Act II Part IV

Let's Make Memories

Nestled in the far back corner of a restaurant just down the street from the apartment building, six people sat at the table, talking amongst themselves as they waited for their server to come and take their order. Unlike most dinners they had, though, this wasn't the normal six people. There were John and Jade and Casey, and Tavros and Snow, but instead of Vriska being there, an older gentleman rounded out the group. No one really seemed to mind that he was taking her place—in fact, it seemed to be a very good thing that he was there instead of her. He had already said he would pay for the meal, and he was there to bring good news to at least some of the people present.

This was, of course, because he was John's dad and he loved his son and daughter-in-law and granddaughter and their friends very much. "It's my pleasure to do something like this for people who mean so much to my family," he explained as they were seated. "It's a shame though that not everyone could join us tonight. I have missed Dave and his unintelligible rapping, as well as Vriska and her, to put it nicely, interesting look on life."

But because of the elder Egbert's kindness and also his unfortunate pick of restaurant, the logical sixth person for the group would be joining them. They had been seated for just a few minutes, telling the older man about life and things that had gone on since the last time he had been around, when their server came over. The smiles that erupted on everyone's faces should have clued him in to who it was, but he looked at the woman who had come over to their table for a few seconds before joining in on the smile. "Ah, hello there Vriska. I wasn't aware you were joining us for tonight's meal. Tavros said something about you having to work."

Without so much as batting an eyelash, she replied, "I am at work. Have you guys decided what you want yet?" The three adults who had known that she was their server laughed, leaving the old man to scratch his head and actually get a good look at Vriska, who was dressed in a slightly modified version of the workers' attire at the restaurant. "Stop ogling me, mister Egbert. I know I look a lot different than I did the last time you saw me, but it doesn't give you the right to be staring at me."

"My apologies, but I wasn't aware you worked here. Your uniform, ahem, fits you a bit differently than everyone else. It honestly makes you look like you're way heavier than I remember you being." His statement was extremely blunt and incredibly rude, but he had the version of Vriska stuck in his mind that was several years younger, not the one that was standing before him. "Did something happen to you that John never brought up?"

If looks could kill, the one she shot John would have left him dead in an instant. "Oh, nothing too terribly bad. Fell down the stairs, messed both of my knees up pretty badly. Bet he didn't tell you about that. Or the fact that I was like seven months pregnant when it happened." She shifted her gaze over to the high chair where Snow was. "But not with her. No, that was the second time. I can't believe he didn't mention that to you either. She was born on the day they got in a car accident."

"Oh, that little girl is yours?" The elder Egbert looked at Snow, who was babbling to herself and banging a sugar packet on the side of the table. "I figured, since she's so dark, that she was Tavros's child from someone else..."

"You think he'd be able to get lucky with anyone else? No, mister Egbert, he couldn't. Snow is mine, and this baby here," she motioned toward her stomach, which didn't really need to be pointed out since it was incredibly enlarged compared to how she used to look, "is definitely his and will probably be just as dark as its sister is."

"So you two are married, yes? Unmarried people should not be procreating this much, especially when they work jobs like you two do."

She rolled her eyes, ignoring his question to instead actually do her job and take everyone's order. He didn't handle that very well, sitting in his seat with a hurt look on his face for the rest of the time she was around, but the second she left, he turned to Tavros and asked him the exact same thing. "Well, uh, not yet. We'll be married when we're ready for it, which is not now. Definitely not now."

"As long as you have the intent to marry her, I guess there really is no problem..." He sighed, which caused Tavros to nervously sigh in return. "Oh, is there something wrong with what I asked?"

"Yes, actually. I'm a bit, uh, bothered by the fact that you're treating us like we're lesser than John and Jade just because we're not married. We love each other just the same, but we haven't had the desire to get married yet. That doesn't make us any lesser, does it?" Grabbing Snow's sugar-less hand to hold it, he looked at the older man and sighed once more. "And we're not bad because we've had kids before we've gotten married. That's just how it happened, and it's an okay thing."

