Liminal Lacuna

by Cyndi

Bowser discovers he has a dangerous heart condition that leads to heart attacks, and Junior makes an unlikely friend. This is a story about fatherhood and coming of age. (Prequel to Vicessitude)

4. Fourth

Music credit:

"interstellar" OST by Hans Zimmer, I'm just pretending Ludwig composed it.

.o

.o

It took Bowser a year of lengthy cogitation and collywobbles to work up the courage to dial his phone. He did it slowly with his thumb, speaking each illicit number out loud.

It rang. And rang…

…Peach picked up!

"Hello?"

Her gentle voice almost destroyed him. He longed to hang up and forget his whole plan.

But this call needed to be made. Junior's future depended on it.

No turning back now.

"Hi, Peach. No, no, no, don't hang up! I know it's early—"

"What do you want, Bowser?"

"An audience with you."

"Why?"

"I have stuff to say, and it's not something I can say over the phone. Look, I-I'll arrive any way you want to prove it's not a trick or a kidnapping."

"Anything?"

"Anything."

"Fine. Fly a white flag. Come alone. Show up at ten o'clock tomorrow morning."

"You got it."

"Good."

"You look beautiful."

"You can't see me."

"I don't need to."

"Bye, Bowser, I'm hanging up."

"See you to—"

Click.

"—morrow."

Bowser stared at the Koopa phone in his trembling hand. The nerve it took him to make that call had to break a world record somewhere.

Hot wind blew into his bedroom windows, disturbing the sconce flames above the paintings of his kids.

He rubbed both hands down his face. Sharp twinges shot through his jaw, shoulder and upper back, so he took one of his nitro pills.

One day from now, he would walk into his ultimate sacrifice. Something he both welcomed for Junior's sake and dreaded for his own.

His upper back spasmed again. Not the same kind of pain as before. He swiped his hand through his hair, yawning.

"Dad, is everything okay?" Junior appeared in his doorway, blinking sleepily. "I heard you talking."

"It's all fine. Just made an early morning phone call." Bowser grinned.

Junior was eleven now, and starting his growth spurt. Already, he grew a foot taller than last year. His arms and legs would look too long for him pretty soon— all Koopas destined to be tall had that awkward stage. The tip of the white bandana around his neck barely covered his chest.

And his hair, geez! He still wore it in a topknot most of the time, but now the longest bits dangled past the top of his shell.

Bowser gave up trying to make him cut it six months ago. It wasn't his hair, so it wasn't his call. Besides, it would make him look tough when his musculature filled out.

Glancing up again, Bowser swore he could pull up a photo of himself at that age and see no difference between him and his youngest son. Eleven years, really?

"Do you think Cherry is okay?" Junior asked.

Three days ago, Cherry came out of the bathroom smelling like blood the same way Peach did the last time Bowser kidnapped her. She wouldn't tell anybody what was wrong, just that she had to go home right away.

Bowser gestured at Junior. "Use your new phone to call her up and ask. That's why I got it for you."

"What if she yells at me?"

"What if she doesn't? Some girls like it when you show you care."

"Yeah, you never know which ones that is," muttered Junior. He yawned, turning to walk away. "I'll wait till eight. Don't wanna get her in trouble."

"Good call."

Bowser got up off his bed and trudged into the bathroom to take one of those ridiculous baby aspirin pills. When he looked in the mirror, he chuckled. Those gray hairs streaking near his horns began creeping into his eyebrow hairs. Here and there, he saw white.

Heh, I make fifty-one look damn good.

Crow's feet creased the outer corners of his eyes. Wrinkles marked the corners of his mouth. Rather than lament his visible aging, he grinned at it.

Koopas with stage four Crash rarely lived past forty five. Every year was a middle finger at death.

He licked his thumbs, wiped them over his eyebrows to smooth them and combed his hair into some order. Reddish-orange strands clung to the teeth of the comb.

That dropped the smile off his face. Hair loss already?

Bowser worked the comb more carefully, following it with a pass of his hand. At least the thinning wasn't obvious yet.

He went straight into his music room to tinker on the piano. The song he wrote for Peach wouldn't be finished by tomorrow. That was okay, he had time and a plan.

.o

Junior's eyes lit up when Cherry picked up her phone.

"Cherry! It's Junior, hi."

"Hi!" She sounded cheerier than two days ago. "Your dad let you call?"

"He doesn't care who I call. Are you okay?"

"What do you mean?"

"You left a couple days ago and you smelled like blood. Did you get hurt?"

"Oh…um, no." She shuffled her phone around. "Mom explained why that happened. It's okay. It's nothing bad, but it's going to happen every month."

"Really?" Junior walked circles around the living room. "Can't you um, ah, put a bandaid on it so it doesn't mess up your clothes?"

She laughed, "I kind of do!"

"That's good! Does it hurt?"

"Uh, only for a little while. It's okay though. Can I come over today?"

He almost crashed into the couch. "Do you feel okay enough to play video games?"

"Sure! I can run around and stuff, too."

"Oh, really?" Junior's eyes darted around as he thought fast. "How about racing Karts?"

"Cool, I'm game. See you in an hour?" There was a smile in her voice.

He grinned. "You bet."

As soon as he hung up, he headed upstairs and knocked on the music room door.

The piano stopped.

"Dad?" Junior peeked in.

"What's up, kiddo?" Bowser turned on the piano bench to face him.

"Cherry's okay. She's coming over and we're going to race Karts later. The blood thing is no big deal."

"Oh…okay. Cool." Bowser massaged the back of his neck. "Hey, check this out."

He tried out his ballad about Peach. It wasn't complete yet, and it was beyond mushy, but Junior enjoyed listening to his dad sing.

.o

Brimstone scents permeated the air.

Bowser, sans his shell and spiked bands, went downstairs to the subterranean hot mud pits underneath the castle. The mud was enriched with minerals that pulled dead tissue off scales, strengthened plastron and smoothed out horns and claws.

He dunked all the way under, wiped the goop off his eyes and nose and laid back with his arms spread on the sculpted stone lip of the mud pit. The clay-like mud turned his whole body bluish-gray and its heat sank pleasantly into his scales.

Once the mud dried on his upper body, he climbed out to sit on the side to let his lower half dry. Then he stepped carefully into a bubbling jacuzzi tub. He scrubbed every bit of mud off with a wire brush until the swirling, bubbling water looked like the late night sky.

Then it was another long trip back upstairs to take a full shower and oil his scales. Scale oil came in a metal jar. It fed vitamins directly to the keratin in Koopa scales and gave them a glossy, iridescent sheen. As a bonus, it left behind a faint brassy scent that paired nicely with a Koopa's natural musk.

Bowser licked some off his fingers. It tasted bitter since it used the same ingredients to make beer, albeit mixed a little differently and unfermented.

He flexed his muscles in front of the mirror while the oil glistened on his body. His belly stuck out, but his biceps and triceps bulged as he twisted his arms.

Not bad for my age.

Bowser grinned at his reflection. He wanted to look his absolute best tomorrow, so he prepared as if he would for his wedding.

Just…no fancy tuxedo or wedding bells.

Somewhere outside, Kart motors roared. He opened his phone and watched Junior race Cherry via the many cameras planted throughout the castle grounds. They were on the shallowest track that wrapped around the basement level. Junior's hair blew sideways over his left shoulder as he drifted around the sharp corner with Cherry almost on his tail.

It's for him. It's all for him.

.o

Bowser slept fitfully, waking twice to take nitro pills.

At dawn, he rose from bed, gelled his hair into a neat quiff, ran his hands over his smooth scales to ensure all the oil seeped in and checked himself out in the mirror one more time.

Once he donned his spiked bands again, he looked like the king he knew he was.

"This is for Junior," Bowser whispered, wringing his hands.

That didn't stop the lump in his throat. He took out the scintillating Koopa shell ring, looked at it in its black velvet box and closed the lid with quiet finality. Like closing the casket on a dream. For Junior's future to live, his dream had to die.

He smiled at his reflection, but his eyes bled sadness. Maybe Peach wouldn't notice.

Breakfast was a bowl of ash oatmeal. Something unlikely to upset his already nervous stomach. Eating eased his nerves a little, but he didn't taste much of it.

He went upstairs at eight thirty to find Junior still asleep in bed. Rather than wake him up, he bent and kissed the top of his head.

Junior was the reason. Junior made this worth it. Bowser had a hard time regretting his decision when he saw his son's sleeping face.

An hour later, his Koopa Clown Car crossed into Mushroom Kingdom airspace. A white banner dangled off a long rod in the back that kept it from tangling up in the propeller mechanism. People could see it a mile away.

For thirty minutes, he flew. Flying slowly gave everyone a chance to see the white banner.

He did not look at, breathe fire or taunt the curious people below. His russet eyes stayed focused on Peach's white and pink castle sitting atop a verdant hill.

The sky was crystal clear, the sun shining diamond-white over the craggy gray mountains. It wasn't broiling hot or too frigid.

Such a beautiful day.

Peach stood on her drawbridge, arms crossed, waiting. Her hair was styled perfectly and her brilliant pink dress shone in the sun. What a stunning inamorata, she put the sky to shame.

Bowser landed at the end of the bridge. He popped the rod off the Koopa Clown Car and raised it aloft, letting the wind capture the white banner of surrender. It signaled to all that he wasn't here to fight or cause trouble.

He vaulted to the ground with a decisive thud and stole a glance at his own arm. The oil gave his scales a subtle iridescence.

"Queen Peach," Bowser held the rod vertically. "I come to you peacefully, as per our agreement."

Mario joined Peach outside. The plumber's dark hair and mustache had grays peppered throughout.

Peach said something quiet to him, and he nodded before going back inside. Just like that.

"Bowser," Peach gestured towards the main castle entrance, "Come, we'll speak inside."

Those pesky nerves jumped to life again. His head ached with tension.

Bowser followed her, carrying the rod and letting the white banner drag behind him like a parody of a wedding train. The tail end flopped over Mario's face inside the door. He pretended he didn't notice the sputtering plumber, even though the urge to turn around and smirk almost overwhelmed him. This wasn't the place to be a dickead for the sake of being a dickhead.

He handed the rod off to a nearby guard and kept his open hands in sight while they frisked him for weapons or traps. There weren't any, but he submitted anyway. Diplomacy, sometimes it called for being humble.

"He's clean," said the taller of the two guards.

"Thank you, Toadinson." Peach nodded. "We'll speak in private."

"Peach," Mario began.

"It's all right." She turned to Bowser, her golden hair shimmering in sunbeams coming through the windows above her.

Mario shot Bowser a distrustful frown and walked through one of the side doors with the guards. Now only the surveillance cameras bore witness.

Bowser followed Peach up the staircase to where her and Mario's gilded thrones framed a beautiful stained glass window.

Peach didn't sit on her throne. She turned instead, blue eyes going from hard anger to marginally softer curiosity.

"What's going on, Bowser? Is this some kind of trick?"

Play it smooth… Bowser inhaled a deep, silent breath.

"Nope. No tricks, Peach." He knelt to be eye level with her. "Peach, you know I love you."

Her shoulders squared, so he held his hands up in a defensive gesture.

"Hold on, I promise I'm not proposing. Just, uh…lemme get all this out first!" He winced as if he ate something sour, "Please?"

She lifted a finger and crossed her arms, silently cuing him to talk.

Bowser spread both of his hands and gazed into her eyes, his expression as soft as he would've looked at her during their wedding— had it happened.

"Sometimes, when you love somebody as much as I love you, it means you have to let them go."

Peach arched a sculpted brow. She didn't speak, letting him say what he needed to say.

He clasped both hands over his heart when his chest gave off a melancholy pang.

"It's with a heavy heart that I admit defeat. I won't be coming around here, trying to kidnap you or invade your kingdom anymore. My armies will guard your borders from invaders as they always have—"

"To ensure only you get to invade," Peach cut in for the first time.

"Yup." Bowser conceded with a sheepish grin, "You got me there. But that won't be happening anymore. I'm going to leave you alone."

She tilted her head, her arms uncrossing to fall at her sides. Her glacial expression warmed a fraction of a degree. His sincerity cracked her demeanor exactly how he hoped.

"Why?" Peach whispered.

Bowser lowered his hands onto his knee. His scales glistened in the sunlight coming through the windows.

He dropped his gaze, sighing. "I'm gettin' too old to keep doing this, Peach." Looking up at her again, he went on, "I have a heart defect that makes Koopas prone to heart attacks, and most who have it don't live as long as me. I already survived three heart attacks, and I might have more. I can't drop dead while Junior is still a kid. I'm doing this for him. It's time that I accepted you're a married woman and didn't choose me."

That disarmed her. She blinked, took a step back and clasped her hands together. Her visage became a phantasmagoria of confused wonder.

There were gray hairs in her bangs, visible only because the sun hit them just so. Their children were getting older, and they were getting older, too.

Bowser had been afraid of changing for so long. He built his life around Peach, and here he came to let it all go.

Looking at her sent another pang through his heart. He ducked his head again, his eyes welling over.

"Cherry and Junior get along so well," Peach murmured, rubbing her hands together.

"They do." Bowser managed a smile.

"Maybe they'll teach both our kingdoms something." She eased forward into the space she stepped out of before, hands still clasped in front of her stomach. "I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of them marrying, if it's done the right way. That means it's voluntary on both sides."

That wasn't something Bowser expected to hear. His mind wipe-rewound and ground to a halt. He focused on Peach's eyes, taking in their sincerity.

"We could unite our kingdoms."

They were words he meant to think, but he blurted them out.

"I wouldn't be opposed to that, either," she said.

"Peach…" The tears in Bowser's eyes dribbled onto his cheeks, leaving glimmering streaks.

"Mario and I both want Cherry to marry for love. She's a person, not a prize to win or a stepping stone to obtain property."

Peach studied his face, expression once again unreadable. "Other rulers brought their sons to meet Cherry, to see if friendship sparked, but Junior is the only one she wants to be around."

Inwardly, Bowser ran a victory lap. He smiled again, ducking his head once more.

"What does Mario think of this?"

"I won't say he's fond of the idea…but—" She flashed a brief smile— "I talked him into letting Cherry go play with Junior. They're children, we shouldn't teach them to hate each other."

He swallowed thickly, his heart pounding in his ears. "I want him to have what I couldn't. Isn't that what we all want for our kids?"

"Yes, it is." Peach dropped her gaze for the first time. "Hopefully, Junior won't make your mistakes, and Cherry won't make mine."

She inched closer, so close he breathed her peachy-wine perfume. Before he knew it, her arms were around his neck.

"In another life, another time, we could have been different. We might have had fun. But there wouldn't be a Junior or a Cherry. Maybe we weren't meant to happen because they are."

Bowser's nerves burned when she touched him, and it hurt so good. He didn't ask if there was ever a moment where she felt anything for him. The possibility of a resounding no would be too devastating to bear.

Sunlight glowed all around them. Dust motes floated through it like stars.

He dared return her embrace, keeping his hands clasped carefully on her back above her waist. She was so warm and tiny in his arms. Being able to hold her like this, just for this all-too-brief moment, meant more than a thousand daydreamed weddings.

His lower jaw trembled and his nostrils flared. He closed his eyes, listening to the rumble of his heart galloping in his ears.

"Peach…"

Peach brushed one of his tears away. "You looked like you needed this."

Bowser closed his mouth and held his breath so he wouldn't sob— that would look too pathetic. But she always had that effect on him. He loved her so much that it hurt.

Literally.

"I'm sorry," Bowser whispered, once he trusted himself not to break apart. Ooh, it tasted sour on his tongue to apologize for anything. "It's small and it sounds stupid after the things I put you through, but I mean it. I'm sorry, Peaches."

Peach's back tensed at those words, and for a moment he worried he blew it. Then her shoulders relaxed and she gave him a little squeeze.

"Sorry won't undo it."

"I know."

"If you want it to count, don't do it again."

"I won't. I swear it."

"I'm holding you to that, Bowser," she said.

He let go when her arms released him, afraid that any funny business would ruin the friable foundation they laid down here.

"So that's it then, huh?" Bowser uncurled to a standing position, rubbing his sore chest.

Love ached, but the pain meant it mattered.

Peach looked down and nodded, keeping her expression composed. Her royal face, he liked to call it, because she was so strategic about it.

Maybe he could break the ice a little. Just a little bit.

Bowser wiped his eyes and cleared his throat. "Listen, uh…I've got one last thing to give you, but it won't be ready until tomorrow."

"Oh?" She fixed her eyes on his.

"Mmhmm. A song. I wrote a song for you. I'll bring my keyboard and sing it tomorrow, and then I promise to get out of your hair."

He met her eyes and smiled wryly. "The least it'll do is entertain you."

"Your singing isn't half-bad. You could've made a career of it." Peach shrugged, her poker face finally breaking into a warm smile more exquisite than the golden sun shining on her.

Bowser chuckled, sniffling. He turned his head to surreptitiously wipe his nose on his knuckles. The ache in his chest became a sugary warmth, the contradiction of laughing and crying at the same time.

"I think you'll like it. Hell, I'll send Mario the sheet music. He can sing it for you whenever you want."

She scrunched her nose in the cute way that turned his heart over. "When should I expect this performance?"

"Noon." Bowser gave a sweeping bow. "I'll see you tomorrow, Peach."

"I have a lot to do tomorrow. Don't be late." Peach arched an eyebrow.

He grinned, all teeth and crinkled eyes, and started down the staircase.

Barefoot Cherry careened into the throne room with a hairbrush in one hand and a red hair tie in the other. She saw Bowser a second too late and skidded face-first into the side of his leg.

"Whoa!" Bowser caught her, stopping a tumble.

"Who the heck— oh!" Cherry smiled puckishly. "Hey, what're you doing here?"

The sun caught on her features. Six years ago, her nose practically overwhelmed her face. She grew into it, but it was destined to stay prominent and give her a distinct, stately profile.

"Oh, just some royal grownup business." Bowser glanced back at Peach before scooping Cherry up to sit on his forearm. "What kind of princessy trouble are you looking to get into, hm?"

Cherry giggled and whispered in his ear, "I don't know yet, but I'll figure it out."

He laughed, setting her down. "Then don't get into it. Cause it. Make sure the adults aren't watching first."

"Well, duh, that's the first rule of causing trouble!" With that, she bounded up the stairs. "Mom, can you please braid my hair? I just want one."

Peach held Bowser's gaze until Cherry pushed the brush at her. Then she took the brush and put order into her daughter's unkempt dark hair.

"You're a mess in the mornings, just like your dad," she said affectionately.

"Did you see his hair this morning?" Cherry giggled.

Bowser blew Peach a kiss and departed outside, hoping his little exchange with Cherry proved he harbored no ill intent. His hopes for the future ran as limitless as the infinite azure sky above.

"OOF!" Someone else ran into him at the door.

What is this? Crash into a Koopa day?

Too tall and gangly to be Mario, and the peppery handlebar mustache wasn't right either.

"Whaddya want, greenie?" Bowser scowled at Luigi.

Luigi backed up a step. "Nothin', just-a making sure you're not-a out to-a grab Peach again."

"Oh." Bowser smirked, reached down and twirled one of his claws through Luigi's perfect mustache, ruffling it up. "You won't have to worry about that anymore."

He tilted the nervous plumber's chin up with his claw tip. "I never said I wouldn't make your life suck, though, so don't tempt me."

Luigi's uptight scowl had him laughing all the way to his Koopa Clown Car.

Bowser watched the castle shrink as he took off into the morning light. He smiled when he saw Cherry jump the fence behind the hedge maze and run off into the mushroom forest.

.o

Gray pewter plates with crumbs on top, empty plastic cups, napkins and candy wrappers formed a trail along Junior's bedroom floor.

"Ow!" Junior winced at the pulling on his scalp. "What're you trying to do? Rip my hair off me?"

Cherry dragged his hairbrush through his long reddish-orange strands and went back to manipulating them through her fingers.

"Nope, I'm trying to see something."

"Like…?"

"If you can French braid Koopa hair."

"Uh…do I have enough to braid like yours?"

"That's what I'm finding out."

Cherry sitting on his slab of a bed while he crouched on the floor. She had to lean over his spiked shell to work on his hair.

Dim sunlight came through the window alongside his bed, most of it filtered out by the volcano smoke always rising from the crater above. Junior supplemented the light with the spiky pedestal lamp beside his door. The lampshade was shaped like an orange Spiny shell. There were elaborate stone sconces by the windows and door, but he didn't light them very often because they were a pain to put out.

"Why do they— ouch— call it French braiding?" He asked.

"Don't know." Cherry tugged. "But your hair is a bunch of different lengths, it makes it hard to braid."

He grimaced through another sharp pain. "I got it from my dad."

"Almost…there."

Finally, the incessant tugging ceased as Cherry tied off the end with a black hair band.

"Wow, all that hair compacts down super thin. Your braid looks like a rat tail!"

Junior laughed, looking at himself in his mirror. The braid almost concealed his hair from view! He rubbed his hand over the braid, curious about the weird tickling sensation along his scalp.

"I look bald!"

"Look this way." She gave him the handheld mirror from her backpack and spun his back to the mirror on his wall.

The braid reminded him of Lemmy's little ponytail.

"Hey, our hairstyles match in the back. Kind of."

"Yeah, isn't that cool?" She beamed. "It's my first time doing that. Do you like it?"

"It looks neat! Koopas braid their hair for fun now, but Koopas way back in history braided their hair before they went to war. My dad had some of his hair braided for his coronation a bazillion years ago."

Junior pulled a thick green book off his desk and flipped it open to show eighteen year old Bowser sitting on his throne with a lit torch in one hand and a bejeweled gold goblet in the other. His hair was a lot longer then, so he wore one rat-tail braid that draped over his shoulder with its gold clip dangling against his chest.

Bowser hadn't finished growing yet, so his shoulders weren't as broad as they were now.

"That's his blood in the goblet. They used to slice into our tails to get it, but now they use a needle. He used his breath to light the torch." Junior tapped the tip of his claw on the photo. "We vow to rule through the fire in our bellies and the blood in our veins when we take the throne."

He smiled proudly. "Dad cut his hair right after that and wore it like he does now ever since."

"That's so neat!" Cherry peered at the book. "Where's the crowning?"

"Here." Junior turned the page, where an old stooped-over Koopa Troopa was placing the spiked collar around Bowser's neck.

"The collar is super special. If he takes it off and tosses it around, nobody cares. If somebody else takes it off him like they had to when he had his heart problems, they treat it respectfully like it's a piece of his body. You get in trouble for disrespecting the royal collar."

"What kind of trouble?"

"Uh…I don't know, but it's bad."

The pedestal lamp flashed and went out. Cherry jumped with a gasp. She dropped the book and it slammed shut at her feet.

Junior picked up the book.

"Maybe that's a sign to go outside." Cherry eyed the lamp warily.

"Y-yeah." Junior turned the switch off and set the book on his desk next to his untouched schoolwork. "Wanna race Karts?"

"Sure, but I want to do the cool track with the red lights in the walls."

"Ooh, the deep one. You're on."

But first, they spent several minutes cleaning up the mess they made eating snacks. Junior threw their collected trash down the laundry chute.

Cherry laughed at him. "Junior!"

"What?"

"Don't you put linens down that thing?"

"The servants clean stuff up." Junior shrugged. "It's their job."

"Ugh, boys…" She shook her head. "Let's go race."

Bowser walked into the corridor as they clambered downstairs.

"Whoa! Runaway kids! Hey, Junior, what's up with the war hair?"

Junior stopped, patting his hair. "Cherry braided it."

"He cried," Cherry teased.

"I did not!" Junior crossed his arms. "But it hurt."

Bowser rubbed the braid. It felt weirder when somebody else touched it. "Heh, nice. Looks cool on you."

Cherry's phone buzzed. Luigi's photo and number popped up. She answered it on speaker. "Hello?"

"Cherry, you-a have to come-a home." Luigi said. No preamble.

"Uncle Luigi?"

"Come-a home."

"What's wrong?"

"I don't-a want to say-a it on the phone." His voice cracked. "The guards are-a looking everywhere for-a you-a. Come-a home."

Cherry's forehead wrinkled in confusion. Her eyes flicked between Junior and Bowser. "Can it wait?"

"No. Please."

"Fine, I'll be home soon."

"Don't take too-a long-a."

"I won't. Bye."

She pressed the red icon to end the call.

"That sounds serious." Bowser furrowed his brow.

"Sheesh, they're acting like somebody died." Cherry sneered and put her phone away. "I betcha I'm going to go home and find out dad got sick or mom broke a bone. They always panic when something happens to them."

She turned to Junior with a sigh. "I guess we don't get to race Karts today. Sorry."

Junior waved a hand, hoping it hid his sinking disappointment. "No big deal. If it's serious, you should go."

Bowser whacked his shoulder and made a walking gesture with two fingers.

Nodding, Junior said, "How about I go with you to your place?"

"They won't let you in this time, but it's worth a shot. I have to get my bag."

Cherry bounded up the steps and came back with her backpack slung over her shoulders.

"I don't know when I'll be back," Junior said to Bowser.

"Take your time. Call me if you need help." Bowser ushered them towards the gigantic front entrance.

"Junior! What's up?" Boom-Boom waved as he headed inside.

"Not a lot. I'm taking Cherry home." Junior waved back.

They hopped down the sharp black rocks towards the burbling the lava below. Giant fans under the castle roared, pulling away heat and fumes. The red warp pipe stuck up off a jagged boulder.

Cherry held Junior's hand when they dove in.

Toad guards crowded the woods on the other side. Several speckled heads turned as Junior and Cherry appeared on the green pipe.

"Princess!" One shouted.

Before Junior could blink, he was surrounded with spears pointed at his neck.

"Hey! Stop that!" Cherry clung to his hand. "Junior is my friend! Don't be mean! He's bringing me home!"

"Cherry!" Luigi's low voice called from afar.

"Over here!" She waved her free hand.

He pushed through the crowd of tiny Toads, their flecked caps barely higher than his chest. His face was flushed and his eyes tinged red, as if he cried recently.

"Uncle Luigi!" Cherry let go of Junior's hand to run into his arms.

Luigi hugged Cherry tight, resting his cheek on the top of her head. "Let's-a get back-a to-a the castle."

"What happened?"

Luigi wouldn't answer.

Junior noticed everyone looking at Cherry with pity and fear, the same faraway stare all his siblings had right after his dad's first heart attack.

Anxiety knotted his stomach. Something very, very bad happened here.

"Cherry!" He moved to follow.

Spears lunged at his face again, halting him.

"Ack!" Junior held his hands out. "I'm not here to cause trouble or—"

"Go home," said the head guard— at least Junior suspected such by his shiny armor and layered pauldrons. "This is a Toadstool family matter."

"She's my friend!"

"Go home!" The head guard barked at him.

Mario burst through the foliage and knelt next to Cherry and Luigi. They were too far away to hear, but Junior saw Mario shake his head and double forward.

Something happened to Peach.

Junior watched Cherry be led away by Mario, Luigi and a dozen Toads.

The general wouldn't let him follow them.

"She's my friend!" He protested once more.

"Go home! Last warning!" The general tapped the pointy end of the spear against Junior's plastron.

"Your stupid stick can't hurt me!"

"It will if I stick it in your neck. Go. Home."

Growling, his stomach tight, Junior snatched the general's spear and snapped it like a twig. He leapt into the pipe before the guards advanced on him.

.o

"Maybe she got sick." Bowser said while helping Junior undo the braid Cherry wove into his hair.

Because saying things to ameliorate his own worries kept him from dwelling on them. The scene Junior described didn't sound like Peach contracted a stomach bug or bruised her knee.

Vivi brought their lunch to the dining area table. Meat pies, served in crusts shaped like Spiny shells.

After their meal, Bowser texted Boom-Boom to race Karts with Junior and keep him busy until dinner time. Then he summoned Lakitu.

"Find out what happened in the Mushroom Kingdom. I want any crumb of info you find."

Lakitu saluted and sped off in his cloud.

.o

Dinner came and went with no word. Junior was tucked away in his bedroom, reviewing his schoolwork. It only took a half hour of complaining for him to finally settle in.

Bowser laid into his piano, relishing in the raspy sound of his own voice booming off the walls.

"…at the end of the line, I'll make you mine! Ohh!"

His phone blipped, yanking him out of his creative groove. He almost had an ending for the song, too!

Grabbing his phone, he swiped to unlock it and found a text from Lakitu.

Returning with news.

Finally!

Bowser played a few chords, experimenting by inverting them or switching between major and minor keys, but the interruption gouged his focus. Nothing sounded good in his head or played aloud.

Lakitu flew his cloud straight through the window instead of using the door. He left his cloud at the windowsill and hopped to the floor, landing on his hands and knees.

When he looked up again, he trembled.

"Well?" Bowser twisted on the piano bench to look at him. "Spit it out."

"She's dead." Lakitu whispered. He cleared his throat and spoke louder, "Queen Peach Toadstool is dead."

The words struck Bowser, ricocheted in his brain and flew back out, unprocessed.

"She died?"

Lakitu nodded, still bent over on the floor.

Everything inside Bowser collided and recoiled. The shockwave of unreality roared in his ears.

"How?"

Trembling, Lakitu pulled a Manila folder out from under his shell. He took his phone out next, fiddled with it and put it away. "I bullied the coroner for a copy of the report, and I'm dropping you footage from the security camera that captured the incident."

Bowser's phone made a water dripping noise. He snatched the folder out of Lakitu's grasp. His eyes darkened, his innards still reeling with echoes of disbelief.

"Get out."

"Y-yes, your majesty! As you command!"

Lakitu scrambled onto his cloud and departed straight up.

Bowser faced forward again, setting the folder over his sheet music as he opened it. His russet eyes reflected the photocopied handwritten page he read.

Words like internal decapitation, transection of spinal cord at the C-1 level, cerebral contusion and subdural hematoma leapt out at him. He read it over and over, his heart squeezing in on itself at each reread.

The final note stabbed it home: No indication of foul play after review of surveillance video, cause of death is an accidental fall.

There were photos. Black and white because of being photocopied. Peach, lying on her back like a broken doll. She had her left arm wrapped across her body and the right bent underneath her waist. Her legs were straight— her feet in glossy pumps rested on the bottom step with her skirt and lacy underslip flaring like a flower around her exposed calves— and her head was bent at a sharp angle against the wall.

