Pop suddenly woke up in the middle of the night due to feeling nauseous and having a throbbing headache.
She steadily reached for her nightstand, grabbed a pen and piece of paper from it and wrote a little note before leaving the dorm room.
You lot, if you're looking for me, I'll be in the medical room since nausea and a headache are killing me. Make sure to take the best of care of me if you won't be on a mission later today. -Pop
After putting the letter down on her bed, she grabbed her pillow and nightgown, put the latter on and steadily headed downstairs.
The nausea worsened once she entered the medical room. In response, she dropped the pillow that she was carrying, swiftly sneaked towards the nearest bathroom and immediately threw up once she reached the toilet.
It was the sound of the flushing of the toilet that caused Yikk to wake up from their deep sleep.
"Who ith thewe?" they lisped with a hoarse voice.
"It's me" Pop replied. "Don't worry, I'm also struck with the flu."
"Oh deawe me…"
"I'm going to message Mack real quick. Don't care if he's asleep or not, he's still mandatory to know that I'm sick." The girly girl carefully picked her pillow back up, put it on one of the beds, settled there and grabbed her pager.
Mack, a few minutes before writing this message, I woke up feeling sick, so I won't be able to go onto the next mission. Regards, Pop.
"I tho hope that a few will thtay home thoon to take cawe of uth…"
"Could you please take your thumb out? I can hardly make out what you're saying right now with my headache."
"Thowwy, Pop." Yikk weakly took their thumb out. "Wike I said, I wan' a few cwewmates to stay home to take cawe of us, because we cannot take cawe of ouhselves in this state."
"Indeed we can't." The pink crewmate suddenly gagged and burped hard. "Ew, that doesn't smell too nice…!"
"I pwobabwy nevah told you that whenevah I fall sick, I am mandatowy to weah nappies since sickness ahways steals my potty-twained-ness…"
At the same time, Vienna quietly sneaked inside of the medical room, and both she and Pop were shocked at suddenly seeing one another.
"Are you also sick, by any chance?" the mother asked.
"Guilty…" Pop replied. "Nausea and a headache are killing me…"
"You should send Mack a message once daytime is there."
"Already did."
"Ah, very good of you to think ahead." Vienna headed towards Yikk's bed and briefly removed their covers. "That neither smells nor looks good…"
"I know" the sick youngster replied. "Pwease change me. I dun wike it eithah." In response, they were ruffled through their dark blonde bangs with that one lime green highlight.
The purple crewmate headed towards the cupboard to grab the required items and changed her fellow crewmate's nappy in a jiffy.
"There you go. That does feel a lot better, huh?"
"Thank you." Yikk was left laughing weakly and blushing a little.
The used trash went into the nearby chute, which was emptied soon after receiving its contents, Vienna washed her hands well and subsequently got two cups of water from the sink and some medicine from the cupboard that she gave to both of the sick crewmates.
"I so hope we remain the only sick crewmates at this point, Yikk" Pop said. "I don't want anyone else among us to suddenly fall sick."
"Me, too" Yikk replied in a soft voice.
"Neither do I hope that anyone else gets sick" Vienna said, as she tucked both of the crewmates in as well as possible. "Sleep well, and take care." Finally, she quietly left the medical room and went back upstairs.
The two sick crewmates swiftly fell back asleep once the silence had returned.
Meanwhile in the dorm room, Squee had suddenly woken up with the feeling that something was wrong, and it definitely did not regard their health.
"You guys!" they exclaimed. "Pop has gone missing!"
"Shh!" Charlie hissed from the one end of the room. "Be quiet, Squee!"
"People here are trying to sleep, you know?" Billy groaned.
"Yeah, but please trust me…" The dumb blonde sat up at the edge of their bed and rubbed their eyes out. "She's gone, and who knows where… oh, would you look at that. A note." They grabbed the note and tried to decipher the slightly illegible handwriting. "Oh great. Looks like we have another sick person."
"Whom then?"
"Well, Pop. Why else would that note claim her spot in bed?"
"Then, it's only for the best that she's most likely downstairs with Yikk now, otherwise, we'd all be just as sick." The Latinx fully covered themselves in their covers. "Now go back to sleep, it's 1 a.m., also known as not the time to be awake prior to a mission."
"Fine."