Before his dad could reply, John cleared his throat and spoke. "Hey, don't be so hard on yourself. Dad here always told me that him and my mom were never married. In fact, she had me and dropped me off on his doorstep and that was that. Isn't that right?"

"Hm? Oh, yes yes indeed. That's how it happened." Everyone at the table could tell that there was a hint of sadness in his voice as he said that, but no one had any idea why it would be there. After all, John had sounded like it was a funny story, so why would the old man be upset about it?

Whatever the case, the spirits at the table changed after Vriska had brought them all their drinks and their meals and actually sat down with them for a moment. That was when the old man spoke again, making sure to focus more on his own family than their friends. "As Jade knows, I have come here to tell about a gift I have for you, and I believe it's about time to reveal what it is, before we get too engrossed in our meals to care. So, without further ado, I'd like to say that I am taking you all to Disneyland. And by 'all of you' I mean the ones that I am related to."

"Why invite them out to dinner then?" John asked, even though he had a huge grin on his face. "Why rub it in that we get to go and they don't?"

"I thought to invite them, change hotel reservations and the like, but this trip is happening very soon and, after getting a good look at them both and their current state of living, I think leaving them here is best."

Once again, it was Vriska who rolled her eyes. "Is this another jab at the fact that we're poor?"

"Not at all. It's more for your own well-being, because I would hate for you to have to walk around the park for days and days while in your current state. Add in the fact that it seems your daughter is barely at the walking age and I think it would just be a miserable experience for you all." He gave a look that expressed his true condolences, and Vriska bought it, but Tavros was less accepting.

"So you're saying you're not going to take us because of things you think? That's kind of mean. What if we've wanted to go, huh? What if some of us have had dreams of meeting Peter Pan and Tinkerbell and you're just crushing them?"

"I wasn't aware that Snow was old enough to want to meet the Disney face characters. You can take her when she's old enough to truly grasp the moment." The sarcasm that laced his words made Tavros not want to give any sort of response, for fear of more of his dreams being crushed. "Now then, we leave Thursday night."

It wasn't until after the meal that anyone expressed any dislike of that, and even then, it wasn't to mister Egbert's face that it was expressed. "Jade, you helped plan this, right?" Vriska asked as the other woman started to leave the table. She said that yes, she had indeed helped, and the blond continued. "Okay, there's a tiny little thing that's bothering me. No, wait, two things. One, today's Monday. Thursday is in a couple days. You're leaving me with a very little bit of time to have you help me with stuff. Two, how long is this trip going to be?"

"Oh, like a week. There's not much to do at the park, so it may be shorter. I know why you're worried, and I'm sure everything is going to be fi—"

"Everything is not going to be fine, Jade! What if the kid decides it wants to be born while you're gone? Who's gonna watch Snow for us? Oh, right, Dave is. And he'll end up killing her. I can't have you be gone at all while it's completely possible that I could have this baby. You're going to have to postpone this trip."

"I'm sorry, but I can't. Everything's been paid for already. I promise you that you'll be able to keep the little one in you long enough for me to leave and come back, and I promise you that nothing bad is going to happen to you. Of course, if you keep working, all promises are off." Jade pushed her chair in and started toward the front of the restaurant, Vriska following her. "All the walking and lifting this place makes you do is just going to make the chances of that kid coming out a lot higher."

Vriska stopped in her tracks for a second, before hurrying to catch up with Jade. "Did you just tell me to stop working? I...can't do that! We need the money this job brings us!"

"And I need to go on this trip with my family! You've got to make your choice, Vriska. Mine has already been made." And with that, the dark-haired woman rejoined the rest of the group and they all left, leaving Vriska behind to continue on with her work for the night.

The few days before the trip went by in a flash for John and Jade both, for different reasons; while John worked with his dad to get everything packed up and ready for a family vacation, Jade was having to spend almost every moment she could with Vriska, reassuring her that absolutely nothing would go wrong while they were gone. When it was roughly an hour before departure, she wasn't sure if she had gotten her point across, but if she hadn't it was too late to change anything.