The worst was seeing her eyes stare upward and her mouth hanging open, her expression blank like a limp rubber mask. A look so grotesque didn't belong on such a beautiful visage.

That was Peach.

That was Peach.

Bowser realized he kept forgetting to breathe, so he sucked air through his mouth and blew it out his nose in thick gouts of smoke.

Dull weight planted itself in the pit of his stomach, a cold dread. He swallowed through the lump in his throat.

With shaking hands, he reached for his phone and opened the file Lakitu sent. There were two views— one looking down the staircase and another pointed up from the bottom. They were in color.

Give me strength. Bowser clenched his jaw.

He picked the top view first. The timestamp in the bottom corner indicated all this happened less than an hour after he left.

Mario handed Peach her pink teacup and a brown folder full of loose papers. They chatted animatedly at the bottom of the steps. Mario grinned, and Peach threw her head back in laughter.

She slipped her arm around him and kissed his nose. He lifted his chin to press his lips to hers. They exchanged a look of utter devotion.

Mario said something else. Peach nodded, indicating the stairs with her head. She pulled his red cap down over his eyes, making him smile again when he moved it. He walked out through the archway behind him, followed by the guards.

The changing of the guards, a brief window where certain areas were only guarded by the unblinking, forever watchful surveillance cameras.

Peach flipped the folder open as she ascended the stairs on the right side, her skirt billowing each time she lifted her knees. She stepped on the top step. Something faltered under her right foot, and a lot happened in a split second.

Her whole body went backwards. The back of her head hit the metal sconce behind her, knocking her gilded coronet off. Both her arms jerked to the left in a fencing response, so the impact concussed her enough to lose consciousness. The teacup and folder dropped out of her grasp at the same time she tipped backwards. She couldn't protect herself during the fall, so her head slammed violently against the stairs. Her limp frame slid the rest of the way down until her head crashed into the wall, bending her neck sideways.

A wounded sound erupted in Bowser's throat. He rested his thumb over Peach's lifeless image, as if to comfort her.

It took almost two minutes for Mario to walk into frame again. He faced the archway and screamed for help, and then he fell to his knees next to Peach. Another long minute went by. Several Toads appeared, one kneeling to feel Peach's neck for a pulse. He shook his head.

Mario threw his cap down and grabbed his hair with both hands, face contorted and red. Luigi scrambled to his side and his expression twisted. He grabbed Mario's shoulders, pulling him close in a hug. Mario gripped his shirt so tight a seam tore. The video ended with guards whisking them both away from the scene. Mario was still shouting and reaching for Peach while Luigi stumbled to hold him back.

The second video showed the broken stair tilting under her foot and offered a horrific view of her head bouncing off the steps. Her face went blank immediately. She died on that impact.

Bowser shoved the offensive folder and phone off the piano where they piled up on the floor. He set his fingertips on the keys and played.

"Peach. My beautiful…my Peach. This is for you…"

His song came easily to him. He sang like it erased what happened and put life back into her bones.

"Peaches, Peaches, Peaches-Peaches, Peaches! Peaches, Peaches, Peaches-Peaches, Peaches! I love you! Peaches! Peaches! Peach! PEACH!"

Bowser slammed his fists onto the ivory keys and screamed her name at the ceiling. Discordant cacophony came from the piano like a death wail. His hands rose and smashed down again, claws cracking the keys apart. He pounded every single key until they crumbled.

Tears came fast and painfully, choking out all thought.

He hefted the piano over his head and hurled it at the opposite wall. Its legs snapped off as it shattered his cello into splinters and strings. He threw himself on the broken instruments, fists pounding and claws slashing.

Snot dribbled off his nose in long strings. Strands of spit clung to his chin. He panted, eyes wild.

The electric guitar became the next sacrifice. He swung it sideways, destroying the amp and drum set before breaking its neck over his knee in a shower of metal and microchips. Strings snapped with metallic twangs.

Something gold gleamed. The saxophone. He crushed the bell in his fist, flung it at the wall and punched his clarinet off its stand, breaking it in three pieces.

Looming emptiness pressed down on him from all directions.

He turned on the bookshelves next, flipping them onto the ground and overturning their contents.

Loose sheet music papers fluttered to the floor around him. Most had his handwriting on the pages.

Bowser crouched amid the broken ruin of his music room and sobbed, both hands clutching his aching chest. It wasn't fair. How could something like this happen? What cruel joke of fate allowed it?

"Peach!" He wailed.

The room was a war zone.

Somewhere in the piles of musical scores and papers describing Peach's death, his phone beeped repeatedly.

Bowser pushed a chunk of his busted piano aside to unearth it. Miraculously, it wasn't damaged. His kids were blowing it up with news of Peach's untimely demise.

Rather than answer them individually, he sent a mass-text of two words.

I know.

Then he switched his phone off and looked at the maelstrom he wrought. The score he wrote for Peach lay on top of a crushed snare drum.

Bowser tore it apart and threw the confetti bits out the window where they fluttered onto the lava below. Each jagged piece vanished in puffs of flame.

He would never make music again.

.o

Junior ignored the distant banging. It wasn't uncommon for his dad to rearrange the music room as part of his creative music making process.

He just completed his ultra-boring fractions worksheet when claws rapped on his closed door.

"Yeah? Come in!"

Bowser stepped through the door, padded across the room and sat on his bed. His voice was thick and watery when he said, "Junior, come sit."

There was no emotion when he spoke, just the flat words.

Junior twisted to find his dad's snout flushed and his nose running, the face of a Koopa who recently cried.

"Dad?" He sat next to him.

Sniffing, Bowser cleared his throat and wiped his knuckle across his nose to clear away the snot.

"Something really bad happened, Junior." His eyes were glassy, overflowing.

Fear wrapped icy fingers around Junior's throat. "Are you having another heart attack?"

"Nope."

"Then what's wrong?"

Bowser's wet nostrils flared. His eyebrows tilted up.

"Peach fell down a staircase and broke her neck."

"What?" Junior gasped, "Is she okay?"

"No." Tears glistened on Bowser's cheeks. "She died."

"Mama Peach…" He couldn't comprehend it. "S-She died?"

Bowser nodded, grimacing and clapping a hand over his eyes.

"Did it hurt?"

"I don't think so." Bowser's voice cracked. His lower jaw trembled. "It happened really fast."

The ice in Junior's throat spun into heat. "Was it the stair that wiggled?"

"Mmhmm."

"Those jerks! They should've fixed it!" Junior smashed his fist against his palm. "Cherry almost fell on it last year, and it was broken long before that!"

He expected his words to incense Bowser, but no anger erupted.

Bowser's face twisted and his shoulders shook.

For the first time he could remember, Junior saw his dad cry. And that caused him to cry, too.

"Mama Peach!" He wailed.

Bowser extended a hand. Junior climbed into his lap. He remembered, vividly, what Peach said about how tough people cry and then carry on afterward.

Now he understood.

"Dad," Junior sobbed.

Bowser held him tight against his heaving chest.

They clung to each other and their tears fell like rain.

Later, Junior tried to call Cherry. She wouldn't pick up, so he texted her a picture of stick figures hugging. Her reply was to send the same picture back.

.o

Heart attacks had shit timing.

Shooting pains in the left arm woke Bowser the morning of Peach's funeral. He took one of his nitro pills and a baby aspirin even though neither prevented this from happening.

Which coronary artery would it be this time? Bowser didn't know or care.

It took a long time for his past heart attacks to drop him. He wasn't short of breath or feeling that sinking sense of doom, so he told himself to power through the fatigue and see Neil after the funeral.

Breakfast was silent— he cooked the Bowser bacon himself and fed half of what he made to Junior. Not the healthiest thing to eat while having a heart attack, especially since his chest pains kept bothering him, but he didn't care.

Normally-chatty Junior sat silently, taking bites, chewing and swallowing without acknowledging what he put in his mouth. Bowser gave him orange juice to drink, because at least that had vitamins in it…or something. Junior accepted the glass and gulped it without looking at it.

This kid looks how I feel.

Bowser patted Junior's shell. "We should get going."

"Warp or fly?"

"Fly."

"Okay."

He didn't remember much of the trip over there, other than stopping at a flower shop at the border and buying every single red rose the scared elderly Toad had available. It was that old fart's lucky day, he got paid handsomely for his trouble.

The Koopa Clown Car propeller chopped the air. Bowser steered. Junior carried the enormous bouquet of red roses— a collection his arms barely fit around and worth thousands of coins. Red, the color for passion and love. The flowers were in varying stages between tender buds and huge blossoms the size of Bowser's hands.

Peach deserved a bigger bouquet, but the florist ran out of red roses and Bowser didn't want any other color.

At least the sky had the sense to be gloomy. A sunny, gorgeous day would've been an insult.

The Koopa Clown Car descended on the grass outside Peach's castle.

Bowser picked Junior up under the armpits and set him on the ground, taking the bouquet as he straightened.

Photographers crowded around outside the castle since they weren't allowed inside. All Toads, of course.

Bowser ushered Junior ahead of him and stuck up his middle finger at every single camera. Those photos wouldn't be profitable, and he didn't want pictures of his kid or his grief circulating.

"You weren't on the guest list," said the tiny guard inside the front entrance.

"Too bad," Bowser growled. "Don't make me step on you."

"Dad," Junior ran up to him, his eyes haunted, "It's a clear casket. You can see her."

Bowser nodded, grateful for the warning as he entered the great hall. A huge, colorful rosette window at the opposite end caught the gloomy daylight. Tall rectangular windows on either side depicted green vines and pink and white flowers and also let in natural light.

Normally, the main aisle had a pink runner, but that got switched out for black.

Peach's faceted, rectangular crystal casket was on the altar beneath the rosette window. Spotlights aimed at it to bring out the rainbow sparkles it gave off as someone approached. A table behind it held her crown, also illuminated by a separate spotlight.

Not a lot of people had arrived yet. Mario stood off to the side in a black suit and rumpled red cravat, his face like stone. Luigi wore a similar suit, albeit he chose a green apron tie. Cherry, wearing a plain dark purple dress and lacy black bolero, sat on the steps behind them, her head bowed.

Junior ran to sit by Cherry. He put his arm around her and she sobbed quietly with her hands cupped over her face.

Mario spotted Bowser. His shoulders sagged. Luigi shook his head and held out a hand in front of him.

"Just-a let him-a be," he whispered.

Bowser ascended the steps to reach the casket. The lining inside was white velvet embroidered with tiny pink flowers and it cradled Peach's body like a diaphanous cloud. Her gloved hands were folded delicately on her chest as if in prayer. He could almost imagine the mortician gently placing her hands that way.

They tried to make her look alive by caking thick matte makeup all over her face and neck, but it was a far cry from her lively, dewy complexion. The eyeshadow wasn't the right shade of light brown and her cheeks had too much rosy blush on them. Even her coral pink lipstick seemed wrong because it wasn't glossy. Her facial features looked flat like a limp mask sculpted to vaguely resemble her. At least her hair and pink dress were done right. If it weren't for them, she would've been unrecognizable.

Bowser's vision blurred at the sight of her. Even dead, she was so beautiful.

He backhanded the pitiful white wreath off the top of the casket, unwrapped his giant bouquet and heaped the red roses in its place. There were so many that they covered the entire lower half of the casket in a pile twelve inches thick.

"Peach," Bowser laid his hand on top and kissed the lid above her face. His tears dripped onto the perfect crystal. "Oh, Peach, my beautiful, beautiful Peach."

Seeing her sent knives through his heart. Was the pain physical or emotional? They blended together.

He closed his fists, laid his face against the cool lid and cried in earnest, unable to hold it back. It wasn't quiet or controlled. People saw and heard him.

He didn't care. He couldn't care.

"I love you," Bowser sniffled, kissing the lid again and caressing it with his fingertips as if smoothing her hair.

Fabric rustled. A gloved hand patted his shoulder. Bowser whipped his head around to look at who dared touch him.

Mario. Stone-faced, with dry eyes bleeding sympathy.

The pain in his chest knotted tighter, heating into fire.

"Don't touch me." Bowser shoved Mario's hand off him. He pointed an accusing finger at his face, his bass voice rising into a roar, "This is your fault! You knew that one top stair was broken! Everybody knew, and nobody fixed it!"

"Bowser!" Mario's eyes widened.

"Shut the fuck up, you worthless sack of shit! Peach is dead! I despise you! She married you, and you let her die!"

He snarled and stepped towards him, black smoke curling from his nostrils. "I should bathe her casket in your blood and send you into the ground with her. It's what you deserve, you pathetic whelp."

"Dad!" Junior rushed past Mario.

"Stay outta this!" Bowser barked, never taking his eyes off the plumber.

Mario's face reddened and his bottom lip quivered beneath his fluffy mustache. He looked at the casket as tears spilled out of his eyes. After a long moment, he grimaced, pressed a hand over his face and whimpered audibly.

Finally, a reaction.

"How-a dare you!" Mario exploded, his voice booming as loud as Bowser's. "Next to my-a wife's dead body? How-a dare you!"

A tug on the tail almost threw Bowser off-balance.

Cherry grabbed Mario. Luigi joined her. The tension in the air could choke off a volcanic eruption.

"Fuck you, Mario!" Bowser snarled, wiping his runny nose as he followed Junior to one of the front row pews.

"Stronzo!" Mario bawled, shaking his fist. "Figlio di puttana!"

Cherry and Luigi dragged Mario to the central pew. By then, Mario cried so loud he couldn't muffle it with his hands anymore. Luigi and Cherry piled on him, trying to comfort him.

But he cried pitifully, and that was what Bowser wanted.

People shot him wrathful looks. He gave them his nastiest scowl right back and vented black smoke between his teeth as a threat.

Ushers crowded around, keeping the murmuring crowd under control until the chaos quieted down.

Mario continued to cry audibly, his sobs muffled by Luigi hugging him tight. Luigi's eyes were puffy and red.

Cherry and Junior kept exchanging scared looks.

Bowser felt like someone dropped a brick behind his sternum. He hunched over, holding his chest. Being so angry exhausted him, and the additional nausea didn't help.

He noticed Junior stealing worried glances at him, so he stopped clutching his chest and sat up straight. At least he could pretend to listen.

The service was a blur. Toads believed in a deity they only referred to as Lord and God.

Koopas didn't believe in a supreme deity. The universe came to be because it wanted to exist, life came from the energy of its birth and the afterlife was the Great Beyond, a realm of endless light where consciousness went after leaving the dead body.

Bowser saw it for himself. He stood in it. There was no mortal experience comparable to what happened inside the light of Great Beyond.

A Toad in a long, trailing black robe gave a speech about a place called Heaven, which sounded a lot like the Great Beyond.

Maybe both were the same place.

Mario couldn't give a speech because he kept breaking down in tears. Luigi took his notecards up front and read them on his behalf instead.

Bowser glanced at Cherry, who sat far away with her eyes downcast. He draped his arm over Junior's shell and pulled him closer.

"Hey, how're you doing?"

"I'm okay." Junior looked up with tearful eyes.

"Listen," Bowser took a deep breath, "There's going to be a reception. Find Cherry and tell her she looks pretty."

"Why?"

"She feels bad, maybe it'll help her feel less bad. Show her you care, that's all."

Junior nodded, his gaze wandering to the front. "Mama Peach doesn't look real."

"Dead people don't. They put makeup on her so she looks almost alive. Without it, she'll look gray and blue and people don't like seeing that."

"Well, that's stupid!" Junior crossed his arms, keeping his voice to a whisper, "She's dead, the makeup won't bring her back."

"I know."

Bowser peeked at Peach lying still in her crystal coffin and his throat tightened up all over again. No, he couldn't bear looking, so he stared at his clawed feet.

Junior crawled into his lap and buried his head under his chin. Bowser wrapped his arms around him and held him.

"Dad?"

"Hm?"

"I'm gonna miss her too."

Bowser closed his eyes and kissed the top of his head.

He tuned out the rest of the tedious ceremony, all except for the Toad choir who surrounded Peach's coffin and sang a song about majesty and glory.

Tears skittered onto his cheeks. The song was the only thing he liked.

A blessing by the minister signaled the end of the ceremony.

Bowser set Junior on the pew and got up. He walked up front, grabbed the mic from the minister about to dismiss everybody and boomed into it.

"Peach was the love of my life, and I'll love her forever. She didn't deserve to die like this. She deserved better than this. Everybody here except Junior and Cherry are a bunch of piss-faced losers. Bite me."

With that, he slammed the mic down so hard it screeched feedback and stormed out. He held his head high, heedless of the tears streaming down his face.

Gold filigree caught his eye in the castle throne room. Peach's royal painting, where she looked alive and perfect instead of lifeless and flat.

Something that beautiful belonged in his castle, not this cesspit.

"Dad!" Junior's feet skidded on the glossy smooth floor.

Bowser held out a hand. "Nah-ah-ah! You're not leaving, I am."

"What're you— huh?" He blinked, brow furrowed.

"Go to the reception."

"Why aren't you?"

"I have to go see doctor Neil."

"It's another heart attack, isn't it?"

"Feels like it, yeah."

Junior rushed up to him and grabbed his hand, his face contorting. "I should go with you!"

"Nah. You'll be stuck sitting around waiting while I get all the tests done." Bowser struggled to keep the pain from straining his voice. This was serious now, but he didn't want Junior panicking. "Just go to the reception. I'll call you after Neil takes a look at me."

"You might fall over in cardiac arrest flying back home! You'll die, dad!"

"I won't. I promise not to." Bowser placed his hand on Junior's shoulder. "You can't do anything to help me, but you can help Cherry. Go help her. I'll be fine."

Junior's eyes welled over. He thrust a finger at Bowser's face, "I'm gonna hold you to those promises. You better be okay!"

With that, he went back into the main hall.

Bowser swiped Peach's painting off the wall, stepped deftly over the first Toad guard coming into accost him and ran for the exit.

Bad idea.

Very bad idea.

The second he got outside, his chest exploded with sharp pains radiating into his arms and jaw. He doubled over, wide-eyed and breathless. His heart galloped faster and faster.

Shit, I hope I make it home.

Photographers gathered like flies around a turd.

Bowser spat a stream of fire at them that cut off abruptly when he ran short of breath. He climbed into his Koopa Clown Car, growling menacingly over his shoulder.

Nausea tightened his throat as he started the engine. The propeller spun to life in a spluttering roar. He set Peach's painting next to his legs and sped off.

Halfway home, he stopped to throw up over the side. Cold sweat broke out all over his body, the same shaky sensation he got whenever bad food went through him. Except, no intestinal cramps or bubble guts. All the pain stayed centered like a fist crushing his chest.

"Not here! Not like this!" Bowser shouted. He bashed his fist against the rim of the Koopa Clown Car. Fear transformed into rage, and he roared, "Fuck this! Fuck Crash! Fuck dying! Fuck all this shit!"

The pain didn't get worse, but it wasn't calming down either.

He growled, pulled out his phone and called Neil while he flew.

.o

Funeral receptions were awkward. Junior looked around at all the solemn-faced people dressed in dark colors while having drab conversations. The refreshments table beside him displayed a bunch of little sandwiches, fruit, cheese and other finger foods arranged on mirrored silver platters. Every piece of furniture had black velvet draped over it, including the tables.

No meals, just snacks. Nothing looked homemade. They weren't eating Peach's ground-up organs to make her a part of them? What kind of funeral was this?

Junior tried one of the cheese dishes and found it too waxy. The little meat sandwiches were edible, at least, so he took the whole tray, hid under the tablecloth and gobbled them up.

Luigi's feet walked past the table. Mario joined him, trying to sound jolly and failing.

"How's-a Daisy?"

"Daisy sends-a her regards," Luigi kept his voice low. "She's-a still-a sick from losing the baby. It's-a as if she can-a get pregnant with them, but not-a carry them."

"Oh, Weeg, I'm so-a sorry."

Their feet moved off into the throng.

Junior crawled out to put the empty tray on the table and sipped the pink punch from the serving scoop. Similar to sweetened cactus tea, but more fruity.

Cherry came towards the table with her head bowed. She wore a long, sleeveless royal purple gown with a lacy black bolero and strappy black sandals. Her dark hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail.

"Hi," Junior said.

She looked over, blinking as if coming out of a daze. "Hi. Where's Bowser?"

"He left." He didn't say why, as though keeping the reason quiet guaranteed a better outcome.

"Oh."

"Are you okay?"

Cherry nodded, grabbing one of those weird toothpicks with fruit stuck to it and nibbling half-heartedly.

"This whole thing is stupid."

"Yeah, the food stinks."

"No, I mean—" She gestured around them— "this! It's not what mom was like. She liked fun things, bright colors and people telling nice stories. All everybody keeps talking about is how pretty she looked and how sad it is that she died. I'm trying to talk to them about happier things, and they tell me to hush. Ugh!"

"Ohh." Junior stole the fruit platter and beckoned Cherry to hide under the table with him. They sat there, nibbling. He made sure not to hog whole handfuls.

"Tell me a funny story about your mom? I'll listen."

Cherry put a toothpick back on the platter and hugged her knees. The sleeves of her bolero bunched up at her shoulders. A bright pink ribbon held up her ponytail. She must have put it on as a rebellion against the drab colors everybody else wore.

"She liked to play tricks on dad." Cherry rubbed her nose with her wrist. "One time…heh…she sewed a baby sized hat like dad's red one and told him somebody accidentally shrunk it in the laundry. I think she kept the gag going all day. Everybody was in on it. Me, uncle Luigi, auntie Daisy, and Toad. Then she left the real hat on his pillow for him to find when they went to bed."

Junior smiled, biting a grape off the toothpick. "Was he mad?"

"Nope, he laughed really hard. He got her back by giving her tea in every teacup except her pink one. He put her pink one on her pillow. She put her head on it while going to bed and had to turn the light back on to find out what happened."

Cherry sighed, dropping another empty toothpick on the platter. "Mom had a nice laugh. I'm going to miss that the most. And her hugs. She gave really good hugs."

"I remember," Junior whispered. "Back when my dad had his second heart attack— I came to see if you were grounded and she was sitting where you like to sit. I told her what happened. She hugged me so tight and told me being tough means you cry and then you carry on."

"Did you cry on her?"

He nodded.

Cherry's eyes welled over. "Mom gave me that talk too."

"She was super smart."

"Yeah." She wiped her face. "We should come out. Dad is going to come looking for me. Check if the coast is clear first?"

Junior lifted a corner of the tablecloth to peek out. Nobody was near the table or looking at it, so he beckoned Cherry to hurry. They scooted out together.

She snatched a plastic cup and filled it up with bright pink fruit punch.

"Hey, um…" Junior's face heated. "Been meaning to tell you, you look really pretty in that dress."

"What?"

"You're pretty."

"Seriously?" Cherry's eyes flashed. "Junior, what the heck? Now?"

He balked. "What? What'd I do?"

"Hmph!" She overturned her punch on him and stormed off, throwing down the plastic cup.

Mario caught sight of him and his upper lip tensed under his mustache. He crossed the room to scowl at Junior.

"Leave."

"What's the problem?" Junior held up his hands, "I'm just snacking!"

"Get-a out." He stepped closer. "Neither you nor-a Bowser are-a welcome here! Go."

"Hey! You can't—"

"And stay-a away from-a Cherry!"

"No way, you can't do that!"

"I'm the king, yes I can-a." Mario's normally jolly voice dropped an icy octave. "Don't expect-a her to-a visit anymore. If you show-a your-a face here, I'll get-a you thrown back-a out-a, got it?"

Toad guards caught sight of the confrontation and made their way over.

First, Peach, and now his best friend, too?

A lump welled in Junior's throat. His eyes overflowed.

"Fine!"

He flipped the punch bowl onto the food and bolted. In his haste, he went the wrong way, and found himself running through the hedge maze.

"Junior!" Cherry's voice called from afar. She crashed over one of the hedges, catching his arm. "I'm sorry I dumped my punch on you. That was stupid to do."

Toad guards rushed out into the hedge maze.

Junior shook her hand off. "I have to go."

"Junior!" Cherry snatched his hand again.

He jumped over the hedge with her, climbed down the steep hillside and they sprinted into the mushroom woods together.

"No!" Mario swung off a branch and landed on Junior's back, knocking him flat on his belly.

"Oof!" Junior pulled himself into his shell and spun him off.

"Dad!" Cherry cried, "Stop it! He's my friend!"

"He tried-a to-a take you!"

"No, I ran after him!" She sobbed, "Dad, please!"

"Take her home-a." Mario said to the guards, his voice frighteningly calm.

Junior emerged out of his shell and got up as the guards led Cherry away. She looked over her shoulder at him, her blue eyes glistening and her face blotchy red.

Mario stepped in the way, hands on his hips. Eyes identical in color to Cherry's bore into Junior like spears.

"I didn't grab her. She ran after me," Junior snapped. "We're best friends!"

"Not-a anymore." Mario widened his stance. "Get-a outta here, or I'll make-a you!"

Junior narrowed his eyes.

Mario pointed towards the woods.

"Last-a chance. Go."

"You can't make me!"

"Want to bet?" Mario sprang up and came down on Junior's head.

Junior retreated into his shell again. "Hey! Ow!"

Mario picked him up by the sides of his shell in a way that really, really hurt!

"Ow! Put me down, stop!"

An earth-shaking impact knocked all the Toad guards off their feet and stunned Mario where he stood.

"You! Don't come-a any closer!" Mario shouted at someone.

Junior shifted his head enough to see out the neck hole of his shell.

Black loomed at the end of the path, his face pinched in a frown and his bicep bulging as he bounced the handle of his sledgehammer threateningly against his muscular shoulder. He wore a thick dark green battle helmet instead of his thin light green medic helmet, so it had no writing or symbols on it. A strap across his shell held another sledgehammer on a thick loop.

"Back-a off!" Mario thrust his hand out.

Black bared his teeth and approached. His normally friendly face assumed such a frightening hard-eyed expression that even Junior wanted to shrink back from him. He jabbed a finger at Mario, pointed to the ground and bounced his hammer handle against his shoulder as he walked forward, another warning.

"Are you deaf? I said stand-a back!" Mario snapped.

That almost made Junior burst out laughing.

Black stopped six feet away, still sneering. He twirled his sledgehammer off the end of his left wrist, pivoted it across the back of his neck and caught it in his right hand without breaking eye contact with Mario. His eyes narrowed as he raised his sledgehammer into a ready position.

There would not be a third warning.

The lack of a verbal response must have clued Mario in, and he heaved a shaky sigh as if any desire to fight departed him.

"Mamma-mia. Enough."

He dropped Junior in the grass and pushed him towards Black's feet. His footsteps trudged away in the direction of the struggling guards.

Junior emerged out of his shell. Black approached him with both sledgehammers stashed on their thick leather loops.

"You didn't answer your phone," he signed, scrunching his nose.

But Junior's phone never rang. He pulled it out of his shell to check for missed calls. The dead battery icon blinked accusingly at him. He showed it to Black, who face-palmed.

"Phones die at the worst times!" Black replied in quick, irritated flicks. He clapped his hands once and went on, "King Bowser needs bypass surgery. Go home to him."

Junior's stomach knotted. He flailed his hands and signed back, "How did you know where to find me?"

"It was on the news. King Bowser sent me to make sure you were safe. Hurry home!"

Nodding, Junior bolted towards the green warp pipe and launched himself headfirst, a dizzying, spinning spiral into colorful light. He front flipped out into the hot volcano. His feet slapped down on the smooth rocks.

The climb up the cliffside that usually took minutes felt like seconds. He stopped in the kitchen to wash off the sticky punch residue before sprinting for the elevator.

Two Goombas were about to step aboard. Junior jumped over them and closed the doors in their faces. He sprinted out as soon as the elevator dinged and he nearly fell rushing around the corner.

The gurney carrying his dad came through at the same time he did. They almost collided.

"Dad!"

"Junior!" Neil stopped the gurney just in time.

Junior paid him no mind. He jumped onto the gurney and curled up against Bowser's side. A reassuring arm wrapped around him. No spiked bands, because he had to take them off.

"I'm sorry! My phone died and I didn't know you called. Black came and got me."

Bowser breathed heavily, fogging the oxygen mask covering his sickly pale snout. The thick plastic muffled his voice. "Did Mario hurt you?"

"No, he left when Black showed up. Nothing bad happened." Junior clung to his dad's plastron, his claws digging against his chest over his heart. "Dad…I'm here now. You'll be okay. This is gonna be—"

Bowser closed his eyes and pressed him harder against his side, quieting him.

"Love ya, brat," he murmured.

Words Junior dreaded. Every time he said them, he almost died. Maybe saying it back would mean a better outcome.

"I love you, too, dad. Be tough! I'll see you when you come out."

Bowser took the mask off and kissed the top of his nose. Junior pushed the mask back over his snout, hugged him tight and climbed off the gurney. He stood alone in the corridor while Neil, Elton, Stevie, Josh and Celine wheeled his dad through metal double doors on the opposite end of the room.

A side door slammed obnoxiously. Junior almost jumped out of his shell. Black stopped beside him, sans the helmet and sledgehammers.

"Did you see him?" He signed, eyebrows raised.

Junior wiggled his fist up and down solemnly. "He looked bad. Pale. Sick."

Black exhaled noisily through his nose and checked his phone for the time.

"If you have work, go to work," Junior signed in slow movements, "This is a lot of waiting. I'll be okay. Go help somebody who needs a paramedic."

That wasn't the entire truth, but he needed to feel like he helped save a life today. If sending Black off to work did that, he was okay with it.

"Are you sure?" Black lifted his eyebrows.

Nodding, Junior put on his best brave face.

Black shifted his weight, reluctant, and walked away to the staff only room near Neil's office. He returned to hand Junior a bag of crispy Ash Banana chips, a bottle of water and patted his head.

"Don't forget to charge your phone. Your girlfriend might call to see if you're okay, you don't want to miss that call." Black tried to inject humor into his signing by smirking, but his eyes had the same worried gleam everybody had the first time this happened.

Junior smiled half-heartedly at him for trying. Moving the chips to his other hand, he gestured, "You're right. I'll charge it."