But rather than going back to bed, Squee briefly went out of the room to swiftly visit the bathroom, since they felt a tad nervous about everyone's well-being at this point.
However, little did they know that the bathroom would soon get a subsequent visitor, and they soon regretted leaving the door of their stall wide open.
"Aah!" they exclaimed once they saw Navy, and quickly covered their stub up with their hands.
"Oh dear, Squee!" Navy gasped, "you just shocked me there!"
"I thought nobody would be here, sorry…"
"It's alright, but please remember to close the door to your stall at all times, okay?"
The dumb blonde nodded with a sigh, swiftly dabbed their stub with the piece of toilet paper that they still held, hoisted their underwear back up and flushed the toilet before rushing to the sink to wash their hands.
"Take it easy. It's not that we have to go on a mission in an hour."
"I want to hurry back to my bed in order to fall asleep and wake up for the mission in time."
"You're a silly goose, you know that?" The blue crewmate ruffled his fellow crewmate's hair and smiled at them.
"Goodnight, Navy."
"Goodnight to you too."
Squee quietly sneaked back towards the dorm room and immediately huddled into their covers as if going inside of some cocoon.
"You really don't have to worry about our well-being, Squee" Arnie whispered. "We're all going to be fine as long as we do the right things, and Yikk and Pop will also eventually recover."
"But I miss having them here" the orange crewmate replied.
"We all do here… but now, please try to get some more sleep."
"Fine."
It took quite some time for Squee to fall back asleep, resulting in them still being a tad groggy once the morning came.
Today's mission mostly consisted of slightly groggy crewmates, but also of a slightly groggy impostor somewhere.
"Your fault, Squee" Charlie said, as she tapped her fingers on the glass of her fellow crewmate's helmet in a teasing fashion.
"Your fault for waking up" Squee simply replied, as they stuck their tongue out.
"You're way too loud."
"No, you."
"And you're an annoying orange."
"Save the yapping for the next tea party" Lava exclaimed as she clapped her hands loudly near the two crewmates. "We want you to do your tasks, not to bicker about who is more annoying. You guys are both equally annoying."
"Ruuuude" the orange and cyan crewmates said in unison.
To tease the snobby crewmate, Bobby consciously crawled up her spacesuit-y leg and rubbed his head against her knee.
"Aaaaagh! Arnie, I told you to keep that creepy thing for yourself!"
The Brainslug angrily hissed in response before slithering back to the way safer and more trustworthy clutches of his owner.
The small spaceship attached itself to the main ship of the Skeld, and at the same time, everyone's pagers went off with their assigned functions.
Arnie turned out to be the impostor, much against his expectations of the lately oft-occurring presence of two impostors.
"Why is there only one impostor among us?" Nori asked, "rather than two, like yesterday?"
"I don't know" Rice replied. "Doesn't mean we have to be less wary, though."
The main doors of both the ships slowly opened up, and the crewmates first gathered in the cafeteria to receive their tasks before actually doing them.
Arnie was one of the best in pretending to do tasks. He started with the 'downloading' of 'data' in the weapons section, while Vienna let Neri shoot the asteroids and Choco and Charlie quietly observed the thing as well.
Meanwhile, in the admin room, Squee was quite livid at consistently failing to swipe their card.
"That's what you get for waking us all up in the middle of the night" Rice laughed from their swivel seat.
"Oh, back off, you" the orange crewmate replied. "Why must this be such a hard thing to do?!"
"It's not that hard… if you'd only let me help, you grumpy grapefruit."
"Then please show me how it's done."
The crewmate in white got up, gently grabbed the hand in which Squee held their card, briefly making them squeak softly, and helped them swipe at the right tempo.
"Wow, so gracious…"
"You're welcome, Squee." Rice went off to storage for their next task.
At the same time, Nori arrived there too, along with Billy.
"Come" the older twin said to his younger sibling as he stood at the trash chute near the window.
The task was then successfully performed, and Billy and Rice could clear Nori as an innocent crewmate.
The younger twin soon hurried towards the upper engine with the jerrycan of fuel and swiftly filled the motor up there before heading back to storage to get a new one.
Then suddenly, the reactor went off. Not knowing where exactly to go, Rice ran up and down the small hallway, but accidentally slipped over a small puddle of fuel that had leaked out of the previous jerrycan and fell hard onto their posterior and back.
