Chapter 2: Quahog 20XX

Even twenty-five years later, Quahog didn't look very much different to Meg as she drove down the streets. She hadn't lived there since she was eighteen and, truth be told to herself, she was glad that she'd left it all behind. Aside from occasional visits to her family she had no intention of ever moving back.

After she had left, Meg experienced a slight growth spurt and with how busy she had been in her college years some of her chubbiness had also melted away. She still wasn't as tall or slim as her mother, who even in her old age looked decades younger and rivalled many women a third of her age, but she was happy.

And compared to some other people she knew that were in their early forties like herself, she'd fared well both in looks and her overall life. Last that she heard, Connie D'Amico was more comparable to Chris than anyone else and had fallen far from grace.

"Karma's a bitch."

"What?"

"Oh sorry, just having flashbacks out loud again." said Meg, turning her head to her passenger. "We're almost at dad's house."

The girl sighed. "Why couldn't we go visit my other grandpa, mom? That and the house stinks, last time we went there it wouldn't come out of my hair for like a week!"

Her daughter, Christina (who was not named after her uncle Chris and was a name that Meg and her husband had chosen, though Chris was still touched regardless), was literally her splitting image. Aside from her hat and shirt being light blue and white respectively, she otherwise looked and sounded exactly as Meg did at her age. Stewie once referred to her as "Unaired Pilot Meg", whatever that was supposed to mean. She had also recently turned eighteen and soon would leave home, a fact that left Meg both excited and a bit saddened to realize.

Her baby girl was all grown up.

"Look, your dad and brother are busy, mom's gone off to see Stewie and god knows what the hell Chris is doing. We're only staying for a couple days anyway."

She then handed her a spray bottle. "Here, spray your hair with this, it'll keep the smell from sticking. I never noticed it either until after I'd left, must have been something I got desensitized to the twenty-plus years I lived there."

"But didn't you leave after you turned eighteen?" Christina asked. "Your math doesn't add up."

"Never mind, you wouldn't understand... Quahog's weird."

It wasn't long before they arrived and stopped in the Griffin driveway. As much as she still loved her parents, Meg really didn't like being back in that house or Quahog in general. While there were some good times, the bad heavily outweighed them to the point that she still had occasional nightmares that she was back to being eighteen, had never left... had never moved on. Whenever she woke up after one of those it usually took a minute or two to return to reality, that everything did happen and she had moved on. It was one of the biggest reasons she kept a picture of one of the best days of her life on the wall in her bedroom as a reminder, with her mother and father more pleased with her than they'd ever been and Meg herself sitting on the latter's shoulder.

Stewie also once called her "Lucky Meg", and despite not knowing the context at first she still agreed. It wasn't a perfect life, far from it, but it was a good one.

Meg rang the doorbell and after about a minute the door opened. Peter looked pretty much the same as he did all those years ago, but with grey hair plus he walked with a cane. He even wore the same clothes. Meg realized that she used to almost always wear the same clothes too, day after day, as well as the rest of her family and all of Quahog. It was a habit that Christina had also inexplicably taken to even though she hadn't spent more than a month of her life in Quahog in total, something which irked her mother. Meg still had her old hats but she stopped wearing any after college, they were probably in her closet somewhere behind three or four dusty boxes of memorabilia.

Oh god, why am I thinking about clothes right now? I'm right, Quahog is weird...

"Hey dad."

"Meg! Meg Junior!"

"My name's Christina! Why do you keep calling me that?" she huffed, and pushed past him into the house. Meg gave her father a quick hug before they also went inside.

"Definitely has your temper." Peter said, as he and Meg sat down together on the couch. Christina, meanwhile, sat on the floor in front of them. "Even sits like you too. Say, why isn't your husband and other kid here? I'm beginning to think that they don't exist, just like the time that... that..."

Everyone remained silent for a few moments.

"Look I'm getting old, cutaways don't come as often as they used to."

"I already told you dad, they're too busy to come!"

"Excuses."

"My wedding picture is on the wall." Meg said, pointing towards it. Underneath were the words YES, MEG REALLY DID GET MARRIED THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED, and Peter himself was clearly visible in the image as well.

"I think I might vaguely recall that." Peter said, and nodded towards his granddaughter. "So Meg Junior, are you going to be more like your mother or the old Meg? You know, the old Meg that had no self-confidence and everything went wrong with?"

"Dad!" yelled Meg. "Stop talking to her like that!"

"What? I'm just trying to give my granddaughter some advice!"

"Like the advice you used to give me? Please! I know how to raise my daughter better than you ever raised me!"

Christina stood up and walked towards the stairs. "You can both stop talking about me like I'm not here!" she said, after which she ran up them and the sound of a door slamming could be heard.

"Geez, she really is just like you." Peter said.