Once the guys got everything out into the car to take to the airport, John's dad had a brilliant idea that involved everyone that was present. "Gather around, all of you," he said to them, looking from his family to Dave, who was there simply because he had nothing better to do, to Tavros and Vriska, who were playing with Snow. "I want to take a picture of this fine group before we leave, to mark the memories of my stay here. Organize how you'd like."

"A picture, huh? Mind if I go change into something a bit more photogenic?" Dave sarcastically asked, not expecting the positive answer the older man gave him. He left and returned within minutes, wearing a "I'm with stupid" shirt that had an arrow pointing to his left. When they got set up for the picture, he made sure to have Tavros being the person that arrow was pointing to, much to the darker guy's chagrin. No one argued about it though, and mister Egbert even got a chuckle out of it.

When everyone was finally situated, he took one look at them and shook his head. "Won't do. We need to get the children up off the floor. No heads below anyone's knees." To remedy this problem, he found a stool for Casey to stand on, and asked for Snow to be held up (but not cradled) by one of her parents. The resulting picture from that was one that he swore he would keep and send copies of to everyone that was there.

On one side stood Jade, with Casey clinging to her leg while standing on that stool, and John. They were more focused on each other than the camera, but no one seemed to mind. The middle was where Dave stood, flipping the bird from behind John's shoulder and unapologetically wearing that shirt that showed his feelings toward the kid situation with Tavros and Vriska. As for those two, Tavros was holding Snow in front of him, letting her legs dangle and having her laugh, while Vriska was next to him, striking what she referred to as the "sassiest" pose she could think of, holding her hands on the sides of her stomach.

After everyone looked at the picture, it became time for farewells and well-wishes, because the time for leaving was rapidly approaching, and if they were going to get to the airport (which wasn't even in their town, but the next one over), they needed to be on time. There was no time for long-winded goodbyes, though, and when Vriska tried to start getting dramatic in one last attempt to have Jade stay, that was when they knew it was time to go.

They piled into the van, made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare, and, after getting bags checked and through security in one piece, were ready to embark on a great adventure. Boarding the plane (and having to turn all electronics off) couldn't have come soon enough for them, because it gave Jade an excuse to not have to talk to Vriska for at least a little while, and she was growing extremely tired and annoyed with the pregnant blond. She could only take so much begging and whining, and that threshold had been surpassed long ago. When she was seated in her airplane chair, with John in the aisle seat, Casey in the middle, and her at the window, she was ready for the vacation to start, for the stress of real life to be gone and the fun of Disneyland, somewhere she hadn't been since she was little, to overtake everything.

Motherly duties came before anything however, and when Casey started to cry about the plane ride, she had to give her daughter a comforting hand and tell stories for the duration of the flight, with John smiling at them both the whole time. The crying started all over again once they had to take a second flight, this one from their intermediate destination to Southern California, and by the time they were landed, with all their belongings in their possession, and outside of the airport getting their rental car, both parents were absolutely tired of hearing the crying, and were very thankful that they'd be spared from it for a little while.

Then again, things never worked out as they were supposed to, and when John and Jade tried to cuddle up together to sleep that night, they had to figure in the presence of Casey, who flat-out refused to sleep in a bed that wasn't hers unless her parents were with her. And since she was a cuddler just like her parents, that meant that they didn't get to enjoy each other's company like they had wanted to.

Casey just so happened to have an amazing grandfather who was willing to watch her for a few hours after she woke everyone in the room up early in the morning, just so that her parents could get close and sleep a bit longer before they started on their adventure for the day. Even though it was the beginning of a weekend, the parks weren't expected to be too terribly crowded due to it being the end of September, which meant shorter lines and less time having to push through people to do stuff.

This trip, flawlessly planned down to the last detail, would have been terrible if there hadn't been someone to watch Casey for any of it, because she was too little to ride some of the rides, and it was the ones she didn't meet the height requirement for that John and Jade absolutely wanted to go on. So of course, her grandpa would watch her and take her on other rides that she could ride while her parents went on the ones she couldn't. Because she was at the age where she could recognize words that were on signs, she knew that there was a ride that had her name in it, and therefore she dragged her grandpa on that silly little train countless times in a row. He didn't mind it, because it meant she was happy and her being happy meant that her parents got to be happy.

