One night at the Owl House, Ranger is sitting in the living room while studying glyph magic, the form of magic that was identified by Luz. Since it looks like he is going to be stranded in the Demon Realm for quite a while longer, he may as well do everything he can to prepare himself for another encounter with the Emperor's Coven. He turns his head when he hears someone enter the room.

"Luz?"

"Oh, hey," greets the teen.

"What's up? I thought you were asleep."

"I…guess I'm just feeling really pumped up right now," says Luz as she walks about, as if looking for something to do. "We escaped Emperor Belos! We know that he's not invincible!"

Despite Luz's jubilation, Ranger can see that her excitement is not reaching her eyes. In fact, she seems to be keeping eye contact with him to a minimum.

"Luz, are you feeling ok?"

"Of course I am," insists Luz. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, rescuing Eda from Belos was pretty nerve-racking. I know I'm still worked up from it," admits Ranger, hoping that sharing his feelings will make Luz more upfront with him. After failing to think of anything else to do, Luz settles for sitting next to him on the couch in a huff.

"I'm fine, I'm not worked up about Belos or my mom—" Luz stops when she realizes what she just said.

"Your mom?"

Luz gives a sad sigh before hiding her face in her hands.

"Who am I kidding?" she says to herself.

"Luz, what's wrong?" asks Ranger in concern.

Luz takes a deep breath and decides to level with him. She explains that, before arriving at the Boiling Isles, her mother had sent her to Reality Check Summer Camp to straighten out her wild imaginative personality after one too many incidents at school. Of course, Luz wound up going to the Demon Realm instead, where she had intended to stay until she was scheduled to return home from camp. Since Luz's cellphone could somehow still communicate with her mother's cellphone, she had been able to sell the deception by messaging her mother that she was indeed at camp and was even giving her false updates. Unfortunately for Luz, escaping Emperor Belos involved destroying the portal to the Human Realm to prevent him from merging the Human and Demon Realms, which would have destroyed wild magic.

Now that the only way back to the Human Realm is gone, her mother is going to figure out that she is missing and that she lied about going to summer camp. As Luz's chin begins to quiver, Ranger instinctively holds her hand in an effort to comfort her. She looks up at him with watery eyes before then hugging him around your torso. Ranger is surprised by the hug but he is quick to gently return the embrace when he hears her begin to cry. Luz needs emotional support and he is going to give it to her. Luz snuggles into Ranger as he gently rubs her back and start rocking back and forth. After a little while, Luz's sobs begin to subside.

"Feeling any better?"

"A little," says Luz softly.

"How about this: if I get back into contact with Castleton before we can make another portal, I'll take you with me. I could take you back to the Human Realm from there."

"Really?!" Luz's demeanor brightens.

Ranger nods. "Really. And if you want, I'll even help explain things to your mom."

Ranger feels Luz give her hug an extra dose of squeeze. After a few moments, the two of them separate.

"Are you going to be ok now?" asks Ranger.

"Yeah," says Luz. "But can I stay up with you for a little bit?"

"Of course," answers Ranger with a smile. The two of them sit on the couch and study glyph magic together. Eventually, though, Luz falls asleep against the arm of the couch.

"Luz?" Ranger tries waking her up so that she can go to her bedroom and sleep there instead. Unable to wake her up, Ranger scoops the girl up in his arms and carries her to her room. He then tucks her into her sleeping bag.

"Goodnight, Luz," whispers the Ranger.

In her sleep, Luz utters something that completely halts Ranger's train of thought: "Good night, dad."

Ranger does a double take as his heart does a backflip. Did he hear her correctly? Had she just called him "dad?" Wait, why he is reading so much into this. Luz was asleep when she called him that, she was probably dreaming and just talking in her sleep.

Ranger exits Luz's room and heads back to the living room so that he can clean up his study materials.

Good night, dad.

He shakes his head in an effort to clear his thoughts. There is no possible way that Luz meant what she said. Eda is Luz's parental figure, not him! He hasn't spent nearly as much time with Luz as Eda has. There is no possible way Luz could see him in the same light as Eda!

As soon as he finishes cleaning up after himself, the Ranger heads to bed and tries to put his thoughts to rest. The next morning, Luz goes to magic school and finds himself having a leisurely breakfast with Lilith.

Good night, dad.

Even as he tries to enjoy his meal, those three words continue to plague him.

"Are you alight?" asks Lilith.

"Hm? Uh, yeah, I'm ok. Why do you ask?"

"You seem distracted," Lilith notes.

"I'm fine..." repeats Ranger, still feeling too self-conscious to admit anything.

