-Wednesday, March 20, 5:37 pm / Rose & Kanaya's Condo-

"It's so sad, Kanaya!"

Rose blew her nose into the bedsheets and wiped a tear from her eye.

"Now I'll have to change the linens," sighed Kanaya before looking back up at her wife. "What, in particular, is so sad?"

Rose sniffed and ripped the earbuds out of her laptop, allowing the music to blast out of the built-in speakers. "This song!"

Kanaya listened for a few seconds before sighing. "Rose, dear, I don't quite understand what the song is conveying. It appears to be in a language not quite within my knowledge."

Normally, Rose would have sighed in frustration at her wife's obtuse rejection of the utter masterpiece that she was currently listening to. Unfortunately, she was sprawled out on their bed, unable to control her emotions on a biological level. Any attempts at a snarky rebuttal would result in immediate tears, and such a feat was easily accomplished simply by Kanaya's sigh.

The troll closed her eyes, inhaling sharply as she tried to understand her unreasonably distraught wife, and sat down on the corner of the bed. "If you could explain why this has caused such an outburst, we both might benefit."

After a confusing explanation from Rose, Kanaya sighed and tried to collect her thoughts. "So, from what I understand, you are upset over a piece of epic poetry condensed into musical form?"

Rose slowly nodded and wiped her nose on the sheets yet again. "They just wanted to get married, Kanaya! And then she met him again when they were old, and he died! He died, Kanaya!"

"A rather unfortunate predicament," Kanaya said with a slight roll of her eyes. "May I ask, what is the title of this piece?"

Sniffing, Rose took a glance at Spotify to make sure she hadn't lost her mind and was remembering correctly. "'Évangéline.'"

Kanaya paused for a second. "Ava-what?"

"Évangéline," Rose repeated, taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself down. "It's not my fault French names are hard to pronounce."

"It's a...name?"

"Yes, Kanaya dear, it's a name."

Kanaya blinked. "Rose, it's beautiful."

Rose, totally missing what Kanaya was implying, shut her laptop and set it on the bedside table. "Yes, Kanaya, it is. Help me up, please."

Kanaya did so, then followed her wife out of the master bedroom and into the kitchen. "Rose, have you thought about what you'd like to name the other baby? We've talked about Ollie, but we've barely touched on the other one…"

"If we're being completely honest, barely," confessed Rose as she waddled over to the fridge and opened it. "You know how busy I've been with work, and childcare arrangements, my mother…"

"Well, then, may I propose Évangéline?"

Rose paused, pitcher of lemonade in one hand and bag of cheese cubes in the other. "Évangéline?"

"Évangéline," Kanaya repeated. "Éva and Ollie. Ollie and Éva."

"Ollie and Éva," tested Rose, surprisingly liking how the names sounded together. "Éva and Ollie. I like it."

Kanaya beamed. "Éva and Ollie, the most fashionable children on Earth, the most fashionable human-troll hybrids in all the universe!"

Rose raised an eyebrow. "Even over Casey?"

Kanaya laughed. "Definitely over Casey."

-6:13 pm / Karkat & Terezi's house-

"Terezi?" Karkat peeked his head into the living room and found Terezi balled up into a corner of the couch, wrapped in a blanket. "I made spaghetti."

Terezi briefly glanced up at Karkat before huddling back under the blanket. "I'm not hungry," she mumbled, avoiding whatever kind of substitution for eye contact the two had established.

"I haven't seen you eat anything since lunch yesterday…"

"I already told you, I'm not hungry," insisted Terezi.

"Terezi, don't you dare pull a Vriska on me."

"It's not like I'm trying to! It's my fault I never told you to wear a fucking condom!" Karkat noticed his wife's eyes welling up with tears. "This is all happening at literally the worst possible time. I'd rather lose it and go ahead and get it over with than spend the next however fucking long trying to figure out whether or not we'll be able to pay the utility bill on time for the next sweep!"

