Legal Disclaimer: I do not own Red vs. Blue or any of the show's characters. They are the rightful properties of Rooster Teeth.
Chapter Seven:
It turned out that the strange, unknown devices that Dexter Grif had seen Carolina and Simmons setting up were actually some kind of energy monitoring machines. The devices were being used in the hopes that those in Chorus could trace back any new potential power fluctuations.
Grif assisted by placing the objects in various locations all over the city, though his meager contribution to the project was mainly with helping to open and then reseal bulkheads after Simmons or Carolina linked up a device to the insides of a computer or machine. One of them would then make sure it was working properly.
Though he was glad that the others were taking the potential of future power outages, and just what they might do to certain cyborgs, a bit seriously, the tan-skinned soldier wasn't quite sure what this particular tracking method would do in the long run. Particularly when Simmons let it slip after placing one of the last of the devices that the odds were good that even if the fluctuations repeated, which Grif really hoped they didn't, they likely wouldn't pinpoint exactly what was happening.
"You're fucking kidding me," the chubby man's exasperation was evident with his long-suffering sigh, "Then why bother setting them up at all?"
It seemed like a whole lot of wasted work. Grif was someone who didn't even like productive work all that much. Or at all, really.
Simmons sighed himself, his voice sounding both weary and as if he was patiently trying to explain something to a child, "Because hopefully we'll at least be able to use them to locate the source of the trouble or find some kind of pattern." His eyes took on a serious look a second later, "Both Kimball and Doyle were concerned enough to ask about the fluctuations, so anything that helps to give some peace of mind is a good thing."
Grif supposed he really couldn't argue much with that point, so he regarded Simmons carefully for a moment before sighing once more before muttering under his breath, "I'm really hoping this will turn out to be a giant waste of time."
Thanks to his stupid enhanced hearing, however, Simmons heard him anyways. The cyborg frowned as he berated Grif: "You just don't want to do any more work than you have to."
Maybe that would have been true any other time for the lazier member of their team, but since it wasn't true in this particular instance Grif bristled, "I'd rather just not have to worry over something else happening, Simmons."
"It's better to be prepared than just hoping nothing major comes around, Grif!" Simmons shouted back.
There was a loud clanging noise as Carolina finished attaching the last device to a nearby public terminal and closed the control panel. Grif and Simmons' bickering stopped in just under two seconds flat as she cleared her throat to further gain their attention.
"Simmons, since you're more the electronics expert you're in charge of checking the readings later." She informed the skinny man before turning to the slightly older one standing next to him, "Grif, since you're so concerned about hoping this past blackout was a fluke you'll help him out."
"Understood." Simmons agreed rather readily.
"Ugh. Fine. If I have to." Grif mumbled, less enthusiastically.
Knowing the nerd like he did, Simmons was probably figuring he could check the readings by himself during those early morning runs of his that he was rather hush about. The redhead probably assumed that Grif wouldn't be up then to bother or distract him, and that the genetically engineered man had only agreed to Carolina's order so that he could avoid the former Freelancer beating the crap out of him. The joke was on the cyborg since Grif could already see the wheels turning in the other man's head.
Even though he was less than excited about getting up earlier than one in the afternoon on non-work days or about doing more work, his concern over the fluctuations and especially over what they had done to Simmons had made his agreement genuine. When all was said and done, the kiss-ass would just have to deal with Grif tagging along to keep an eye on things.
"Are you truly that concerned by such a brief power outage from the night before?" All three started at the sound of a familiar, gravelly voice as they turned around in unison to see Locus standing behind them.
The mercenary was staring in a manner that seemed both disinterested and assessing all at once. His dark eyes rested on the spot where the equipment they had just put into the terminal rested now behind the metal plating as he continued to speak before any of them could respond to the question, "I suppose I can understand that given how important power is to a settlement like this." Locus paused for only a moment before adding, "I certainly hope that no one else has experienced difficulties as a result of it."
He regarded Simmons pointedly just then, lingering on the telltale signs of his cybernetic enhancements. The look was not lost on the socially awkward Simmons, who flinched slightly under the scrutiny, or on Grif, who frowned and actually stepped in front of the other man protectively.
Nor was it lost on Carolina. Her frown deepened and she took a warning step towards the mercenary, "What did you mean by 'anyone else'?"