By the time the day was mostly over, Casey had ridden just a few rides with her parents, mostly the little ones near the entrance of the park, and a few more rides with her grandpa, although she did tend to stick to that train. John and Jade, on the other hand, had gone on as many rides as they could have managed to, and regrouped with the others wet and very obviously high on adrenaline. "I think the longest we had to wait was like half an hour, but that's okay, because we rode Splash Mountain three times today and each time Jade screamed like she was going to die," John said all in one breath, wrapping his arm around Jade's waist. "But it's okay because I thought I was going to die when we rode some of those rollercoasters. Especially the one in the dark. What was that one called again?"

"Space Mountain, John. That's what it was called. That's the same name I've told you every time you've asked." Jade nuzzled her slightly wet cheek up against John's and grinned. "Now that we're all together now, shall we go on something that all four of us could handle?"

"Is it the Casey train?" the little girl asked, tilting her head and putting her hands over her mouth in a surprised gesture. "I like the Casey train."

Jade was just about to say that they could indeed ride that train, but a shake of the head from the older man in the group made her rethink that. "No, how about we take the big train around a couple times looking at the other rides, and decide from there? There's lots of stuff we could all ride, but we need to decide what we're gonna pick."

Five minutes later, before they even boarded the train, Casey had her eyes set on the next ride she wanted to embark on. "That one," she proudly said, pointing at a facade on one of the buildings, that was colored and patterned in a way that was appealing to her three-year-old mind. "I wanna ride that one."

"Casey, can we not ride that one? That may give Poppop a headache, and you don't want to do that to him, do you?" Although John had a hard time remembering the names of some of the rides, due to their similarities to others, he recognized that particular ride just from having seen pictures of it that were accompanied by horror stories. "Let's pick something less...annoying."

"John, don't lie to the girl. I'll be fine if we ride it, trust me. It's just a simple ride with a repetitive song and it's no big deal. In fact, I'll even sit next to her and hold her hand through the ride, if you so want." For being an old man, John's dad simply was the coolest, and his approach to the situation meant that there really was no other choice than to get in line for it's a small world, even with Jade looking for some excuse not to have to ride it and John trying to be insistent that it would end badly for them.

What they didn't expect was to end up standing in line behind a single rider, one who Casey, at one point, mistook for her dad. "Oh? Who are you, little cutie?" the woman asked once she noticed the little girl poking her leg. "Are you lost?"

"Sorry, she belongs to us. Guess she thinks you're me." John went to grab Casey away from the woman, but happened to notice the woman's face, which he ended up just staring at for a second, before looking at the rest of her. She was shorter than him, but aside from her height, feminine features, and slightly different hair style, it was like he was looking into a mirror. "I guess I can see why," he remarked after a moment. "You look strikingly like me."

"I could say the same back to you, sir."

The awkwardness between the two continued as they got on the ride, because the woman ended up in the seat right in front of the group. For the duration of the ride, with Casey trying to sing along with the song and Jade trying to bury her face in shame of even riding it, John and his dad both focused on the strange woman, one because of the extreme similarities between them and the other because he was trying to come up with a way to explain the situation. Mister Egbert found that explanation as they were getting off the ride, when he curiously asked the woman, "By any chance, is your name Jane?"

"Yes, sir, it certainly is. How do you know that?" She checked herself to make sure her name wasn't exposed anywhere, during which time the elder Egbert pulled his wallet from his pocket and got a picture out from it.

"How do I know? Because," he said, looking at the picture before handing it to her, "you look an awful lot like my daughter I haven't seen in years."

Both John and the woman gave him the most shocked look they could manage (while looking exactly the same as they did). "Your daughter?" The words escaped their mouths at the same time, before they looked at each other again. And again. "No...you mean?"

"I think we're having ourselves a bit of an Egbert family reunion."

A/N: Originally posted to Tumblr on February 20th, 2013.