He opened the Ash Banana bag and ate a crunchy chip even though he wasn't hungry. They were dried banana slices baked in ash, which gave them a smokey-sweet flavor.

Black nodded reassuringly before departing. The banging door marked his exit.

Junior went upstairs to get his charger. He sat on the living room couch with his phone plugged into the wall next to him and turned on the TV.

Footage of his leap over the hedge fence was all over every station. The newscaster described it as Mario being stricken with grief. Typical Mushroom Kingdom slop.

He took his phone off the charger when it had enough power to turn on and texted Cherry.

Dad had another heart attack. He's having bypass surgery.

After a moment, she replied, Oh, no! He didn't look well at the funeral. Is he okay?

I don't know. He just went in. Junior's phone died on him again right as he sent that.

"Damn it," He put the traitorous thing back on the charger.

Almost every channel on TV talked about Peach's funeral. Video games didn't feel appealing. He needed something mindless to pass the time without requiring too much participation.

Junior switched over to some cartoons instead. He ate the whole bag of chips and chugged half the water in one go while watching a coyote chase a road runner.

.o

Bowser wasn't conscious the last two times he got wheeled into surgery. Being brought into the cold, sterile, stark gray room with the massive round light overhead didn't do his nerves any favors. At least the ceiling wasn't mirrored like the cath lab.

He pulled off the oxygen mask. They hated it when he did that, but his snout was sweaty and uncomfortable. The air he breathed felt cold in his nostrils and the room smelled like stinging antiseptic.

Menacing equipment was everywhere. He didn't expect everything to be so complicated. One cart held a myriad of syringes, another housed monitors, wires, gloves and IV bags.

The operating table had a curve to accommodate his spine and allow him to lay comfortably flat on his back. He scooted over onto it and let the nurses help him position himself. The thin foam mattress had some kind of blanket over it. A tube by his feet connected it to a machine he heard buzzing, but couldn't see. Warm air wisped at his feet.

Once he was on the table, a motor whirred and it sank to a workable height for Koopa Troopas to maneuver on or around it.

Stevie set out packages of drapes and tubing. She disappeared through the side door to scrub in and gear up.

"Any pain?" Celine leaned over him, already clad in surgical attire. Everyone present was, so they all looked alien in their papery blue smocks, caps and masks.

"Some." Bowser rubbed his chest. "Whatever you gave me is helping."

She placed her hand on top of his. "A little bit of morphine."

"What's gonna knock me out?"

"Propofol," said a friendly voice. The gold shelled Koopa it belonged to bent into view, her pale brown eyes decorated by purple eyeshadow. "Hi, your majesty."

Celine beamed, looking affectionately at her.

"Pat!" Bowser felt better about this already. "Hey, didn't you two just have your anniversary?"

"Forty years last month." Pat returned Celine's amorous smile.

Bowser grinned, "Wow! Congrats, ladies."

"She survived forty years of me giving her hell," Celine teased.

"Hell is for children," Pat winked. "And we had some wild times back in the day. Remember the bar brawl in the Legacy club?"

"Ohhhh yes."

"You two were in that?" Bowser raised a brow.

The Legacy brawl was legendary, it made headlines for days!

"Are you kidding? It's how we met!" Pat pointed at Celine. "She threw the bottle that knocked out a bouncer, and I chucked him out a window because he stumbled into me. Everybody went after him for messing with a couple of ladies. That started the whole thing!"

Celine shrugged her shoulders. "What can I say? I was young and angry. Besides, that horny oaf kept touching my tail after I said I wasn't interested."

Bowser snickered, he was glad he picked troublemakers to work for him.

"Hey, Richard!" Pat peered across the room. "Stop hiding in the corner. Come say hi!"

"Who?" Bowser looked around.

"He's our perfusionist." Celine smirked. "He's shy."

"I ain't shy, I'm focused."

A gruff, red-shelled Koopa Troopa with dark green eyes popped up behind an array in the far corner. Only when he was fully upright did Bowser notice his left arm ended in a stump at the elbow. He saluted, but didn't move from his position.

"I'm in charge of monitoring the bypass equipment and everything with it," Richard said, eyes tilting in a smile. His blue surgical mask hid the rest of his face. "You won't see anything I do, you'll be asleep."

Bowser arched an eyebrow. "Don't draw any dicks on me and you'll be fine."

That helped break the ice. Richard laughed, gestured at his equipment and disappeared behind it again.

"He's really shy, but he's good at his job. Only the best are allowed to work on you." Celine whispered in Bowser's ear.

"Good."

Wrappers crackled somewhere. Bowser picked his head up when Josh fit a sterile surgical cap over his hair and horns.

Elton poked his head up between Bowser's feet.

"I have to place a probe in your vent, sire. It's going to measure your temperature and oxygen saturation."

Bowser raised his eyebrows. "Okay, why are you telling me that? Just do it."

"I prefer not to be kicked in the face," Elton mirrored his expression.

"Right, gotcha. Go ahead."

All he felt was pressure and a faint pinch on one side. Elton hooked another wire onto something out of sight. That cord ran along the floor with a ton of slack to prevent tripping.

Somewhere, machinery beeped a constant C. Bowser turned his head when Pat moved and spotted what he assumed to be the ventilator. Oh, right, people were intubated for major surgery.

"Junior is getting taller." Josh commented.

"I know! I swear he was popping out of an egg yesterday." Bowser watched Celine rearrange the IVs attached to his tail. "Hey, just so we're on the same page, I'm getting a nose job, right?"

"Sure, whose nose do you want?" Neil stuck his head in.

"Yours." Bowser fake-glared at him, "Preferably, broken."

"Sorry, I need it on my face." Neil smirked and backed through the side door to scrub in.

Richard snorted. "You don't want his nose, it's ugly!"

"Watch it, Rich," Neil shouted good-naturedly through the closed door, "I'm the guy wielding sharp objects."

"Did you hear about queen Peach?" Josh whispered to Elton.

"Such a shame," Elton murmured back.

Not something Bowser wanted to think about. The mere mention of her name dampened the humor in the room. He swallowed hard, eyes welling up.

"I was just at her funeral. Worst day of my life. Worse than a damn heart attack."

"Sorry, sire," Josh folded his hands and bowed.

"This is going to be cold and scratchy." That was all the warning Celine gave before scrubbing Bowser's entire upper body with a brush covered in something foamy.

The sound was more annoying than the scratching, chilliness or the minty scent. He bore it in silence.

Elton stuck ECG leads to his chest, arms and stomach and hooked them up with wires. He wrapped a blood pressure cuff around his upper right arm and inflated it to test it.

"Hey, somebody write this down." Bowser stared upward at the ceiling. "Find out where Peach is buried and put a rose on her grave every single day until I'm healthy enough to do it myself. Pink on her birthday, white on her death day, and make the rest red. Got it?"

Stevie replied, "As you command, your majesty. It will be done."

Pain stabbed Bowser's chest. Now the sense of doom came over him, turning his breath shallow and tensing his muscles.

The monitor that beeped a steady C sped up and started beeping B-flat, then went lower still to an A.

Stevie picked up his oxygen mask and placed it over his snout again. The beeping climbed to a C-sharp until he pulled the mask off.

"I hate that thing, it's all sweaty."

"Sire, your SATs—"

"It's okay, we'll preoxygenate soon." Pat pushed something clear into one of the IV lumens in his tail. His head felt heavy when he lifted it to look.

"Is that the sleepy juice?"

"No, this is just to relax you." Pat said. She winked at him. "Can't have you anxious while going under. It makes my job harder."

The beeping slowed. Whatever she gave him blurred everything around the edges.

"It's working. Whoa."

The door somewhere beyond his feet swung open and shut. Elton positioned himself at the foot of the table. Stevie and Celine moved off to the right side. Pat sat above his head, holding a thick, padded mask attached to ribbed white hoses.

Neil appeared on the left, gloved hands held up so he wouldn't touch anything not sterile.

"Showtime, your majesty. We're going to begin."

"Do your worst," Bowser mumbled.

Chuckles all around.

Pat put the thick mask over his snout and it gave off a rubbery scent, like shell polish. It was cool and dry inside, the rubber padding forming an airtight seal. Air wafted over his nostrils, which flared as he breathed.

"This is a hundred percent oxygen. Breathe slow and deep for me," she said.

Bowser's chest rose and fell. "Hurts to breathe."

"I know. Don't heart attacks suck?"

"Yeah."

The incessant C beeping inched up to C-sharp, then D.

She checked something off to the side. "SATs are rising. Keep breathing deeply."

"ST elevations," Josh whispered to Neil.

"His pulse is getting irregular. We have to start soon," Neil said. He looked down at Bowser. "Ready?"

"No, but go anyway."

"I'm pushing lidocaine to help this not burn too much."

Pat injected something clear through the long IV tube before she picked up a syringe full of white fluid and attached it.

Neil looked across the room. "We have to move fast once he's open. Richard?"

"Right here, waiting," Richard replied, waving his stump.

"Here's the sleepy juice." Pat held it where Bowser could see it. "You might feel some stinging and get a metal taste in your mouth when it goes through. That's normal, okay?"

He nodded to show he understood.

Pat pushed the plunger, sending the milky goop through until the syringe ran empty. She pulled the plunger back, which drew some of the fluid up the line, and pushed again to send it all the way down.

Bowser's tail stung like hot water traveling up the vein, and after the pain faded he wondered who put coins in his mouth when he wasn't looking.

"I don't feel sleepy," he grumbled.

Pat leaned into view again. "You're a big fella, it takes time." She held up her left hand and counted down with her fingers. "You'll start to feel it right about…now."

Bowser's eyelids fluttered when she closed her fist.

"I hope Junior's okay," he mumbled.

The room blurred as he stopped blinking.

He sank backwards into time and space and liminality and forever and—

.o

—a shrieking high pitched beeps woke him up, but the operating room was below him, far away.

Neil shouted, "He had a rhythm, what happened?"

Josh and Elton worked together on chest compression, causing blood to dribble between the staples. Something crunched horribly. His sternum.

Bowser drifted away from the chaos and arrived at a familiar spiral staircase within a featureless void. He rushed up the steps towards the infinite white he desperately wanted to become a part of.

The stairway was steeper than he remembered, and more steps appeared the higher he climbed. He dropped on all fours and bounded faster, finger and toe claws pinging off the polychromatic crystal bricks.

"Peach!" Bowser screamed her name up the corridor. Tenebrous echoes followed his voice.

Fatigue burned his muscles. He gasped for breath. Nothing was supposed to hurt here. Why did it hurt?

"Don't go!" Tears poured onto his cheeks as the light whited everything out. "Peach, don't go!"

He collapsed on his belly, chin hitting the next step with a decisive thud. Just past his nose, the straight corridor.

It didn't sing. He never knew silence could be so absolute.

Bowser lunged forward, hands outstretched. His foot broke through the floor, and then he fell. And fell, and fell, and fell…

Such a long fall should have shattered his bones into unrecognizable flinders, yet he never noticed an impact. The ceiling he punctured crashed down on top of him in heavy pieces. That hurt beyond measure. Again, no fragmented bones, just pain electrifying every nerve.

He couldn't move. He couldn't see.

"Peach!" Bowser wept uncontrollably. Tears and snot dribbled onto his snout in the darkness of the void.

"Bowser," Peach whispered.

"Peach? Where are you?"

"Bowser," she said again, further away.

"I can't move! I— Peach! Stay! Stay with me!"

Peach sounded closer. "You know I can't, and I know you can't stay here."

"Why not?"

"Junior needs you."

"I—"

"Today isn't your day."

"Peach…I hate this. I hate knowing you won't be there. You're everything to m—"

"Bowser, stop." She approached again, always beyond sight. "Stop it. Listen to yourself."

"You died, Peach!" He sobbed, sides heaving and breath wheezing through his throat. "It's not fair!"

"You're right. It wasn't fair, but death never is." Her voice was behind him. "You aren't the first person to lose somebody this way. You can't let the pain weigh you down forever."

"What the hell am I supposed to do?"

"Well," Peach circled above him, her light seeping between the cracks in the caved-in ceiling crushing him into the ground. "Take your time out to cry. Miss me for a little while. Then break through it and soldier on."

"Don't leave." Bowser sniffled.

"Bowser…" Her hand came through the stone and brushed one of his tears away. "You never quit before. Don't do it now. Get up off your ass and raise your son."

With that, her light drifted away and was gone.

But he wasn't alone. Other voices reached him from further off. Familiar voices.

His kids.

.o

Junior was twice as tall as he was when he first saw his dad lying supine in an ICU bed. Seeing the equipment didn't frighten him because he remembered what most of it did.

But it never got easier.

This time, the ventilator tubes were opaque white and the blankets silvery-gray. Tape didn't muzzle Bowser's whole snout like the last times he was intubated. Instead, two white adhesive strips crossed over his top jaw to hold the tube secure in place while another wrapped under his chin to keep his mouth from hanging wide open.

Brown, bloodstained bandages covered the staples running across his chest. The drainage tube extended just below the incision and hung off to the right.

A long, thin black cord and a clear tube protruded out of his left armpit. That was new. Translucent tape held it in place against his arm. It connected to the machine on a rolling cart next to the ventilator. The machine inflated and deflated the balloon in his aorta with soft click-clicks. A monitor on top showed flickering numbers and waveforms similar to the heart monitor in the corner.

On the other side, transvenous pacemaker wires extended out of his neck. Those connected to the pacer box sitting in a clear pouch by his head. That was also new.

The ventilator whooshed and the balloon pump in his aorta clunked. Machines controlled all his respiratory and circulatory functions.

Bowser's messy hair stuck up every which way. His swollen, sickly pallid face was flaccid. It reminded Junior of Peach lying in her casket.

Dead people and comatose people never looked asleep.

Junior looked around the room for his dad's shell and spiked bands. They were piled on a velvet pillow in the far corner again. The fake tree that used to be there was gone, replaced by a clear crystal cactus sculpture.

Somebody added a cluster of depressingly dull gray-green upholstered stools to sit on. They didn't match the crisp, pale blue privacy curtain.

Everything was a little different while staying unsettlingly familiar.

"Daddy," Wendy clapped a hand against her mouth.

Ludwig leaned over, smoothing Bowser's messy hair. He took his hand, his eyes sharp and worried.

"We're all here, dad." Iggy picked up Bowser's other hand. "Neil said you need us, so we came as fast as we could."

Bowser didn't respond to being touched or spoken to. Not even a flicker of his eyelids.

Roy, Wendy, Larry and Morton gathered at the foot of the bed. Iggy and Lemmy were next to Junior. Lemmy, his head barely up to Junior's chin, held a bouncy ball in his hands that glowed faintly purple.

"Daddy, don't give up!" Wendy sniffled. She held onto his foot since she couldn't reach his hand.

"He looks worse than the first one," Morton whispered to Roy.

"Yeah, I don't like it," Roy muttered back.

Lemmy silently pressed his ball against his snout. Tears brimmed in his eyes.

Larry clapped his palm over his face and struggled to cry quietly. The sniffling gave him away. Wendy laid her head on his shoulder.

"What do we do?" Iggy sniffed, reaching under his glasses to wipe his eyes.

"I don't know," said Junior.

He expected to be a veteran of this, to not feel ruffled, but the dread in his stomach still felt like the same lead weight as the first time.

Earlier, Neil explained how grave Bowser's condition was after gathering everyone in his office.

Ludwig's hearing aid batteries died on him, so he grabbed Jack when he caught him coming out of the elevator and he helpfully interpreted everything Neil said in Koopa Sign. His serious facial expressions and gestures matched the grave tone of Neil's voice.

"This heart attack blocked off the diagonal branch that comes from the left anterior descending artery."

Neil pointed to it on his plastic model of a Koopa heart. He took off two pieces, exposing the inner workings of the heart, and indicated the muscular wall between the ventricles.

"Normally, the right coronary artery supplies the septum, but King Bowser's diagonal branch did it instead. The infarction led to ischemia in his septum and caused it to rupture, leaving a hole. A ventricular-septal defect. Oxygenated blood and deoxygenated blood are mixing where they shouldn't."

Junior hung his head. Peach dying broke his dad's heart, like he said it would.

"I don't want to attempt a repair until the damage stabilizes. It's still 'cooking'," Neil went on.

"So what happens right now?" Roy folded his arms. "How are you keeping him alive?"

"I have him on a temporary pacemaker to prevent arrhythmias, and I inserted an intra-aortic balloon pump to take the pressure off his ventricles and perfuse his coronary arteries while we wait for the damage to stabilize. If he makes it through the next two weeks, I'll be able to attempt a repair. It can be done noninvasively."

"Bullshit!" Wendy exploded, her gold bangles jangling on her wrists when she slapped her hands down on the arms of her chair. "You're a cardiologist! You're supposed to fix anything that goes wrong! Fix it now!"

"Wendy!" Larry leaned on her.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry." Neil never lost his calm demeanor. "King Bowser has to win this part of the fight for his life before I can help him take the next step. He just had major surgery, and the rupture didn't happen until after we finished. He's too unstable and can't handle more shocks to his body right now."

He showed them images from the transesophageal echocardiogram that were taken during the duration of the surgery, and every single one showed an intact septum.

"How will you fix the hole in his heart? Will you suture it?" Ludwig asked out loud. Until then, he hadn't spoken or signed a word.

"Not exactly."

Neil opened a drawer and took out something that looked like two shirt buttons stuck together by a short, fat rod.

"This is called an occluder. I can insert it like a stent, but I'll push it through the defect between his ventricles. Once deployed, it opens like this and plugs the hole." He mimicked a hole using his thumb and forefinger and wrapped them around the edges of the occluder. "See?"

"Won't that cause clots?" Lemmy asked. His gaze strayed everywhere in the room except onto peoples' faces.

Neil had to crane his neck to look at him. "A little bit, but in this case we want it to, because it helps seal the defect. Imagine caulking tiles."

"Dad has to make it two weeks?" Morton frowned, his tail thumping against his chair. "Can you keep him alive that long?"

Neil set the occluder down and looked him dead in the eyes. "I'm going to do everything I can, yes."

"What if you don't seal it?" Iggy leaned sideways against the wall, his plume of green hair almost knocking off a framed diploma. "Can it heal by itself?"

"The tissue is dead. It can't heal." Neil folded his hands. "If I don't attempt a repair, he will die within a month."

Iggy sneered and turned away, gritting his teeth.

Roy took his sunglasses off and covered his eyes. Wendy wrapped her arm around him.

Ludwig watched Jack, who continued to interpret every spoken word in Koopa Sign.

He asked, "Is the coma from his heart, or is it medically induced?"

Neil focused on Ludwig. "He's sedated, but the drugs aren't responsible for the coma. We won't know how neurologically intact he is until we can communicate with him. Same as the first time we went through this. I plan to taper some of the drugs off after the occluder is placed to see where we are."

He glanced around, "Any more questions? No?" His attention turned to Ludwig. "We're in a lull. Change your batteries."

Nodding, Ludwig took the package of button-sized batteries out of his shell and got his hearing aids back in working order.

"Thank you," he signed to Jack. "I'm sorry to grab you like that. My batteries picked a bad time."

Jack wrinkled his nose and signed back, "Not a problem, but I have to go now. I'm on duty in twenty minutes."

Ludwig tucked his hearing aids back into his auricles and smoothed his hair down over them. Out loud, he said, "It's fine. I'm covered now."

Nodding, Jack shook Ludwig's hand. "I hope King Bowser will be okay."

He popped his medic helmet onto his head, pushed his thick red-framed glasses up on his nose and departed.

Junior put the plastic model heart back together while everybody else began to shuffle out. He locked eyes with Neil.

"Will that be me when I grow up?"

Neil leaned forward, his eyelids drooping in need of sleep. He yawned into his hand. "No."

"Will it be Morton?"

"Not likely, no."

Junior nodded and joined the others.

All they could do was wait, so they gathered around Bowser's bed to do just that.

.o

Time flowed without him. He didn't know how long he cried under the cave-in before he pushed the first chunk off his face.

Bowser's eyes focused on darkness. A dim glow came from somewhere, though he couldn't see where.

"Dad…" Junior's voice muffled as if behind a wall.

Grit rained on Bowser's face. He worked his hand free to wipe it off.

Small hands grasped and rubbed his forearm. Lemmy had tiny hands.

He didn't always feel it when his kids touched him, yet he welcomed it every time they did.

"Peach?" Bowser shouted into the void, but nobody heard him.

Time kept rolling forward. His kids' presence came and went like tides. He found it easier to push the rocks off himself when they talked to him.

"I hope it doesn't hurt." Roy murmured from seemingly next to him. But when he turned, it was dark.

Somebody combed his hair. Wendy— her noisy bracelets jangled in his ear.

Then everything fell away again and he slept for uncountable ages.

.o

Everybody sat with Bowser in shifts. He didn't get worse, but he wasn't doing better either.

Junior's phone kept dying on him. He plugged it into an outlet by Bowser's bed, hoping it would charge enough to text Cherry back.

"Dad," Junior whispered. He was too big to hug his head like he did when he was younger, so he held onto his neck instead. "I'm with you, dad."

The ventilator whooshed.

A lump tightened his throat. He watched the heart monitor tracing draw regular spikes with extra rises and falls in between. Celine called them ST elevations. They indicated a heart attack was happening or recently happened.

"Neil said this heart attack did a lot of damage and made you really sick." Junior sniffed, holding onto him as tight as he dared.

"I want you to get better and wake up, but it's okay if you can't keep going." Tears dripped across his snout. "You can stop if you have to."

He sobbed once and nuzzled their cheeks together. That was a boldfaced lie, he wasn't okay with any of this, but he would feel worse if Bowser died and he didn't say something.

"Just…try, dad. That's all I want. Try. Can you try?"

No reply, just the beeps and hisses of the intensive care machinery.

Junior cried himself to sleep at his dad's bedside and woke up to a novel of text from Cherry. She tried to text a few times before while his phone was too dead to respond, all messages hoping for a good outcome and asking if he was okay. Then, the bomb.

Dad is making me block your number. I told him what happened to Bowser and he said it's a shame, but his decision is final. I'm really sorry. I'm not supposed to be texting you, so I'm blocking right after. Dad is sending me to Aunt Daisy's castle in Sarasaland. I don't know when I'm coming back. You're my best friend, Junior. I'll never forget you. I'm sorry about the punch and I'm sorry that I have to block you. I hope Bowser will be okay, and I hope doing what my dad wants means I get to see you again someday.

A new lump ached in his throat. It wasn't Cherry's fault. Bowser really pissed Mario off at the funeral. But what awful timing. He needed a friend now more than ever!

Junior tried to reply to her text and let her know he understood, and to explain that his phone died earlier. The messages wouldn't go through.

He scrolled up through their old conversations, where they made fun of their dads and talked about silly things they wanted to do together. Now all those hopes lay in shambles like a burned-down castle.

Beside him, monitors beeped and the ventilator whoosh-whooshed. Stevie switched out an empty IV bag for a full one and emptied the drain.

Neil gave his dad something called a pericardial window, basically a hole left in the sac around his heart to stop fluid from building up. It must have worked, because Junior didn't remember his other surgeries having so much drainage.

"Is he still on vaz-pressers?"

"Vasopressors." Stevie gently corrected him. "Yes, that's what I'm changing out."

Neither of the blood pressure numbers on the monitor above the bed were over a hundred.

Stevie checked Bowser's blood pressure via the cuff and programmed the IV pump accordingly before hooking him up. The numbers on the monitor climbed until the highest digits barely crossed one hundred.

Vasopressors narrowed blood vessels and encouraged the heart to beat more forcefully to pump blood around the body. Every little thing the nurses did affected something else. Sometimes Junior swore they caused more problems to fix and it was like a cascade.

And his dad just laid there.

"Stevie? I think he peed." Junior pointed to the vent bag adhered to his tail where it joined his body. They worked exactly like diapers, except they were stuck on instead of worn like shorts. Purple wetness indicator stripes appeared along the sides.

Stevie changed her gloves and prodded the bag. "He did more than that. Heh, usually he waits until Elton is on. Elton is funny about poop." She smiled mischievously, arching a brow. "Why don't you go and wander around while I clean him up?"

Bathroom things were private, even if Bowser needed help with them right now.

"Sure, but, hey! I remember dad said every nurse has something that icks them out. What's yours?"

Her nose scrunched. "Compound fractures get me every time. Something about seeing bones stick out of someone's body gives me existential dread."

Junior stuck his tongue out. "Ew."

He leaned over the bed rail to kiss his dad's cheek and headed out. Iggy would be down in a short while.

Upstairs, he noticed the music room door open. Ludwig worked slowly on piles of scattered musical scores. Bowser's instruments were missing and the overturned bookshelves hadn't been righted yet.

"Hey, Ludwig!"

Ludwig didn't respond to being spoken to, so Junior tapped the light switch, which flickered the overhead light fixture until he turned around.

"Dad broke everything?" Junior signed.

Ludwig nodded, gazing forlornly at the handwritten scores he piled up. He signed one-handed, "I cleaned up the instruments, so this is what's left."

He stopped to pluck out something wedged in the corner. A tiny nightlight shaped like a yellow star. His eyes teared up.

"What's that?" Junior frowned.

"Something from my childhood." Ludwig turned it over in his hand. He plugged it into the wall outlet adjacent to the door. Miraculously, it lit.

Out loud, he said, "Dad told me he took this out of the sky to keep me company at night. I can't believe it still lights up."

He sighed, rubbing the inner corners of his eyes.

Junior studied the gold glitter flecks on the night light. There were pale spots where some fell off.

Paper swished. Ludwig scooped more loose sheets into his hands. Junior crossed the room to gather the paper books of music lying open under the window. Inside one, Bowser's flowing handwriting marked every title above the hand-penned notation. He shut the cover to see the front.

My Little Ones by King Bowser Koopa Sr..

It had a dusty, comforting old book smell. Bowser's study next to the throne room had the same scent, and sometimes it permeated the whole castle when it rained outside.

Junior tapped Ludwig's elbow, signing with one hand, "You know how music sounds by looking at it, right?"

Ludwig nodded.

"I found this." Junior handed him the book.

Ludwig flipped through it page by page and signed, "It looks like he wrote a secret song for each of us when we hatched. I never heard him play any of these, but…" He paused, closed the book and looked at Junior, smiling fondly, "This is how much he loves all of us."

"Wow." Junior zig-zagged the sign across his mouth in exaggerated arcs.

Ludwig set that music book on top of the shortest bookshelf, which he moved to sit where the piano used to be.

Together, they collected the scattered papers and piled the other music scores up along the walls. Ludwig found stark white photocopy sheets that weren't music. He skimmed one, stuffed the rest into a ripped Manila folder with a dejected shake of his head and put it aside so it wouldn't get mixed into the scores.

Junior had an idea of what it was and didn't want to see it.

"It's funny, when we're kids, we don't always appreciate what dad does for us when he's doing it. You realize it when you look back later." Ludwig signed as he sat on the floor next to the star nightlight.

"What do you mean?" Junior crouched in front of him.

Looking down, Ludwig opened a beige oblong case. His first hearing aids were cylindrical white things as small as pencil erasers. He refocused on Junior and signed one-handed, claws clicking against each other.

"Dad ran straight to deaf educators as soon as it was confirmed I went deaf. I lost my hearing at the time baby Koopas start speaking their first words. He didn't want me to be deprived of language, so he found a way to give it to me. He didn't care how it looked or sounded."

Ludwig tapped his thumb against the side of the tiny case in his hands. He closed the lid, laid it on a music pile and resumed using both hands, "Nearly everybody in this castle knows some Koopa Sign because of that. He insisted everybody be able to communicate with me, even if it was to say yes or no."

Junior nodded, looking down at his own signing hands. He grew up seeing Koopa Sign, so running into new signs he didn't know yet felt similar to discovering words he hadn't heard or read before. "Oh, man! Dad interviews new people personally! Did he surprise Black?"

"It's Black's favorite thing to brag about. His first job was a castle guard, and he patrolled with Jack. But, anyway…" Ludwig smiled wickedly as he signed. "Jack gave his 'my brother is deaf, I'm here to interpret' speech, and dad told him to shut up. Then he walked up to Black and started signing. Never missed a beat. Black was floored!"

He emphasized the floored sign by widening his eyes and dropping his mouth open, since the two-fingered gesture mimicked pulling his jaw down.

"Black asked dad how he knew Koopa Sign after the interview was over, and dad told him about me. He told him where to find me in the castle and sent him on his way."

His signing paused as he gazed upward, eyes far away in memory.

"Black found me at the piano. It was down in the kitchen, then. He sat on the bench with me, introduced himself and we started talking. Up until then, I didn't have any deaf peers to talk to. The other kids at school were too intimidated to approach me because they knew who my dad was. Black wasn't intimidated by me at all. We had a lot in common, so we hit it off as friends right away. Gosh, I was, what? Fourteen? No, fifteen. We were so young, then."

Ludwig's expression softened in a way it only did when around or talking about Black.

"We did all the stupid teenager things you do with friends. We drank, smoked, drove too fast, stole things, went to clubs we weren't supposed to and got in fights with people. Those were the days."

Pausing again, he stared up at the ceiling, his fingers rippling as he parsed his thoughts.

"I always knew I was gay, and I suspected Black might be gay, too, but I didn't know how to ask. I panicked when I looked into his eyes as he handed me a cigarette and realized I was falling in love with him. I was seventeen and scared. I came out to dad because I didn't know what to do. Dad took it in stride! He told me to tell Black how I felt and see what happened, and that he would handle it if things went poorly."

He chuckled, scratching an itch under his chin before continuing.

"Black texted me at four in the morning saying he needed to talk to me in person, so I told him to come over. He got here at four-thirty and…" his signing trailed off.

"And?" Junior emphasized the and sign.

Ludwig pressed his fist against his snout and emitted a hilarious high-pitched giggle. His laughter didn't wheeze like Black. He squeaked and his shoulders shook, as if the laugh he had in his baby videos stayed with him into adulthood.

"Go on!" Junior flailed his arms dramatically when he signed, "What happened?"

"He said he would understand if the guards threw him in the dungeon for what he was about to do. Then he confessed that he was gay, said he hoped I was too. And that's when he took my face in his hands and kissed me."

"On the mouth?" Junior raised his eyebrows.

