Attention! I own neither Total Drama nor Lewis Carrol's Alice's adventures in wonderland.

Noah came back two hours later, and Owen was relieved of his duties. "Thanks again so much, Owen, for doing this on such short notice."

The blonde man just shrugged it off. "Anything for Izzy can't be classified as easy, but it's always fun."

Noah almost frowned. Noah answered him mentally, "You have no idea."

Instead him made to give Owen a generous amount of money for his services. Owen looked down at his outstretched hand. He didn't move. Irritated, Noah pushed it into his hands. Owen just passed it back. "I don't want it. Buy something pretty for Morgan."

Noah watched on in confusion as he left.

Morgan, who'd seen the whole display, grinned. "I wouldn't mind some pretty candy, or some icecream," she suggested from where she was perched. "Anything that will send me into a sugarcrash is perfect for me."

He chuckled at that. "More likd a cardiac arrrst. And I think I'd prefer you active, not sleeping." He paused for a moment, "Besides, do you want to rot your teeth out?"

Wrong thing to ask a crazy four year old. Especially when that crazy four year old is yours. She grinned the widest she could. "Do you really want me to answer that?"

He shuddered.

It was now seven o'clock at night, and Morgan was getting ready for bed. Noah himself was in the living room, reading the newspaper- something he normally did in the morning, when eating breskfast. But his mind had already been occupied by his interview.

He still hadn't told Izzy or Morgan he'd gotten the job, but he didn't dread it either. Morgan would take the news with a shrug, while Izzy... well, would he even get to tell Izzy?

He thought it over for a second. He hadn't seen her in weeks. He didn't even know if she was having fun or making friends- not that he wanted her to make friends with other people in an assylum.

Then there was Morgan to think about. The job would make it so that he'd hardly see her. Yeah. Not a good thing when there wasn't a mother at home to take care of her.

He sighed, rubbing his face in a mix of stress and frustration. It was getting hard to raise Morgan alone. Izzy had been the stay-at-home parent when Morgan had been born. He'd always been at work, bringing all the bills.

His old job had paid well, but it had been both stressful and part time. That part he hated.

It had caused him to miss a lot of important moments in Morgan's life. And only now he realized it hadn't been fair to make Izzy play both parents. And it wasn't fair to make Morgan think that he didn't care about being part of her life.

"Daddy, can you tuck me in?!" Cried the owner of his present thoughts.

He got up and went into her room. She was already in bed and she had a book on her lap. He noticed that she had pushed it a little closer to him. Her eyes asked the question she was scared of saying with her mouth.

There was something else in those questioning eyes of hers.

"Rejection," he realized. "Afraid that I'll tell her 'no'."

"You want me to read this?" He asked her aloud.

She nodded shyly.

Noah took it into his hands, reading the cover aloud, "Alice's adventures in wonderland by Lewis Carrol."

He was amused, if not a little surprised to see that it was a chapter book, and a good-sized on, at that.

"All in the Golden afternoon. Full leisurely we glide..." he started reading.

His rich voice flowed through his teeth in perfect words. Not once did Morgan hear him break or stutter or mispronouniate. He even did the voices, by the time he got to the part with the rabbit, she was so intentively watching with such rapt attention that one could say that it looked like she was under a spell.

He himself took no notice, instead continued weaving the story with his melodious voice.

It was another two hours before she finally fell asleep. He smiled down at her sleeping form, and bookmarked his place. "I'll finish the chapter tomorrow," he promised her.

With that, he went over to the door, smiled one last time, and shut off the light. "Night my silly child," were the last words he left in the air.

Somehow, those words reached Morgan in her sleep. She unconsciously smiled.