoy this chapter!

(Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.)

Chapter 2:

The Introduction

"Okay," Miguel said, his family in front of him. He stood in front of a large curtain, Hector hiding behind it. "So I should explain why I called this family meeting to order."

"Please do," Mamá Elena said, Coco sitting in her lap.

Miguel took a deep breath. "So, I went down to the ofrenda room, and I was singing a song, and I heard another voice singing."

"Who was it?" Papá Franco asked, puzzled.

"My great-great-grandfather," Miguel said.

The room was silent. Then Tío Berto burst out laughing.

"Ya mean Papá Hector?" he chortled. "He's been dead for almost a hundred years - how on earth could you have heard him singing -"

Miguel looked behind the curtain. "Now," he said.

Hector nodded, screwing his head off and lifting it above the curtain. "Hola," he said.

Tío Berto's eyes widened.

"But - but - that's a - that's -"

"It's Papá Hector," Miguel said.

"But how?" Mamá Elena asked, flabbergasted.

"I stayed late at the ofrenda, and I'm trapped here," Hector admitted, putting his head back on and stepping out from behind the curtain.

"So...you're Papá Hector," Coco said.

"That's right, m'ija," Hector said. "And who might you be?"

"I'm Coco," she said. "Miguel's sister."

"Your name's Coco?" Hector said. Coco nodded, and Hector looked back at Miguel for confirmation.

Miguel shrugged. "It was only fitting - she was born the day after Mamá Coco joined you."

Hector was beaming. "I love it," he said, turning back to Coco. "I named my daughter the same thing."

"And then you went on the tour with Ernesto and got poisoned," Coco said.

Hector was surprised, but not mad. He looked at Miguel.

"She asks for the story every Día de Muertos," he said. "The bell incident is her favorite part."

Hector smiled. "Well, anyway, the point is, I'm stuck here until next Día de Muertos," he said, turning back to the Riveras. "So we need to figure out what to do with...with that."

"Exactly," Miguel said, turning to the family.

"Well, we need to hide him from the rest of the town," Mamá Luisa said. "What would people think if they saw us walking down the street with a skeleton?"

"It would be like when I was in the Land of the Dead, probably," Miguel said. "Everyone looked at me like I was...wrong, even just being there."

"Well, usually living boys don't end up in the Land of the Dead," Hector pointed out. "I think you're it."

Miguel laughed. "I'm a history maker," he joked. "But anyway, we'll need to keep you hidden somehow."

"I could always disguise myself as a human, the way I disguised you as a skeleton in the Land of the Dead," Hector said. "Although it's a little bit hard to disguise a skeleton as a human."

Miguel nodded. "You'd probably need a nose to do that."

Coco started giggling, and Mamá Elena quieted her down.

"Alright - so we're going to keep Hector here, hidden from the Land of the Living until we can figure out how the heck to make a good disguise for him," Miguel said. "I adjourn this family meeting."

He banged his hand on a nearby table, like a gavel. "Ow," he said.

"You should've asked me," Hector said, the family standing up and walking away. "I don't really have anything to hurt."

Miguel smiled. Having Hector around was going to be fun.

"More tamales, Miguel?" Mamá Elena said as she walked around the table.

"Sí," he said, using his fork to clear some room on his plate amid all the rice and beans. Elena put three tamales on the plate, steam rising off them like a cloud of dust.

"What do you say to your grandmother, Miguel?" Papá Enrique said.

"Gracias, Abuela," Miguel said.

"De nada," Mamá Elena said. "Any tamales for you, Papá Hector?"

"Non, gracias," Hector said. "I got a lot from the ofrenda last night."

Mamá Elena looked disappointed, but she shrugged and put the basket of tamales in the center of the table. "If you change your mind, they're right there."

"Thanks," Hector said.

Miguel took a bite of a tamale. "Ya sure you don't want these, Papá Hector? Mamá Elena's a great cook."

"I can tell," Hector teased. "But no - I'm still pretty full from last night. Thanks anyway."

"No problem," Miguel said, taking another bite. "So how are Mamá Imelda and Mamá Coco doing?"

"They're good," Hector said. "Coco's still getting used to the Land of the Dead - after a show last year, she asked me how I did all my - uh, my acrobatics - like I did today with the curtain. So now I'm teaching her every Wednesday at sundown."