"Yes!"

"Like in the movies?"

"No, it happened a lot faster."

"What did you do?"

Ludwig laughed so much he slapped his knees and his signs happened in clumsy jerks. "I didn't have him thrown in the dungeon! I pushed him against the wall and kissed him back, and we kissed until we were out of breath. I asked him if that was all he came here to do, and he confessed that he wanted to ask me out. I almost collapsed laughing because I wanted to ask him out. What are the odds? We asked each other out at the same time."

Junior guffawed with him because that sounded like something Ludwig and Black would do.

"We went to Spinner's for our first date. The food was terrible, but we didn't care. We went for a walk on the beach afterward and watched the sunset together. Black told me he didn't know what love was until he saw me light that cigarette the night I realized I loved him, so we fell in love at the same time, too."

Ludwig sighed noisily, his nimble hands shaping his words, "That was almost ten years ago, and everything between us has only gotten better."

Serious again, he traced his thoughts in the air. "The point I'm trying to make is Black and I happened because dad learned Koopa Sign for me and sent Black to find me. In some small way, dad created the path for us to fall in love. I hope one day I can create a similar path for someone else, because then I'll feel like I paid my fortune forward."

Looking straight at Junior, his eyes full of affection, he went on. "Sometimes the choices that seem insignificant when we make them play the biggest role in our futures."

"Like the ember that created the universe because it landed in the right place to jumpstart time?"

"Exactly that." Ludwig wagged his fist up and down.

Junior thought of Cherry wrapping her bandaid around his injured toe. He remembered his dad telling him to take her a flower. What if he threw it in the lava instead? Cherry could have stayed back in the mushroom forest, but she followed him through the pipe and teased him until he talked to her.

They ended up as best friends.

Peach died like a bomb going off. The shockwave flung them in opposite directions. And the path, if there ever was one, was an unrecognizable crater full of shrapnel. Nobody in range escaped unscathed.

Junior wondered if they might have been more than friends when they grew up. Adults were big weirdos about that stuff, but he wouldn't mind marrying Cherry. She was fun to be around, as if something inside her made the world feel bright and new.

"How did you know it was love?" Junior signed the question slowly, eyebrows furrowed.

Smoke escaped Ludwig's nostrils. Talking about it gave his eyes the same dreamy look Bowser used to get whenever he talked about Peach.

"My stomach twisted, my heart sped up and I got so nervous my hands shook." Ludwig imitated how his hands quivered while he used them to shape his thoughts. "Now it feels like I swallowed a swarm of butterflies. Especially when he does sweet things to show he's thinking of me, like adding cream to my coffee, or giving me surprise shoulder massages because I hunched over my piano too long. I feel it when I wake up early and look at him while he sleeps and kiss him as he leaves for work."

Junior ducked his head, digesting those words. Sometimes he felt that way around Cherry, but he only remembered those fleeting moments in hindsight. Now her looming absence ached as much as knowing Bowser clung to life by a thread.

Ludwig's toe claws scraped the floor as he pushed himself upright. Out loud, he said, "I'm going down to sit with dad."

Junior signed, "It's Iggy's shift, isn't it?"

"Yes," Ludwig replied. Iggy's sign name was two fingers on each hand held by the corners of his mouth to mimic his jagged teeth. "Iggy and I are collaborating on something, so we'll work on that while we sit with dad. In a way, it makes him part of the creative process, too."

He left Junior alone with piles of neatly organized music scores sorted alphabetically by title.

Junior turned off the nightlight and went downstairs. He sat at the long dining room table, trying to text Cherry. Photos from his tenth hatch-day party his siblings texted to him, messages saying she was still his best friend, and a voicemail stating he missed her.

They didn't send.

He couldn't take it anymore. Between being tired, not knowing if his dad would live or die and Cherry being sent away, he had enough.

Junior cried, folding his arms on the tabletop and hiding his face in them.

"Junior?" Wendy whispered from the doorway. He never heard her coming because she was barefoot, a rarity.

Junior shoved his phone at her with the text still visible. Wendy scrolled through it, her claw clicking on the screen at each swipe.

"What's left to lose?" He sobbed, voice muffled by his arms.

She pulled him towards her and guided his head onto her shoulder. He clung to her as his sobbing grew into bawling, his tears dribbling along her scales.

"Oh, Bowsie Ju-ju," Wendy hugged him tight and rocked him side to side. "Sometimes life is stupidly unfair."

She let him cry on her shoulder as long as he needed to.

.o

Junior watched Judy pluck out all sixty-five of Bowser's stables and plunk them onto a metal tray.

The drain in his chest wasn't full as often as the last several days. He remained insensate towards the world around him. Not even his heart rate changed, though that was the pacemaker's doing.

"Do you think he's getting better?" Junior asked after the sixty-fifth staple clunked.

"His vitals are more stable than they were last week and we aren't chasing his blood pressure as much. Neil suspects his heart is almost done ripping a hole in itself." Judy sprayed something white across the pinkish-red incision and taped a fresh gauze strip over it. "So I think that's progress."

Sighing, Junior hung his head. Would his dad ever stop having heart attacks, or were they going to continue until he died?

Judy nudged him. "Want to swab his mouth?"

He nodded. She gave him the moistened swab— hardly more than an hourglass-shaped yellow sponge on the end of a stick.

"Like this." She guided his hand, "Circle all his teeth. Both sides now. Go under his lip to get his gums, too. There you go! You're a natural at this, prince Junior."

Junior turned the swab over to wipe it on Bowser's tongue. "Is it lemon flavored?"

"Yup."

"He likes lemon flavored stuff, same as me. I hope he likes this."

Judy threw the swab and packaging away after he finished. "I think he likes it more because you're doing it. One way you tell somebody you love them is to take care of them."

She patted his head and sat down at her computer station to log everything she did. Scut work, she called it.

Junior smoothed Bowser's hair back and rubbed his enormous, icy hands in an attempt to warm them. They hung limp and heavy in his grasp, his fingers that used to flutter across piano keys dangling uselessly.

He thought of how Bowser took him to get all those tests on his heart and have the stents put in. His throat clutched tight as he realized his dad made him do so much boring, frustrating and scary stuff so he wouldn't end up here like him, breathing through a tube.

Junior pulled the blanket up to Bowser's shoulders when rubbing his hands didn't restore the warmth. He always knew his dad loved him, but that was the first time he understood how much he meant it.

"Dad." Junior laid his head on his chest. What he said next, he said as an answer to every act and word expressed to him up to that point. "I love you, too."

No answer, just the ventilator whooshing and monitors softly beeping.

.o

The round interior of the tower spiraled up into eternity. No light shone down. Salty water dripped somewhere, sometimes on his face.

He kicked and thrashed angrily against the boulders still pinning him down. Grunting, his fatigued muscles burning, he forced a jagged piece off his chest and wriggled his way out from under the rest.

Bowser stood up to find more boulders blocking him inside the tower.

"Peach, are you there?" His voice echoed.

Silence.

"Hello, darkness, my old friend," Bowser muttered to himself.

A rock in his path crumbled like friable glass in his claws. Oh, how pathetic.

He threw himself against the blockage. The obstacle shattered, dumping him into the hedge maze in Peach's castle. Or something like it, since it didn't quite look the same. The sickle-shaped leaves seemed black in the darkness, like ash and shadows.

His eyes adjusted to the dimness. Abendrot skies stretched forever overhead, speckled with stars. He did not recognize the constellations.

Somewhere, a child wailed. He knew that shrill cry, so he scrambled onto the gray stone walkway that felt gritty with age. Sometimes his clawed feet scraped sparks as he ran.

There, around a corner, a crying blue-haired baby Koopa sat by himself in the middle of the path.

Ludwig was terrified of the dark after losing his hearing. Just dimming a light without warning drove him into a panic.

Bowser swooped in, scooped him up into his arms and hugged him against his chest. Ludwig clung to him like his life depended on it.

"Daddy is bigger and scarier than any monsters out there," Bowser signed one-handed.

He wiped the snot off Ludwig's nose and tickled him under his chin until he squeaked with giggles. Ludwig wiggled his fingers and shaped his hands in Koopa Sign babble that didn't form proper words yet.

"You are safe," Bowser signed slowly, so he saw the process of how his hand and face expressed the language.

Ludwig stuck his thumb in the corner of his mouth.

Bowser thought nothing of finding Ludwig's nest nearby, heaped in royal blue blankets. He plucked a star straight from the sky and laid it on the side of the nest where it emitted a soft glow.

"See? Daddy makes it all better."

Ludwig laid his head on his shoulder, sucked his thumb and sighed as he drifted off to sleep.

Bowser laid the sleeping Koopa baby in his nest, kissed his forehead and continued on the path.

Iggy crawled out from under a bush with Lemmy sprawled across his shell. Lemmy flapped his hands in the air so enthusiastically that he tumbled. He hit the ground face-first and screeched.

Bowser swept his tiniest son up. Lemmy's entire body fit across his hand.

"Aw, what's wrong, buddy? Your feet are supposed to go on the ground, not your face."

Lemmy kept shrieking. Bowser flipped him onto his back and blew the biggest, loudest raspberry on his belly plastron.

Iggy laughed uproariously. Lemmy went from sobbing to giggling and kicking his feet.

Bowser kissed his belly over and over, sometimes blowing more raspberries to keep him laughing until he forgot about falling down.

Iggy climbed his leg. Bowser swiped him up in his other hand and stuck his tongue out while crossing his eyes. Funny faces always got Iggy to crack up, and he had the funniest laugh— like a Kart that wouldn't start!

Laughter tired most young baby Koopas out. It wasn't long before Bowser cradled precious, sleeping twins, one against each shoulder. Iggy was twice as tall as Lemmy, and that height difference hadn't changed.

Bowser placed them gently in their shared nest with its rainbow colored blanket. They scooted together and curled around each other, Lemmy tucked close against Iggy's chest— the same pose doctors found them in when they needed help hatching out of the same egg.

Did he imagine it, or was the night progressing?

Bowser inclined his head at a distant cry. He leapt completely over a chunk of hedge wall to find Roy sitting up in his nest, bawling.

Roy had the worst time sleeping as a baby. He struggled to fall asleep and everything woke him up. And any time he awoke, he howled. By day, he was the sweetest baby who rarely cried. Nights were another story.

"What's wr— ooh!" Bowser smelled the problem.

He settled Roy on a mat that somehow existed by the nest and changed his poopy diaper.

Roy wanted to put everything in his mouth, including the used wipes, so Bowser entertained him with rattles and plastic keys instead. That kept his little hands busy while he finished cleaning his vent and pulled the fresh diaper on.

Bowser used a disinfectant wipe to sanitize his hands and lifted Roy up by the armpits. "Now, isn't that better? Hm? No more stinky butt?"

Roy bonked himself in the nose with the rattle. His startled face contorted like he wanted to unleash another scream.

Bowser grinned and bounced him up and down in his arms. "Booga-booga-boo! Booga-booga-boo!"

That won some giggles mixed with copious drool. He laid Roy face down across his forearm and rocked him rapidly back and forth. Somehow it worked to help him fall asleep when everything else failed.

Roy quieted from crying, to sniffling, to silence. Even better, he snored softly.

Putting him down was a delicate operation requiring military precision. Bowser set him on the red blanket in his nest as if handling a live bomb. Then he backed away slowly, careful not to make any sudden noises.

Roy snored away, insensate.

Exhaling, Bowser followed the walkway towards a sharp left turn.

Wendy toddled into view and held her red pacifier up to him. She was the quietest, easiest baby of the bunch. Champion sleeper, only screamed when she got upset and obsessed with watching how other people reacted to things.

"That's a pretty pacifier for a pretty girl." Bowser picked her up on his hip and kissed the top of her head. "Princesses deserve the prettiest things!"

She smiled, popping the pacifier into her mouth. The handle had glittering rhinestones.

He lifted her up to eye level and let smoke escape one nostril. She laughed, putting her hand over it. Smoke came out the other nostril. She giggled and covered that one. He blew some out of his mouth. That cracked her up so much she squealed.

"How about nap time?" Bowser lifted an eyebrow. "Feel up to nap time, baby girl?"

Wendy burbled something and laid her head against his chest. He held her in both arms, stroking her shell while she dozed off.

Her nest had a white blanket with pink polka-dots. She relaxed into it when he laid her down.

The sky overhead wheeled forward, stars and constellations passing before his eyes.

Low-pitched sobbing had him crawling through a hole in the dead end at his left.

Morton swung his giant-in-proportion-to-his-body head around to look at him with burning infant rage. He jumped up and down, toothless mouth wide open as he shrieked until his nose ran.

"Aw, is your tummy upset?" Bowser pulled him close and stood up with him in his arms.

Morton was a huge, heavy baby. Colic made him miserable for most of his infancy. He could only digest the leanest ground meat until his delicate digestive system matured enough to handle fats and non-meat material.

Bowser secured him in the crook of his arm and massaged his upset belly with his other hand. "Okay, okay, daddy can help. Shhh."

Morton kicked his feet and passed the loudest gas. His own fart cut into his fury. He coughed out a laugh and unleashed so much stink that Bowser checked the leg hole of his diaper for poop. None, just gas.

"My little fart machine." He chuckled and kissed the top of his huge head. "Better now? Hm?"

Morton spread his arms, legs and tail and stuck his tongue out when he yawned. Drool poured from his mouth.

"Looks like you tired yourself out, Mr. DroolFace McFarts." Bowser tenderly wiped away the slobber with his palm. "Ready to go sleepy-bye?"

He set Morton on the ground and the little guy fart-giggled his baby heart out as crawled into his own nest, his tail swishing against the brown blanket.

Somewhere, plastic clacked on the ground.

Bowser discovered a red circle at the end of the pathway. Further on, a green triangle, then a blue square. He followed a little trail of plastic shapes, collecting them as he went, until he discovered a rumpled black blanket and Larry crawling towards his nest with something not quite right about him.

"Ah-ah!" Bowser stepped across his path and held out a hand. "What's in your mouth?"

Larry wrinkled his nose and spat out a purple plastic oval. It came from his yellow toy box with shaped holes on all its sides. He didn't like messes unless he wanted attention.

"Missing something?" Bowser placed the handful of colorful shapes on the ground next to the nest. The box was inside, half-buried in branches, so he retrieved it.

Larry's eyes widened. He clapped his hands, picked up the white moon and tried each cutout on the box until he found the crescent one.

Bowser playfully tapped the square against the triangle cutout, which sent Larry into fits of high pitched laughter. Somehow, it was funny when he did it. Larry took the square and put it where it belonged.

"Uh oh, where's the star?" Bowser performed some sleight of hand to pop it out from behind Larry's head. "Oh! Found it!"

Larry babbled excitedly while guiding his hand to the right place. He held up the completed toy triumphantly and promptly tipped over out of his nest.

"Whoops!" Bowser swept him off the ground before he got a chance to scream. He kissed the tip of his snout and honked his nose. "My smart little fix-it guy."

Larry head butted him for his efforts. It didn't hurt. He yawned, rubbing his eyes.

"Ah, all that brain power makes you sleepy, doesn't it?" Bowser shifted Larry against his shoulder and rumbled low in his throat until he heard soft baby snores.

Larry was the deepest sleeper, able to sleep through explosions, earthquakes, the other kids screaming at each other and being dangled upside down by his tail.

Bowser eased him into the nest with utmost gentleness anyway, using the black blanket to cushion him.

Wind rustled the hedge leaves, causing a few to break free and bluster past his face. This maze seemed endless.

Straightening, Bowser looked both ways. Larry's nest sat in the middle of two paths.

He shifted his weight to one leg, cocked his fist against his hip and scratched his head. Where did he go from here?

Distantly, a baby wound up to cry. Bowser tried the left path and the crying grew softer, so he turned and hurried right. Definitely closer!

A dead end infuriated him. He ripped half the hedge wall out of the damp earth, flung it aside and followed the upset baby noises.

"Daddy's coming!" Bowser shouted.

Junior was stuck upside down in a hedge at the far end of a long straightaway.

Bowser worked him free and pulled him close against his chest. His youngest, still with eggshell clinging to his tail. He swaddled him in the green blanket caught up in the hedge.

"See? It's okay." Bowser crouched and playfully poked at the tip of his tiny snout. "Ka-boom! Bang! Pow!"

Junior stopped screaming long enough to look at him.

"Oh no, here it comes again!" Bowser raised his hand and spiraled his finger downward towards Junior's nose. "Weeeeeeeeeeer-BOOM!"

Junior's eyes opened wide. He guffawed, grabbed Bowser's finger and stuck it in his mouth like a pacifier.

"Ahh! You got it! Threat neutralized!" He wiggled his finger like a dying worm and Junior redoubled his efforts to hang onto it.

Junior's little eyelids drooped until they closed. He was the baby who could fall asleep anywhere.

Bowser finally got his finger back. The nest Junior belonged to was on the other side of the hedge he got caught up in. He eased Junior down and caressed his tiny topknot.

Looking up, he noticed the sky wasn't as dark. He couldn't discern which way was east yet.

Nights didn't last forever. The sun would rise to answer his question eventually.

He yawned as he set off around a curve and followed the path. Did this maze have an end?

The hedges went from neatly sculpted to neglected, overgrown and messy. Soft, leafy vines cushioned his feet against the hard stone ground.

Bowser couldn't say how long he walked before a scream startled him out of his drowsiness. He whipped his head towards the high-pitched distress keening, a cry both familiar and uncannily different, and there stood the crystalline tower he broke out of to enter this maze.

But now, it was black like coal and crumbling. Boulder-sized chunks blocked the entrance. The tower went on forever into the sky, but it had a top. Pieces of it slammed to the ground like thunder.

Seeing the tower without its light filled him with fresh, agonizing grief. He pressed both hands over his mouth and turned away. Tears flooded onto his face.

"No," Bowser sniffled.

Part of a parapet knocked him senseless. Something that heavy should have crushed his skull and killed him instantly. Instead, he fell underneath it, pulled into his shell and bawled, his whole body reeling from the pain.

Chunks crashed around him. Debris bounced off his shell spikes. Impacts shook the ground.

The child screamed again. And splashed.

Wait, splashing?

Bowser deflected a boulder as he sat up. Water trickled through the debris blocking the door.

"No! No, no, no! I'll get you out! Hang on, kid!"

He clawed a boulder off the pile. Salty water splashed onto his face from whatever leaked. Grit dirtied his fingers. He kept reaching, pulling, throwing and digging.

Finally, a tiny opening. He peeked through.

Water poured off a hole in the ceiling like a waterfall. His gaze landed on a tiny spiked shell and red topknot wading waist deep in the murk.

Junior again?

"Hey! Junior! It'll be okay." Bowser rumbled through the hole. "I'm gonna get you out of there."

Junior looked over his shoulder, sniffed and faced forward again.

Bowser pulled a massive boulder off the pile and the whole mess tumbled to block the entrance again.

"No, damn it!" He stopped, pressing a hand over his eyes. "Come on!"

Every time he cried, Junior did too.

"It's going to be okay. Hang on, kiddo!" Bowser called through the mess, voice cracking.

He threw debris aside as more kept raining everywhere like nightmare hailstones bigger than him. The water inside poured over his feet. Still rising, but slower than before since it had an escape route.

The last rock was taller than the entrance and awkwardly shaped. He could move it, but not enough to prevent it from blocking the way once he got past it.

If he didn't go in now, Junior would drown!

Bowser shouldered the blockage aside and squeezed past it. The rough rock scraped his spiked shell falling back into place. Sparks flew. His feet splashed into the water.

"Gotcha!" Bowser snatched Junior up to hug him tight, one hand under his bottom and the other cupping his head.

Tears streamed down his face. Junior sobbed inconsolably. The water continued rising up to his knees. They couldn't stay here.

Low rumbling above. New debris blocked the path back.

Bowser couldn't look up without saltwater hitting his face, burning his eyes. They had to get out!

He focused on the walls in the dusty dimness. Cracked, some parts missing bricks. The tower wobbled on its weakening foundation.

No way out except through.

"Hang onto me. No matter what happens, don't let go."

In his arms, Junior clung to his plastron.

Bowser backed up until his tail touched the boulder pile. He bounced on his heels once, twice, three times, and sprinted at the opposite wall. Hard bricks met his shoulder in blinding red-white pain.

He ran at it again. And again. And again. Both his shoulders ached. His elbows were scraped up from protecting Junior from each blow. The water threatened to reach his thighs.

Grit splashed at his feet. Quakes shook the ground.

Bowser gasped and hurled himself at the wall with all his desperate might. It gave way, sending him and Junior rolling across soft grass.

The tower rocked. If he ran forward, it would crush them when it toppled. He looked both ways. The right glowed with approaching dawn.

Scrambling onto his feet, Bowser ran faster than he thought possible. Tears glistened on his cheeks. Behind him, the falling tower sounded like creation itself breaking apart.

He jumped forward and shoulder-rolled away when the tower hit the ground with a jarring, earth-shattering boom. Dust and water coated his back while he lay over Junior, protecting him from harm.

Junior wriggled free and turned around.

Wait, where was his bandanna?

Bowser looked again.

That wasn't Junior.

Dawn broke, nascent sunlight bathing his child self in all his golden brilliance.

Battered and bruised, he knelt to embrace him. The child, now soothed, disappeared into his chest.

Warm sunlight shone all around.

Bowser stood up and opened his eyes.

.o

Celine, Judy, Josh and Elton brought Bowser's gurney back into the room. They had smiles on their faces.

"Inserting the occluder was a success. His vitals improved in the cath lab!" Neil clapped his hands together with a bright grin. "He made several displeased faces and I saw some respiratory efforts during the procedure, so I have the vent providing support to see often he triggers it. The sedatives are being tapered off. I think it'll be okay to extubate him soon, and then we'll see about weaning him off the balloon."

Junior leapt up and down, cheering. Larry, Morton and Roy clustered up in a three person hug. Lemmy flapped his hands and did a backflip. Wendy and Iggy shed hopeful tears. Ludwig pressed his palms together and looked upward as if thanking an unseen force.

The next morning, Junior sat on the edge of the bed like he had been doing for the past week.

"It's me, dad. Can you open your eyes today?"

No response.

"Dad?" Junior leaned closer. "Please, dad. Open your eyes for me. Even if it's for a minute…dad, please! I miss you."

Bowser opened his eyes. He didn't look around, and he closed them again right away, but that was progress!

"Dad!" Junior held tight to Bowser's finger and used his other hand to mass text everybody the news.

Bowser wasn't responsive anymore by the time everyone else piled in around his bed.

"He opened his eyes for me, guys. Really!" Junior protested. "He—"

"He's got my hand!" Morton held up his arm with Bowser's hand gripping his. Tears welled up in his eyes and dribbled onto his cheeks. "Aw, dad, it's okay. Everybody's here."

"Easy does it." Celine patted Morton's shoulder. "Don't overstimulate him. He'll get upset and his vitals will freak Neil out."

"That feels bad," Lemmy said from the foot of the bed.

Morton wrapped his other arm around Bowser and hugged him tight. He whispered something in his ear. Bowser let go of his hand and moved his mouth around the tube stuck in it. Whatever Morton said, he heard it.

Later, when Junior went to kiss his dad goodnight before going to bed, he found Lemmy sound asleep in the crook of his arm. Their faces were turned towards each other, and Bowser had a hold of Lemmy's foot.

Junior snapped a photo with his phone. He climbed onto the stool by the bed to kiss his dad and brother on the cheek.

Lemmy stirred awake, blinking.

"Shh," Junior held a finger by his mouth. "It's bedtime. Let's go upstairs."

Nodding, Lemmy worked his foot free and nuzzled Bowser's cheek before climbing off the bed. He rubbed his eyes as they made their way into the elevator.

"Hey, Lemmy?"

"Huh?" Lemmy yawned.

"Remember when I kicked you in here?"

"Uh-huh. It hurt."

Junior wrapped his arm around his shoulders and leaned on him. "I'm sorry I did that."

Lemmy turned his head and bit Junior's wrist. His teeth were tiny, the needle-like points sending a shock of pain through Junior's arm.

He looked up, a rare moment of eye contact, and smiled with immense affection. "We're even now, buttface."

The bite marks hurt something fierce, but didn't bleed. Junior grinned back because he knew he deserved that.

"You're right, dickhead. We're even."

They cracked up so hard that Wendy stared at them like they lost their minds when they walked out.

"What's with you two?"

Lemmy and Junior eyed each other.

"Get her," Junior whispered.

"Yeah!" Lemmy replied.

In unison, they pretended to throw up and chanted, "Barfhead, barfhead! Wendy is a barfhead!"

She face-palmed and walked away. "Not this again! Boys are so stupid sometimes, ugh!"

Junior cackled, slapping Lemmy's outstretched hand.

Lemmy laughed until he tipped over sideways, holding his stomach. "We got her!"

And then he dropped right off to sleep on the floor where he lay. He was talented like that. Junior scooped him into his arms and took him up to Bowser's bedroom. They were all sleeping there on his bed at night since it was the biggest bed in the castle.

Iggy slept on his side, his long body stretched out across the foot of the bed. Ludwig was on his stomach adjacent to him, his head pillowed on his arms. Morton sprawled out, taking up half the middle, and Larry rested his head on his tail. Roy occupied the whole head area of the bed, his feet barely a few inches from Ludwig's snout.

Junior laid Lemmy against Iggy's chest and watched the twins grip onto each other in their sleep. He crawled into the warm spot between Morton and Roy. Their combined body heat was just as good as a blanket.

"How's dad?" Roy mumbled, draping his arm over Junior's shell.

Junior showed him the picture of Bowser and Lemmy on his phone. "He did that."

Roy smiled and closed his eyes. "Good."

Wendy came in last, wiggling herself in against Morton's other side.

"Hey, Wendy?" Junior whispered.

"I have nothing to say to you, brat," she sneered.

"Nobody else can call you barfhead. If anybody who isn't family does, I'll kill 'em."

"Hmph! That's cute. Go to sleep."

"G'night, barfhead."

"G'night Bowise Ju-ju."

He let her have that one.

They all fell asleep together, a pile of Koopas hoping for a better tomorrow.

.o

Junior wished he waited five more minutes to visit his dad. Extubation looked downright brutal. Watching the endotracheal tube get pulled from Bowser's throat and laid across the towel on his chest seemed like something out of a nightmare.

Celine suctioned the spit out of his mouth using a long, clear tube. He let her do it without a struggle, only gagging and coughing a bit when she went all the way to the back of his tongue and behind his uvula. She pulled a lot of gross, thick snot into the collection cup. He coughed hard once the suctioning stopped, a good sign that he could protect his airway.

"Good cough, your majesty!" She smiled and took the endotracheal tube away with the towel. "Here comes Neil with your oxygen."

Neil fit a high flow nasal cannula in his nostrils— this oxygen tubing looked like a smaller version of the ridged ventilator tube— and straps hooked to his horns held the prongs in place in his nostrils. The tube draped off the left side where it connected to a concentrator with a humidifier.

Bowser didn't appear bothered by it. He grasped at the empty air in front of his mouth as if searching for the missing ventilator.

"The humidified oxygen will help soothe his throat." Celine said as she tucked a fresh white towel under his chin. Her expression softened when he turned his eyes towards her.

"You're doing great, my liege." She rubbed his reaching hand.

"Hey, dad," Junior took that hand, stopping him from trying to grab a nonexistent tube. "They took it out. It's gone. You're breathing by yourself."

Bowser stared blankly at him. His eyes didn't focus or light up in recognition. Stringy drool oozed from the corner of his mouth onto the towel under his chin. He pulled his hand free of Junior's grasp and touched the side of his face.

"This isn't a dream. You woke up. I'm really here." Junior whispered to him, leaning into that hand. It wasn't cold like it had been several days ago. "I'll take care of you."

Sniffing, Bowser turned his head and went back to sleep.

His lights weren't fully on, but they were flickering and he was trying.

.o

"Where's Wendy? Dad? Can you find Wendy?"

Junior used a tissue to dab the crusty goop off the corners of Bowser's eyes. He smiled when his dad's gaze locked onto him.

"I'm not Wendy. Keep looking."

The bed had Bowser in that weird semi-sitting position, his head supported by a white U-shaped pillow.

He looked at every single person around his bed, turning his head to look down at Lemmy dozing against his right side.

One sweep. Two sweeps. On the third sweep, he gestured towards his feet where Wendy stood.

Her eyes welled over. "That's right, daddy."

"Dad?" Ludwig bent closer, "Can you sign something?"

It took Bowser a minute to react. He pointed his index finger at the ceiling and made a circle, the sign for something.

Everybody chuckled at that.

"Hey, hey dad," Larry grabbed Roy's sunglasses and placed them in Bowser's hand, "Whose face do these go on?"

Roy shot Larry and indignant scowl.

Bowser put the sunglasses on himself, which had everyone laughing again. Larry took a picture with his phone.

His responses fell off after that.

Roy swiped his sunglasses back and slapped the back of Larry's head.

"Twat," he muttered.

Ludwig elbowed both of them and signed, "Fight somewhere else. Dad needs his rest."

Iggy woke up Lemmy by tapping on his shell. "We're letting him rest. Come on."

Lemmy's rainbow Mohawk popped up. He kissed Bowser's cheek and climbed down, yawning. "Can we eat?"

The smell of cooking eggs flooded into the elevator on the upper floor, followed by Vivi's high pitched laughter and a familiar-yet-not-familiar chesty deep voice.

Junior skipped into the kitchen where he found Black cooking the biggest bacon and cheese omelet known to Koopa-kind. And while it sizzled in the giant pan, he grabbed items off the shelves, guessed how the labels were pronounced and dramatically read them aloud.

Nothing he read sounded anything like it was supposed to. He kept wheeze-laughing because Vivi couldn't stand up straight each time he made a noise. Her face was almost as purple as her sneakers.

Black spotted Junior and waved a box of cake mix over his head, signing, "Help! How do you say this flavor?"

Junior stuck Black's hand under his chin and said it slowly, so he could watch and feel how his mouth and tongue moved, "Butterscotch."

Then he understood why Vivi howled so loud when Black pronounced it as bub-saw. He, too, fell victim to the guffawing taking over the kitchen.