As if for the first time realizing how he might be coming across, Locus shook his head, "Nothing too terrible, I assure you." He told them matter-of-factly, "Only that we have a few cybernetically enhanced soldiers in our unit who were affected by the outage."
When he noticed the sudden concern lighting up their faces, he added, "It was not serious enough to warrant medical visits, but it had me concerned. I simply wanted to see if others had similar experiences."
The former Freelancer's frown somehow deepened even more at that bit of information, "I wasn't aware that your unit had any cyborg members." Carolina noted pointedly to him.
"Nor were we aware you had any in Chorus." Locus tilted his head slightly, "It didn't seem to be a topic worth bringing up, given the climate of the world now. Cybernetics are simply understood to exist. Would it shock you to know we have genetically engineered soldiers as well?"
Locus' pointed stare turned to Grif then, causing the chubby man to flinch and Simmons to step a bit closer to him. How did Locus know or even suspect? It wasn't like Grif wore a sign around his neck, and he went out of his way to not showcase his odd trait too openly. Carolina glared at the all too obvious indication as well, pondering the mercenary's words.
"If it would make you and the others here at Chorus more at ease with our continued presence here," Locus spoke up before any questions could be asked of him, "An information exchange could be done. Information on our soldiers for information on the soldiers of Chorus, so everyone knows exactly what and who they are dealing with."
Grif and Simmons exchanged glances with one another before looking over towards Carolina to see her response to the proposal.
"Medical records would be helpful," she finally said at length, "But I'm fairly certain the only information you'll be given access to currently is a fairly standard database that requires administrative permission first." Carolina sighed, "I'll pass your suggestion on to our leaders, along with my own opinion. If you want to speed up the process, you should bring it up to them yourselves."
Locus stared at her. It was fairly obvious that the woman's personal recommendation would be for the mercenaries to not be given any intel but, even still, he nodded slightly in her direction, "Thank you for the advice."
With that, he was gone as quietly and as quickly as he had snuck up on them. Creepy as fuck. Grif let out a breath he hadn't know he had been holding until just then, Simmons shuddering close by.
Carolina let out a loud sigh before turning to the two of them, "Tell me that Sarge has the holographic training room up and running."
The aforementioned room was located in the basement of the warehouse. It was one of Grif's least favorite areas on Chorus, mostly due to Sarge's penchant for using "Holo-Grifs" as target practice.
Simmons, ever the know-it-all, nodded in response, "I—I think so."
Carolina looked relieved, "Good. I'll have to talk to Doyle and Kimball about this. Odds are good I'll want to shoot at something later. Or kick things." Before either of them could respond, the redhead smiled slightly, "Thanks for helping me out with this, guys." She stated before waving as she trudged off.
An uncomfortable silence descended upon the two men left in Carolina's wake. It was finally broken with an awkward fidget from the cyborg as he glanced towards Grif's direction.
"You know that I'm still mad at you for telling Doctor Grey, right?" Simmons asked.
Grif raised a black eyebrow in challenge, "You know I'm still annoyed at you for being so stubborn about the whole thing in the first place, right?"
The two glared at one another before sighing, the subject suddenly "over with" for the moment in their minds. Putting stuff on the backburner was how they tended to deal with all serious matters. Despite that, Grif was still oddly anxious about the blackout, but Simmons didn't seem to catch on as he was instead looking thoughtfully at where the last device had been placed.
"You really think all of this will be necessary?" Grif asked instead of voicing anymore of his concerns about Simmons' health.
"It seems like it was probably some kind of fluke," the redhead admitted at length, "But it's better to be safe than sorry."
Grif bit down on the desire to argue that point, especially since a certain someone had gotten mad at him earlier for doing just that, instead deciding to rub his stomach and whine: "You know, all of this impromptu work has really made me hungry."
"You're always hungry, fat-ass." Simmons rolled his eyes at the complaint.
"Worrying and getting upset only makes it worse." The tan-skinned man groaned, "Ugh, I'm dying!"
"I'm sure there is still some food left over at the warehouse. Come on." Simmons finally acquiesced, turning to head back.
Following that, they walked back in the direction of the warehouse in relative, more-or-less comfortable silence.
Grif glanced over at Simmons, and decided to take a chance and break it by stating quietly, "You know, I'm feeling a lot better now."
