There was always the saying that no parent should have to bury their child. But frankly, it didn't seem fair when children had to bury their parents either. Especially when you were still in your teenage years.

Ronaldo hadn't ever expected that he would have to live through something like this twice. Granted, he never really knew his mother, having lost her at a young age, but seeing his father, bereft of life on the floor of his business without warning, really shook the teen up. With no distant relatives to contact, it was up to him and Peedee to organize the mortuary services, and contact lawyers and figure out inheritances, and they found that even with condolences from friends, they relied mostly on comfort from each other.

Everyone had already left by then, Sadie softly giving final condolences before she went to her car. The Fryman brothers had been staring at the fresh earthen mound of dirt on the ground when Ronaldo had been approached by their legal representative, "You must be Peter's sons. I'm terribly sorry for your loss."

Before either brother could thank him, he continued, "In your father's will, he had Percy Dale-"

"Peedee," Ronaldo corrected, which made his little brother blush.

"Peedee. Yes. Well he was set to inherit this business in all terms and purposes. However, state law requires he be eighteen to own a business of this size and license."

"You're kidding," Peedee had groaned.

"As required by law, you will have to wait until then to own this business. In the meantime, however, we can pass ownership to your older brother."

Ronaldo looked like he had seen a ghost, "I'm...I'm no business owner, I still can't even handle all the machines, I-"

"We can discuss this at a more appropriate time, in a more private setting. But for now, I suggest you two discuss what is best for your father's business, and if it should continue even being a business at all."

Once the representative had left, Peedee excused himself quietly to retch violently into a nearby planter.

At 4:30 every day, laptop and camera in hand, Ronaldo would leave the darkness of his office of the lighthouse, and begin his routine of scouring the city for blog material. Turning on the camera, he held it place as he walked briskly down the street, and off towards the beginning of his search route. He'd mapped the entire city out, strategically traveling to certain landmarks first, theorizing paranormal activity would likely happen during that time of the day in that area.

He had to revise this mental map several times over the course of the year, hearing from locals about strange occurrences outside their businesses that he had missed either too early or too late. The whole practice of studying the paranormal was rocket science he'd learned over time. He wanted to kick himself for missing several anomalies that could have proven useful to his blog, or one of his more structured theories. But it wasn't like he could go back in time. He would have to keep moving forward.

Keep moving forward while staying in his office, and ignoring Peedee's concerned calls asking him if he was going to come to the shop anytime soon. There was a lease to pay, and signatures to be made, and until Peedee turned 18, he could do neither.

It really wasn't that much of a task for Ronaldo, signing papers haphazardly, and slapping down some bills for the landowner to collect, but even then Peedee worried, wondering if he was going to ever see his brother again once he turned 18, and the shop had no need for Ronaldo.

It took Sadie, Peedee and Steven, and lots of arguing to get Ronaldo to pull away from his blog, his theories, basically his routine for even a handful of days. And even then, he was nervous, he was jittery, he was obviously on edge. The assurances by the two younger boys and Sadie that his followers would understand that he needed a break only helped a little. It wasn't just about his followers. It was about his duty to the world, and more importantly, his need to have something he could control in his life besides a business invested in potatoes.

Control. It was something Ronaldo felt he desperately needed in his life. He'd always been seen as the son who couldn't take care of himself. The grown infantile man who had to sit in the back seats of cars. The son who couldn't be trusted by his father. It all had really weighed down on him, and it became suffocating, draining, almost paralyzing to think about as he lay in bed. Probably up to his dying breath, Mr. Fryman probably saw him as a basket case.

It started with the small things, like getting up on the left side of the bed in the morning, having the shoes, toe to toe by the door, the same dishes to eat meals with. The same steps paced out on his daily walks, step on none of the cracks, make sure he touched none of the streetlamps (they could be wired), and make sure he got back to his office before it was five o'clock. Sadie was only allowed to visit him after six, and if it could be helped, never on Wednesdays or Thursdays. He didn't want to meet people on those days.

