Rory's goldfish had a short and rather unfortunate life. Rory had been begging for a fish for a few weeks before she returned from a carnival at the elementary school with a water-filled plastic bag and a orange fish in tow (which Leonard and Sara thought was awfully convenient).

"Did you give it a name?" Sara had asked after deciding that arguing against the fish was, at this point, futile.

"Uh-huh," Rory replied, "Hades."

"Like the Greek god of death?" she confirmed skeptically.

"Yup," Rory nodded proudly, "and his tank is called Elysium. Geddit? 'Cause Elysium is like the good part of the Underworld. You don't really wanna be in the Underworld, but if you're there you want to be in Elysium. Fish don't really want to be out of the ocean, but if they are they want to be in a tank."

"Ohhh," Sara drew the word out as Leonard hid laughter behind a cough, "I think it might be time to lay off the Greek Mythology."

Hades the Goldfish lived a troubled life for a number of reasons. One of them was Rory herself. At only six years old, she was not yet ready to care for a pet, and frequently forgot to feed him and in his entire short life, his tank never once got cleaned. Another was Snowball, their five-year-old cat who had it out for Hades the minute she lay eyes on him. Sara often found herself pulling the cat away from the tank and once Snowball had even knocked it over, and Rory had entered the room to see Hades the Goldfish lying in a puddle of water and colorful rocks on her bedroom floor.

Rory had made a dashing rescue, but after that, she realized that the prospect of having a fish was more exciting than actually having a fish. So she did what any six-year-old would do: she forgot about Hades entirely.

A week or so later, Mick brought up the goldfish at dinner.

"Kid, how's the fish?" he'd asked.

"Oh, he's dead," Rory replied casually.

"What?" Leonard asked as Sara's fork clattered against her plate, "When?"

"I dunno," she shrugged, "When was Valentine's day?"

"Over a week ago, honey," Sara said, "Why didn't you tell us?"

"I guess I forgot," Rory replied, "I was looking in the tank and he was just kinda floating in the middle of the water and I looked closer and I realized he didn't have any eyeballs."

Sara closed her eyes in defeat as Mick snorted. Even Leonard looked like he was trying to suppress laughter.

"Did you find the eyes?" Mick asked.

"Yeah," Rory nodded, twirling her fork around in her spaghetti, "They were floating at the top of the water. They were all swell-y and gross."

"Cool," he grunted.

"So you've had a decomposing fish corpse in your room for over a week," Sara said, trying to get a hold on the situation, "and you're just telling us this now."

"Yeah," Rory nodded, "I was gonna feed him to Snowball later."

"Oh my God, Rory," Sara said, shaking her head as Leonard and Mick burst out laughing , "No!"

Borrowed this idea from a friend of mine, who actually did this (she's not six though, she's almost eighteen, so I don't think she has the same excuse)