Ludwig couldn't say it either, despite three tries and with Roy pronouncing it straight into one of his hearing aid microphones. His pronunciation got a little closer, butt-air-scorch.

"You hearies and your stupid, difficult words," he signed, laughing while he clung to Black's arm.

They calmed down enough to be served the tasty omelet. Black cooked it so the cheese melted into a gooey, stringy mess of goodness. He meticulously picked all the bacon bits out and set them aside on the plate he gave to Lemmy.

"Thank you!" Lemmy's face lit up at that. He repeated it in Koopa Sign, to which Black nodded.

Ludwig watched Black with dreamy, heavily-lidded eyes. Black caught him looking, winked and passed him his plate. They tapped the tines of their forks against each other like a toast.

Moments later, all it took was Iggy saying, "Lemmy, pass me the BUB-SAW," to destroy everybody at the table.

Lemmy added fuel to the fire when he answered, "Okay, but I want the BUTT-AIR-SCORCH."

Ludwig guffawed a piece of egg out of his nose.

Morton caught it on his fork in midair and stuffed it in his mouth.

"What?" He gazed at everyone's horrified stares.

"What the hell?" Black signed it as he said it. He pronounced it perfectly— totally by accident— and it was the most hilariously-timed deadpan delivery since he had no instinct for vocal inflection.

Wendy buried her face in a napkin to stop omelet chunks from flying out of her mouth. He looked at her, a brow raised. Her whole body shook and tears poured down her snout.

Ludwig tapped his shoulder and signed, "You talked like a hearie."

"A drunk one," Wendy gasped through her napkin.

Ludwig interpreted what she said. Black wheezed so hard he almost fell face-first into his plate.

He signed, "Finally, my impression of a hearie paid off."

The long, loud snort Larry emitted sounded like a fart. Lemmy slid under the table, guffawing. Roy lifted his sunglasses to peer down at him. Everyone erupted again. Laughing, howling, screaming and whooping. It was utter mayhem. Nobody could look at each other without losing it, and no one ate their food hot.

.o

Junior stirred the reddish-brown contents of the Meat Meal jar with a large white plastic spoon. This one was sausage flavored, he chose it because it smelled like breakfast after Celine warmed it in the microwave.

The bed had Bowser sitting up, but his head flopped back against the horseshoe pillow behind his neck. A towel covered his chest to guard against spills. His eyes were closed. Sometimes his hands picked aimlessly at his blankets. He was conscious, but not fully there yet.

"Here it comes, dad." Junior lifted the spoon towards his nose. "Can you smell it?"

Bowser's nostrils flared, he seemed able to smell despite the high flow oxygen strapped to his face. He opened his mouth, accepted the spoon and closed it again without doing anything else.

"Swallow it. Come on, you can swallow."

Junior waited until he saw his throat flex. It took him three tries to figure it out.

Heavy footsteps plodded past the curtain. Morton poked his broad face in. "How's he doing?"

"I'm feeding him." Junior spooned more into Bowser's mouth. "Swallow, dad. There you go. Yum, yum."

Morton chuckled, pulling up a stool. "Ohh, the smell of that stuff takes me back. This is all I ate as a baby. Dad had to put vitamin powder in it to make sure I got all my nutrients, 'cuz everything else made me sick."

"Really?"

"Yep. Colic is a bitch. Sometimes I still get it when I eat spicy stuff." His face fell, his wide mouth turning down at the corners. "Can I take over?"

Junior handed Morton the jar and spoon. "Don't pile the spoon with a lot. Celine said small bites only, so he doesn't perspirate."

"Aspirate," Celine said without taking her eyes off her computer monitor or pausing in her data entry.

"That." Junior gestured at her.

"Gotcha." Morton sat on the edge of the bed. Like Bowser, he was left-handed. He held the spoon a few inches to the right of his snout. "Hey, dad. Can you find it?"

Bowser turned his head ever so slightly towards the spoon.

"Good job!" Morton gave it to him. "Can you swallow that? Awesome! Here, find it again. Try to the left. A little more. Almost th— yeah! You've got this."

"Don't tease him." Junior frowned.

"I'm not. I'm making him use his brain." Morton stirred the contents of the jar and wiped the spoon on the rim to remove excess.

He moved the spoon, encouraging Bowser to locate it. Eventually, he fed him the last bite without making him search.

Bowser opened his eyes when the spoon didn't return. That was the first time he did it without somebody else's prompting.

Junior clutched Morton's arm. Morton looked at him and nodded.

"It's gone. You ate it all. See?" He held the empty jar in his line of sight.

Blinking, Bowser grasped the jar and pushed it away. His eyes drifted shut as he relaxed again.

Junior climbed up, wiped the drooly food bits off his dad's snout with the towel on his chest and dropped it in the linen pouch by the bed.

"I was supposed to do this when he's really old," he whispered to himself. "You're not that old, dad."

Sometimes, Junior missed being an ignorant, young little kid who came downstairs to help his convalescing dad get better after a heart attack. Everything was so much simpler when he was four. It seemed like growing up meant inhabiting more and more things to fear.

Once, Bowser could silence a room just by walking in. And now he needed someone else to feed him slop off a spoon.

He got better before. But what about the next heart attack? And the one after that?

"Hey." Morton nudged him.

"What?" Junior fell out of his ruminations.

"See what happened there?" He smiled and winked. "I fired up his brain."

Junior stared into the empty jar, wishing he could share the enthusiasm. "How come he's having a harder time waking up this time?"

"Beats me." Morton slid off the bed. "Neil said something about his blood not being properly oxygenated for a longer period than his first heart attack. Maybe that's it."

Beside them, Bowser moved his legs under the blankets on his lap. He didn't open his eyes or respond to being talked to.

Junior pulled Morton outside the curtain with him and whispered, "What if he's like this forever?"

Morton blinked.

"Oh, you poor kid." He squeezed Junior's shoulder with his beefy hand. "I don't think this is it."

"But what if it is?"

"Then we'll take care of him."

"Who is gonna do all the king stuff? I'm too young to be crowned."

Morton squeezed his shoulder again, shaking his head. "Junior, this is stuff you worry about if he isn't any better in a year. It's still early. Take things day by day."

Junior grabbed onto Morton and hugged him tight, his face pressed into his chest. "It was almost you."

"Aw, kiddo." Morton held Junior with both arms, patting his shell. His heartbeat thumped strongly in Junior's ear. "It was almost you, too. We never would've known about it if we didn't get checked. As messed up as all this is, something good happened because of it."

"It doesn't feel very good."

"Yeah, I know."

Junior clung to his older brother. Morton was already stockier than their dad. Some Koopas were destined to be rotund that way.

"Whatever happens, we'll take care of each other and dad, okay?" Morton's gruff, guttural voice offered reassurance in all the uncertainty.

Nodding, Junior relaxed his grip and let go of him. "Okay."

Morton turned to head for the elevator, then stopped and glanced over his shoulder.

"By the way…if not knowing is gonna keep you up at night, you'll be king by title only if dad doesn't make it. Ludwig is the oldest, so he's supposed to handle the official stuff until dad recovers or you turn eighteen. That's when you'll be old enough for the throne and all the responsibilities that go with it."

The elevator closed, hiding his broad face from view as the up arrow flashed green.

For many nights after that, Junior found himself struggling to sleep. Every time he began to drop off, he jolted alert with his heart racing.

At least he didn't wake up in a pee flooded bed with all his siblings around him. He checked anyway, just to be sure.

Times like this made him miss Cherry. He tried to text her. They wouldn't send. He pushed his phone away and cried.

A tiny hand draped over his wrist. Lemmy didn't ask him what was wrong. He scooted over and curled up against his chest. Iggy moved next, sliding closer. Ludwig's feet shifted. Before long, Junior felt all his siblings piling around him with comforting hands and concerned eyes.

For the first time in several nights, he could sleep.

.o

Comprehending his situation floated millimeters out of Bowser's reach. He knew his brain wasn't working like it should, yet couldn't access the areas he needed to figure out what to do about it.

Time ran fluid. Hours were seconds, seconds were hours, minutes lost meaning. Sometimes his brain shut down on him, forcing him into sleep. Other times, his confusion drove him into a rage and he threw anything he got his hands on.

Several times a day, nurses came to reposition him. Being moved aggravated something painful in his chest. He tried to push them away. Somehow, they ducked his swinging arms and finished moving him onto his side with pillows behind his back.

"There," said Josh, his warm baritone voice never losing its gentle calmness. "Sorry, I know moving sucks. We have to do it."

Bowser huffed smoke through his mouth and closed his eyes.

Josh walked past the curtain surrounding the bed and addressed someone in the doorway.

"Fair warning, he's agitated."

"Aw, really?" Larry sighed, "What happened?"

"I turned him. He doesn't like that. He just got some pain meds, so he's going to be sleepy."

"Okay. Thanks."

Josh rattled the curtain slightly.

Bowser growled when somebody touched his hand. He opened his eyes. Larry held his hand, so it wasn't Josh trying to move him again.

"Easy, dad, it's me." Larry perched on the side of the bed, still holding his hand. "Bad day, huh?"

Anguish transformed into tearful exhaustion. He sniffled, biting the corner of his pillow. Everybody had answers for questions he didn't know how to ask.

Larry looked down at him with worried eyes. His hair was spiked up in a Mohawk and he finally got his roots done, so no more black streaks underneath the blue.

"I know. Everything feels so messed up, doesn't it? It sure sucks."

Bowser fumbled until he gripped Larry's shoulder, pulling him towards his chest.

"Looking for a hug? Okay, hug it is." Larry laid down to embrace him, careful of the tubes and wires attaching him to various machines.

The IV pump beeped. Larry adjusted his tail until it stopped. Bowser hung onto him because somehow he knew he would be the one with all the answers someday.

"Hey, it'll be okay. Everybody is pitching in to take care of you, dad." Larry used his thumb to brush a tear out of his eye.

Things started to get hazy. Bowser struggled to keep his sleepy eyes open.

Larry adjusted his hold on his hand. "Let me try…"

Clearing his throat, he hummed.

"Hmm-hmmm-hmm…somewhere over the rainbow, way up high…there's a land that I heard of, once in a lullaby…"

Larry sang with all the messy charm of an untrained singer who didn't know how good his voice was.

"Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue…and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true. Ooh-ooh-ooh…"

Bowser fell asleep to the lullaby he used to sing to his children.

He was grateful for them, more than they could ever know. They came to see him often, a parade of familiar faces cutting through his fog.

Did they know how much he loved them and how much they meant to him?

.o

A timid, soft voice spoke, "Dad?"

Bowser stirred awake. All he saw was a rainbow Mohawk until Lemmy vaulted onto the stool beside the bed and beamed at him with twinkling eyes. As usual, he didn't make eye contact, and his lazy eye wobbled off to point wherever it wanted to.

He balanced a clear bouncy ball on his palm. Gold glitter and water filled the inside, so it sparkled when it rolled.

"Look!" He pulled his other hand up from where he hid it under the bed to reveal a fuzzy, pink peach. "Can you look at the one that's food?"

The fruity scent of the peach stabbed through Bowser like a thousand knives. Tears followed. He pressed a hand over his eyes.

"Lemmy!" Iggy pushed past the privacy curtain, "What'd you do?"

"Nothing!" Lemmy jumped off the stool and backed away from the bed. "I was seeing if he can tell things apart, cuz Celine said we're supposed to stimulate him! Now he's crying!"

"You picked that, Lemmy? Really?"

"What?"

Iggy held the peach up in front of Lemmy's face. "Who has the same name as this?"

Lemmy gasped, shoving it at Iggy as if to hide it. "Oh no! Dad! I'm sorry!"

Bowser covered his face with a pillow because he couldn't stop himself from crying. Lemmy swiped the pillow away and laid against his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, dad. Cry all you want to. Do you want the pillow back on your face?"

Bowser nodded, so Lemmy put the pillow back and rubbed his shoulder in soothing circles.

Somebody else held his hand. Iggy. He squeezed it tight.

"He's being sad, but that means he remembers what happened to her." Lemmy never mastered whispering quietly, so it was like a stage whisper audible to all present.

"Uh-huh. I didn't think of it like that." Iggy leaned against the bed. He reached around the pillow to pat the same shoulder Lemmy rubbed. "We know you're in there, dad. It's okay."

Bowser sobbed himself into a headache, and then he fell asleep.

Later, after an uncountable amount of time, he stirred awake to Wendy showing him photos on her phone.

"The castle framework is done. They're working on the underground levels right now. See, daddy?" She gazed hopefully at him. "Do you remember blowing the old castle up?"

Yes, he remembered. He snickered, hardly more than a snort.

Wendy smiled and patted his hand. "We recycled a lot of the old materials. It's going to look fantastic when it's done. Simm is cooperating beautifully with me."

He touched her phone and it swiped to the selfie she took with him in front of the cratered wreck.

Wendy's often icy blue eyes softened. She squeezed his hand and leaned over to kiss his cheek. Sleep swallowed him up before she moved away.

Sometime later, he opened his eyes to dimmed lights and Ludwig with a piano keyboard in his lap while he hunched over a tablet. The luciferous screen highlighted his features as he fingered the keys in quick, assured strokes. He leaned back and swished his hands in a conductor's gestures, his ictus beating out four-four triangles.

At that moment Bowser lost himself in time. He gripped the bed rail, trying to sit up. His movements caught Ludwig's attention, and he abandoned the music he worked on.

"No, dad, don't get up," he signed. Fast first, then slower. "Do you need help?"

Bowser pushed his hands through Ludwig's thick blue hair, fingertips brushing against something tucked into his ears. Ludwig caught hold of his left hand. Bowser pulled back, raising his eyebrows and jabbing his index fingers at each other.

"Do you…" Ludwig repeated the sign, pointing to him, "hurt?"

Bowser pinched the air. He cupped the side of Ludwig's head again, feeling for the chill of a fever, because he swore just yesterday he was screaming as doctors drained pus from his ear canals.

"Oh." Ludwig whispered out loud, like he read his mind. He lifted his hair off both sides of his head and showed him the translucent hearing aids in his auricles. "No, dad, they don't hurt. That was decades ago. I'm twenty-seven now."

Blinking, Bowser took hold of his eldest son's shoulder.

Ludwig pointed to his hearing aids and signed. "I'm all right, dad. I promise."

Over his shoulder, the laptop displayed the time— six o'clock in the morning— and several lines of musical notation. Bowser heard what he read as surely as if an orchestra played in his skull. He closed his eyes to quiet his mind and his hand slipped off Ludwig's shoulder.

Ludwig guided that hand gently onto the bed and stroked it once it lay at his side. His shadow swept left to right. The light of the screen moved off his face.

Somewhere far down the hall, a door banged. Bowser opened his eyes again.

Footsteps padded closer. Black crept past the privacy curtain with his helmet under one arm and two steaming rainbow mugs in his hands and handed one to Ludwig.

"My shift starts in an hour," he signed, placing his helmet on a nearby stool and his mug on the counter beside the sink.

Nodding, Ludwig sipped. The gurgles of his slurp and swallow were loud in the silent room.

His eyes softened as he signed. "You made espresso."

"Of course. You wake up too early, silly," Black signed back, his expression teasingly amorous. He downed all of his espresso in what seemed like two noisy gulps and put his mug back on the counter. "You're making your sexy focused face."

Ludwig cupped the back of his neck. His face flushed at the flattery, and he gestured one-handed, "Your everything is sexy."

Black waggled his eyebrows, flexed his biceps and ran his tongue across his front teeth. Ludwig plunked his coffee mug on the counter by the sink and stood, wrapping his arms around him. Black's head fit perfectly under his chin while they embraced.

"I love you," Ludwig murmured out loud.

Black gave a four syllable response that returned the sentiment.

For a time, they stood still together, two shapes united as one in the pale laptop light. They exchanged a long, slow, eyes-closed-and-lost-in-it kiss, smiled with their faces less than an inch apart and playfully bumped noses before separating.

Ludwig reached for his mug. He enjoyed a long sip.

Black noticed Bowser watching. He bowed respectfully, signing, "Good morning, King Bowser. Thank you for your beautiful son."

Bowser was too exhausted to respond, so he closed his eyes again. Black drew the blankets up to his shoulders and cupped his hand over his wrist, a soothing touch. His presence departed from the room.

And somewhere far away in the hallway, a door banged like it tried to explode.

"Gah!" Elton startled as he came on duty.

"I felt that one." Ludwig said over his coffee mug.

"Geez, he murders every door he closes," Elton whispered.

"Sorry?"

Elton whispered it again.

Ludwig sniffed and sighed in exasperation. "Elton, I can't hear whispering. Come here and talk into my ear."

"Sorry." Elton's booted feet tapped in Ludwig's direction. He repeated himself again, in a sotto voice.

"You're right. There is no door that Black can't slam."

"True. Hey, what does your mug say?" Elton read aloud, "'I can't hear you over the sound of how fucking gay I am.' That's brilliant."

"Black's matches. Check his out."

"'Too fucking queer to hear.'" Elton snickered. "I love it. Where did you get them?"

"Glitterbomb. It's a little shop run by deaf Koopas in the middle of Koopa City. Look for the pink door across the street from the front entrance of the KC3. You can't miss it."

"Oh, cool. I'll check it out. Are they okay with hearing people shopping there?"

"Mmhmm. They have tablets for communicating with hearing people. You'll be fine. Besides, they're online, too, so you can order without having to see a person face to face. They sell everything from bookmarks to engagement and wedding rings."

"What about, erm…toys?"

Ludwig never missed a beat. "They have those, too. And lube. GlitterGlide is the best."

"Right. What're you working on?"

"My symphony."

Bowser's attention span ran out of juice. He drifted off into slumber while they conversed nearby.

.o

Junior sat on the floor by Bowser's bed to eat the hot, chunky Cheep-Cheep soup Roy cooked for everybody. He put all the good stuff in it— Cheep-Cheep clumps, cabbage strips, fried Birdo tapeworms chopped fine, brown beans, onion chunks and a touch of garlic served in a thick red blood-marrow broth.

Roy had the magic touch making this dish. Nobody cooked it like him, not even Black, who came the closest. The biggest miracle was that Lemmy liked it, and Lemmy had a lot of food aversions.

Bowser struggled with delirium through most of the morning. He tried to fight off Judy when she checked his vitals and didn't calm down until he got morphine in his IV. She suspected pain triggered it.

Now he slept soundly, like he did for the past few days, so Junior devoured his tasty treat in silence while Celine sat at her nurse's station off to the left.

The bedding rustled.

"Smells good."

Junior almost dropped the bowl he drank from. He set it on the stool because he couldn't trust his hands to stay steady.

"Dad?"

Bowser's eyes were open. He was in a reclining position halfway between laying down and sitting up. His bass voice sounded croaky and breathy like he just woke up, but he talked!

"Hi."

Junior jumped up to stand by the bed, eyes overflowing. "Hi, dad."

"That smells good." Bowser pointed vaguely at the bowl on the stool.

"It's soup. Roy made it."

"I want some," whispered Bowser.

"You can have the broth." Celine turned around, her computer screen bright behind her. If she was pleased by him finally speaking, she concealed it well behind her amazing nurse poker face. "I don't want to clean up chunks if it comes back up."

"If dad wants soup, he gets soup." Junior pulled out his cell phone and dialed.

"Yo," Roy picked up on the first ring.

"Strain some of that soup broth. Dad wants to eat."

"Huh?"

"Dad talked! He asked for soup!"

"Awesome! I'll get it." Roy's phone rustled. "Vivi, get—" He hung up mid-sentence.

Junior sniffled, climbed onto Bowser's lap and hugged him as tight as he dared. Bowser's arms enveloped him.

"You crying?" Bowser whispered.

"No," Junior lied.

"Okay."

Rustling in the hall. Something squeaked.

Celine turned as Roy barged in carrying a giant silver soup pot. "Wait, that's too m—"

Bowser swiped the pot, chugged everything in it and unleashed a thundering belch. He looked over at Celine as if daring her to do something about it.

"Impressive, sire," Celine grumbled, face-palming.

Roy snickered. Celine huffed. Bowser licked his chops.

Junior broke out into laughter because his dad acted like his dad.

.o

The pain and fatigue were beyond anything Bowser experienced before.

He moved his arm or shifted in bed? Exhausted.

Cough or sneeze? The edges of his vision turned red in sharp, throbbing bone agony.

Eat, drink, crap, or interact with anyone? Sore and wiped out.

Everything got more difficult whenever he took off the high flow oxygen contraption hooked to his nose, as if his body forgot how to function. Worse, it triggered the alarm on his monitor, and unflappable Celine finally got pissed off after the sixth time in an hour.

"Your majesty, I understand it's uncomfortable. Stop making my job harder!" She snapped as she fit it back over his nose and horns.

Bowser groaned under his breath. "What day is it?"

"It's 'keep your oxygen on Sunday'," Celine said back. "Keep your oxygen on day is every day that ends in a Y. Now behave."

"Don't wanna."

She smirked, her gold heart locket gleaming when she leaned over to look him in the eyes. "I'll tape it on. Don't test me."

Rather than argue, he dozed off. He spent more time asleep than awake. When he woke up again, Elton was on duty. He wore his flashiest green-tinted glasses shaped like glittery spiked Koopa shells.

"I bought these last night at a place Ludwig recommended," he said, smiling. "Celine said you needed something entertaining, and the guy behind the counter helped me pick the most ridiculous glasses in stock."

Bowser was indeed entertained.

"Where?"

"Glitterbomb, I think it's called."

"Heh, funny."

Sometimes, he came into awareness in the middle of something happening and faltered back out without knowing what went on. Those days were the hardest, especially when he realized other people were feeding him and wiping his vent. His kids took turns making sure he ate, drank and stayed clean.

Once, Lemmy snuck in a piece of chocolate cake and they enjoyed it together. Stevie had a fit when she found the bowl, but what could she do about it?

Bowser's condition started to improve, little by little. He joked that the cake did it.

Wendy gave him a huge, rectangular digital clock that projected a blue sky above the digital numbers during the day, and a black sky with stars at night, while the time of dawn and dusk showed up purple.

"There." She hung it on the far wall to his right, where he saw it from any position except his left side.

His shell and spiked bands were tucked against the wall underneath it.

"Where was Peach buried?" Bowser blurted out the question.

Wendy looked back at him with sad eyes. She used her phone to run a quick internet search and showed him a picture.

A grassy, lofty hill in sight of the Mushroom Castle. Peach's grave had a gold plaque heaped with dying old roses and new ones recently placed.

He remembered being in the operating room, asking for someone to do that on his behalf. Knowing it was being done put his heart at ease.

"They're planning to put a life-sized memorial statue of her behind the name plaque." Wendy scrolled through the page. "It's supposed to be done in six months to a year."

"Where's Cherry?"

"Cherry?" Wendy blinked at him. "Junior said Mario made her block him and sent her off to Sarasaland. That's all I know. He's pretty messed up about it, so don't poke the subject with him."

Tears blurred his eyes. The future he hoped to achieve was in shambles and nothing made sense anymore.

If that wasn't bad enough, the surface and inside of his chest throbbed like someone drove nails through him. Sometimes the pangs turned the edges of his vision red-white.

"I'm sorry, daddy." Wendy dabbed his cheeks with a tissue and kissed his cheek. "This is hard and everything is a mess."

He nodded, because it was. Just that movement had him seeing crimson. He gasped, hands moving towards his chest.

Wendy rubbed his forearm. He led her hand to his incision.

"Help," he whispered.

"Do you want pain meds?" She asked.

He nodded again.

"Hey, Judy?" Wendy called, "He's asking for pain meds, can he have some?"

"Mmhmm. Coming right up."

Judy injected something into his IV and he sank away into peaceful sleep.

.o

Days drifted past, mere waking moments captured within a maelstrom of vivid dreams.

Bowser barely remembered having the intra-aortic balloon pump removed from his body. He had no recollection of the pacemaker coming off, but he remembered his IVs being discontinued. Just as well— he hated worrying about so many wires and tubes.

Neil kept the oxygen on him. He switched from the fat high flow contraption to the skinnier nasal cannula. Bowser complained about it, and he got a stern talking to that his oxygen saturation tanked every time he took it off.

Besides, he felt like shit when he left it off too long, so he tolerated the prongs in his nose.

Aggravating pain had him asking for meds as soon as the previous dose wore off. Josh gave them immediately.

Bowser stared at the ceiling while waiting for the Percocet to kick in again.

Peach was gone, and with her his desire for the Mushroom Kingdom. Cherry got sent away, destroying the plans for Junior's future.

Nothing made sense anymore.

Would he ever find purpose again?

.o

A familiar buck-toothed Koopa Paratroopa peeked his head around the privacy curtain.

"Well, well, long time no see!"

Lifting his head, Bowser arched a brow. "You again?"

"Yes, my darling majesty, it is I." Freddie flared his wings and folded them against his bright yellow shell as he dipped in a graceful bow. He still had shiny pearls embedded throughout his feathers.

"Hmph." Bowser let his head flop back onto the pillow. "I'm having the worst time of my life right now."

Freddie dropped his silver sequined bag on a stool and unzipped it. "I heard about Queen Peach. Such a tragic lo—"

Bowser cut in. "Freddie, be serious with me. Can you get me healthy enough to put flowers on her grave myself?"

"If you're patient." Freddie set out a stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, SATs probe and latex gloves. "Right now, my immediate focus is getting you strong enough to stand up from that bed. Neil says you were unconscious much longer than last time, and your current recovery is complicated."

Nodding, Bowser closed his eyes and rubbed them. Just moving his arm hurt.

"I'm so tired all the time. All I want to do is sleep."

"Sleep is the best medicine." Freddie washed his hands, gloved up and fluttered onto a stool. He wiggled his stethoscope. "Mind if I have a listen?"

"Go ahead."

The chest piece wasn't unbearably frigid.

"Deep breath in…and out. In…and out." Freddie moved the stethoscope around. "Sounds like you cleared the fluid in your lungs this time. You aren't crackling at all."

"Chest hurts a lot," muttered Bowser.

"I don't blame you, darling. Neil's crew had to do chest compressions minutes after you were closed up."

"I read the report. The chest compressions fractured my sternum next to where they cut it in half. A steel plate and screws are what's holding it together, same as the last two times I had surgery, so it's going to heal without me having to get cut open again."

Freddie frowned, wrapping the blood pressure cuff around his arm. "Well, your muscles seem to be in good shape, all things considered."

"You're saying that because you're holding my arm."

"Any chance to grab a beefy arm like this is a gift."

Bowser snorted at the playful flirting while the cuff tightened.

Freddie let it deflate and unwrapped it in one loud crackling motion. "Speaking of size— your youngest is taller than I am! How old is he now?"

"Eleven. He's going to be my size when he's fully grown. I can tell. His feet are huge compared to the rest of him."

"A sliver off the old shell, eh?"

"Yeah."

"All right. Under the tongue." Freddie poked the probe into Bowser's mouth until it beeped. "SATs and temp look good. Wonderful! Now it's time for me to get up close and personal, sire."

"Do your worst." Bowser folded his hands on his stomach. "I'm ready."

"My favorite kind of attitude."

Freddie touched the bed controls to lay Bowser nearly flat on his back. "Just relax for now."

He manipulated all of Bowser's limbs by lifting, rotating, bending or straightening them.

"Hm, you're stiff. That's to be expected."

"Y-Yeah." Bowser sucked a sharp breath when having his arms moved shot pain across his chest. "Is it supposed to hurt?"

"What kind of pain?"

"Uh…my whole surgical site feels like it's being ripped open."

"Absolutely not!" Freddie lowered the arm he raised. "How about we focus on your lower half for now? Give your upper half more time to heal."

Bowser nodded and Freddie moved to the foot of his bed.

"I'm going to push down on your tail. Let's see if you can resist me."

"That's hardly a challenge!" Bowser easily lifted Freddie off his feet with his tail. "You weigh less than Junior."

Freddie laughed uproariously. "Good! Excellent show of strength!"

They went through several motions— hip stretches, leg lifts, knee bends, ankle rotations and toe flexes. Freddie left Bowser with a worksheet showing all his current exercises and the ones he wanted to work up to as he recovered more.

Bowser fell asleep studying them. When he woke, they were covered in drool and Josh helped him dry them off.

.o

Junior was glad he wasn't the one getting an echocardiogram this time. They were cool for the first few minutes, then they got so boring.

He helped Bowser stay resting on his side while Neil positioned the huge transducer on his chest. Ghostly gray images of his beating heart appeared on the sonogram screen.

Junior couldn't make heads or tails out of it, all he knew was he saw his dad's heart with its winking valves and pulsating chambers.

The settings changed and the Doppler colors appeared. Lots of red and blue, with a few tiny areas of yellow in the middle.

"Mmhmm, already liking what I see," Neil said. He used a cross-shaped cursor on the screen to circle around a fuzzy region between the ventricles where the yellow wisps popped up. "You developed a thrombus around the occluder exactly how I hoped. There is still some seepage, but it's small and I expect it to seal more over time."

"I'm still tired," Bowser rumbled, bass voice vibrating through his back.

"It's expected, and that's the reason you're still on oxygen."

"The part in the middle isn't moving a lot." Junior pointed at the screen.

"Not surprising. The septum is where this heart attack hurt his heart the most." Neil turned off the Doppler setting and moved the cursor over the center. "He's still got some good squeezing going on in there. Can you tell where he had his other major heart attacks?"

"Um…" Junior looked close. "Nope. Can you?"

"Yup. Here and here." Neil circled a small spot on the outside of the right ventricle and another area at the inner bottom of the left ventricle. Those regions didn't thicken as much as the rest. "They're squeezing better than they were when they happened, so, your majesty, your heart is compensating for the damage."

He studied the screen, going quiet.

"I guess I'm that cool." Bowser scoffed. He peered over his shoulder, "Junior, this is going to be boring doctor stuff after this point. Go on up and bug the others for a bit."

"You sure, dad?"

"Yeah. I'll be okay."

"Okay." Junior nuzzled his shoulder. "See you later, dad."

Black was on the couch upstairs, munching on a giant club sandwich full of meat, lettuce, tomatoes and tardar sauce while watching soccer matches with Ludwig. He wore his helmet, so he either just got off work or would be on duty soon.

