Red was still hugging Gobo and hadn't realized the song had stopped a moment ago, relieving words that certainly were not lyrics.
"...And I thought you would never come home, so I was tying the fish to Sprockets tail and had almost got under the door when…"
Both fraggles suddenly felt three intently puzzled gazes fixed upon them. Red blushed a partially radish shade and drew away from the hug, while Gobo awkwardly cleared his throat.
"We're back everyone!" Wembley broke into the silence with a yell, darting among the group with a shower of comments
"Oh, Mokey, you grew out your hair more! It's real pretty."
"Are those new ribbons Red? How's the fraggle pond? "
"It's really doing great! We just…" Red trailed off as the even more energetic Wembley hopped over to Boober.
"Hiya Boober! You know, Gobo found out the silly creatures use doozer dust for bleach. I brought you some!"
"Why thank you Wembley..I think." Boober replied as most of the loose dry bleach that had been shoved into his hands sifted though his fingers.
"Oh, Gobo, you look so distinguished!" Mokey said, dwarfing him with her own sudden hug. "You know, you look just as I thought you would,"
Mokey rambled as Gobo gasped for breath at the tight embrace "I saw you in a dream once you know, you were climbing a great mountain and.."
She finally noticed her friends lack of oxygen, letting go quickly "..Oh, I'm so sorry!"
"That's okay Mokey," Gobo said rubbing his tender neck. "It's been such a long time. We all missed you."
"I missed you the most." Wembley chimed in.
"That's very sweet Wembley." Mokey replied politely.
Red arched a taken aback brow at the start of this odd conversation.
"Yup, I missed you the most, the others didn't even care half as much." Whembly added with a self righteous nod.
At this Red's brow was arched to it's limit and Boobers bottom jaw was hanging in shock, as Mokey stammered for a reply and found none.
Gobo motioned the three into a huddle away from the smaller green fraggle, who seemed to have turned his attention to a pie cooling on the stovetop.
"He's been like this for almost a month off and on," Gobo spoke in a whisper that was partly overshadowed by the sound of a blueberry pie being noisily devoured. " Really crazy and fixed on himself sometimes and well..You girls had better be especially careful what you say to him is all."
"No, Wembley? Of all fraggles?" Boober added in " But its so rare, only one out of ninety of us ever go though it."
"I know, weird isn't it?"
" We just stay who we are, live whatever passes for life, hatch eggs and die! We don't even need it anymore!" Boober said gesturing with his hand wildly.
"Well, I'm just glad it only lasts two months…Poor Wembley.."
"A victim of a most terrible condition." Boober agreed.
Red had all this time been fixing them with a blank puzzled stare, while Mokey simply nodded now and again.
"Um.." Red began "Are you two talking in some weird boy code I should know about?"
"Red, you see sometimes when…" Mokey started, but was cut off by Gobo very quickly.
"Oh, no..it's nothing." Gobo said sheepishly, turning is attention to the small pink form that had, as they were talking, been trying with some success to escape his bathtub confinement.
"Aw, who's the little ankle bitter eh?" Gobo said, giving the tiny pink fraggles head a tussle.
"He's Mokey's right? Just like it said in the picture letter.." Whembly added in with his berry shaded face.
"You read the picture letter?" Red said in disbelief.
"Sure we did, didn't everybody?" Gobo laughed.
Somewhere to the side Red's pigtails seemed to wilt.
"I've been waiting especially for him to meet you Gobo, after all a good teacher…" Mokey began, rubbing her dripping offspring with a fluffily towel that in the end made his body fur look like a ball of cotton candy.
"Poppy, these are your uncles Gobo and Wembley." Mokey said, handing the newly dried ball of fluff that was her son to Gobo.
"Uncle eh? Well, welcome to the gang little guy! Here…"
Gobo took off his brown leather bomber hat, putting it on Poppy's head only to have it fall over his eyes.
"If your going to tackle an adventure as big as life, you're gonna need a hat."