Peedee had taken notice of these habits his brother had, seeing when he walked past the fry shop, and even when he dropped in to visit him. At first, he thought it was just Ronaldo being Ronaldo. But then he noticed it more frequently. And he grew worried. He had calmly asked him if he'd seen a therapist about these habits, and Ronaldo almost became unglued, telling him off, asking if Peedee was going to be like everyone else, and think he was positively hopeless. It took rapid, frantic reassurance to get him to calm down. But the outburst worried Peedee even more. He himself had been seeing a psychologist for the last few years, diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and he was wondering if it was something hereditary; he saw similar symptoms in his brother. He decided not to push it any further. Not until it was needed.

It was during one of the forced breaks that Ronaldo had met someone who seemed to understand better than anyone else. Better than Peedee or Sadie, or even Steven, who had been his confidant in the past for all paranormal. But it wasn't even the paranormal this person seemed to understand. She seemed to understand him.

And for once, he'd been happy he had taken a break. With her, he felt he finally had a bit of control in his life, to be able to maintain such a relationship, an understanding.

The break was intended to be for just a week, under Sadie's suggestion. But it managed to carry on for two years with her. Nobody seemed to worry about him much anymore. He functioned, he was happy, he was social, he was back to being the excitable joyful person he'd been years before, and not someone who was obsessed with control.

When she wasn't there however, he'd slowly start to break. He'd keep up the routines and habits in the morning. And he'd still ask her if they could walk the same route he did. She didn't mind.

It was only when they were spectators to one of the biggest paranormal events of Beach City history that Ronaldo realized he had been shirking his duty to report such matters to the world. She tried to work with it, how often he stayed in his office alone now, reporting, theorizing, investigating. But soon, it just became too much for her. By the time he'd turned around to thank her for her patience, she had left.

And Ronaldo lost control once again.

Peedee and Sadie both tried to express, as appropriately as possible, that they were proud of Ronaldo making such a decision by himself, to get help. And how to get help. Eventually, he reached a solution; to commit himself to a psychiatric hospital. It was a painful decision that he had made, but he had discussed it with the both of them, and, reluctantly, with the therapist that Peedee had suggested. And they all agreed that it was for the best.

He'd always been incredibly panicked and unwilling about taking breaks from his life's work, his only source of control, but this time, he felt a sense of relief. There was fear, but also relief.

He had written a lengthy letter to his followers, expressing his need to go away for a set amount of time, but that he would be back. In his head, he was still panicking over how much paranormal activity he would be missing, but there was also the voice of reason telling him he needed to put his stability first.

Most of his memories of it were blocked, and he wasn't sure what to think of it, other than that when he left months later, he just felt numb. He didn't really care about his blog, his theories, his friends. Anything.

He'd felt even more numb when Sadie had announced she was going to leave for an unknown amount of time. He was living alone in a half empty apartment that he'd bought a year and a half ago, with the one who had understood him, the one who he'd lost. He felt like it wasn't much more he was going to lose.

Peedee ended up visiting every day, even when Ronaldo told him he didn't need to. The brother then explained, "It's just so I can have some control too...ok?"

"...Ok."

Several weeks had passed, and Ronaldo still hadn't looked at his blog. He was spooked awake from his sleep one morning when he heard his always silent phone chime with the first notification of an email in months.

Mr. Fryman,

I've been dying to tell you how much I am a fan of your work, and your chains of theories. You have such a knack for presenting oddities, and I think your campaign of 'Keep Beach City Weird' deserves to be promoted more!

As a producer of Scale Media, I'd like to make you an offer to expand your ideas beyond your website. We think your material would be perfect for television and beyond.

We'd cordially like to invite you to come to our office in the Golden State next month, and discuss this. Please reply as soon as you can.

Marty Sharp

Scale Media CEO

First, wanting to make sure this wasn't some sort of trick by the sinister snake people (Scale Media was pretty sketchy of a name), Ronaldo decided to look up the company. It was legit. Second, he looked up its headquarters.

He drew in a breath, seeing it was Palm City, the same city Sadie had traveled to two weeks before. She still hadn't returned.

'Wouldn't she be surprised if we reunited there...'