"Th—that's good, Grif." Simmons turned slightly red and didn't look him in the eye, no doubt trying to avoid thinking of just why that was.
The reaction (was it from embarrassment or something more?) had Grif staring at the cyborg for a long moment before he worked up the nerve to get to the matter at hand: "Seeing as how that's the case now, we should go out for our night on the town sooner rather than later."
That caused Simmons to pause and stare at him questioningly, "Wh—what?"
Grif shrugged indifferently before grinning slightly, "Well, Cass did promise you a discount on drinks, and you're such a good buddy I know that you'll let me sponge off of that!"
"It…it will have to depend on how things go at work and with retrievals." The pale man mumbled, somehow even more awkward and red-faced than he had been before.
Grif reached out to grab Simmons by the shoulder in order to halt him and get the redhead to look over at him, surprising both himself and Simmons in the process. A familiar hot tingle worked its way through his body at the contact, and he dropped his hand before his legs became noticeably more wobbly to either of them.
"Could you just consider not taking too long to decide again?" Grif asked, "Because otherwise things are likely to go the same way again."
Frowning slightly at the notion, Simmons finally nodded his head slightly. His tomato-red face was once again turned away just then, so the cyborg failed to see the grin that was plastered onto Grif's face.
Once they had headed back inside Chorus after their rather uneventful training exercise to give their reports, the lieutenants were all rather surprised when Agent Washington had decided that they had performed their task well enough to be given the rest of the day off.
Even Captain Tucker, who was with the former Freelancer at the time for some reason neither man went into, was so shocked by the blond's order that he nearly dragged the older man to the clinic to see if he was truly feeling okay.
After shooting an annoyed look towards the overly joking and amused Tucker's direction, Washington had gone on to quickly explain that his decision had more to do with giving the rookies some free time to chat amongst themselves in order to build up a rapport.
Personally, Bitters thought that the whole team-building endeavor was pointless, so he sat in the park nearby with the others while not really joining in on their chatter. He almost wondered if this was some sort of punishment, but the rest of the group seemed to honestly be enjoying themselves so that was probably more just him.
"I'm telling you, the way they've set up the warehouse now is really fucking awesome!" Kaikaina was talking loudly about the captains' usual place of business in Chorus, "You guys should really come and check it out more often! My big bro and the others can be fun to hang around with, even the lame and old ones."
"It is a rather fun place to help out at." Andersmith, who probably spent as much time at the warehouse as Kaikaina did due to his bond with Captain Caboose, agreed with her sentiment.
"I do like working on the salvaged vehicles there, even if they don't let me drive them." Jensen remarked, smiling slightly.
"Probably a good thing." Volleyball commented, poking her sister slightly in the side, "Remember when we stole that ground transport from those bandits?"
"I swear that ditch wasn't there when I'd looked earlier!" The other girl countered, embarrassed.
"Maybe having your eyes closed wasn't the best idea?" The blonde teased back.
"Oh, so you do that too?" Palomo asked, grinning, "I do that when I'm firing my gun sometimes. Captain Tucker and Agent Washington hate it."
"But you wonder why no one wants to stand next to you during target practice." Bitters mumbled under his breath.
There was only a momentary pause of surprise from both himself and the others at Bitters deciding to interject himself into the conversation before the group just rolled with it.
"W—well to be fair, they were shooting at us." Matthews said in defense of his sister.
"Yeah, I wasn't as good under pressure back then." Jensen nodded her head vigorously in agreement.
That made Bitters wonder just what her excuse was now since she still was a terrible driver, but he at least knew wisely enough of personal relations to keep a lid on that thought currently.
In a way, the flow of conversation was helping him learn small tidbits of information about his teammates without having to actively ask himself, so he supposed that was in its favor. For instance, if for some reason he needed to find Andersmith or Kai when they weren't training, the odds were good that both of them would be at the warehouse or nearby that location.
Jensen often went to that area too to tinker on mechanical gadgets. Palomo, surprisingly, was helping to feed a colony of feral cats that had taken up residence within the city's walls near the warehouse's location.
Volleyball was actually spending her spare time there with Kai to research rudimentary first aid skills, while Matthews helped out either Captain Grif, Captain Simmons, or Jensen if they were at the warehouse. The auburn-haired rookie definitely fit the very definition of a "suck-up".
Apparently Andersmith also had a bit of a crush on a bartender that a lot of the others would joke with him about, much to the older lieutenant's chagrin.