The evilest idea sprang alive in Junior's mind upon seeing Black lick his fingers and set the sandwich on a saucer next to him. Black and Ludwig were focused entirely on the soccer match— the Earthquakes in their brown jerseys played on their home turf against the Tornadoes, who wore gray jerseys.

Junior didn't have to worry about being quiet, just unseen.

He ducked low, crept up behind Black and pushed his helmet forward over his eyes. At the same time, he swiped the sandwich off the plate and bolted through the dining area with Black thundering on his heels.

"Hahaaaaa!" Junior cackled, holding the sandwich overhead while he dodged past the table.

Black front-flipped and ground pounded. His landing knocked Junior off his feet. Everything in the kitchen jolted.

"Hey!" Wendy shrieked.

Black sat on Junior's shell while he was still sprawled on his belly and let out his wheezy laugh. He swiped his sandwich, playfully smacked Junior's head and took a bite.

Wendy waved her hand and pointed to her smeared claw polish. It looked like glittery red blood on her finger.

"Are you proud of yourself?" She signed in quick swipes, brows raised.

"Blame the little one, not me," Black signed back one-handed, unbothered. He bent as close as he could to Junior's head and took a crunchy bite of his sandwich, letting the tardar sauce drip on the floor.

Switching hands, he poked Junior's nose and went on, "If you want a sandwich, ask."

Junior laughed, trying his best to sign while pinned. "I wanted to mess with you."

Black ruffled his hair and got up off his shell, snickering under his breath.

On the couch, Ludwig raised a brow. Black doffed his helmet, tossed it on the floor in front of the TV and sat next to him again. He teasingly offered up his sandwich, knowing Ludwig hated tardar sauce.

Ludwig pushed it back at him, his eyes playful.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," he signed.

Black took an enormous bite and gestured, "I'm sorry. It will happen again."

Ludwig pretended to bite his snout and turned back to the TV.

Junior wagged his tail and grinned. That was totally worth it.

Wendy's claw polish stank up the whole kitchen. How did she sit there and not melt from the smell?

Ludwig's phone vibrated. He showed it to Black, signed something and left the living room.

Junior hopped over the back of the couch and took Ludwig's spot. The volume on the TV was off and white subtitles appeared in black boxes across the bottom of the screen.

Black finished his sandwich and slurped from a purple can of grape Drop-Slop, a syrupy drink that had vitamins in it…or something. Junior couldn't stand any flavor except sour lemon. The rest tasted like watery fruit punch.

"You're drinking grape Drop-Slop with a sandwich?" Junior made a face as he finger spelled Drop-Slop.

Black stuck out his tongue, which was purple from the drink. He swirled the can and gulped the last of it down.

Boom-Boom passed through, stopping briefly to watch the game on the screen.

"Who is your money on?" He signed.

Black moved both his index fingers in circles and stuffed his thumb into the top of his other fist. "Tornadoes, but they're playing like shit. Look! Look at that! Fujita can't keep the ball out of the net!"

Boom-Boom wiggled two fingers on his cheeks, imitating tears falling. He laughed and headed out back.

Junior crossed his arms. He slouched backwards against the couch, his shell spikes digging into the stone backing.

Black tapped his shoulder until he looked up.

"Something on your mind?" He signed, eyebrows raised.

Junior scrunched his nose. "Kind of."

"What is it?"

"It's stupid." He tapped the back of his hand against his forehead with two fingers raised.

"Naaah," Black said aloud, shaking his head.

"It's mushy stuff." Junior's face heated at giving the thought life through his hands.

Black arched his eyebrows and leaned forward, sticking his thumb up and cupping his other hand under his fist as if offering it. "Can I help?"

"Oh geez." Junior muttered aloud.

"Maybe?" He raised his eyebrows to indicate a question.

"Ask me."

Sighing, Junior went ahead and gestured it out. "How do you know you love somebody like you love Ludwig?"

Blinking, Black tilted his head and cupped his hand over his mouth, one finger tapping.

"Love is hard to explain. You know when you're in it, like you know when you're hungry. Yes, your stomach growls and you feel cranky if you let it go on too long, but what else does it feel like? You can't describe it, can you? When you're hungry, you want to eat. When you love somebody, you want to be around them because it feels right."

He emphasized the word right by giving his hands an emphatic jerk when tapping them together, index fingers extended.

"It's like having the best friend in the world, but there's that extra feeling with it. You will know it when you feel it. Sometimes you know right away, and sometimes it takes time to realize it."

Black stopped to pick a piece of lettuce out of his teeth and lick it off his pinkie claw.

"You're still a kid. Don't worry too much about it. You'll have plenty of time when you're older."

"That sounds easier said than done." Junior clapped both hands over his face and wiped them backwards over his loose hair. He looked up at Black again, fingers flicking, "I told you it was stupid."

Black clicked his tongue and twitched his fingers. "It's not stupid. You're growing up. Growing up is hard."

Junior's stomach chose that moment to announce its hunger. He looked down at it. His face flushed.

"I'm hungry. What kind of sandwich did you have earlier?"

Black's wheezy mirth cut in over the buzzing dryer Wendy used on her painted claws. He got up, stretched and gestured. "Cheep-Cheep strips. Want one?"

Junior wiggled his fist up and down in the affirmative. "Can you make it sloppy with a ton of stuff in it?"

"As you wish, your little majesty." Black curtseyed as he signed that, which caused Junior to break out into laughter.

"Hey!"

Junior banged his foot on the floor and waved his hand until Black looked over his shoulder.

"I hope you and Ludwig stay in love forever. It sounds nice."

At that, Black's eyes softened. He grinned the brightest smile Junior had ever seen from him and headed into the kitchen.

A few minutes later, Junior had a fat, messy sandwich of his own. Black patted his head and turned his eyes back to the game as somebody kicked the ball into the Earthquakes' goal net. He slapped his hands together and pumped his fists in the air.

Roy came into the living room and stood watching the TV. The Tornadoes kept scoring. He turned to Black and jabbed his index finger across the palm of his other hand.

"It's a slaughter."

Black gestured at him and made a similar gesture, except he pointed at his palm instead of moving his finger across it. "Pay up."

Roy smirked, signing back, "The game isn't over yet."

Black waved a hand at him and invited him to sit. Roy obliged, spreading himself out next to Junior.

The Tornadoes made a comeback.

Junior took a messy bite of his sandwich and licked tardar sauce off his fingers. Maybe his dad would make a comeback, too.

.o

Bowser turned his gaze to Neil. "You're quiet all of a sudden."

Neil shifted to a short axis view, which looked like a blurry, pulsating circle on the screen. The lack of motion in the central region was glaringly apparent.

"It's time for me to be serious with you," he said.

"Hit me with it."

Neil's stool creaked as he checked past the privacy curtain before looking Bowser in the eyes.

"This heart attack was catastrophic. Your ECG shows first degree heart block. Your septum is barely moving. Your ejection fraction is improving, but it won't go back to normal."

"Okay, and?"

Taking a deep breath, Neil switched views to examine the four winking valves.

"I expect you to develop heart failure within the next eight to ten years. Dilated cardiomyopathy is the common end stage condition in Crash hearts if they manage to survive multiple heart attacks. You're the first Koopa I know of to survive four."

Bowser wrinkled his nose. His heart beat a little faster on the screen. "So you're telling me I have eight to ten years to live?"

Neil nodded. He shut down the sonogram and set the transducer on the tray. "If you're lucky and don't keep having heart attacks. You won't survive another major—"

"How do you know that?" Bowser cut him off.

"Sire, my prediction is based on statistics and case studies. Admittedly, you haven't followed the typical trajectory of other Crash patients, so—"

Bowser cut him off again. "Then you can't be certain my outcome will be the same as other Koopas with Crash. For now, you pull out all the stops if I drop."

"My liege?"

"I'm not signing any DNR forms. If there's a chance you can keep me going if I drop again, do it. Don't stop unless I'm so brain-dead that I won't wake up."

Bowser locked eyes with Neil, his mind already made up.

"I can't die while Junior is still a kid. I can't, Neil."

If Neil had any protests prepared, he cast them aside and nodded his head. "Understood, your majesty. Do you have any further questions?"

"No. Not right now. Can you send for Ludwig?"

"Of course, sire."

"Thanks. Beat it. I have stuff to figure out."

Neil bowed, unplugged the sonogram equipment and wheeled it away.

Bowser wiped the gel off his chest with a tissue and laid back, russet eyes squinting up at the ceiling.

Ten years is a long time. It's plenty of time. He could be wrong, but I have to get ready in case it happens.

Death snatched Peach away by pouncing on her when she least expected it, but Bowser knew it crouched behind his shadow.

At first, he didn't care whether he lived or died. Now, he was hell-bent to make Death chase him for as long as he could run. The possibility of it pouncing sooner than expected lurked in his mind, but he hoped to look it in the eyes and roar before it took him away.

"Dad?" Ludwig peeked around the curtain.

"Hey." Bowser pushed the button on the bed rail to sit himself up. He didn't want prying ears listening in, so he switched to sign.

"I have important things to say, and what we discuss here can't leave this room. Understand?"

"Yes." Ludwig waved his fist up and down and perched on a stool by the bed. "What is going on?"

Closing his eyes, Bowser rubbed his hand through his hair, looked up again and signed, "Neil thinks I have an expiration date."

Ludwig frowned.

Bowser smiled wryly. He pointed to his chest and gestured, "My heart might fail in about ten years if another massive heart attack doesn't take me out sooner."

Ludwig shook his head.

"Yes." Bowser looked him dead in the eyes. He pointed to him, his hand movements slow and deliberate. "Will you take Junior in if I drop dead while he's still a kid?"

Ludwig pressed a hand over his snout and closed his eyes. His shoulders rose and fell in a heavy sigh. When he opened his eyes again, the sorrow in them cut like knives.

"If the worst happens, yes, I will raise him in your place. Black loves him like he's family, he'll be glad to help, too." He placed his hand on Bowser's forearm and went on, "Why didn't you call everyone down here? This is something they should all know."

Bowser wrinkled his snout and carefully traced his thoughts with his hands.

"Because you're the most level-headed, and I trust you'll make the best decisions if the worst happens. I don't want everybody else panicking and crying about it."

He paused, fingers wiggling as he gathered his thoughts.

"I especially don't want to deal with everybody giving me that pitying 'dead Koopa walking' look. It's not a big deal and it's a long way off."

Ludwig chortled wryly.

Now it was Bowser's turn to place his hand over his eldest son's and signed one-handed.

"I don't care what you do at a funeral for me, so long as I get mummified and everybody eats my guts. I'll write down where I want to be buried. The rest…I don't care. I won't be there for it anyway. Use your best judgment."

He smirked, fingers flicking, "Ten years is a long time, and it's only a guess. We won't dwell on this unless I drop dead, okay?"

Ludwig's face went through a phantasmagoria of expressions in a few seconds. He settled on resolute determination even as his eyes welled over.

"Okay."

"Good." Bowser reclined the bed and closed his eyes, glad he didn't have to worry anymore. His claws clicked against each other as he signed, "Doctors can't know everything, I might live fifty more years."

Ludwig wiped tears off his face and flashed a nervous, shaky smile, like he hoped for that to be true, too.

His phone buzzed. He checked it, smirked and put it away. The way he signed gave off a smug air.

"The Tornadoes won. Black and I are a hundred coins richer. We just one-upped Boom-Boom."

"Who did they play?"

Ludwig gestured as if snapping a stick and shook his spread hands back and forth. "Earthquakes."

"Nice!" Bowser stopped signing to yawn, an old habit he never broke out of.

Sleep was a beast that swallowed him with little warning. He had almost sunk into its clutches when Ludwig sniffled, laying his head on his shoulder. His face contorted with a choked whimper. Warm tears skittered across Bowser's neck. He gasped, closed his eyes wept like a child, unable to control the heaving sobs any longer. They were slow and painful, like an abscessed wound finally draining.

Ludwig wasn't someone who cried easily at every little thing and he rarely wanted witnesses when he did. Acknowledging it would make him clam up and swallow it, so Bowser embraced him and stroked his soft, voluminous blue hair.

"I love you, dad," Ludwig choked out.

"I know." Bowser kissed his cheek and brushed his hair off his hearing aid, careful not to let it all fall back onto the mic at once. "I love you, too."

Ludwig kept murmuring things, heartfelt things that got lost in his deaf accent. This used to happen when he was little, too. Bowser took the few words he understood to extrapolate that he would give up all of his music to take the Crash away.

"Nah, music is who you are. Don't give that up for me." He enunciated slowly and carefully to make sure what he said was understood. "But I appreciate the thought."

They stayed that way for ages, until Ludwig's tears ran their course. He uncurled from the bed to blow his nose on two paper towels and wash his face in the sink.

"I didn't mean to cry on you," Ludwig signed.

Bowser's expression softened. He pointed to his shoulder and signed back, "That's what a dad's shoulders are made for. Don't worry, they're waterproof."

A smile cracked on Ludwig's puffy-eyed face. "Are my eyes red?"

"Yup," Bowser moved his fist up and down. "As red as the time you smoked a joint and said you cried over a soccer game."

"But you believed me when I—"

"I let you think I did." He grinned, fingers flicking, "I snorted white mushroom powder when I was sixteen, and had to pretend I was fine while I was hallucinating snakes and fire everywhere. I know what stoned teenagers trying to fake sobriety looks like."

"Ugh." Ludwig laughed, covering his face. "What gave me away?"

"You drank ketchup out of the bottle and Black wouldn't stop laughing. Plus, the smell was all over your room."

"Really? I don't remember that part."

"Because you two were blitzed, and it was hilarious!" Bowser cackled. He didn't let on about what else he knew. There were limits to how much he was willing to embarrass his kids.

"Feel better?" He asked, signing as he spoke.

Ludwig nodded, rubbing his nose. "Black is going to get nosy soon. I should go back up."

Bowser yawned and closed his eyes.

"Just gonna…rest my eyes…for a sec…"

He was out before Ludwig left the room.

.o

"It's called heart block," Neil said to Junior as he showed him the ECG tracing. "See how there's a delay here?"

"Uh-huh…"

"Our hearts run in a tight, coordinated series of electrical signals. They tell the atria when to contract and when to depolarize— relax— while the ventricles contract. It does this your whole life."

Neil placed his fists one atop the other, squeezed his top fist first, relaxed it, then he squeezed the bottom one.

"Heart block means the signal is slower to get from the atria to the ventricles."

He squeezed and relaxed his top fist, paused, and squeezed his bottom one.

"Your dad's heart is still beating, just a little out of sync. The delay is milliseconds— you almost can't see it outside of an ECG unless you know what to look for."

Junior crossed his arms and studied the ECG tracing again. The ST elevations weren't as big as they were right after Bowser came out of surgery.

"Dad said Peach dying would break his heart. I guess he meant it. She died, and his heart ripped a hole in itself and now it doesn't beat right."

He blinked. "Neil, can a person's whole body break in a way that makes them die?"

Neil rubbed his chin with a forefinger. "Uhh…not without serious trauma, like being crushed or falling a long way. Why?"

"Dad said me dying will break him."

"Prince Junior, a person can break in ways you don't see." Neil's chair creaked.

"You mean like mentally? Like going crazy?"

"'Going crazy' is a misnomer." Neil tucked the ECG tracing back into a folder. "Sometimes people go through trauma so scarring that they can't go back to the person they were before it happened. They look the same on the outside, but they're in a lot of pain inside."

"I feel like that sometimes." Junior curled his toes to grip the edge of the chair he sat on. "I think dad dying might break me too. I'm scared that it'll look scary and hurt a lot. He said he's not afraid of it, but…is it stupid to be scared for somebody else?"

"Not at all. It means you love your dad a lot. But I don't think you'll break, little liege." Neil leaned forward, hands folded on his desk. "Children aren't supposed to die before their parents. It goes against nature. The death of a child represents the loss of a future. A parent dying is part of the past slipping away. But, I will agree with you on this— losing a parent when you're still a child is a lot harder than when you're a grownup."

"Can you make him live forever?" Junior whispered under his breath.

Chuckling, Neil shook his head. "Medicine isn't that advanced yet."

"Try." Junior said, climbing down off the chair. "I'm gonna go see dad."

Bowser was asleep on his side when he got there. His mouth hung open and his drool left a wet stain on the gray pillowcase. Rumpled blankets covered him up to his shoulders. He snored like a Kart engine and passed noisy gas twice without rousing.

"He's a gassy sleeper," Josh said with a laugh.

"Are you keeping count?"

"Five in the last hour."

"That's his usual." Junior giggled as he climbed onto the bed to give his sleeping dad a kiss on his cheek. He didn't mind the loud snoring or the farting. Those sounds meant life.

Today, it would be his turn to take a rose to Peach's grave. He kept delaying it by passing his rose off for someone else. Being around a grave reminded him of how close Bowser came to dying. He couldn't handle the unease.

But now, he felt ready.

Junior went upstairs to his mini Koopa Clown Car, which he had almost outgrown.

Mario blocked off the forest warp zone. The pipe kicked back anything somebody tossed in, so flying was the way to go.

Volcano smoke gave way to purple evening skies full of emerging stars. Clouds piled up on the eastern horizon, an early autumn marine layer cushioning the rising full moon from the craggy mountains.

There weren't any lights over Peach's grave. Junior located it using coordinates on his phone. The tracker told him when to descend onto the grassy hilltop. He lit an oil lantern with his breath and hopped out of his mini Koopa Clown Car, red rose in hand.

Peach's gold grave marker was underwhelming in person. Just a rectangular gold plate on a slanted granite slab. Maybe the statue intended to go behind it would make it more fitting for a queen.

Junior didn't dare stand directly on the grave. It felt too much like stepping on her.

"My dad is sick from his heart attack and still can't come yet. This flower is from him."

He knelt, placing the rose horizontally against the nameplate. Piles of dying roses lay everywhere on the grave. Other flowers were present too— pink carnations, white tulips, some kind of potted fern and a yellow daffodil. Somebody else left colored river stones with images and messages painted on them.

Junior picked a yellow dandelion blossom off the side of the hill and placed it by his dad's rose. It was so puny by itself that he gathered up a handful of yellow sour grass blossoms and laid them with the rose and dandelion. Those would be gone soon, maybe he took the last ones of the season.

"This is from me. You were really nice and I'm sorry you fell. I hope it didn't hurt too much." He folded his hands and bowed his head. "Dad says to tell you he loves you. He's really sad about what happened. He means it, too, he gets upset if people talk about you."

Chilly wind blew from the north, ruffling the grass. Junior hated the eerie empty feeling being near this grave opened in his chest.

Peach wanted him and Cherry to be friends. Mario broke all that up. Bowser was a jerk at her funeral, but it's not like he declared war!

"If you can talk to Mario from where you are, can you tell him to let Cherry come back? I miss her."

Gold light flashed above the lantern. Another near the grave marker. More by his feet. In seconds the whole hilltop erupted with flickering fireflies flitting like the stars dropped out of the sky over Peach's grave.

Junior sat beside the nameplate, hugging his knees.

"I know you made dad come back. I just know it." He whispered, wiping his eyes. "I'm really glad you did."

Fireflies surrounded him in a twinkling ambience while he watched over the grave.

.o

It took four weeks to scratch his nose without pain blasting across his chest.

Four. Damn. Weeks.

Bowser laid back while Stevie tucked towels all around him in bed. He couldn't take a shower because pain limited his mobility too much, so he would get a bed bath. Already, he hated it.

Until he saw his kids all walk in carrying sponges, brushes, soap, buckets of water and piles of towels.

"Surprise!" Lemmy hopped up and down, towels spilling off his arms. "We came to wash you!"

"Stevie said it's okay." Iggy twirled two bright orange sponges between his fingers.

Bowser covered his face to hide the tears in his eyes. Everything made him emotional— sometimes he wondered if this heart attack screwed up his brain chemicals.

His kids fanned out around the bed. Junior filled buckets up in the sink with Morton's help.

"Ready, daddy?"

Wendy traded his pillow for an inflatable basin that cradled his neck and gave the water somewhere to go besides all over the bed. She smiled down at him as she poured hot water over his hair.

"How's my girl?" He asked, looking up at her.

The shampoo bottle she used came from his bathroom upstairs. Brimstone, and it smelled like it too.

She kissed his forehead and washed off the pink lipstick mark. "I'm doing okay, daddy. How's therapy?"

"It goes." Bowser shut his eyes while she sprinkled more water over his head and scrubbed her claws through his hair.

"You have grays." Wendy showed him one that came off in her hand.

"It's all you kids. You're making me go gr— hey! Who's got my feet?"

"Me!" Lemmy popped up, wielding two pink sponges. "I'm the fixer of stinky toes."

He had a sensitive nose, so he was always the one to call when verifying the elimination of a nasty stink.

"I got into South Darklands Medical School," Larry said as he sponged Bowser's right shoulder and neck.

"For real?" Bowser raised both eyebrows.

"Yup."

"Any particular specialty?"

Larry beamed. "Cardiology."

"Ah, you flatterer." Bowser turned his head aside, smiling. "Doctor Larry has a nice ring to it, heh!"

"I'll believe it when I earn my coat and office." Larry laughed, washing down the length of his arm. "It's a few years off, so…I have a lot to learn."

"Ask Neil for my medical records and imaging. Give yourself an edge. You have my full permission."

"Really, dad? Cool, thanks!"

Wendy dumped water on Bowser's hair to rinse it. He shifted his head the other way to help her do the left side.

"Lemmy! That tickles!" Bowser wiggled his toes.

"You have toe jam," Lemmy scrunched his face.

"Scrub harder, like whoever has my tail right now. That's nice."

"Me," Iggy poked his head up next to Lemmy. "You're starting to molt, dad."

"No wonder I'm itchy."

"Must be a stress molt."

"Wouldn't surprise me, considering." Bowser tensed when a brush scraped across his plastron. "Ludwig, easy on the incision site."

"Sorry." Ludwig circled around it and scrubbed everywhere else before gently swabbing the sore spot. The soap had a strong charcoal scent that didn't evoke feelings of a medical setting.

"How's the symphony writing going?"

"The music is complete and I called up everybody I scouted last year. I have an orchestra now. Rehearsals start soon." Ludwig's eyes brightened at the mention of music. "I found a piccoloist who sight-read and nailed the solo I wrote, so I don't have to worry about that anymore. Scott is amazing. His other job is interpreting, so he knows what I'm saying if I sign, and I plan to teach some to the musicians once we're all settled."

"Awesome! I will be there when you conduct that thing." Bowser endured the wet cloth being wiped across his chest to rinse it. "Even if they have to carry me on a stretcher."

Ludwig chuckled at that and ran a towel over his chest to dry it. He went on to wash his left arm, careful not to lift or straighten it too suddenly.

Somebody washed his vent. They were so quick he never saw who did it and decided it was better they stayed anonymous.

"Eyes closed, daddy," Wendy said as she combed shampoo into his bushy eyebrows. She used some kind of brush to rinse them out and smooth the stray hairs down. Then her thumbs ran across them, smearing sweet-smelling oil. She did the same to his hair, her clawed fingertips massaging it into his scalp.

"Are you falling asleep on us?" Iggy asked.

"He's not snoring," Junior snickered, grabbing a towel.

"Nope," Bowser couldn't fall asleep if he wanted to with this going on. He pressed his foot into Lemmy's sponge and gave Larry his right hand.

Lemmy switched to a hard bristled brush and went to town between his toes. Bowser remembered how much Lemmy used to cry while having his feet washed during a bath. Sensations Bowser found slightly unpleasant were unbearable for Lemmy, so he taught him how to wash his own feet. Maybe this role reversal was the universe's idea of a joke.

"Okay, no more toe stink!" Lemmy rinsed Bowser's feet and wrapped them in towels.

They got his front half clean. Now came the part he dreaded.

Roy and Morton helped him sit up and turn over. Bowser didn't expect something so simple to be as difficult as it was. Normally, he never thought about changing positions, but now his muscles needed every move considered. Aggravating pain in his sternum didn't help.

"Easy does it, dad," Roy caught his elbow. "Does it hurt?"

"Not much," Bowser lied.

But he managed to settle on his belly, his movements disturbing the wet towels piled up around him.

"Whoa!" Morton guffawed. "Wow, his back looks like popcorn!"

Bowser laughed with him. "That bad?"

"I'm gonna pick it!" Lemmy leapt onto the bed and scraped with his claws.

"Um…no thanks." Wendy emptied the inflatable basin and tucked it under Bowser's chin while she rinsed the oil out of his eyebrows and hair.

"I get his tail!" Junior pushed Iggy aside. "C'mon, guys, I didn't get to scrub anything!"

Bowser enjoyed seven pairs of claws scratching and pulling the nettle-like keratin bits off his back and tail. He did it for every single one of his kids once their spinal spikes retracted and their shells began to pop off.

Baby Koopas molted a lot until they reached toddlerhood, then it calmed down. He had labeled plastic bags of all their first molts in the bottom drawer of his dresser.

"Big one." Morton showed him a chunk the size of his fingertip.

"I have a bigger one!" Junior huffed.

"Let's compare." Morton challenged him.

Junior pranced over to his side and held them up together. It was bigger. "See, I told you!"

"Nice one." Bowser lifted his head when the basin withdrew and set his chin down on the towel offered in its place.

Junior ducked under Morton's arm. "The whole top of your tail is covered in 'em."

"Peel them off. It's not gonna hurt me."

"I'm getting the brush." Roy rummaged around in the messy supply pile. "Settle in, guys, this'll fix him."

He used the wire brush.

Bowser's eyes almost rolled up into his head from how pleasant it felt. His back itched, and the brush scratched it in exactly the way he needed it.

Lemmy covered his ears at the sound. Junior pointed and laughed at Roy.

"Look at it all! It's snowing! HAHAHA!"

"Wow," Ludwig signed, "That's messier than my biggest shed."

"I'm about to make it a lot worse." Bowser grinned, lifting his head. "Larry! Pull my finger!"

Larry grabbed it and yanked.

Bowser farted.

Loudly.

Everybody leaped away from the bed like the fart-wave physically threw them backwards. They stared in shock and fell over each other laughing.

"That's gross!" Wendy wailed between guffaws.

"Damn! They heard that on the coast!" Larry bellowed.

"It was so loud Ludwig heard it!" Lemmy giggled.

That, of course, made Ludwig laugh harder. "That was a low B!"

"Ew," Morton guffawed, "I smell it! Aw man!"

"You're welcome." Bowser shook from laughing.

Iggy cackled and waved a towel to fan the fart stench around the room. "If I have to enjoy it, all of you do, too!"

"Iggy!" Roy gagged and coughed. "You punk!"

"Damn." Larry loudly pretended to throw up.

Junior covered his nose. "AAH! It's so bad!"

"Death fart! Death fart!" Lemmy jumped up and down.

Ludwig pressed his fist against his snout. "It's a top ten contender."

"Boys are weird." Wendy scrubbed Bowser's back, neck and shoulders with soap while the boys rolled around on the floor half-dead from cracking up.

"Girls are weirder." Bowser grinned.

Wendy snickered at that while Iggy howled.

"Which is funnier? This, or the 'butt-air-scorch'?" Ludwig muttered.

"Pass the 'bub-saw'," Lemmy replied.

Wendy giggled, Iggy screeched and everybody erupted anew. That had to be some kind of injoke.

Bowser smiled, watching their crinkled, reddening faces as they flailed in their mirth. They didn't know their laughter was music to him.

Poor Stevie, she could only watch the family chaos from the nurse's station and shake her head.

Morton calmed down enough to scrub the backs of his legs and heels, which helped peel old keratin off. Definitely a stress molt.

"Dang, it looks like confetti in here!" Iggy scooped up a handful of shed bits.

"Good luck," Stevie told Judy on her way off duty. "It's a war zone."

Judy set her yellow thermos on the countertop by the computer station. She balked at the disaster the bed bath gave birth to.

"What happened here? A fight with Mario?" She raised a brow.

Stevie almost fell off her stool laughing.

"Yeah, and we won!" Junior climbed on the bed to dry off Bowser's back, tail and legs, which pushed more mess onto the floor.

"Well, you're not leaving him lying in that. Finish up and I'll change the bed."

"Are you sure?" Stevie eyed her.

Judy nudged her playfully. "You put up with him all morning, it's my turn now."

Morton and Roy helped Bowser turn over again and scoot onto a bedside stool.

Stevie gathered her purse, keys and draped a black shawl over her shoulders. "And the planets of the universe go their way. I'll see you goofballs tomorrow."

"See ya, Stevie!" Larry gestured vaguely towards everybody else. "Sorry about the crazy."

She winked. "I'm an aunt, I get it."

Judy changed the whole bed and swept up the mess on the floor around it. Larry helped her by holding the dustpan. Everybody looked in horrified awe at the dustpan full of old, peeled off scales.

"Dang, dad, that's enough to build another you!" Junior exclaimed while Judy dumped it in the waste bag at the foot of the bed.

Roy kept Bowser from tumbling off the stool. Bowser rested his head on his shoulder and tried not fall asleep. Fatigue was still a constant, unwanted companion.

"Those two weeks were hard, dad." Roy's voice cracked.

"They were?"

"Neil wasn't sure you were gonna make it." He reached under his sunglasses to wipe at his eyes.

Bowser's expression softened at that. He endured the chest pain to wrap his other arm around Roy's thick shoulders.

"I'm okay, Roy." Bowser cupped the back of Roy's bald head. "Everything is gonna be fine."

"Yeah," Roy sniffled, forehead wrinkling.

Bowser looked over Roy's shoulder at Ludwig and wiggled one eyebrow as if to signal why he didn't want everybody knowing. Ludwig nodded, touching a finger against his mouth in a shushing gesture and spreading his hand to sign that he understood why it was a secret.

Judy redressed the bed with pale yellow sheets and white blankets. She fluffed the pillows before laying down chux pads.

Bowser gripped the sides of Roy's head and pretended to headbutt him. Roy did it back, smiling through his tears.

"I'm okay, dad. You don't have to worry about me."

His phone thumped like a Thwomp crushing something. He checked it.

"Pom-Pom is upstairs. We're going out."

"Don't keep the lady waiting." Bowser patted his head again.

"Let's get you back in bed first. Yo, Morton."