"Ouch, dammit!"
"Be careful next time, you clumsy butt" Choco laughed at the sight before heading into the reactor to stop the sabotage along with Lava.
On the other side of the ship, Arnie pretended to have found an unconscious body, and called for an emergency meeting.
"Where did you find it?" Squee asked.
"Don't pretend you know nothing, Squee" Arnie said. "It was you. You just mercilessly knocked Vienna out cold in the shields room."
"It wasn't. I would never do such a thing."
"Oh yeah?"
"Squee indeed is suspicious" Rice said, as they voted the dumb blonde out.
"And you most likely knocked Charlie out cold as well" Nori said with a sneaky look on his face, "seeing as she didn't show up on this meeting either."
The orange crewmate started blushing all over.
"B-but I… I would nev-"
"No ifs, no buts!" Lava shouted, as she slammed her fist on the surface of the table, making poor Neri and Yuri cry loudly in the process.
"Please take it easy there, miss…" Billy quietly said, as they took and gently cradled Yuri in their left arm and rubbed Neri's back with their right hand. "Now how do I use my pager to vote someone out?"
All of the others had already voted in the meantime.
"I know how to skip a vote" Neri sobbed, as he grabbed Billy's pager from the leg of their spacesuit. "Mummy once showed me. Please let me do it for you, even if I cannot read yet."
"Sure, go ahead."
"Thank you." The little boy did as he said he was going to do, even if most of the votes did go to Squee, who was soon sent outside of the ship to do tasks there, even if they didn't turn out to be the impostor.
"I'll watch you and Yuri while I continue my tasks, Neri. Don't worry."
"Thank you, Bill. You're too kind."
The yellow crewmate and small purple 'crewmate' briefly smiled at one another before the former continued to their next task.
Navy, Nika, Pop and Yikk remained at their living building.
Nika could amuse herself well with a television show that she picked to watch in the main room, while Navy mostly tended to the two sick crewmates in the medical room.
"Yikk, are you doing better than yesterday?" Navy asked as he disposed some used trash in the nearby chute and emptied it.
"I think so" the childish crewmate replied. "I haven't thwown up anymowe, but my ohgans still be a wittle defunct. I hope they'll heal soon."
"I hope so, too." The feminine guy washed his hands well and got two more cups of water for both of the other crewmates.
"Thank you" was heard from both of the sick crewmates, who drained all of that water in one go.
"It's important to stay well hydrated, you know."
"I'm thirsty like desert sand" Pop said.
In response, she had received a medium-sized plastic pitcher of water on her nightstand, so she could pour herself as many cups of water as she pleased.
The same applied to Yikk soon after, who was equally thirsty, and could practically directly have a drink from that pitcher, which, of course, they didn't do, because that'd even look ridiculous to the person reading this whole story.
Just as Navy was about to leave the medical room, someone knocked on the front door.
"I'll get it" he said, as he headed for the front door and was met with two of the neighbours.
"Hello, Navy" Alph said. "We've heard that Yikk has fallen ill yesterday."
"They did, sadly."
"Well" Marny said, "we've got a little something for them that Alph and I had purchased yesterday, and we do hope they'll like it." A mysterious box sat on their lap, and they handed it to Navy.
"That's very sweet of you guys."
"And we have something else in case anyone else besides Yikk is ill." The young engineer handed a paper bag of several little gifts to the father. "I hope they'll like it."
"That's right, Pop is also sick. I don't know what's in those gifts, but I do hope she'll like them."
"We do, too. Well, we'd better get going, because our living building is not going to do our laundry, you know?"
The three crewmates briefly laughed at the statement.
"See you around again soon" Marny said. "Have a nice day." They grabbed their wheelchair's prominent wheels and rolled back to their living building.
"You two have a nice day, too" Navy said.
"Thanks much" Alph said. "Bye." He also headed back to the living building, and closed the front door behind him.
The received gifts were brought to the medical room and given to both of the sick crewmates.
"A few little gifts?" Pop said as she saw the paper bag's contents. "That's very sweet. Did the neighbours bring it?"
Navy nodded with a smile.