The genetically engineered lieutenant was so busy listening to the conversation going on around him in order to pick up information on his teammates that he didn't even realize Palomo was both talking and looking directly at him for a few seconds. Bitters blinked, taken aback by the sudden attention, "What?"
"Well, what about you?" Palomo repeated, his grin splitting his face from ear-to-ear, "Any stories from before you got here that you'd like to share? Or do you want to tell us what you do in your spare time?"
Bitters was honestly shocked that it seemed like the rookies were genuinely interested in learning about him given how much of an ass he had been to them. The eager regard they were giving him now made him feel oddly self-conscious, but he managed to mumble out: "There isn't really too much to tell. I'd been created for a mercenary unit. I was meant to be disposable, but the war ended before that happened so I made my way here."
An uncomfortable silence fell on the group then, and Bitters felt oddly compelled to fill it. "As for what I do in my spare time," he shrugged, "I mostly just sleep, get food, and check on equipment. Really boring shit."
The conversation seemed to start up again with that bit of defusing. While Bitters wouldn't admit it out loud, he was somewhat glad that he hadn't irreparably destroyed the somewhat calm atmosphere permeating their park outing.
The park wasn't a spot he had visited too much while in Chorus, but it was peaceful. He could almost understand why so much effort had been made to maintain it despite, from a function stance, it arguably had no practical reasons to exist.
The rookie with the multi-colored hair pretty much figured his part of the conversation was over, so he went back to only absentmindedly listening. That is, until a sandwich was thrust directly in front of his face as Jensen smiled slightly, her braces gleaming in the sun, "Andersmith made them for all of us."
Wow. It looked like the older man was trying to win the group's Team Dad role or something. He awkwardly took the ham and cheese with lettuce sandwich from the younger girl, giving a slight nod of thanks towards both her and Andersmith, who was watching the exchange with what seemed like quiet satisfaction in his brown eyes.
Jensen's smile widened a fraction before she took her leave, and Bitters bit into the food hesitantly. Not bad. He'd definitely had worse growing up, that was for sure.
Absentmindedly chewing his bite, he didn't even notice Matthews sitting down next to him with his own half-eaten morsel of lunch. The glasses-wearing rookie glanced at him before awkwardly remarking, "Andersmith's a good cook, huh?"
Bitters shrugged, "It's just a sandwich, Matthews," he told him, but upon seeing how the auburn-haired lieutenant's shoulders slumped, he coughed around another bite, "But it's not bad. Eating with you guys isn't as much of a pain in the ass as I thought it would be."
Matthews smiled. Despite himself, Bitters found he was starting to do the same in response, until he caught sight of the mercenaries and completely lost his appetite. The Chorus newcomers were hanging out at the park as well.
They seemed to be minding their own business, but every so often they would pause in conversation with their eyes going straight towards the chattering group of lieutenants. He had seen those eyes before and had hated them then just as much as he did now.
Hard, cold, assessing eyes that had only ever viewed him as a thing.
He shuddered and stood up, putting his sandwich into Matthews' hands before the other could ask him what was wrong. "I'm not feeling too great." Bitters said quickly in response to the question looming across the younger man's features, "You can have the rest of mine. You're too scrawny as it is."
Matthews noticed his gaze just then and frowned, "I—is it because of them?" He asked, voice quiet, "Do…do they remind you of your former unit?"
He was concerned and Bitters didn't have the heart to snap at him to mind his own business given that. If anything, the lieutenant in orange-trimmed armor was oddly touched.
"I don't know yet," he responded instead, "But I've got to go do something."
With that, the genetically engineered rookie left before Matthews or any of the others had time to really react. As he moved past them, he felt the mercenaries' eyes following him before once again turning to stare at his team. Bitters wasn't entirely sure why he felt as horribly apprehensive as he did just then.
Hours later, Leonard Church was still hanging around the warehouse and, no, it wasn't because he had no friends outside of it like Tucker used to joke. It wasn't his fault there were so many annoying idiots out there! Honestly, the reason for his continued presence was just that the dark-haired man was still annoyed with Carolina's overprotective big sister routine. Usually, working on his warehouse assignments helped Church power through life's major upsets.