Roy and Morton helped Bowser slide back over to the bed and recline.

The whole bathing process took over an hour. Bowser almost dropped off to sleep when Judy tucked him into his fresh linens.

"You smell much better, mess notwithstanding." She eyed the group through the corner of her eye.

"I smell manly," Bowser tried to puff up his chest and ended up wincing in pain. "Ow."

She gave him a Percocet pill. He behaved himself and gulped it down with water.

Wendy combed his damp, messy hair back into order.

"There." She set her comb aside. "You look a million times better."

"You kids are terrible, what's wrong with you?" Bowser teased them.

Lemmy bounced on his haunches, waving his arms. "No more smelly feet!"

"Actually," Roy slid in front of Lemmy, blocking him entirely from view, "We wanted you to feel like something other than a patient in a medical ward."

Bowser grinned. "It worked. Now scram! Go on your date!"

He closed his eyes for a moment and ended up falling straight into sleep with his kids all around him.

.o

Freddie dropped off bright green six pound dumbbells and a bunch of arm exercises. Bowser took to them like a fish to water. Pain remained an aggravating companion. He couldn't do his upper body exercises without pain meds in his system— and he especially wanted to focus on the shoulder stretch to avoid his pectoral muscles shrinking inward.

The walker Bowser dreaded the first time Freddie brought it out became a welcome sight that late mid-spring morning.

Josh moved his oxygen tube to a portable concentrator tucked into a backpack. Not the same as his shell, but Bowser didn't complain.

Bowser asked for the bedpan because he made a few messes in bed, and he didn't want to piss himself standing up again. He could use it comfortably lying prone. Josh lined the metal pan up with his vent and helped him wipe after. The temporary indignity of that was slightly more bearable than the alternative.

Freddie waited outside the curtain until he finished his business.

"Did you feel that urge?"

"Kind of."

"Good."

Josh took care of the bedpan. No mess, no fuss.

Freddie peeked in. "All set?"

"Yup."

Bowser scooted to the edge of the bed, grasped the walker's handles and heaved himself upright. Sharp pain hammered his surgical site. Less intense than it had been, yet still strong enough to take his breath away.

"I'm tired of pain," He growled, hunching over the walker. Standing up had him woozy and his legs were rubbery under his weight.

"It complicates recovery." Freddie laid a friendly hand on his elbow. "Easy does it, your majesty."

Smoke escaped Bowser's nostrils. Most of it went into the nasal cannula, turning it briefly gray. "I wasn't unconscious for a year, standing and walking shouldn't be this hard!"

"You would be surprised at how fast muscles atrophy from disuse. All those exercises in bed were waking them up to do this." Freddie folded his wings and swung in front of him. "Your body will remember. Now, stand up on your toes as high as you can."

Nodding, Bowser concentrated on getting his heels off the floor. He only managed an inch before his balance felt precarious. His face twisted with the effort to stay in that position.

"There, now hold it. Hold it…" Freddie snapped his fingers. "And relax. Let's do that nine more times!"

"Nine?" Bowser balked.

"Keep at it and you'll be doing twenty without thinking about it."

"Nine. I can do nine."

Nine was such a painful, unforgiving number, something he didn't know until his calves burned in protest.

Freddie smiled and applauded him after the ninth rep. "Let's rest a minute. Sit. Take a drink."

Bowser gulped straight out of the water jug, leaving Freddie holding the glass. He threw it carelessly aside and burped.

"Why can't I just walk?"

"We'll get to that. I'm warming your muscles up."

"You're enjoying the view while tiring me out." Bowser half-teased, wiping his hair back behind his horns.

"Ooh, you caught me." Freddie covered his face and pretended to be embarrassed.

Bowser's fingers closed on the walker handles as he pushed himself upright onto legs already sore beyond belief.

"What's next?"

"Now, we're going to squat. Put your tail on the bed behind you and use it to help you lift up. Don't strain your chest and arms." Freddie came closer and steadied the walker.

This workout forced Bowser's back, hips and legs to work in tandem. Half of them were muscles he forgot he had until he used them.

Sweat beaded on his forehead. He managed seven reps before breathing became difficult.

"Ease up and let's sit." Freddie pointed to the heart monitor, "Your heart rate is climbing too high."

"What's it beating?"

"One fifty."

Bowser acquiesced and sat, panting. "I guess this isn't supposed to be a cardio workout."

"Darling, most Koopas aren't alive after what you went through. This is why you have to take it slow."

"I miss being healthy," muttered Bowser. "When I was Ludwig's age, I was strong, I could handle anything. I'm fifty-one fucking years old, and I feel like I'm ninety. This isn't right, Freddie."

He rested his hands on his knees and hung his head. "Do you have kids?"

"No, why?"

Bowser touched the thin, rough line of his incision. The scar felt like a mark of shame.

"All my other kids had a dad who could play with them and roughhouse. And this is what Junior gets. A dad who is sick all the time. It's not right. I don't want this to be the rest of my life. I don't want this to be what he sees when he remembers me."

Freddie flapped his wings, flew up and perched next to him on the bed in a blast of air. He rested his hand on Bowser's bicep and looked up at him with sincerity twinkling in his eyes.

"I won't deny that he experienced trauma witnessing what happened to you. He did. Children absorb those things like sponges."

"Yeah, that's the part that eats me up." Bowser huffed smoke. It went through the nasal cannula.

"But…" Freddie squeezed his arm to regain his attention, "He sees you fighting, your majesty. Don't be afraid to talk to him about it. Let him know it's okay to admit how hard this is."

Bowser glanced sidelong at him because that was something he avoided. He slapped his hands onto the walker handles and struggled upright. "I'm done with feeling sorry for myself. Let's walk."

"All right!" Freddie checked the monitor. "Where, to, dear?"

"Anywhere. Let's see how far I can go."

.o

The therapy room around the corner from the intensive care ward always smelled like bread. Junior never figured out why. It wasn't the brown exercise mats, the treadmills, the stationary bike or the parallel bars.

A strange relief filled him when he saw his dad wearing his shell again while Freddie guided him into the room. No spiked collar or armbands yet, but the shell was a welcome sight.

Neil had a conniption about it, no doubt.

The oxygen stayed on. Bowser strapped the square concentrator to his shell spikes and somehow got the tubing wrapped once around it so it didn't dangle in his way.

"It's common for Koopas your age to have back pain when you go without your shell for long periods," Freddie said.

"Tell me about it. I was about to put my head through the wall." Bowser hunched over the walker. His slow, plodding footsteps went from slapping noises to soft plops as he stepped onto the exercise mats.

"It's your mini-me." Freddie pointed with one wing.

Bowser glanced up and half-smiled. "Hi, kiddo."

Junior waved. "Elton said you were coming in here."

"Here, want to help? Hold this for a sec." Freddie handed him a tablet displaying an ECG reading next to numbers for oxygen saturation and respiratory rate.

He took the walker after Bowser grabbed onto the step railings and moved it to the foot of the steps on the other side.

"What do you need that thing for?" Junior made a face.

"I lean on it to rest when I walk," Bowser replied, eyes studying the steps.

He seemed so focused that Junior nodded his head rather than talk.

Freddie took the tablet back once he had the walker positioned.

Stairs were a no-brainer. Junior ran up and down them without thinking about it.

"Anytime you're ready," Freddie fluffed up his wings and folded them.

But Bowser struggled like his legs didn't quite remember how to coordinate. He was the same way about getting silverware to his mouth when he ate— and he figured that out— so this wouldn't be any different.

"High step, darling." Freddie reminded him.

"Yeah, yeah," Bowser lifted his leg and set his foot on the next step. He slid his hands forward on the railing, his whole body wobbling as he shifted his weight from one leg to the other.

Junior couldn't stand it.

"I have to use the bathroom."

He fled— first to the bathroom in the hallway, because he needed to go— and afterward he went straight to his dad's room in the intensive care ward.

Somebody moved the curtain out of the way, so anyone walking through the hall would see in.

Elton sat at the computer station, sipping tea from a new sparkly silver thermos. That day, he wore yellow tinted glasses with glittery gold square frames.

"Did you do something to your wings?" Junior tilted his head.

"Yup." Elton unfolded one, revealing iridescent rainbow beads on all his primary and secondary coverts. They were only visible when he fully extended his wing, like a little surprise nestled in his feathers. "Freddie likes my bling."

"It looks nice."

"Thanks!"

The bed was huge and cushy. Junior perched on it and tried to text Cherry like he had dozens of times before. It wouldn't go through.

Sighing, he hit the home button, swiped sideways and played Tetris. He got so engrossed in the game that he didn't hear Bowser or Freddie coming.

"You!" Elton planted himself in the doorway.

"Me!" Freddie laughed.

Elton spread his feathered wings. Freddie did the same. His wings were almost a whole hand's width wider than Elton's.

"Sorry, dear, my wingspan is still the best."

Junior watched them both with a brow raised.

"Paratroopas," Bowser rolled his eyes.

Freddie grabbed Elton's scrubs and kissed him full on the mouth. Their wings flapped like a four-limbed creature and somehow they lifted off together.

"Did you miss me, sweetie pie?" Freddie teased, eyes lidded.

"You were gone when I woke up, what do you think?" Elton smirked.

They laughed and embraced, dropping in unison to land adjacent to the door. Bowser stepped past them, pushed the walker aside and shuffled a few steps to the bed without it. He sat next to Junior, his weight sinking into the mattress while his heavy breathing returned to normal.

Usually, Bowser wanted to lay down right after physical therapy appointments, but not today.

Elton broke away from Freddie long enough to help Bowser switch his oxygen tubing from the portable concentrator to the silver outlet jutting off the wall behind his bed.

"Can you two get lost for a while?" Bowser eyed Elton and Freddie.

"Of course, dear," Freddie flared his wings and gave a sweeping bow. He gathered up his silver sequined bag of therapist acoutraments.

Elton bowed, too, his wings fluttering as he tugged the privacy curtain to block the view from the door. He joined Freddie in the hall. "Buzz me if you need anything."

Their footsteps disappeared around the corner.

It always amazed Junior how Bowser commanded a room like that. He gazed down at their feet. His feet were getting big, but they still looked tiny next to his dad's.

Bowser leaned forward. His weight creaked the bed frame.

"What's all this been like for you?" He broached the question casually, folding his hands together and twiddling his thumbs.

Not the question Junior expected to come out of his mouth. He swung his legs, his heels thumping against the mattress. A lump tightened his throat when he mirrored Bowser's posture.

"Scary," he whispered. "But Mama Peach taught me something about being tough."

"Did she?" Bowser rumbled.

"Yup. She said being tough doesn't mean you never cry. You're supposed to cry all you need to, and then you get up and keep going."

"She was smart. So damn smart," Bowser sighed like the mention of her still hurt.

"I miss what it was like before!" Junior blurted it out in a rush. "And right after you had this surgery, when Neil told us we had to wait…I thought you were going to die! You were really sick, dad! You had machines doing everything for you, like you weren't there!"

His voice cracked. "You were so sick that I told you it was okay to die so you wouldn't feel bad if you died. I lied, though…I—"

The tears came on so violently that all the strength went out of his body. There was no silencing this kind of crying.

"You c-can't promise me this won't k-keep happening, either." He choked out.

Bowser scooted him into his lap and cradled him against his chest. The rough scar on his plastron, oxygen tubing and rubbery ECG leads were a constant, painful reminder of where they were.

"Dad!" Junior clung to him and buried his face in his shoulder.

"You're right. It's hard, and I can't promise I won't die," Bowser murmured. His cheeks were wet too when he nuzzled their faces together. "But I'm here now. I'm going to stay as long as I can."

He swallowed, his throat contracting and gurgling next to Junior's ear.

"Whatever happens, Junior, you'll be okay."

"Who's gonna take care of me if you die right now?"

"Ludwig and Black will." Bowser stroked his topknot and kissed his cheek. "I don't think I'm going anywhere soon, though. I set that up just in case."

Junior nodded and blurted out the frightened thought banging against his skull. "I don't want the last thing you feel to be pain or scared."

Bowser held him tighter, enveloping him in his arms and his metallic brimstone scent. "Those things don't exist in the Great Beyond. I promise I won't be scared or in pain forever, even if I look like I am when I'm…" he sniffed, "…going."

That brought Junior a small comfort. He sucked in deep breaths to calm himself down. Crying gave him a throbbing headache.

"Someday I'm gonna be too big for you to hug me like this."

Bowser's cheek rounded when he smiled. "Stop growing, then."

The pain in Junior's chest transformed into a sugary warmth. He giggled while still shedding tears. "I can't! I tried!"

"Doesn't matter how big you get, you'll still be my kid." Bowser patted his shell.

"What if I grow as big as this room?"

"Then I guess you get to pick me up."

"What if I grow bigger than the castle?"

"Then I'm going to wonder what Vivi fed you."

Junior grinned, "What if I grow bigger than the planet?"

Bowser snorted. "Then I'm going to question my genes."

Their tears sparkled away into laughter.

.o

His adult kids had lives to live, and he didn't want them moping around waiting for him to get better.

Bowser sent them home four months after he first opened his eyes in the intensive care ward. They went, albeit reluctantly. Wendy, Larry and Ludwig especially had important things to work on.

"You sure, dad?" Morton sat on the stool closest to the bed.

"Yup. I'm not on death's door. No sense making you mope around waiting for something to happen." Bowser reached over and ruffled up the few hairs Morton had on his head. "Hey, are you still in touch with Sienna?"

Morton's eyes brightened. "Yeah, actually. She likes me."

Bowser smacked his shoulder. "So go get her!"

All of his kids gave him the tightest, longest hugs.

"I know you feel better." Lemmy fidgeted with a glitter ball. "You laugh more when you feel better."

"I feel a lot better." Bowser playfully tugged Lemmy's thin ponytail, just to hear him squeak.

Iggy patted Lemmy's shell. "You look better, dad. Considering…" He pushed his glasses up on his snout and let the statement hang.

"Yeah." Bowser couldn't argue with that.

"Call me if you need anything," Roy said, his brow furrowed. "I mean it. Anything. I'll zoom over."

"I'll be okay." Bowser patted his bald head while he hugged him.

He turned and handed Larry a white thumb drive. "Here, it has all my heart stuff. Images, surgery videos, write ups, the works. Keep it for school."

"Whoa, really?" Larry accepted it on his palm. He grinned and closed his fingers around his new treasure. "Thanks, dad! It'll come in handy."

Wendy shuffled past Larry to get her hug. "Take care, daddy. I love you."

"Love you too, sweetheart." Bowser kissed her cheek. "I expect a tour of your castle when it's done."

She laughed. "Be patient, it's still being built."

Ludwig lingered near the curtain while everyone else bustled out.

"What'cha want?" Bowser snapped his collar and armbands on. They fit snugly for the first time, now that his atrophied muscles were coming back.

Ludwig pulled the curtain around, hiding them from view. He chose to talk rather than sign. "Black and I are serious now."

"I noticed. How serious?"

"True-biz." Ludwig signed it by holding a finger near his lips and tapping that fist against his other wrist, the signs for truth and work. It was Koopa Sign slang for expressing something as truth or real.

Out loud, he said "I bought a ring. I'm not ready to propose yet, but…I have a ring."

He showed the ring. A red box with a white lining and a black platinum band. Black platinum was a Koopa symbol of love. So were diamonds, but this fit Black's style.

Bowser's eyebrows went up. He grinned, eyes softening, and grasped his eldest son's shoulders. They weren't as broad as his. Ludwig grew upward, but not so much outward. He smiled, dark eyes shining and faraway in thought.

"Black found me crying after Neil called to say you had another heart attack and he wasn't sure you were going to survive it. He wiped the tears off my cheeks and told me it was going to be okay, that he was here for me. I thought of all the mornings I woke up early to watch him sleep, or smelled the coffee he made me, or the way he looks like he's eating a rock when he laughs— but that moment, when he wiped away my tears— he was everything. I want to spend the rest of my life with him."

He dabbed a tear out of his eyes, still smiling. "He's the one, dad."

Bowser's expression softened at that. "It's all over your face, Ludwig. Go where your love takes you, and don't look back."

Footsteps plodded into the hall. Bowser knew that gait without seeing it. He held his finger over his mouth in a shushing motion and pointed towards the door, which was obscured by the curtain. "He's out there."

Ludwig put the ring away, sniffling. "I'm a magnet, he can always find me."

"As he should." Bowser laughed, slapping his shoulder. "You have my blessing, kiddo. I'm happy you found him."

Ludwig clasped Bowser's hands and signed, "Thank you for everything."

Black poked his head around the curtain and grinned. Ludwig waved to him. They communicated through their expressions alone, something that warmed Bowser's heart.

Ludwig stepped past the curtain and their silhouettes moved around outside it. He continued on his way out the door while Black poked his head around again.

"Are you trying out a new hairstyle?" Bowser signed, eyebrows raised.

Black touched his neatly side-swept combover that ended in a point near his left eye, and signed back, "Yes. Wendy wanted to play with it, so I let her. I think I like my usual spikes better. Hairspray isn't my thing."

Taking Bowser's hand, he led it to pat his head. His hair felt like metal. It was sprayed so well that it wouldn't move in a tornado.

"Wow," Bowser signed, eyes widened to express shock.

"Wow, wow, wow," Black drew out the sign while scrunching his nose. "It's a cool style, just not me."

He waved his thick hands around as if physically pushing the subject aside.

"Your majesty, I have a request. Please don't tell Ludwig, he doesn't know I'm doing this."

Bowser nodded and gestured at him to continue.

Black composed his expression, took a deep breath and shaped his thoughts.

"I love Ludwig with my whole heart. I know he is a prince and I am not—"

He stopped, cupped his hand over his mouth and wiggled his finger while looking upward. Koopa Sign didn't allow for stammering, yet the careful way he chose his signs gave a similar impression.

"—but I love him. I can't imagine life with anyone else. Will you allow it if I ask him to marry me?"

Bowser couldn't stop himself from cracking a smile at the serendipity. They had no clue they both wanted the same thing from each other, and it was going to be funny when they figured it out.

"One condition," Bowser arched his brow as he moved a finger spelled K between his left shoulder, right hip and touched the thumb of his open hand to his forehead. "You better call me king dad. I like that."

Black's eyes widened. They were the same color as the ring Ludwig showed off earlier. He pressed both hands over his mouth and doubled forward, squeaking and signing emphatically, "Thank you, king dad! Thank you!"

Standing, Bowser placed his hands on Black's shoulders and embraced him.

"You are welcome in the Koopa family," he signed one-handed.

Black shed tears when he grinned. He was so excited he grunted and lifted Bowser off the ground while hugging him back.

Bowser let him get away with it. He chuckled and signed, "Hey, you just lifted seven hundred."

"I can do nine." Black wheeze-laughed, flexing his beefy biceps. Ludwig was right, his face looked like he ate a rock!

In that careless instant, Bowser saw exactly why Ludwig fell head over heels for him. He smiled, shaking his head and gesturing, "You're going to make Ludwig the happiest Koopa on the planet."

Nodding, Black wiped the tears off his face and rubbed his nose, removing all evidence that he happy-cried. He held up a finger before taking out his phone and scrolling through it. When he found what he wanted, he turned it around in landscape mode to show Bowser a video.

He gestured, "This is when I knew."

No sound, since Black always kept his phone's volume muted. It showed Ludwig's rehearsal space, a spacious wood and brick room full of Koopa Troopas, Hammer Brothers, Shy Guys and a few Goombas.

Everybody's instruments had digital tuners clipped to them. Ludwig's music stand included a screen displaying each section and colorful waveforms for the pitches they played.

Ludwig stepped up onto the podium, raised his brilliant white conducting baton, made sure he had everyone's eyes on him and gave the downbeat. Every ictus he expressed to the orchestra looked like magic spells being cast.

The only indication of the music playing was violin bows moving in the periphery. He pointed, he smiled, he gestured, sometimes he held his free hand up with a finger spelled letter, and through that he created wonder.

Before Koopa Sign, before words, Ludwig spoke music, and now Bowser saw those piano notes blossoming.

Most important of all, he watched Ludwig through Black's eyes and he couldn't miss how magnetic he looked bringing life to the room. His whole body exuded what he wanted just as easily as signing.

Bowser smiled, understanding why Black was so taken by him.

Ludwig gave the strings section a sweeping cutoff gesture. He looked directly into the camera with soft eyes and wagged his finger playfully, signing, "Naughty, naughty."

The video ended there. Black accidentally triggered the next one, which was Ludwig placing the baton in his hand, holding his wrist and guiding him through the triangular motions to direct the orchestra. His eyes opened wide in wonder as the string section obeyed his gestures. That video ended with them exchanging a kiss.

Black beamed, signing around the phone in his hand. "I can't know how music sounds, but I see it in him all the time and it feels like magic. I want to be around him forever."

"You have my full blessing." Bowser spoke as he signed, his face still caught up in a proud grin.

Just then, Black's phone lit up with Ludwig texting him to ask if he got lost. Black jokingly replied that he had and added a toilet paper emoji.

Looking up at Bowser again, he signed, "I better go. Thank you, your majesty, I'm so grateful."

Bowser nodded, giving him a strong pat on his shell.

Black bowed and departed past the curtain, still grinning like a fool in love. A door banged somewhere.

Bowser chuckled and wondered if they would end up proposing to each other at the same time.

.o

The cheery colors of the medical ward drove him batty. He longed for his familiar dark gray walls with red accents.

Neil threw a conniption about it, but his mind was made up.

Bowser returned to the castle in the middle of the night after a lengthy discharge procedure. Nothing beat sleeping in his own bed.

Getting around was fairly easy, he used elevator platforms to reach different levels. He still wore oxygen to combat his fatigue, he still required the walker to walk anywhere outside his bedroom, and he still slept a lot more than he was awake. He spent most of his time resting in his room.

But he was home.

Neil stopped by to ensure he didn't keep his oxygen tube or concentrator near any open flames. Bowser sat right next to the lit fireplace with the distal end of the tube disconnected just to jerk his chain, and he got yelled at.

"Your spikeyness, you're going to give me a heart attack!" Neil groaned when he discovered the prank.

Bowser grinned, moved to his bed and reconnected his oxygen. Totally worth it.

Echocardiograms became commonplace, he got one once a week to check on the occluder. The regurgitation between his ventricles kept shrinking as his remaining heart muscle strengthened.

Physical therapy appointments happened every single day. Freddie was a trooper in that regard, always arriving with a smile and playful flirting.

Bowser had a treadmill, exercise bike and weights placed in his room to work out on his own between therapy appointments. Sometimes Junior played around on them and he had to chase him off to do his exercises.

He hung his stolen painting of Peach up on the wall across from his throne. The elaborate golden frame reminded him of her hair.

Anytime he sat on his throne, he could look up at it for reassurance.

The mountain of backed-up paperwork was a nightmare to tackle. Ludwig put dents in it the best he could. Bowser appreciated it because it cut his workload in half. It still took several weeks to catch up.

He worked in his throne room, every stroke of his fountain pen guarded by Peach's painted smile.

.o

Noonday sun shone down, its heat mostly lost in the early spring chill. Birds chirped in the distance. A pleasant zephyr rippled the greenery.

Bowser stood next to the Koopa Clown Car at the foot of the hill, sans both the oxygen and walker. It didn't look so steep in photos, but studying it from the bottom filled him with cautious determination.

One step at a time. Come on, Bowser, you can do this.

Red rose in hand, Bowser lifted his leg like he did so many times in therapy to ascend stairs and took his first step. Inclines were tricker than flat steps. He leaned his weight forward as grass, dandelion flowers and the occasional rocks slipped past his visual field.

The ground was damp. His feet slipped twice, shocking the breath out of him. He bared his teeth and continued inexorably upward, refusing to be deterred.

Exhaustion tugged at his core. His leg muscles and lungs screamed for mercy, but he made it to the top. Straight ahead, Peach's temporary grave marker.

Bowser collapsed next to the slanted stone, panting. Dead and dying roses littered the area. He laid his fresh rose on the grave and traced every letter of Peach's name with his thumb.

Six months of physical therapy, walking on treadmills, pedaling exercise bikes, lifting weights and Freddie's flirty encouragement finally paid off.

Bowser jammed his claws into the grass in front of Peach's grave marker and placed the Koopa shell ring in the muddy hollow he dug out. He covered it with the grassy clump like a seed that would never grow and wiped his dirty claws clean in the grass.

Letting this dream go hurt as much as watching her die. Images of her falling on the stairs flashed through his mind. Tears blurred the hilltop into green blobs.

"I'm— finally— here." He choked, only just realizing how difficult it was to gasp for air and cry at the same time. "I'm going to come here every day for the rest of my life."

He embraced the grave marker and bawled because he couldn't hold her. His teardrops dotted her name like rain on a window pane.

"I never wanted it to end like this. If I stayed a little longer…if I followed you up, if I— oh, Peach, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for this. I don't apologize for shit, but I'm sorry for this."

Toads didn't mummify and preserve their dead like Koopas. The thought of her body rotting away under the earth beneath him made him cry harder.

Speaking of— a group of Toads gathered around, whispering among themselves as their colorful speckled caps shifted uneasily.

Bowser didn't care that they saw him weeping bitterly on Peach's grave. Two of them snapped pictures. He didn't acknowledge them.

This was all he had. He would never stop mourning her.

.o

Junior's heart jumped into his throat when he flew his mini-Koopa Clown Car through a cloud and saw his dad laying on the ground with his arms around Peach's grave marker. Dread turned his palms moist against the control stick in his hand. He held his breath, afraid to move.

Toads kept taking pictures of Bowser in the grass. They scattered when they noticed Junior above.

Bowser sniffed and reached up to rub his eyes. Relief washed over Junior. He sat up as Junior landed his aircraft on the opposite side of Peach's grave.

"You made it, huh?" Junior asked.

"Yeah." Bowser's eyes were puffy and red from crying. He ran his hand over the grass as if smoothing Peach's hair while she lay dead deep underground.

It brought up uncomfortable memories of the intensive care ward, of how still his dad was with all the machines keeping him alive.

Peach would never climb out of the ground and live. Junior wondered if Bowser expected her to.

"I let her down," Bowser said.

Wind stirred the grass and their hair.

"How?" Junior played with the stem of an empty dandelion puff. "You didn't push her down those stairs."

Bowser bowed his head, and in that instant Junior saw him aging. The gray creeping into almost half his hair and streaking his eyebrows, the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, and especially the ridges forming in his horns and claws. His chest bore a wide surgical scar, like a deep scratch carved between the plastron ridges. It didn't blend in anymore. What did his heart look like underneath all that?

"Junior, come here. Sit." Bowser patted the grass next to him.

Junior stepped over the grave, not daring to let even his tail touch it. He faced it and sat next to his dad's hulking form.

Bowser bent and touched a soft kiss to Peach's grave marker. "Love is more than an emotion, Junior. It's a promise. A promise we make to ourselves and whoever we love."

"Like the way you said you'll always love me, even after you die?" Junior twitched his tail. "Remember? When I had to get stents put in? You said it's gonna follow me like a blue shell in a Kart race."

Wind brushed the grass again. Somewhere, birds twittered.

"Mmhmm. I remember, and I meant it." Bowser smiled, looking upward at the sky. His eyes reflected bottomless sadness. "Someday, Junior, I hope you love somebody as much as I love Peach, and I hope they love you back just as hard."

"You mean like a wife?"

"Yeah."

"That means I have to kiss somebody on the mouth." Junior wrinkled his nose.

Bowser erupted in mirth, his sharp teeth flashing in the sun. "You won't think so when you're older and do it."

"If you say so." Junior twitched his tail. He sighed, looking up at the pink and white Mushroom Castle atop another hill. "I miss Cherry."

"Mario is a twat for sending her away."

"You can grab the kingdom now, right? Since it's not really guarded."

"No, it's guarded." Bowser's tail thudded on the grass behind them. "I don't care anymore. She was what I wanted. This place is worthless to me without her. I promised her I was going to leave it alone, so I'm going to leave it alone."

"Why were you going to stop?" Junior tossed away the dandelion stem.

"Couple reasons. Main one…" Bowser exhaled smoke through his nostrils. "…I'm getting old, kiddo."

"Fifty-two isn't old!"

"It is for somebody with a Crash heart after four heart attacks."

He had a point.

"I'll never get old," Junior declared.

"Twelve is old. You old fart."

"Dad!"

"What? You're catching up to the adults!"

"You're rubbing it in."

"Yup, you bet I am." Bowser caught him in a headlock and mercilessly noogied him, mussing up his hair. "You're a year away from being a teenager. Old fart!"

"Ack!" Junior chortled, tossing a blade of grass at him. "Fine, you're an older fart! You're so old that you saw the sun turn on!"

"Oof!" Bowser threw his head back as if he took a punch.

They laughed together. Somehow Junior sensed Peach would've liked hearing that more than crying.

He remembered back to the days before the first heart attack, how his dad ran, played and roughhoused with him. Afterward, he couldn't do it as much. There were those four years where nothing bad happened, but his dad still wasn't quite the same.

How many years would it be between heart attacks this time? Junior almost feared relaxing too much in case another disaster struck.

"I'm gonna try the castle." He stood up, stretching. "See you back home?"

Bowser nodded.

Junior climbed into his mini-Koopa Clown Car and flew it towards the enormous Mushroom Castle. The pennants topping the towers all flew at half-mast in mourning.

Toad guards collected around the front entrance. Junior landed at the foot of the steps, hopped out and strode towards the top.

"Hey, I'm not here to cause trouble." He showed his empty hands. "I'm looking for Cherry."

"I'm sorry, our princess is in another castle," said the tallest guard in the back.

Their spears came forward when Junior reached the double doors.

"When is she coming back?"

"We can't say."

"Can't because you're not allowed, because you don't want to, or because you don't know?"

"Yes." The shortest guard said, unhelpfully.

"Twats," Junior sighed. It occurred to him that he didn't know what exactly a twat was, but it had to be offensive since a guard off to the side curled his lip.

He turned around and climbed back into his mini-Koopa Clown Car.

Once in the air, he tried to text Cherry for what seemed like the millionth time. It wouldn't go through. He sighed and told himself to stop trying to send texts.

Maybe, one day, she would text him, but he decided not to hold his breath.