"I wonder…" The girly girl opened the first gift up. "Ooh, this looks nice. I bet the rest of this is also nice." And right she was about that. "I must thank them tomorrow."
Yikk, in the meantime, was still busy reading the note that was attached to the box that contained their present.
Dear Yikk,
We're very sorry for the fact that you fell sick so suddenly yesterday. Since you've been such a nice crewmate to us a few weeks ago as well, we wanted to give you something we're convinced you like a ton. And if you don't like it, then please feel free to re-gift it to one of your other crewmates, that's absolutely okay by us, too.
Feel better soon! Love, Snippet, Jeff, Biscuits, Dexter, Marny, Aeris, Alph, Tereza, Eggs, Goosey, Rose, Beanie, Buggs and Buggs jr. :)
"That be sweet of them to have done this" they said, as they carefully opened the box up. "Now what could this be?" They carefully lifted the object out of the box. "Oh my gosh, what a cute wobot…!"
"Wait, what?" Pop said, suddenly seeing the size of her fellow crewmate's present. "Is that really a robot?"
"Not just one…! It has this unique feewing to it… I be keepin' it. Of couwse I wike- I mean, I wuv it! I be so thankful fo' the neighbouhs to have given this to me!" The lime crewmate put the robot back into its box and then carefully put it on the ground. "Imma twy it tomowwow, if that be otay?"
"Do whatever pleases you" Navy said, as he ruffled Yikk's bangs in a loving fashion.
Charlie's spirit was 'haunting' Choco ever since the second she had been knocked out cold.
"What's the matter, Char?" Rice's spirit suddenly asked as they heard their fellow crewmate's soft cries after only just being knocked out cold.
"N-nothing" the tomboy replied, "nothing really, t-thank you."
"C'mon, you don't sound like nothing is the matter."
"Yes I do!"
"No, you definitely don't."
"Fine…"
"Spill the beans."
"I think… I think I l-l… love… Choco?"
"You do?!"
"Why wouldn't I? If we were to become matesprits, it'd only be a good thing since we're the same age."
"Wait, what age are you then?"
"Twenty, even if I don't look like it. Choco is also twenty."
Nori's spirit had apparently heard the conversation as well.
"Whoa, sib" he said to Rice, "I never heard you being this serious. You're usually less of a serious person than I am."
"Well, thanks for pointing out the obvious" the younger twin replied, "but this was actually a private conversation."
"No, no" Charlie said. "Nori, you did see me haunt Choco, right? I love him, yet I'm too shy to tell him."
"Then once you wake up, go for it, even if it's not as easy as kindergarten and a piece of cake combined." Nori put his hand on his fellow crewmate's shoulder, who could only chuckle in response.
"The way you say it pleases me and makes me decide to go for it for real. I definitely will."
"That's only good to hear."
Meanwhile, Choco and Billy busted Arnie in the vent of the electrical room, and the former called up a meeting.
"Well" the former private said, "you caught me fair, square, and literally red-handed." He showed his slightly bloodied hands to the remaining crewmates with an awkward smile.
Bobby frowned at the sight of his owner's hands, and turned his back towards him in disapproval.
"Let's escort you outside, shall we?" Billy chuckled, as they gave their fellow crewmate a push in the back on their way to the storage room, via the ceiling of which Arnie easily went outside to do tasks there.
"Oh, hi Arn" Squee said.
"Go back inside, the mission's over, yet you still have a few remaining tasks."
"Okay!" The orange crewmate got into the hatch, and subsequently found themself back in the storage room. "Hello, I'm back!"
"Hi, Squee" Billy said. "What tasks do you still have?"
"Oh, just one… samples at the medical bay. Could you please help me with that?"
"Of course."
The two crewmates headed towards the medical bay for the task.
At the medical bay, the unconscious bodies of Lava, Charlie, Vienna, Nori and Rice were still resting in peace, while most of their spirits were still in a heated conversation about love and all that jazz.
"I never did this before, is it weird?" Squee pushed the button that added reagent to the samples in the test tubes behind the glass.
"Of course it's not. The only weird thing here is you."
"Oh, that's true."
"Oh, so you're admitting it, too? You're a good egg."
"You mean a good orange?"
"Fine by me, too."
"I prefer oranges over eggs, to be honest."
"That's alright, I like fruits better myself, too."