"That sounds like fun," Miguel said. "I always thought that was so cool - like when we were at the talent show together."

"It comes with being me, I guess," Hector said.

"So I assume you and Imelda are getting along a little better," Miguel said.

Hector nodded. "I think nearly being forgotten and coming back did the trick."

"And she doesn't mind you being a musician anymore?"

"After her performance at the Sunrise Spectacular five years ago? Never," Hector said. "We actually perform together - most of the people in the Land of the Dead have abandoned Ernesto, so we run the Sunrise Spectacular now."

"That's really cool! I bet you and Imelda are amazing," Miguel said. Suddenly, he remembered something. "Wait...you said most of the people have abandoned Ernesto. Are there still people who like him?"

"Diehard fans - people who weren't at the show, or people who just choose to ignore the show. Oh, and his parents."

Miguel nearly spit out his tamale. "His parents?"

"Sure," Hector said. "He has parents - just like you. He spun the story to make it sound like I provoked him, and he had to do it for his safety."

Miguel groaned. "That's annoying," he said. "We have people like that here, too - even after I told the world about everything he did to you, there are still a few people who swear by his music."

"Well, it's good music, I hope - just not the best voice behind it," Hector said.

"Oh, yeah - they still love 'Remember Me' and 'Un Poco Loco' and stuff like that, but all the recordings are of him," Miguel said. "Some people have recorded their own versions, some people have just decided to grin and bear it, and some people say that someone who sings such good songs just can't be bad."

"That's definitely not good," Hector said.

"Well, maybe while you're here, you can record the songs and we can release them as, like, 'long-lost recordings of Hector Rivera' or something like that," Miguel said. "That is, if we can figure out that whole disguise thing."

"Or you could sing them," Hector said. "You always sing them on Día de los Muertos, and you sound amazing."

"Gracias," Miguel said. "Maybe we could sing them together, like at the talent show. 'Un Poco Loco' is practically made to be a duet."

"I'd love that," Hector said, smiling. "I mean, they were duets originally - Ernesto and I would sing them all over as duets, so...I guess you're my new Ernesto."

"Please don't call me that," Miguel said, laughing. Hector joined in with his hearty laugh.

Everything would be fine.

After dinner, Miguel was reading a book when he heard the sound of guitar music from upstairs.

"Mamá Elena?" he asked as his grandmother passed by him. "Who's that playing upstairs?"

She shrugged. "No sé, m'ijo."

"Thanks anyway," he said as Mamá Elena walked away. He looked at the page number.

"193," he said to himself, hoping he'd remember. He closed the book, put it down, and got up from the chair he was in. Step by step, Miguel went upstairs, wondering who was playing the music.

As he got closer, he heard a voice singing along to the music - it was "Remember Me," and Miguel knew instantly who it was. He peeked his head into his sister's room, where she was sitting in her beautiful pink nightgown, watching Hector sing softly to her. At the line "Know that I'm with you the only way that I can be," she started to sing along - she knew every word.

At the end of the song, she clapped. "Again! Again!"

"Not now, m'ija," Hector said. "You need to get to sleep. It's been a big day."

She nodded, climbing into her bed and pulling the covers over her body. "Buenas noches, Papá Hector."

He smiled and gave her a kiss on the forehead. "Buenas noches, m'ija."

He turned to leave and saw Miguel's face, leaning in from the side of the doorframe.

"You should be in bed, too," Hector said. Before he could say anything else, Miguel gave him an even bigger hug than the one he had given that morning.

"What's this for?" Hector asked.

"Congratulations," Miguel said. "You just got another chance to be a dad."

Hector smiled and hugged Miguel back. "You should be asleep by now, you know," he joked as they walked to Miguel's room together, hand in hand.

I hope you liked the chapter! As soon as I got the idea for this story, I knew that I wanted to have Hector and Coco sing "Remember Me" together, just like he had done with the elder Coco in the flashback in the movie. And the thing that Miguel does with his book, where he looks at the page number and says it aloud so that he can hopefully remember it - that is something I literally do all the time.

Feel free to review, but please no negative reviews or cursing. (And please, NOTHING POLITICAL!) Thanks!