Lilith arches an eyebrow. She knows that he's not being upfront.

"Okay," sighs Ranger, "Maybe I'm more distracted than fine."

"What's wrong?" Lilith asks.

"Well…last night…I put Luz to bed and… she called me dad in her sleep."

Lilith is taken aback for a moment before producing a small smile. "Oh my…I had no idea she felt that strongly about you."

"She was asleep when she called me that," quickly notes Ranger. "I wouldn't read too much into it. It's not like she has any reason to call me that."

There is a pause as Lilith takes a moment to think.

"What is it?"

"Well, now that I think about it, you've been rather preoccupied with her," says Lilith. "When you first learned about Luz, weren't you fretting about how she was in Eda's care?"

"I did," admits Ranger. "But who wouldn't have been concerned? I didn't know Eda that well. As far as I knew, Luz was under the same roof as an irresponsible outlaw."

Which is why he would always check to see if Eda was taking good care of Luz whenever he crossed paths with either of them. Ranger wasn't taking any chances!

"But you still shared those recipes with Eda!" loudly proclaims a certain voice. Sure enough, Hooty has popped up between Ranger and Lilith.

"Recipes?" inquires Lilith.

"Yeah! He just popped up one day and told Eda that he found some ways to turn Witch food into Human food!"

"You shared your findings with them?" Lilith's voice is laced with amusement and interest. After arriving in the Boiling Isles, Ranger quickly learned that many of the local foods couldn't be digested by humans. However, after a bit of experimenting, he found that there were ways to process certain foods to make them suitable for human consumption.

"Yes, I wrote down some instructions and gave them to Eda…after I managed to tell her that Belos hadn't sent me and that I wasn't out to get her," mentions Ranger with a wry laugh upon remembering at how aggressively Eda had tried to hex him until he could get a word in. It was tough, but if Luz insisted on staying with Eda, he was going to at least make sure she stayed healthy!

"And after that, you gave Luz all those books!" continues Hooty.

"I sent her learning materials after I found out that she had been barred from Hexside. It…just felt like the right thing to do," explains Ranger to Lilith before she even asks. A child's education was too important to squander!

"Helping her has come so naturally to you," muses Lilith. "It's little wonder that you've taken to each other so quickly. Remember when we rescued Eda?"

Lilith is of course referring to the time when they all banded together to save Eda from Emperor Belos. While Luz had been ready to attack Lilith on sight for being the one who turned Eda over to Belos, she stopped in her tracks when Ranger intervened in the fight between them. In spite of everything, Luz saw no reason to distrust him. As such, she had been willing to hear Ranger out and give Lilith a chance to explain herself. In the ensuing rescue operation, Ranger kept Luz close to him and tried to keep her out of combat whenever possible. He didn't want her to get hurt…

"So, you think that Luz might actually see me as—But I couldn't possibly have spent enough time with her for that to happen. I wasn't there for her from the start like Eda was," insists Ranger.

"But you've been there for her whenever she needed you," Lilith says while putting her hand on his. "I don't think what Luz said was just sleep-talk. I think she said what she did because you are a father to her."

"Yeah! You're a great dad to Luz!" chimes Hooty.

Ranger can't help but bashfully rub the back of his neck while blushing at the fact that both Lilith and Hooty consider him to be a good father to Luz. And now that he thinks about it, they just may be right. Even though Ranger isn't related to Luz and doesn't actively think of himself as her father, he still feels an urge to protect and care for Luz as if he were her father. He...really is dad.

"I don't know what to say," admits Ranger, still feeling self-conscious about the epiphany.

"Your actions have said more than enough," assures Lilith, who is still holding his hand. The two of them look in each other's eyes as they sit there and enjoy each other's company. Ranger can't help but smile at Lilith's smile. She has certainly become much more relaxed around him lately. Not he's complaining. She looks so incredibly lovely right now—

"Does this mean you're Amity's dad too?" states Hooty suddenly.

The reverie between the two is broken.

"W-what?" Ranger is genuinely caught off guard by Hooty's interjection.

"You spend a lot of time with Amity. I know because she talks to Luz about you a lot!"

"And what does Miss Blight say about him?" inquiries Lilith, an amused smile returning to her face.

"Well, first off, Amity says that she feels super safe around him. And that she can go to him for anything. And that he doesn't judge her. And that he gives really great hugs…"

Hooty continues listing off what Amity has said about Ranger as Lilith becomes increasingly tickled pink with the cute details. Meanwhile, Ranger's bashfulness returns with a vengeance. This is going to be an interesting morning.