I know I haven't updated this story since March 2015, but my love for the 2014 movie has rekindled. I'll give more details after the chapter.
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"Jane, pass me the oregano." Mr Peabody instructed as he cooked something simmering in a brass iron skillet.
"Leaves or ground?" Jane asked as she poked her head out of the pantry.
"Ground should do nicely."
The human woman obeyed and got the proper spice to give the male dog. Giving her his thanks, Mr Peabody took the spice from her and resumed to cook. Jane occupied herself to lean against the counter top to watch him.
"So..." Jane casually spoke up, gaining a side glance from Mr Peabody.
"So?" he repeated with some interest.
"So, I ran into an old friend earlier." Jane told him, giving a small shrug.
"Ah yes," Mr Peabody agreed, "I happened to overhear Penny mention something along those lines while she and Sherman were doing homework. She was being… rather unsubtle about it."
"Yeah," Jane nodded -almost absently- as a small smile formed on her lips. "He's an old friend of mine: Jacob Winter. I've always called him Jake though."
There was something in Jane's tone of voice that made Mr Peabody pause. There was more to it than just the general fondness of meeting an old friend. For a fleeting moment, he had to wonder…
"He's not… Eleanor's father, is he?" the honorable dog questioned, a part of him deep down wishing that it wasn't the case.
An awful sense of relief filled the dog at Jane's immediate change of demeanor. "Hell no!" the woman even spat. "If that jerkwad gets anywhere near my child nowadays, you'd be picking me up from jail the next morning."
"Duly noted." Mr Peabody affirmed with a nod. "But… do you have a certain history with this man?"
She didn't mean to, but Jane's face slightly flushed. "If, by having a certain history, you mean going to him after the fallout instead of trying to kill my unborn child, and -maybe- deep down wishing that he was the father instead? Then… then yeah, I did."
Mr Peabody gave an absent nod, returning his attention to the food preparations.
"I was thinking he could come over for dinner one night." Jane eventually started to tell Mr Peabody. "Or… maybe we adults could go out somewhere? I'm sure the Petersons would like to join, if they wanted to. I haven't seen Jake in ages Mr Peabody, I'd really like you to meet him."
But Mr Peabody went silent, thinking the idea over. Jane looked at him as worry started to settle in. He had no reason to unaccept Jake from coming over for dinner, in all honesty. So… what was the problem?
"Perhaps we could invite him over next Sunday," Mr Peabody slowly started to agree. "Would that be alright?"
"I can call him right now." Jane nodded as she whipped out her phone and started to find Jake number on her contact list. "Thank you Mr Peabody," she even added before leaving the room. As she departed, she gave the dog a peck on the head- another action that caused Mr Peabody to freeze. He couldn't help but watch Jane as she left. He looked for too long, as when he looked back at the pan the contents within had caught on fire from his distraction.
Well… Dinner was going to be a little crispier tonight...
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So like I mentioned above, this story was pretty much dead after hitting writer's block for this chapter back in 2015. Time escaped and almost completely two years have passed since then. But recently I started to get reacquainted with the Dreamworks movie and all the ideas I had for this little thing came back, and I was able to get past the initial block for this chapter. From here on out, there will be some semblance of a plot instead of aiming for unconnected one shots.
First things first, an unneeded love triangle plot. Which will end up with an old dog in a new suit- so to speak. Then that will lead into an even more unneeded scare for the family. After that, I'm not sure what I plan on doing for them- but I definitely want to get those ideas out of the way first.
I might even split the plots up into their own stories and post them separately. Maybe expand on some things. For this story, the word counts are the lowest I've achieved in awhile (recently I've been written chapters with roughly 1.2K words, but this chapter only has 548 words altogether), but if the plots got their own fics, then that would most definitely be changed. I would like to know what you readers think (if you're still out there...) and we'll work from there. Maybe officially end this story with Peabody's thoughts on Jake, and then start a new story that kicks off the other conflicts I want to get at? What do you guys think?
Any way, thank you for reading this dead story after so long, it means a lot!