Michael definitely wasn't going back to sleep that night. Too much was on his mind.

'She couldn't have got here from Octo Valley, we have the exit from there on lockdown, so how did she get into Inkopolis?' Going over ideas, he finally came to a realization that scared him the most.

'Either she broke out from jail… or the Octarians have some way to get into Inkopolis.' The thought terrified him. Michael didn't want another war. Other Inklings would be happy to get into a battle with the Octarians, but Michael knew better, he knew how painful a full-scale war would be for both sides. He didn't want a repeat of what happened in the last one for the Zapfish, not to Randy, not to Angela, not to Shelly, not to anyone.

He then thought to his friends. He couldn't tell them about this, under any circumstance. He didn't want to bring them into this. He would tell Captain Cuttlefish, and, along with Agents 1 and 2, they would stop the Octarians at the source. They would destroy their route into Inkopolis and stop another war from happening.

Michael then caught himself, 'What if she really was just a lone Octoling who broke out of jail? What if there isn't a secret route from Octo Valley? Am I really just going to come to crazy conclusions like that? No, there's no way we didn't catch them building something like that.' It did little to comfort him. He still had to consider the possibility.

If one thing was certain, he wasn't going to get any sleep.

'Guess I better make some coffee.'

Morning came, Randy literally rolled off his bed and planted his fist firmly on his alarm clock, shutting it up. He checked the time.

'7:45 AM, good, I'm still first to wake up.' Randy always took a bit of pride in being a morning person, even if he normally crashed and burned late at night. He didn't really understand Angela or Shelly. For Angela, he didn't understand why she hated mornings so much. To him, morning was the time to be up and at 'em. For Shelly, he didn't see the point in waking up later, that just meant less time to spend in the day.

He got dressed, and exited into the living room to see, to his surprise, Michael slumped over in a chair, his head bobbing erratically. He had seen Angela like this before, she would do this when she was trying to stay awake. Also to his surprise, he was drinking coffee. Then, he realized, that was Angela's coffee. He had to resist the urge to snatch it from his hand and pour it out into the sink.

"Dude, what're you doing?"

"H-Huh? Oh, hey Randy… what's-'sup?"

Michael had the same kind of tone Angela had a lot of the time, the strange stuttering set it off to him that Michael was very, very tired.

"Dude, don't tell me you stayed up all night."

"Oh, y-yeah. I did." Michael's voice was very different from how it was normally. It wasn't completely like Angela's. Randy figured something might've been going on.

"You alright man? You look like a hurricane just destroyed your home."

"Y-Yeah. I'm alright, I think." Even in half-consciousness Michael still knew to keep what he saw last night a secret.

"So, uh, where'd you get the coffee?" Randy really hoped he was wrong and it wasn't Angela's.

"Oh, this? I got it f-from the cupboard, up there." Michael weakly pointed to one of the three highest cupboards in the kitchen. Mystery solved on that one.

"Dude, you know that's Angela's coffee, right?"

"Oh, it is? Is there a problem? I could dump it out now if she has a problem with it." Randy moved his head a bit to see inside the cup, it looked full.

"NO. No. Trust me mate you do not want to deal with her after dumping out her coffee. I'll just give it to her when she wakes up and say that you made it for her."

"Oh, alright." He offered no resistance to Randy taking the mug out of his hand. Randy placed the mug in microwave to heat it up and sat back down at the table with Michael.

"So, why'd you stay up all night?"

Randy could hear Michael's tone shift. "Uh, no reason. Just couldn't get to sleep."

"That so? What'd you do all night?"

"Just watched TV. Nearly fell asleep watching that "Price is Fresh" show."

Randy just decided to not press on him, Michael was tired and needed to get sleep. He stood up and patted Michael on the back.

"Why don't you get some sleep? Staying up's not gonna help 'ya."

"Yeah, right. Thanks. I'll go get to sleep." Michael's voice was slightly slurred, he stumbled a bit as he went to his room.

"Really hope that guy's alright." Randy said to himself.

"Hey Randy."

"Morning Angela. Mike made you some coffee, it's in the microwave." Randy cocked his head in the kitchen's direction.

"Oh. Awfully nice of 'im."

"Yeah. I think something's bugging him. Stayed up all night."

"Hoo, d'ya get the reason?"

"Nah, he seemed kinda opposed to telling me. I just let it slide."

"I'll ask 'im later. See if I can get him to tell me." Angela got her coffee from the kitchen.

"Good idea. Hope he'll be alright."

"I'm sure he'll be fine. Not like my Daddy back home, worried himself sick over every little thing."

"You've told me."

"Doesn't hurt to say it once in a while."

Hey guys. So remember how I said I'd be uploading these chapters on the weekends? Yeah, there'll be a few exceptions. If I'm really invested in the story I might get one to two chapters done and uploaded earlier in the week. Other than that the schedule should be the same.