Right now, he was gripping the tool in his hand as painfully tight as he was gritting his teeth while remembering how, when Tex had first left, Carolina and the others used to take turns making sure he ate something or had a break. Of course, such reminiscing had him also thinking of said black-clad Freelancer. Which, in turn, made him even more upset given how his and his sister's last conversation had played out.
Of course, there was the whole unsettling matter of Felix's impromptu tour visit as well. Thank fuck the mercenary had already left so Church wouldn't have to worry about upsetting Carolina even more. That along with the power outage, which both Sheila and Lopez were still discussing over by the brown-armored robot's workbench in low voices with their helmeted heads huddled close together, weighed heavier on Church's mind than he'd ever like to admit.
He sighed out loud, thinking of these matters as several unpleasant ones that he would just as soon forget but was constantly forced to be reminded of all the same because life sucked.
"Church!" He nearly jumped out of his skin at Caboose's sudden exclamation from beside him, the younger man suddenly invading his space.
"Goddamn it, Caboose! What have I told you about sneaking up on people like that?"
From the blank look plastered on Caboose's face, it was apparent that the blond had no recollection of any such past conversation, "That if I did it well I'd get a pony?"
"No pony," Church raised a dark eyebrow, "And where the fuck did you even get that from, anyways?"
On second thought, the cybernetically enhanced man probably really didn't want to know Caboose's thought process as he was fairly certain it would be all sorts of brain-breaking. He had dealt with enough headaches earlier already, so Church sighed and decided to ask upon a topic he was sure he would most likely equally regret but was regardless curious about: "Where's Freckles?"
If he could help reunite the two if they were playing another "rousing" game of hide and seek, he figured he could get on with his life sooner rather than later. Besides, their hide and seek games weren't really too rousing. Caboose would leave Freckles somewhere, pretend to have not known where the gun was, and then get someone to help find him using "clever" clues like signs pointed in the general direction of where Freckles was shooting confetti at random intervals.
Hell, Church was almost looking forward to the mind-numbing break such an activity would provide, but he instantly regretted his choice of words when Caboose's face fell.
"The nice doctor lady and the red sergeant wanted to look him over due to how well he'd played dead before." Caboose informed him, looking for all the world like someone had just kicked his puppy.
"You mean during the power outage?" Church asked. He did recall that Sarge had wanted to examine the Virtual Intelligence inside of the gun too given what had happened before.
Caboose nodded before glancing over at where Sheila and Lopez were sitting across the room, "They…they were playing dead too."
Church sighed again, not liking the way his heart tugged at Caboose's voice given that he was so much better at just being constantly annoyed by people than actually caring about them, "I know, buddy."
"It was scary and sad." Caboose's voice was quieter than normal, more shocked and hurt, "I thought I'd lost more friends."
"Caboose…" Church trailed off as he debated touching the taller blond's shoulder or something though, since he was far from the comforting sort, his hand hung awkwardly in the air instead.
He dropped it when Caboose looked up at him, scared and earnest as he asked: "You're feeling okay though. Right, Church?"
Church was taken aback and blinked, nearly admitting what had happened in the face of the young man's earnestness but stopping himself. Adding to Caboose's worry wouldn't help anything. In fact, it would probably just mean a larger headache for him than he'd had before. Instead, since he was feeling fine now anyways beyond the usual emotional bullshit, he went for reassurance instead, "Y—yeah, I'm doing great, buddy."
For a moment, he thought Caboose saw right through his forced smile, but he let out a sigh of relief when the blue-armored man relaxed somewhat. "That's good." Caboose grinned, "Next to Freckles, you're my very best friend!"
That was probably because he had been one of the first people to ever remotely tolerate the genetically engineered "reject." Church remembered how the two of them had first met, back when he had run away from everything and had just wanted to disappear. He had ended up stupidly trying to defend an annoying blond kid from some assholes who had wanted the kid's talking gun, only for that to have been proved pointless once Freckles had interjected himself into the fray. Consequently, Church had been stuck with Caboose ever since, even when Carolina and the others had tracked him down.
Church sighed inwardly again, deciding to try the comfort angle once more, "Besides, Freckles and the others are back to normal now too, you know?"
Caboose nodded and, just as it looked as though he were about to envelope the dark-haired man in another bone-crushing hug judging by the grin on his face, Church found just then that he was never more relieved for Franklin Delano Donut's penchant for surprise pop-ins.