Poppy pulled up the hat brim halfway off his head and made a grab for Wembley's long nose.
"Hey, we have the same color hair!" Whembly exclaimed. "You know only the best fraggles have yellow hair."
Red rolled her eyes. It was going to be a very long month…
The whispers that echoed though the deserted main hall were soft in the early morning air that seeped though the cracks of the rock.
"Do you think they suspect anything?"
"Nah, I don't think so. But Mokey will talk my ear off with a million of her poems if she ever..."
"I have a feeling Wembley would to. Not with poems, but you know, he has his own way…"
Red leaned over to lay her head on Gobo's shoulder as the thick mist upon fraggle pond began to rang with the light sleepy sound of frogs welcoming the day.
"Every time there's a storm out or a rock shake I'm always afraid you're in it, you know? That you fell down and…"
"Aw, Red, you don't have to worry about me. There's lots of places in outer space to hide in..And, well, Wembley's the best runner in all the universe when he puts his mind to it..Why, he's dragged me out of more…"
"I don't care about ol' Wembley running! Outer space is dangerous and you're out there taking stupid risks and I..worry..I miss you."
"I miss you to."
Gobo stared of into the distance as if contemplating some invisible landscape and then dropped his gaze to his feet. Red did the same in the opposite direction, kicking her hanging feet against the outside rock of the pond and leaded back to trail her tail in the water.
The frogs calls began to grow in number, setting the scene to a soft Jamaican beat.
Uncertainly, Gobo began to sing, his voice waving at bit at the first few words:
"Red we've always been friends, that much is true.
But could that change if you want it…"
"..to?" Red finished in song " Why Gobo you know that I…"
She reached out for his slowly.
Suddenly, the sound of an over energetic mob of early raising Fraggles came whipping into the hall.
"Hey everybody, it's the Great Traveling Gobo!" Their leader Rumple Fraggle , yelled. "Tell us about the silly creatures flying beasts!"
With a loud 'AK!' of protest Gobo was hailed up onto the crowds shoulders and carried away to background of their loud ringing phase.
At this same moment Red had been reaching for him and the sudden whack of a tail sent her tumbling into the pond.
The steadily faster beat of the frogs carried into the frustrating moving monologue of the next few days for both fraggles...
The hanging glass of the Crystal Cavern painted a brilliant glow upon the walls as the two sat on a cliffside high above an overgrown hiking trail.
"We should be safe here…" Gobo began.
"Red the stars in the heavens, the birds in sky
I'd give them all to you if you'd tell me…"
"Why? Oh Gobo I could…"
"Fancy meeting you up here! Hey look everyone!" "Oh Gobo, tell us about the stone people!"
The line of cave climbing fraggles that had just appeared out of nowhere from above pulled Gobo away into their moving line. This made the again leaning over Red, with no other body to steady her, fall into a partially nasty looking patch of thistles far below.
Red, barely able to pull her scratched and bleeding head up to rest on her equally injured arms whimpered.
"..just cry." She finished
The cave that had once been Gobo and Wembley's was heavy with the smell and taste of dust from sitting unused for so long.
"Are you sure this is a good place?" Red asked with disbelief, the many bandages upon her face moving when she wrinkled her nose.
"Of course, I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner. Since we're staying in the guest of honor cave no one will think of looking for me here.." Gobo smiled.
"Red, the caves are a nest-house for my heart the dove,
Gobo reached out to take Red's hands in his own as he rushed though the last line for fear of being interrupted.
"..Who flies very quickly to speak of..."
"Of…?" Red breathed, closing her eyes slowly. The notes of the song slowed down and died into stillness as if the cave itself was holding its breath in this one warm moment..of the two fraggles drawing nearer to one another…and…
"Hiya guys! Whatya doing in this old place?" Wembley's voice cut into the room like a blow-horn from where he stood in the doorway.
"Nothing Wembley…" Both his friends chorused with a sigh, quickly sitting a respectful distance from one another again.