In the meantime, the two crewmates were curiously staring at the test tubes to see which one would change colour first with the reagent.
"So your parents nicknamed you Squee first, right?"
"Yeah, I squeak like a mouse for whatever reason."
"May I ask you what your real name is?"
"Boring. It's Alistair."
"That's not boring at all, silly! I think it kind of fits you."
"Aw, thanks, that's kind of you to say."
"You shouldn't consider yourself boring just because of a name, you know?"
"Yeah, I know, but aren't I always a boring old orange?"
"Of course not, silly!"
Many sentences later, one of the test tubes had changed colour.
Once Squee pressed the button of that one test tube with the differently coloured reagent, their tasks were fully done.
At the same time, the unconscious crewmates slowly but surely woke up as well.
"Hey!" everyone in the medical bay heard Neri exclaim in the hallway. "Is Mummy awake yet?"
"Shh" Choco softly hissed, "she could still be asleep."
"I'm not!" Vienna exclaimed. "I'm back up!"
"See, Choco?" The little boy giggled as he ran into the medical bay and quickly found his mother. "Mummy, I'm glad you're awake!"
"So am I, sweetums." She carefully sat up and took her son in the grasp of a loving hug.
Charlie practically jumped off of her bed once she saw Choco, really wanting to make the confession.
The chubster reacted quite surprised, and swiftly handed Yuri to Billy just in case.
The Latinx then sniffed, and subsequently coughed a little.
"Looks like a certain someone needs a change…!" they managed to bring out with an awkward-sounding giggle, while heading to one of the corners where a dresser stood so they could properly change Yuri.
"Charlie" Choco said, "you're a little too happy to see me, huh?"
"Stop, I'm not happy" Charlie brought out. "Come to the hallway."
"Alright, I guess?"
The crewmates in brown and cyan headed to a more secluded part of the nearest hallway so nobody could possibly hear them.
"Choco, did you notice that I was haunting you when I was a spirit?"
"Well… I did feel something tingle my sixth sense, but that being your spirit? I don't know."
"It most likely could be. I didn't haunt you to stalk you, though, because stalking is creepier than rabid centipedes or something."
The two crewmates briefly laughed about the tomboy's statement.
"Of course I know you would never do such a thing, Char. But why did you haunt me?"
"B…" The tomboy blushed deeply and hid her face into both her hands.
"Do you love me?"
"What?! I… I don't… well, actually, I do. There, I said it." She sighed deeply.
"Well, guess what. So do I. There, I said it, too."
"You do?!" Charlie desperately clung to her crush's shoulders.
"For a full hundred per cent I do. And I'm actually quite happy with the fact that you told it first, since I thought you might've found me a creep if I'd do it at first."
"Hey, Choco, of course I trust you. In fact, you're not a creep to me, more like some sort of a good friend I never had. That's the first thing I thought when we first met."
"Aw, but that's only very kind of you." Choco put his right arm around Charlie's upper back and grabbed a piece of chocolate out of the left chest pocket of his spacesuit. "And because of your kindness, I want you to have this."
The neurodivergent crewmate greedily took the piece of chocolate into her mouth and subsequently kissed her crush directly on the mouth.
The chocoholic acted quite surprised at first, but could still smile about his first genuinely chocolate-flavoured kiss that wasn't a Hershey's kiss, for a change.
Around the corner of the door of the medical bay, Nori and Rice had secretly seen the happening, totally unbeknownst to the new couple of matesprits.
"Oh my tap-dancing goodness…!" they both whispered in disbelief.
"What's the matter?" Lava asked.
"Oh, nothing."
"C'mon, you cannot be surprised about nothing."
"Yes we can…!"
"No, you cannot."
"Oh, sure we can, Valentina."
"How do you-?!"
Both of the twins pinched one side of Lava's lips each.
"I saw you swipe your card a tad later than the others" Nori chuckled, "and you dropped it. At the same time, I was a spirit, so I could take a quick glance at the names and such on your card."
"And Nori told me all about it once I also became a spirit" Rice grinned with quite a big smile.
"Oh, you guyth are huuuuuge thcoundrelth for doing thuch a thing…" The snob rolled her eyes and frowned a little, which only made the twins laugh even more and harder, as did Vienna, Neri, and Billy.
