By well into the midnight hour, it was time for life to resume as usual. While everyone else had gone back home, and Hilda resuming her duties as the moon, Cuphead and Mugman made a safe return back to their cottage. There was much more they wanted to get off their chest, but they were far too exhausted from their rescue mission and crying spell to dwell on it any further. After briefly bandaging Cuphead's wounds and damaged china, the boys slipped into the deepest, most lucid slumber they'd had since the night they defeated the Devil.

The next day, Mugman went right to work nursing his brother back to health. While Cuphead sat up on the sofa, Mugman provided every healing remedy he could find in the house: a fluffy quilt, a first aid kit, a rubber ice pack for his brother's head, a mug of warm tea, and a small bowl full of warm veggie broth. As Mugman stood beside him, mending a few loose bandages, Cuphead slurped up his soup straight from the bowl.

"Man, I can't believe I forgot how good it feels to start eating again."

Mugman smiled. "You can have all the soup you want, brother. You'll need it to get your strength back after going hungry for a week."

"Yeah. For once, eating like Porkrind won't actually be bad for me." Cuphead chuckled, and took a gentle sip of his warm tea.

Once Mugman had finished mending his wounds, he sat back on the couch. "All done. They should be completely healed by tomorrow."

"Thanks." Cuphead responded with a forced smile. As he glanced back up at his brother again, his expression switched to that of anxiety. "Hey, Mug? Can I ask you a question?"

Mugman frowned, placing one hand on Cuphead's shoulder. "Of course you can, Cup. What is it?"

Cuphead took a deep breath. "What are we gonna do now? Where do we go from here now that Elder Kettle's gone? I'm getting tired of being so sad all the time, but I don't wanna just forget about Elder Kettle either. I dunno if I can really ever be 100% happy again without him..."

Mugman gently rubbed his brother's back. "I dunno if I can either, but we can't let that stop us from living our own lives again either."

Cuphead sniffed back a tear. "I just wish there was a way we could at least visit him again, instead of those stupid ghosts-"

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!

The boys jolted up in alarm. "I'll get it." Mugman got up from his seat, and opened the door to find a sleepy, but smiling, Hilda Berg at the doorway.

"Hello, boys. I hope I'm not intruding..."

"Oh no, you're not, Hilda. Is everything ok? You look awfully tired."

Hilda yawned. "Yes, I am up rather early after my nightly moon duties, but your friends and I had a thorough discussion the other night, and we've got a surprise for you and your brother that we think you're going to love."

"Asurprise?"

The boys followed Hilda around the house to their backyard, and they gasped at what they saw before them. All the residents of Inkwell Isle had returned, greeting Cuphead and Mugman with warm smiles. Once they saw them approaching, they cleared the way around the center, revealing something that made the boys' eyes well up with joy. There was a large, round tombstone planted in the grass, surrounded by an arrangement of colorful, blossoming bouquets. There were also two bold words engraved in its center that the boys cheerfully, and tearfully, read out loud. "Elder Kettle!"

Cuphead and Mugman rushed over to the gravesite, carefully hugging the tombstone without disturbing it. They then hugged each of their friends nearby, such as Djimmi, Cagney, Hilda, and the Root Pack.

"Thank you, guys!" Mugman sobbed. "That was really nice of you."

"Wait," Cuphead queried. "Does that mean Elder Kettle's urn is out of the mausoleum?"

"Yup," Djimmi nodded. "We had a pretty firm talk with those ghosts."

"And we agreed," Hilda added, "that it'd be much better if we moved it to a place where you two, or anybody else, could visit him whenever they wanted."

"I-I bet he'd be much happier being closer to you guys, too." Weepy nodded, a bit more verklempt than usual.

Cuphead's smile grew, glancing at everyone around him. "Thank you all so much. That-that's all I really wanted when I tried going into the mausoleum last night."

"We had a feeling." Cagney grinned, giving Cuphead another hug.

Mugman gazed back at his grandfather's grave. "This is wonderful. Now it won't feel so much like saying goodbye anymore."

"You never had to, boys." Djimmi chimed in. "Y'know, you learn a lot of things from being over a thousand years old, and one of them is the real secret to moving on when someone dies."

Cuphead and Mugman leaned in close with anxiousness as Djimmi went on. "The truth is...you never really do move on."

The boys' eyes popped. "Huh?!"

"I know, it sounds confusing, but hear me out for a minute. Have you ever noticed how, when someone tells you to 'move on,' it usually means, or at least sounds like, they want you to forget all about something?"

Mugman pondered. "...I suppose so."

"Now that may work for getting over a bad day, or breaking up with a crazy girlfriend, but you two will never forget about Elder Kettle, right?"

"No! Never!" The boys shouted in unison.

Djimmi chuckled. "It's all right, kids; just being rhetorical. Anyway, my point is..." He then got down on one knee. "You two never needed to feel like you had to go the rest of your lives without thinking about Elder Kettle. If I or anybody else here ever made you feel that way, we do apologize."

"No no, it's ok," Mugman reassured. "Nobody told us to feel that way; we just thought that that was what we were supposed to do."

Djimmi's smile returned. "Well, I think you two will feel much better about the whole thing if you keep making Elder Kettle a part of your lives forever. You can visit his grave site and tell him about your day, o-or you can reflect on the good things he did for ya, just to give a few examples. Anything that helps keep his memory alive also keeps him alive within you."

Cuphead wiped a tear from his eye. "Won't doing that kind of stuff just make us feel sad?"

"It very well may, but there'll always be some part of you that feels sad about Elder Kettle. You two will miss him no matter what, so, instead of trying to fight it, it's better to let yourself feel that way. The more time you take to let your feelings out, the less those feelings will hurt over time. Plus, it'll be much easier to keep enjoying life without holding on to the emotional baggage."

Mugman winked, gently elbowing his brother. "See? I told ya." Cuphead chuckled in response.

"I understand if this doesn't seem to make sense now. You are still kids after all, and you're more than welcome to keep coming back to me, or any of us, if you need someone to talk to. Just remember, as long as you and Elder Kettle remain a part of each other (and he always will), then thethree of you will be together forever. That's something you'll never have to move on from, even if you wanted to."

Cuphead smiled, his face wet with tears. "I don't think we ever will."

"Aww, c'mere." With that, Djimmi gave the boys a warm genie hug, and various other friends joined in.

After a minute, everyone let go, and Baroness Von Bon Bon's spoke up. "You know, I think this calls for a royal banquet at my palace. What say you, boys?"

Cuphead and Mugman's faces lit up. "Hot dog, we'd love to!"

The baroness chuckled. "Splendid! Onward, everyone!"

The crowd started to break away from the boys' backyard, heading south for the exit to Inkwell Isle II. After about a hundred feet, Cuphead and Mugman both stopped, looking back at Elder Kettle's grave. A bittersweet feeling of hope and sadness swept across their faces. Though the brothers were still very much in mourning, there was a tremendous sense of relief knowing they no longer had to feel completely isolated from their grandfather.

With sad smiles and another trickle of tears, Cuphead and Mugman ran back to hug the tombstone again. Before running back to catch up with their friends, instead of saying "goodbye," Cuphead stated his and Mugman's thoughts to Elder Kettle in a much more accurate way:

"We'll see you later."

~~~~

The End