Christina was in Meg's old room, lying in her bed. Said room had been converted for other uses or used as storage over the years but was eventually changed back not long after Christina had been born for the infrequent times that Meg had visited.

"Mom grew up here," she said to herself, "and I don't know how she didn't lose her damn mind. I've only been here like five minutes and I already want to beat my head against the wall."

A knock on the door shook her from her thoughts. "Can I come in?"

Christina got up, unlocked the door and returned to sit on the edge of the bed. Meg entered and sat down next to her daughter.

"I spent so much time in this room," she said, "it was the one place in the house I really had to myself to get away from everything. And don't let what your grandfather said get to you, sweetie."

"How can you let him say and do the things he does? He's horrible!"

Meg wrapped an arm around her daughter's shoulders. "He is. Most of the time, in fact. But there is a good side to him, and when it comes out you can't help but love him. He does care for me, and for you, and I learned a long time ago to accept the way he is and forgive him. Not just him, but my mother and brothers as well. They're all weird, but they're family, and I want to make sure that you know them. Well, except Brian, I'd have to take you to the pet cemetery if you want to see him."

"I remember seeing him once when I was very young, he was old and could barely move. It was sad."

"Yeah, you were still a baby. It was the first time I brought you here, actually."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Mom said that you looked a lot like I did as a baby and that's where Meg Junior came from." Meg sighed, and then continued. "When I was growing up I was compared a lot to my mother and I really let it bother me. She was beautiful, popular and the exact opposite of me in almost every way. But I broke away from all that and, at the risk of sounding like an after-school special, I had to be no one else but myself. And even after that I wasn't exactly gorgeous or popular but things got better and eventually I met your dad."

Meg stood up. "You're already better off then I was at your age, you'll be fine. I'm going to head downstairs to talk to dad some more, you coming?"

"Not right now." said Christina. "I just... want to think for a while, you know. It's less than a month before I head off to college and... and I'm kind of nervous, to be honest."

"My dad told me once that I had a good brain in my head," said Meg, "and I think you're even smarter. Hell, you had your pick of universities and didn't have to do what I did to get in! You haven't even gone yet and I'm already so proud of you."

Christina smiled.

"Thanks, mom." she said, as Meg left and closed the door behind her. For the longest time she had taken Meg Junior to be an insult but found that she really wouldn't mind being like her mother after all.

"You're right mom... I will be fine."

Peter, meanwhile, was bored and headed into the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. He never realized just how dull life could be with nobody else around to go with adventures on or even talk to. He was about halfway done eating when Meg entered and took a few minutes to make two more sandwiches, presumably one for herself and the other for her daughter.

Presumably.

Oh come on, fat Meg jokes are so out of date!

"Hey dad." she said, taking a seat next to him. He made note that there was only one sandwich on her plate, the other was still on the counter.

"Looks like my first thought was right!"

"You're saying your thoughts out loud again, even the fat Meg one."

"But that was in italics!"

"Ugh, some things never change..." said Meg, who briefly took off her glasses to rub her eyes before putting them back on.

"So is Meg Junior okay? I clocked her at like thirty miles an hour running up those stairs, way faster than you ever did by the way."

"It's Christina, and yeah she's okay. She's just... a bit overwhelmed at everything, about going off to college, and really just isn't used to any of, well... this."

Peter, for a handful of times in Meg's life, looked rather solemn and for the lack of a better term normal. Meg realized that he was about to have one of his serious moments, a rare fountain of wisdom and knowledge that she'd rarely seen...

He farted.

"Sorry, I drank a lot of Dr. Pepper before you came over and that always gives me gas. Anyway... Meg, I think that Christina being like you is a good thing. She's smart and if she's anything like you she's got a good future ahead of her. I... I've never told anyone this but I'm glad that none of my kids turned out exactly like me. Your kids should always end up better than their parents, and all four of you did."

"Don't you mean three, dad?"

"I occasionally say one number higher than I mean now. Another reason why you shouldn't drink, it destroys your brain and short-term memory and destroys your brain and short-term memory!"

"Okay... well, I'm going to take this sandwich and a bottle of water up to Christina, but it's getting really late and she might already be asleep. Night, dad."

After Meg had left, Peter (he was an old man, remember) felt really tired and decided to go to sleep as well. Before he got into bed, he glanced on the nearby wall where an old but familiar picture was, the same that Meg had in her own bedroom. Though they didn't admit it too often, both he and Lois were proud of her, that she ended up being better than them and now her daughter was likely to be better than her.

"It's the circle, the circle of lifeeeeeeeee." sang Peter to himself, who passed out both from tiredness and because he couldn't remember the rest of the song. Meg, who was in Stewie's old room (but thankfully with all his gadgets and devices removed), heard both that and his thoughts that he was proud of her because he'd also unintentionally said those out loud.

"Thanks, dad."