Karkat sighed, taking off his apron as he sat down on the couch. "Terezi, don't say that," he sighed. "We'll make it work. Besides, you don't know if you'll lose this one."

"Karkat, Katrina's the only one that's made it out healthy," Terezi told him. "Isaac fucking died while trying to hatch, and the others…" Her voice trailed off as her throat closed off. "I'm defective, Karkat. Katrina must be a miracle, because she's the only one of our kids who hasn't died, and even that's not one hundred percent true."

"Terezi…" Karkat wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his chest. "Have you ever considered that maybe...it's me?"

"What do you mean?"

Karkat sighed. "I'm a mutant," he reminded her. "Maybe at some point in the development process, my genes just…cause your body to reject the grub or something, I don't know. Or maybe they're largely incompatible with your…'normal' genes…"

Terezi was largely silent as Karkat continued to embrace her. Finally she uttered some sort of sound that could only be described as a groan. "Please, Karkat, just let me continue to believe that I'm the fuckup so I can continue moping and being stupid or something."

"None of that is going to help at all, you know." Karkat removed his arms from around Terezi and squeezed her knee. "Terezi, what's…what's going on? You haven't been yourself for months. What is it? Are you still upset over Ellen, or me losing my job or…?"

Terezi inhaled sharply. "Karkat, for the past like five years we've been living in a happy little dream world. And then after Katrina was born, something…I don't know, something broke. I have no idea what the fuck we were thinking when we first came here. We bought a house off of two part-time job salaries? Like, what the hell? And I'm not saying I don't love Katrina—not at all, Karkat, she's my world—but I don't know why we thought it would be a good idea to have a kid when we did. And after she was born—really, after Isaac, I guess—I feel like reality slapped me in the face."

Karkat frowned. "You…do have a point."

"Long story short, Karkat, we cannot afford to have another kid right now. Especially since you lost your job. That's really why I'm so upset. I want us to give Katrina the life she deserves, and right now we can't."

Not knowing quite what to do, Karkat simply embraced his wife once more. "Terezi, I promise, we can make it through this," he reassured. "I've actually been looking at the community college's job board, and they have a pretty decent work-study program I'm going to apply for. And, remember, my scholarship? Granted, I'll have to transfer to a four-year college if I want a bachelor's instead of an associate's, but I've only completed one semester anyway…"

"That's…actually good news, Karkat." Terezi broke away from the hug and looked up at him. "I'm sorry, I'm just… LSAT scores come out the end of this month. I need to do well. If I don't score high enough, I'll have to retake the test, which will be more money, not to mention will probably delay my admissions into law school, and—"

"Babe, you've got this." Karkat firmly grasped her hands and looked deep into her sun-scorched eyes. "Everything will work out. I promise. No matter what happens, you'll still be my matesprit, my wife, and I'll still love you."

-6:34 pm / Evergreen Forest Mobile Home Community-

Gamzee Makara had one Tupperware container of sopor left, and was about to lose his fucking shit.

After his untimely conversation with the Condesce over Trollian, he had begun to seriously reconsider everything that had happened so far. What the hell was he thinking, coming to Earth? Especially if he was pretty much set to be the next Grand Highblood? And being with a human, and having a wiggler?!

He knew he should have stayed away from human drugs.

Heather was in the trailer's kitchen, making some botched organic version of macaroni and cheese, literally one of the only dishes she didn't fuck up. Although, given her recent obsession with non-GMOs and Whole Foods, she'd still probably butcher the instructions on the back of the box, despite her newfound determination to be a Good Mother™.

"Heather!" he yelled, slowly sitting up in the bed. "Get your ass in here!"

In the kitchen, Heather angrily slammed a spoon onto the stovetop. "How about you get your ass in here, you lazy piece of shit!" she shouted, before reminding herself that Stress isn't good for the baby. "Dinner's almost ready!"

