Nick's POV
As I did my chores, or basically all I really had to do was just clean up Rootcore for when Leanbow—hopefully soon—eventually came home, I grinned to myself. I was finally home. I had a mom—a real mom. In fact, for the past few months—ever since this adventure began, Udonna had been the most real mom-like person I'd ever met. After battles, she'd go out of her way to make sure we were OK and help bandage any cuts or scrapes or teach us healing spells that we could use, based on our powers. She made sure we were OK and did what she could to help us when we were having problems—even if they didn't involve magic. She helped see things through our parents' eyes and just did what she could to keep us safe. I mean—she even gave up her powers just to rescue us from the Underworld, because that's what a mom does. She protects her children—even if it she has to die to keep them safe. She was always looking out for us and doing her best to keep us safe and happy and healthy and to help us through difficult situations and talking over adventures we'd had—like when I came back, riding Catastros—we talked about that and she helped me see it in a different perspective. And I can tell her stuff—like what I'm afraid of—I was afraid of Catastros—but I conquered my fear and rode the great horse and helped save my friends, thanks to Chip who reversed the spell Koragg used to send Catastros and me to the Underworld. I can just be a normal kid around her and she already had been treating me and the rest of the team like her children—hopefully that won't change too much—maybe it'll get better—and I'll be able to just be a kid when I need to and I'll still be able to talk to her when I need advice or when I need my mom. She would sit and talk with us about any problems we might be having, especially if it was something the others couldn't talk about with parents—or if it was something that I couldn't talk about with Mr. and Mrs. Lennox. If the others got into fights with their parents, she would sit and talk to them and help them see the situation through their parents' eyes. I'd actually had almost wished that she really was my mother. I wanted her to be my mother. She seemed like the perfect person to be a mother, not including the fact that she raised Clare on her own, as if her niece was her own daughter. I actually got a little jealous of her "we have no clue where he is but he is alive somewhere in the human realm and we don't want you to go looking for him until after we have defeated the Darkness, so don't even think about it rangers until after we have defeated the Darkness, do I make myself perfectly clear?" son, Bowen, until I learned that it was me. Then I was fine with him—since it'd be weird and a bit strange to be jealous, of, well, of yourself—not to mention I don't think I could pull it off unless I really wanted to, but I didn't—it wasn't fair to him or me. Just because Bowen—I mean I—got the world's best mother doesn't mean that I should have to be jealous of him because of that even though I really was. The way I saw it, anyone would be lucky to have Udonna as a parent.
I felt pretty lucky because I was getting the most real mom-like adult I had interacted with—well, since I was given up for an adoption that never happened—I mean that had to have been what Mom and Leanbow had wanted for me—they wanted to raise me, but they couldn't, so they gave me up for adoption in the hopes that a loving family would raise me as one of their own. It made a lot of sense if you thought about it and it was sort of also what I had begun to want, as I kept changing families and towns—no, I just really wanted a place I could call home, where I was wanted because I was me. I finally found that—here, at Rootcore—in my family—Udonna, Clare, and Leanbow. I had people who loved me because I was me—I was a part of this family, magic included. It is great. I have a place to come to and people who will make sure I'm OK and help me when I need and protect me and love me for me—I finally have a real family.
Then there was the ironic part about Koragg/Leanbow—he had actually offered to track down my parents, unaware that he was tracking down Udonna and himself. And then there's the fact that Udonna succeeded in identifying my parents, when he couldn't. Maybe I should have just asked her in the first place, instead of complaining to Koragg, but then again he did come and annoy me, so it was his own fault that I somehow managed to convince him to track my birth parents—I still have no clue how I pulled that one off or how I did that. Although, right now I think I'll leave that mystery for another day—unless my thoughts really were as depressing as he said they were—but why would he care? Could it be that he somehow knew we were related and had been lying to me to protect me from the pain of knowing that I was fighting my father? Or maybe he really had no clue, because I didn't give him any indication that I had anything that could be used to help me find my birth parents.
I guess hanging on to that old baby blanket was a good idea in the long run. If Udonna hadn't recognized it, I'd be dead, Leanbow would feel intensely guilty—and probably use the power of the phoenix to revive me—and then I'd learn who my parents were—finally. And Leanbow would probably still feel guilty—because he just sort of accidentally killed his own son because the Master told him to do it. And if Clare hadn't given it to Udonna, eventually, I would have asked her about it, before going to face Koragg during that battle that took us to the Underworld. I had even gotten a cousin in Clare out of the deal. She might be a bit clumsy and bumbling and slightly incompetent—her words, not mine—but she's still family.
I wouldn't trade a single member of my family for anything. Although, and I'm pretty sure everyone else in the family would agree, I could live without Leanbow being turned into Koragg. If I had my way, his plan would have worked, and then he would have escaped the pit somehow, rejoined Udonna, and helped her raise Clare. Then with their help, I would have found out that they were my parents and we'd be a happy family—like we were twenty years ago. Although I don't think we still can—we might be able—Leanbow and Mom can, but I'm not sure about me. I don't like my father, but I miss him—I miss him a lot. Not that I'll ever admit that to Mom or anyone else—not even my friends. I had more family than I had imagined, and it was better than I had ever hoped or had dared to dream.
I hoped Mom was right about Leanbow coming home, because seriously the Master's return had broken up a rather nice—even though Chip was right about it being weird—and I will admit it was a little awkward but that was because if you think about it, technically the three of us hadn't seen each other in nineteen years—as a family, I mean—for the past nineteen years, Leanbow was trapped as Koragg in the Underworld, I was in foster care, and Udonna was raising Clare for Niella, who died in an effort to help Leanbow seal the Gate and keep me safe—family reunion between the three of us. Plus, now that I think about it, it wasn't really complete—Clare was missing. She's part of this family and if she was there, then the reunion would have been complete. And apparently, she was thrilled when Mom had her epiphany about me being Bowen and Mom running off to stop me and Dad from killing each other. Oh, well, but when Leanbow finally—eventually—comes home, hopefully for good, we'll have another family reunion then. And this next time, everyone will be there, including Clare.