"He's right, Caboose! Freckles and the others are going to be just fine," the pink-armored soldier exclaimed happily, "In fact, we should have a party soon to celebrate and to blow off some steam! What do you say?"
Donut always found an opportunity to turn stressful events more positive. For once, Church was actually more relieved than annoyed by that ability of his.
"I like parties. So does Freckles," Caboose nodded his head enthusiastically at the idea, "Especially if there's ice cream."
"You bet!" Donut was practically grinning from ear-to-ear.
Church wondered if Carolina would have the patience this time around to accept the invite that both Donut and Caboose would no doubt be sending her way. He figured he possibly owed the redhead an apology, though he wondered if he would get one from her too given her legendary stubbornness.
Briefly, his mind flashed to Tex as well. The cybernetically enhanced man couldn't help but wonder what she would do in this situation. He imagined she'd probably be more amused but disinterested. Church sighed once again in frustration at his brain for once more going down that line of thinking.
"You know what?" Church said to Donut, shrugging, "Why the fuck not?"
Caboose and Donut seemed happy enough at the idea, so if the others felt the same? Well, he would never admit it out loud, but the dark-haired man secretly hoped that, if nothing else, a dumb-as-shit party would help his friends feel better.
Given the situation they were in, waiting without any contact for quite some time was not only boring, but also just a tad worrisome. Four Seven Niner sat in the chair her body could no longer leave, tapping her fingers on the panel in front of her while debating with herself about opening up the comm-link on her end to inquire about what was going on.
True, this had started out as a stealth mission and Tex was pretty good at dealing with just about anything, but their allotted time limit was nearly up.
For not the first time, the pilot wondered if agreeing to help the other woman's investigations was a smart move on her part or just another delaying tactic: something to keep herself from dwelling on her injury, or to keep herself from possibly fucking up a good friendship by bringing up feelings when the other person was still grieving and in no position to process them.
She couldn't help but smile ruefully at that past thought in particular. As if she hadn't fucked things up in that department by helping Tex to begin with, though it was for a fairly good cause given what these scumbags were still doing even after the war.
Just as the tan-skinned woman's finger loomed dangerously close to the comm button, the door to the transport opened and Tex strode in, unceremoniously dropping a severed mech head onto the floor.
"What have I told you about leaving a mess on my ship?" Niner let out a weary sigh and gave a glare that could still make people quake in their boots.
Tex shrugged indifferently, "I'll clean it later," she promised before adding a second afterwards, "Isn't it more important that the mission was a success?"
"Depends on the intel," the pilot remarked, shaking her head, "And, no. Not really." Even though her personal life might currently be in shambles, she could take pride in making sure that her ship would always be pristine.
"I found out a bit more about the main facilities these people are coming from." Tex motioned to the droid's head, "I say we plug this sucker in and get the coordinates it has uploaded. Then we can send out the invites to have a party of our own with the big shots."
"I do love parties." Niner mumbled under her breath.
"Wouldn't want to keep you waiting then. Think we can get to them before nightfall?" Tex plugged the mech's head into the control panel next to Four Seven Niner before she began cleaning up the mess she had left on the floor. Even the scary-as-hell redhead knew better by now than to test the pilot's patience when it came to the condition of her air transport.
"The coordinates should take only a few minutes to download, even with the heavy encryption they like to use." Niner scoffed, "As for getting us there before nightfall, are you forgetting who you're talking to?"
There was a loud ding before Tex could respond, signifying that the upload was complete. Niner barely glanced at the destination that suddenly came up on the control panel screen before she was once again at the controls, the transport humming to life all around them at the steady press of the pilot's fingertips.
"You might want to belt yourself in though." She advised her teammate for this venture, "I have a feeling this is going to be a super crash-y type of ride."
Niner could just picture the anticipatory smirk on Tex's face underneath her helmet.
Author's Notes: So, not only did we have some more Grimmons moments, but Caboose and Church had a friendship one. Lol, I think it is always going to be a recurring theme in my stories that at some point Donut will pop in to suggest a party! Andersmith is totally Team Dad of the lieutenants, and there were some slight plot revelations with the mercenaries too. Not to mention the introduction of Tex and Four Seven Niner into the mix, and who they are investigating is definitely very much connected to the Chorus plotline!
I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it! Thank you very much again for taking the time to read this story in the first place. :D