Gamzee sighed in frustration and rolled out of the bed before walking into the kitchen. "Babe, you got any weed?" he asked, scratching at his arms and trying to ignore the empty feeling caused by the lack of sopor in his body. Despite his detestation for any kind of human drugs, it was at least something—something that would hopefully prevent a massive outburst.

Heather pursed her lips and let out a sigh. "Cabinet over the fridge," she told him reluctantly, giving the organic mac and cheese one final stir before taking the saucepan off of the stove eye. Deep down, she knew that Gamzee needed the drugs, and she had to remind herself that she had been there just a few months before (and knew exactly just how bad the withdrawals were). However, she couldn't help but think—the same reason why she had painstakingly weaned herself off of drugs—that it would be bad for the baby. "If you're gonna smoke any, go outside. I don't wanna smell that shit."

Gamzee groaned and stepped around Heather, reaching into said cabinet and pulling out a baggy of cannabis buds and rolling paper. "I'll eat later," he grumbled, hastily rolling a joint before slinking out of the trailer and sitting on the front stoop.

Marijuana was stupid, but Gamzee hoped, by some miracle, that it would get him even remotely high enough so as to not have an outburst.

The more he thought about it, however, the more he asked himself why he even cared.

As he took another drag, trying his best to savor in the fruity-ish smell, something in the distance caught his eye. What…? he thought to himself, lowering the joint from his lips and squinting.

In the distance, a figure with large, bullish horns exited a car, holding a small bundle with miniature versions of the same horns sprouting from one end. Gamzee blinked exactly three times before remembering the conversation he and Tavros had had on Trollian a few months prior, and realized Holy shit, that's my grub.

It took a few more moments of staring for Tavros to catch Gamzee's eye. The bronze-blood only briefly glared at his ex-matesprit before bringing the small bundle closer to his chest and entering the trailer, only further reminding Gamzee of the conditions in which Tavros had officially ended their matespritship—which led to him thinking about his failed moirallegiance with Karkat, and just…ugh.

The screen door creaked open, and Heather joined Gamzee on the stoop, a large bowl of mac and cheese in her hands. "Babe, eat some mac and cheese," she coaxed, shoveling a large spoonful of the pasta into her mouth. "Y'know, this Annie's brand has lots of different kinds of pastas and other shit that's healthy and good for the baby—"

"Yeah, yeah." Gamzee waved her away and took a long drag from the joint.

Heather noticed her boyfriend's brooding state, and set her bowl down next to her leg before putting her hand on Gamzee's. "Gamz? You okay?"

The highblood blew out a long puff of smoke and continued to stare at the shiny new trailer in which his ex now lived. "It's stupid. A bunch of motherfuckin' bullshit you wouldn't understand."

"If you don't talk about it, it'll never go away," Heather said in a sing-song tone, giving his hand a squeeze.

Gamzee took another deep breath of smoke, trying to find a way to force any psychoactive chemicals to work a miracle on his thinkpan. "My fuckin' loser of an ex," he sighed, looking off into the distance.

Heather frowned. "That was a long time ago, Gamz," she reminded him, gently resting her other hand on top of her stomach. "You have a family now. Move the fuck on."

Gamzee let out a long sigh before looking Heather in the eye. "You got it, bitchtits," he laughed, beginning to crack a smile. "It's time to push that dumb motherfucker aside."

"That's the spirit." Smiling, Heather slowly got up off the stoop and crouched down next to her boyfriend. "Mac 'n cheese's getting cold."

Sighing again, Gamzee hesitantly kissed Heather and watched as she went back inside. He watched the embers at the end of the joint slowly burn out before crumbling the thing in his hand and scattering the ashes on the ground.

He just had to put up with this bullshit for a little bit longer, and then he would be set for life.

A/N: WE BACK BITCHES

anyway, it finally came to my attention that, considering this fic is supposed to take place in the Not-So-Far Future Year of 2019...i've ignored this for too long. i'm still trying to wrap up my thoughts on this, but there will be some new developments coming soon that i think yall will like!

as always, reviews are appreciated!