.o

The night of Ludwig's symphony was cold, foggy and humid, a typical Darklands midwinter in Koopa City.

Thirty minutes to showtime. Bowser didn't want any attention focused on him during the big event, so he entered the Koopa City Convention Center via the private VIP side entrance. Someone set up a tarp tunnel to shield his exit from the plain black limousine.

Using several staircases remained just beyond his ability yet, so he was grateful for the elevator he saw at the end of the hall.

What serendipity, he discovered the side room next to the stage where Ludwig paced back and forth, no doubt playing the whole symphony in his head. He wore a smashing tailored tuxedo with a crisp white shirt, white vest, black bow tie, black slacks, black cutaway coat and coattails dangling out from under his blue shell to frame his tail. Matte black cufflinks fastened his white shirt cuffs around his wrists, highlighting his hands, and his shiny black shoes shone under the overhead lights.

Whoever tailored that tuxedo did it to perfection because it emphasized his long arms and legs.

Every so often, he stopped by the full length mirror to brush a stray strand of blue hair into place or adjust his bow tie. He'd lined his upper eyelids with dark blue glitter eyeliner, a subtle pop of glitz.

Bowser pondered flickering the lights, but the gold panel by the door had eight different switches and he didn't want to accidentally blink the wrong set.

"Hey." He slapped his tail on the polished wooden floor with a vibrating thud.

Ludwig halted mid-step to look over his shoulder. He smiled.

"Nervous?" Bowser signed as he spoke.

"Does it show?" Ludwig signed back, eyebrows raised.

"You look like your head is about to fly off your shoulders."

Ludwig chortled, fingers fluttering. "I'm putting my heart out there, and then I'm going to propose to Black after the final bow. It's nerve-wracking!"

"You're going to do fine on both accounts." Bowser grinned wickedly, curling his fingers to give his signs a sinister edge. "I'll flatten any shithead who causes trouble for you."

Ludwig smirked at that. "Wait until you see what Iggy did for the visuals. He showed them off for the dress rehearsal yesterday. I'm gobsmacked! He took what I see inside my head and made it real. I can't explain it, but he made it so everyone will see it with me. You're going to know music as I know it."

He paused, looked upward and spoke instead of signing, "It's beautiful."

Bowser grinned, all sharp teeth and gleaming eyes. "You're gonna bring the house down, Ludwig, I can feel it."

Somebody banged on the open door loud enough to vibrate the walls and floor. Only one person could be so clumsily and endearingly loud.

Black poked his head in, his hair slicked back with gel. Fresh polish gave his deep green shell an iridescent sheen under the overhead lights.

"Hi!" Bowser waved.

"Hi." Black fidgeted, his fingers twitching as they formed signs. "Your majesty, with all due respect, may I have a minute alone here?"

Nodding, Bowser relayed to Ludwig that he was stepping out and shuffled through the door.

"Break a leg!" He shouted, smirking.

Ludwig and Black moved out of sight of the door, but forgot about the full length mirror next to it.

Bowser paused, watching their reflection.

"You look perfect…sexy…amazing," Black signed, all smiles and bright eyes.

"Thank you." Ludwig moved that hand to grasp his coat lapels, striking a pose so Black could snap a picture on his phone.

Bowser twitched his tail, watching them.

"I was going to wait until after, but I can't." Black's hands shook as he gestured. "It's too important to wait."

He grasped Ludwig's shoulders, kissed him deeply and slid to kneel. In the same motion he retrieved a white box from his shell and flipped it open, revealing a black platinum ring.

Looking upward into Ludwig's eyes with sincerest devotion, he signed one-handed, "Ludwig, will you marry me?"

Ludwig's hands flew up to his snout. He covered his eyes. His fingers slid backwards through his hair, which fell right back into place due to whatever product he used to keep it neat. A silly grin formed on his face and he began to laugh so hard he squeaked.

Black tilted his head, squinting.

Ludwig knelt with him, pulled the red box from his shell and showed Black an identical ring.

"Will you marry me?" He met Black's devoted gaze with starry eyes full of promises.

Black's jaw dropped. His face scrunched up in an enormous rock-eating grin. A high-pitched banshee screech of cackle escaped him, only turning into his characteristic wheeze when he inhaled to laugh again.

They knelt there, guffawed, looked at each other and guffawed again. It took several minutes for them to lock eyes without collapsing in mirth.

"Yes!" They wiggled their fists up and down at the same time and embraced like two oceans crashing together.

Tears dribbled down Black's cheeks. Ludwig beamed with his eyes closed. They slipped their rings on and kissed deeply.

"I love you, Ludwig von Koopa," Black finger spelled his full name and moved his hands, mimicking musical conducting while he signed, "Bring your dream to life. I'll be there when you wake up."

Ludwig brought Black's hands to his mouth and kissed them. "I love you, too, Black Sledgeson." He caressed his cheek between signs, "I hope I get to wake up to your face for the rest of my life."

"Let's never sleep again. Let's lay awake and stare at each other all night." Black gestured, grinning fiendishly.

Ludwig's eyes twinkled. He lifted his hands to almost level with his eyes and signed, "Sounds like a plan!"

They laughed, kissed and laughed some more. The walls of that room would echo their mirth forever.

"I'm not nervous anymore." Ludwig sighed, signing one-handed. "Thank you."

Black pivoted his open hands in deaf applause. "Good. Go out and show them the heart you show me."

Bowser smiled and left to get in his seat.

.o

Voices murmured everywhere, the susurrus amplified by the glorious acoustics inside the auditorium.

The auditorium of the Koopa City Convention Center, colloquially known as the KC3, resembled a massive bowl with seats gathered in semicircular rows around the stage jutting out. Downstairs behind Bowser, the lobby formed another bowl full of elevators, stairwells, corridors and passageways.

This enormous building was designed in a swirling lemniscate shape. Gold sconces in the black walls, the light fixtures high in the ceiling throughout visitor-facing areas and plaques on the backs of every single red velvet folding seat reflected that.

Bowser had the only balcony seat, a secret, curtained alcove with a long lip keeping him out of sight of the audience below while allowing a full view of the stage.

From there, he spotted Black's slicked back hair as he took the right-hand front row corner seat near the timpani. Jack, who looked identical except for his red glasses frames, dropped into the chair next to him. They hugged and exchanged excited signs when Black showed him his engagement ring.

Lemmy and Iggy came up the aisle to the front. Iggy pointed to their seats. Lemmy hopped on, holding a flickering ball that stopped glowing when he squeezed it.

Morton pushed a Goomba out of his way to sit by Iggy and Lemmy. Roy trailed behind, holding hands with Pom-Pom. Pom-Pom had a shiny gold clip holding her ponytail.

Larry wore a leather jacket with spikes on the shoulders. He sat in the seat behind Lemmy and Iggy, and they swiveled to talk to each other.

Wendy arrived wearing a sparkly purple pill cap and rhinestone heels that gleamed so much they were visible from space. Junior jogged alongside her. He tried pointing to the balcony, and she pushed his arm down while speaking to him.

Bowser already knew what she said.

"Daddy doesn't want any attention on him tonight, and you know how people get when they know he's here. This is Ludwig's night."

Junior face-palmed as if remembering his manners. Wendy smoothed his hair. They giggled together and sat next to Morton, Roy and Pom-Pom.

Bowser chuckled at his family being themselves and surveyed the orchestra stage.

An enormous oblong screen filled the wall behind the stage, surrounded by silver piping. Smaller screens popped off the sides. Cameras were placed inconspicuously on both sides of the stage, one in the center of the orchestra, another above the center aisle and probably one more under the balcony where Bowser sat.

Each individual music stand had its own little light clipped on top and all but one had chairs behind it. Ludwig's podium didn't have its usual tablets set up nearby, there was only a single music stand holding a small black remote with glowing multicolored buttons, his closed score in its leather folder and his baton resting on top.

Bowser's gaze wandered on. The reason for the piping became apparent via an elaborate organ near the timpani.

Applause rippled through the audience when each orchestra section came onstage in neat single file lines and took their seats. One piccoloist— a Hammer Brother in an electric wheelchair— parked behind the lone music stand without a chair and elevated his seat to reach his score. His chair didn't have footrests because his legs ended at the knee. Ludwig mentioned him by name once, but Bowser couldn't remember it at the moment.

He was the only one with a green piccolo. Everyone else had silver or gold.

Everybody turned on the little lights attached to their music stands in unison and clipped their tuners to their instruments. It was done so smoothly, like they rehearsed the process beforehand. Each section's tuners had a tiny LED light that glowed a specific color.

Bowser almost fell off his seat when he noticed Sienna at the timpani. She wore a solid black pants suit like the rest of the musicians and had her braids tied back in a ponytail. The only sign of her wildness was serrated gold caps on the line of spikes running down her shell.

She pointed at Morton and waved. Morton blew her a kiss.

Once the orchestra positioned themselves, the house lights dimmed, leaving the only glow coming from the tuner LEDs and the light clips on each music stand.

A spotlight illuminated the left side of the stage when Ludwig walked out and approached the podium. Everybody applauded except Bowser's family and Jack and Black, who jiggled their spread hands in deaf applause. Lemmy covered his ears for the second half of the clapping.

The smaller screens around the main one came on, showing different sections of the orchestra, while the screen closest to Black showed Ludwig from the waist up.

Ludwig waved at the audience. He pointed, lifted his eyebrows and smiled at the section where familiar faces gathered.

Then he turned to the orchestra and signed. "Repeat after me."

He went on to express a statement in sweeping slow motions. They all signed it back exactly the same way.

"To play a wrong note is insignificant. To play without passion is inexcusable."

What a marvelous way to ensure he had all their eyes watching him.

Murmurs rippled through the audience. People still came up the aisles and fanned off into their seats. Bowser snickered at a Snifit and Goomba arguing about who had the aisle seat in the middle row. A Hammer Brother usher finally separated them and got them seated.

The spotlight on Ludwig narrowed to only encapsulate him on the podium.

He spread his arms once his musicians were ready. His black platinum engagement ring gleamed on his left middle finger. He shaped both his hands into finger spelled letters, raising or lowering his arms as needed, and the orchestra tuned beautifully to those notes.

Colorful waveforms sprang up on the giant screen behind the stage. Each color corresponded to the LED lights on the tuners clipped to instruments. Now the lack of tablets around the music stand made sense!

Once tuning was complete, the screen dimmed and the stage quieted.

Ludwig pushed the glowing red button on the remote. A white dot at the bottom center of the screen blinked. He picked up his baton, which glowed faintly white when he touched it, and tapped it side to side in the air to that flickering dot like the second hand on a clock.

All eyes focused on him. Everything stilled as if everybody stopped breathing in anticipation.

Ludwig looked to his right at Sienna and gave the downbeat.

The first sound was a marcato double-thump from the timpani, like a heartbeat. It crept in at pianissimo and crescendoed into a tenebrous rumbling boom that Bowser felt in his chest.

Ludwig's baton continued in a swooping line across his body to the left, reversed to the right and rose back up for the next downbeat.

At his cutoff gesture, the drumming stopped. He looked to his left at the petite Koopa Troopa pianist and held out his hand to keep the orchestra tacet while her fingers rippled into motion. He directed her gently with small, precise movements.

Bowser recalled Ludwig plunking those notes as he worked out where he wanted this piece to go. In his mind's eye he saw his own fingers on the piano, offering another way to play the motif without pinching its energy off too soon.

Ludwig pointed again and the cello joined the melodic line. Rich, syrupy low notes oozed underneath the rising piano shimmers. That was the line Bowser remembered suggesting.

Ludwig's baton continued its easy, languid motions. He closed his eyes and gestured with a graceful arc of his left arm.

The violins came in gradually, followed by clarinets and oboes. Bows moved and fingers pressed keys. Soon all the instruments came into play, the sound rising like the rainbow colors shimmering across the screen.

Drums thudded a heartbeat again.

Steam issued from hoses above the stage and the lights cast colorful beams through it to mimic the movement in the strings and the booms of percussion. Ludwig grew more and more animated as he shaped the sound around that light.

Then he gave an intense downbeat with a cutoff and the auditorium fell instantly silent. A fermata— his hand and baton stayed down. He remained perfectly still.

For a solid minute, silence.

Nobody so much as coughed.

Ludwig turned a page, tapped the yellow light on the remote and slowly lifted the baton again. Onscreen, the white dot slowed its blinking.

He pointed to the piccoloist in the wheelchair. A spotlight lit him when a fortissimo B-flat cut through the silence, a long note that carried on and on. What lung-power!

At his next gesture, basses and cellos entered, never rising above pianissimo. The spotlight widened to encompass them.

Onscreen, the prickly waveforms transformed into stars as diaphanous multicolored streaks flowed between them. Colorful nebulae swelled into being against the desolate blackness.

The pianist plunked the B-flat key, her notes matching the piccoloist and taking over when he faded out. Now the spotlight shone on her. She looked ethereal, like she floated in space.

The violins entered, also playing an eerie B-flat in unison.

Ludwig looked into the camera in front of him, placed his left hand beside his ear and signed, "B-flat!"

Just like he did as a baby. He smiled and dropped that hand to bring in the trombones and tubas, followed by the organ's deepest notes. Next came the timpani, a heartbeat boom barely within perception.

The only instruments audibly changing notes were the lowest pitched ones. Their deep, rumbling timbre filled the auditorium with rich chest-trembling vibrations.

Bowser covered his mouth. A lump welled in the back of his throat. He wondered if he was the only one in the audience who understood what Ludwig conveyed in this movement.

Unbidden, the image of Peach falling on the stairs burst into his thoughts. He saw his music room torn to bits, shattered.

Tears spilled onto his cheeks.

His ability to create music died when she did, but it wasn't gone.

That part of him survived, breathed and thrived in Ludwig.

The movement ended with the piccoloist again, deftly playing a mezzo piano B-flat as the screen faded to black.

Ludwig turned the page and touched the purple button on the remote to speed up the blinking dot. He brought his arms up, gave a harsh downbeat and BAM! The drums and brass exploded with sound.

Lemmy squawked loud enough that the audience chuckled. Somebody in the tuba section squeaked a note from laughing.

The piccoloist signed something. Ludwig glanced over his shoulder at his little brother with a cheeky smile.

This movement was fast-paced! Ludwig's baton became a white streak matching the polychromatic lightning bolts flashing across the stage screen. His gestures were sharp and intense, utilizing his whole body.

Then it transitioned to something soft and diaphanous. The cellos, violins, flutes, piccolos, organ and piano transformed the screen into stars shedding their nebular shells.

Unearthly music gave way to time passing by…

News reports followed the installation of a gold memorial statue over Peach's grave. Her impeccable likeness stretched out a hand as if beckoning the viewer closer. She gleamed magnificently under the sun.

The hill got easier to climb, so Bowser sprinted up and kissed her outstretched hand. When dust inevitably gathered on her statue, he wiped it off with a soft cloth. She deserved to shine like a beacon forever.

Days and nights slipped past. Seasons flowed into each other.

Ludwig and Black got married.

Neither were flashy individuals, they wanted a simple, small ceremony in the throne room with Bowser officiating.

Ludwig and Black chose smashing tuxedos for the occasion. Ludwig's was dark blue, accented by black sequins on the lapels, tie and the stripe on the outside of each leg. Black's tux looked identical, but with the colors reversed. He gelled his inky black hair up in perfect, shiny spikes that suited his personality perfectly. Both lined their eyes using the same glittery blue eyeliner Ludwig used for his first symphony.

They approached each other from opposite sides of the room and joined hands before the throne. Bowser signed their vows to them, and they signed them to each other.

Black cried softly while Ludwig gazed tenderly at him. They swore to love each other through this lifetime and beyond.

Jack handed them their wedding rings— their engagement rings, now with tiny diamonds set in them.

"With this ring, I wed thee forever," Ludwig signed before sliding the ring onto Black's finger.

Black had to take deep breaths to calm down his crying. Through his sniffling, he gestured with shaking hands, "With this ring, I wed thee forever."

They clasped hands again once their rings were on. Ludwig couldn't resist bringing Black's knuckles to his mouth and kissing them. Tears glistened on his cheeks.

"I love you," he mouthed.

Black squeezed his hands and smiled as new teardrops traced the many tracks already present. The eyeliner had to be waterproof, it didn't run at all!

"Then by the power vested in me as king, I now pronounce you married," Bowser signed, grinning and meeting their eyes. "Kiss your new husband, you two!"

Their nuptial kiss was slow and gentle and excluded everyone else. Ludwig brushed the tears off Black's cheeks with his thumbs and hugged him after their kiss broke. Black broke down sobbing, and it took him a minute to calm down. Ludwig held him the whole time.

"We're married," Black signed tearfully. "Hi, husband."

Ludwig's lower jaw quivered. Tenderness glistened in his eyes. Tears leaked onto his cheeks when he signed back, "Hi, husband."

They smiled with their foreheads touching, and it was as if sadness forgot how to exist.

Lemmy pulled a lever. Gears ground under the floor as a panel slid sideways to expose bubbling lava at the bottom of the throne room steps.

"If we can jump this, we can jump anything." Ludwig signed to Black.

"Together." Black emphatically brought his fingers together.

They joined hands again and leapt over the lava. Black picked Ludwig up and twirled him on the other side. The sleeve of his tuxedo split at the shoulder because of his muscles.

Ludwig and Black's marriage began with the same uproarious laughter as their engagement.

When Bowser went to sign their marriage license as a witness, he noticed they combined their last names into one: Ludwig and Black Koopason.

Another blessing was finally getting to meet Jack's and Black's parents. Those boys got their dark eyes from their mother, Gillian, and their father, Darvill, gave them their inky black hair.

Bowser approached them and shook their hands.

"You two are a lovely pair of companions," he signed. They held hands through everything, he couldn't help but notice.

"Thank you, sire," Darvill spoke and signed. His deaf accent fell somewhere between Black's and Ludwig's. He was a ball of nerves, trying to be formal and polite. "We greatly appreciate the invite. It was a beautiful ceremony."

"Your son is lovely, your majesty. Black used to say he wanted to marry a prince, who knew it would come true?" Gillian gestured, her painted red claws flashing. They matched her lava-red hair, which she wore cropped short. She grinned, and it became clear where Black's wild smile came from.

Bowser laughed, clapping a hand on each of their shoulders. Darvill almost leapt out of his shell!

Sledge-folk were the perfect height to squish in group hugs.

"You guys are family now!" Bowser looked them both in the eyes as he signed, "Relax, have some drinks and mingle. Everybody here signs. I promise I won't throw you in any dungeons if you get drunk."

That loosened Darvill up enough to laugh.

Gillian curtseyed and signed in a flutter of fingers, "My liege, you are so kind."

Kind wasn't a word he would describe himself with, but he accepted the compliment.

In a span of time that seemed shorter than minutes, Bowser watched Larry graduate from medical school with honors and open an office in Koopa City for Koopas with Crash hearts.

Then he toured the castle Wendy finished building— her design eye was flawless and every room had something spectacular. It suited her style. He got a kick out of the giant martini glass hot tub in the basement level.

Wendy got married, and divorced, and married, and divorced… Men couldn't handle her! She became a cutthroat businesswoman who shook the beauty industry and enjoyed a side gig as a lounge singer. People loved her contralto voice, so she put out a few albums that sold well.

Roy ran off to elope with Pom-Pom. Boom-Boom gave Pom-Pom away. They came back to the castle wearing gold wedding rings and showing off photos of their intimate beach wedding. Bowser was a little pissed off that he didn't get to see it, yet he congratulated them and threw them a proper reception.

Besides, the pictures were amazing. Roy wore an all white tux with a black bow tie that looked smashing on him. Pom-Pom chose a flowy gold dress, wove white hibiscus into her ponytail and put on red sunglasses identical to Roy's. Her bouquet? Purple piranha plants. She killed that look!

Morton and Sienna kept dating and reaping the benefits. Somehow, he worked his way up to being an equipment manager for Serrated, which meant he toured all over the world with them. His ClawBook profile was full of his travels and pictures inside venues.

Iggy's programming for Ludwig's symphony visuals got him picked up by a concert special effects company. He made the bank designing visuals for concerts, plays, movies and other live shows.

Ludwig's symphony was being performed by orchestras all over the world. Other composers tried to replicate what he did in their own music, but never quite caught his flair. He got pulled to compose scores for TV serieses, movies and commercials. Talk show hosts had him on their sets and he started to be recognized in everyday life.

Lemmy couldn't handle jobs around a lot of people. He discovered online freelance work where he designed stim toys and sensory rooms for autistic people. His website— Lemmy's Ballpit— grew so successful that purchases came from outside the Darklands.

Bowser opened ClawBook one day to find Lemmy's latest selfies— he sat across the lap of the Hammer Brother piccoloist from Ludwig's symphony. They were laughing and holding the selfie stick with ocean waves foaming behind them.

This is Scott and his chair is almost as fast as a Kart! Ludwig introduced us at the afterparty for his symphony. Scott remembered me because I screamed, haha! I lost my words and panicked. Scott was so nice about it and gave me his number. We texted a lot instead of mouth-talking, and he finally asked me out! He thinks I'm cute! I think he's cute! We're on our first date at the beach, yay!

Bowser left a 'scratch' to indicate he liked it.

Overnight, almost, Junior turned thirteen— Bowser gave him spiked armbands and wristbands for his thirteenth birthday— then he turned fourteen, and then he stood on the cusp of fifteen.

He shot up in height until he became a spitting image of Bowser in his teen years. Tall, lanky like Ludwig, but still growing outward as well as upward. His voice changed from youthfully high to a silky smooth baritone. It took a month for him to stop squeaking when he talked, and Bowser spent a lot of time laughing about it.

Time continued its forward momentum.

Bowser thought of the symphony again, how Ludwig gave the final baton downbeat and twisted his whole body to the right, his fist clenched and his left arm bent in a cutoff gesture. His eyes were closed tight. He exhaled and an ecstatic grin blossomed on his sweaty face because he knew he just changed how composers would write forever.

The vine that climbed from him at the piano blossomed into flowers and fruit. All his heart and soul were bare, leaving the promise of more hanging in the air.

Roaring applause filled in the silence. A standing ovation. Ludwig stayed poised, his shoulders rising and falling.

He relaxed his stance, still smiling. The completion of this dream gave way to the next— the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Black vaulting onto the podium to embrace him.

Black turned Ludwig to face the standing ovation, causing him to clutch his chest, bow and gesture at the musicians behind him.

Now they were married and living happily ever after.

Bowser's heart soared at seeing his adult kids find happiness, and it secretly broke a little, too, because he couldn't give that joy to Junior.

Funny, the heartbreak didn't show on his most recent echocardiogram. The echo revealed only a small amount of seepage between his ventricles, so his heart formed enough scar tissue around the occluder to stop the shunting. It pumped like a battle-scarred champ and his ejection fraction looked phenomenal.

"Hey, are they still going to be able to eat my heart after I croak someday?" Bowser asked.

Neil answered matter-of-factly, "Yes, as long as they remove the coronary arteries and occluder first. But don't worry, you have some good years left."

"How old do you think I'll make it to?"

"Sixty, probably."

"Five years? Forget that, I'll live twenty more to spite you specifically."

"I'll be retired by then, at the ripe old age of eighty-two." Neil deadpanned.

"So are you hoping I drop dead before that?" Bowser waggled his eyebrows.

Neil laughed. "No!" He sobered. "But it'll be the beginning of the end when the dilated cardiomyopathy shows up."

The sad gleam in his eyes told all.

Crash found too late was ultimately terminal. Bowser had time, but not a lot of it.

He walked out of that appointment hoping he would live long enough to see Junior grow up, because he had nothing else to hope for.

..or did he?

"Bowser?"

A voice, familiar, yet…not.

He opened his eyes next to Peach's grave and saw a flowing red dress billowing against the smaragdine grass.

Cherry's face never quite caught up to her prominent nose. Silver braces sparkled on her teeth when she smiled. Her olive skin darkened slightly as she aged, but she still had a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. She looked so much like her mother that he knew she inherited her spirit.

"Wow, you— geez, you grew!" Bowser beckoned her to sit with him. "You're enormous!"

"I bet Junior is, too! How tall is he now?"

"Almost as tall as me."

"Dang!" She sat with her billowy red skirt spread around her.

They talked for a long while, catching up. She recounted her time in Sarasaland and mentioned missing Junior. Bowser told her what transpired in her absence and how much Junior missed her, and her eyes lit up at that.

"Any chance you can unplug the warp zone and come through?" He asked hopefully.

"Sure! I'll have to be sneaky, but…" Cherry looked at him through the corner of her eye and smiled deviously. "Do you want me to surprise Junior? It's his hatch-day tomorrow, isn't it?"

"Yeah!" Bowser's expression brightened. "Oh, Cherry, it'll be hilarious. He's gonna cry."

"Aw, bless his heart. I guess it's a good thing I didn't run over as soon as I got home, huh?" She sighed, gazing up at Peach's statue. "I miss mom."

He touched the name plate. "Me, too. But, you know what, Cherry? She's in you. I hope that much of me is in Junior."

"He's a lot like you." Cherry reached out and ruffled his hair. "But not as gray."

"Hey, low blow." He said without venom.

She laughed, uncurling to stand. "I better go. I'm still unpacking."

Bowser winked at her. "See you tomorrow."

After Cherry left, he dug up the ring he buried and wiped the dirt off until it sparkled in the sun. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

He smiled.

The hope he thought dead resurrected itself and walked out of its tomb in a luminous rush of splendor.

Anything was possible.

Bowser turned to start down the hill. He paused when he saw Mario standing at the bottom, arms crossed and eyes narrowed in a baleful scowl.

The years did a number on him by creasing his features— especially the lines between his eyebrows and around his mouth. He wasn't wearing his usual red cap, so his streaky salt and pepper hair was on full display. Most of the white took over his fluffy mustache, but it hadn't reached his eyebrows yet. Silver half-moon glasses were perched atop his round nose, the lenses gleaming in the sunlight.

"What'cha looking at, four eyes?" Bowser growled snidely.

"I have-a nothing to-a say to-a you," Mario sneered.

Bowser stopped next to him. "Good, neither do I!"

He hopped into the Koopa Clown Car and started the engine. As he lifted off, he watched Mario climb the hill, take his glasses off, lay down on Peach's grave and weep. Not a few tears, full on bawling, a broken man.

A scintilla of sympathy pinged in Bowser's chest.

Me, too, Mario. Me, too.

.o

Soft noises outside roused Junior out of sleep. The green digital clock by his bed read nine-thirty in the morning, so not too early. He stretched, yawned and exhaled thick smoke from his flaring nostrils on his way to the bathroom.

The figure in the mirror looked strikingly similar to Bowser at his coronation— tall, a bit gangly and not quite in proportion. He had to buckle his spiked wristbands and armbands pretty tight to make them fit.

Junior combed his reddish-orange hair into a messy long quiff rather than tie it up in a topknot, smoothed his bushy eyebrows with his thumbs and tugged a wrinkle out of his white bandanna. Its point only touched the top of his plastron now.

"Not bad," he said to himself. His horns were their full length and curved inward just like his dad's, and two spikes tipped his twitchy tail. The third would pop out soon, judging by the lump it created under his scales. Sometimes it ached in a way similar to teething.

Three weeks ago, he endured one of those boring echocardiograms. He had to get them every five years. Some pleading and cajoling got this one done a little earlier, so he didn't have to spend his hatch-day dreading it.

"Hello, my friend, hello!" That was Neil's cheery greeting before getting down to business. He used the big transducer meant for adults.

Junior learned his mitral valve still prolapsed with no sign of regurgitation. Neil spotted a few premature ventricular contractions during the procedure.

"This is common in Crash hearts. Do they make you woozy at all?"

"No. Sometimes I feel a hard beat." Junior watched the screen. "What about you, dad?"

"I had palpitations all the time when I was your age. I thought everybody did." Bowser shrugged. "I lived, so I guess they weren't a problem."

"They usually aren't. It's a sign that your heart is undergoing rapid growth."

Neil adjusted the transducer and switched over to the Doppler view. He smiled at the red and blue blobs moving across the screen. No yellow or green anywhere.

Junior's angiogram was even better. Firstly, the needle poke didn't terrify him enough to scream, and Judy nailed the stick in one go. The sedative didn't knock him into another century. He saw for himself that his major coronary arteries opened to almost a normal size, the dissolving stents led to extra vascularization festooning his heart like vines and his blood flow looked perfect.

"This is the healthiest Crash heart I've ever seen!" Neil declared.

In the office afterward, Bowser had to pause and wipe his face. "Ugh, got something in my eye."

Junior took hold of his beefy hand. "Hate it when that happens."

Neil got a call from Koopa City Central Hospital. Those were calls he never ignored.

"Doctor Neil. Ah, Doctor Larry! Uh-huh, I'm with—" He smirked— "patients right now. Is he decompensating yet? Hm…mmhmm…"

"You okay, dad?" Junior looked up.

Bowser wiped his eyes again, "Huh?"

"You're all emotional. What's up?"

"I'm fine. I just— uh—" Bowser's eyes kept tearing up. "I didn't do a great job taking care of my own heart, so it's kind of my mission to take better care of yours."

Junior squeezed his hand. "It's okay, you did."

Heavy, plodding footsteps slapped up the hall, breaking apart his thoughts.

"Hey, are you dead in there?" Bowser rapped on the bedroom door.

"Yeah, start gutting me!" Junior called back.

"Fine, I got dibs on your heart!"

"I just got up."

"I can tell." Bowser opened the door and peeked in with an enormous grin full of teeth. "Happy hatch-day, kiddo!"

Junior yawned on his way out of the bathroom. "Thanks."

Mischief danced in Bowser's russet eyes. He beckoned with a finger. "Come on."

"Are you going to prank me again?"

"Maybe."

"The frosting took forever to wash out of my hair last year."

"But it was funny!"

Junior smiled, "You should've watched where you stood when you dropped that cake on me, it hit you, too!"

Bowser stood up straighter. His old surgical scar looked like a rough brown ridge poking up between two plastron ridges on his chest.

"Worth it! Come on, sleepy-shell, move it. You're fifteen, not sixty."

"You making the famous Bowser bacon?"

"Yep."

That got Junior excited enough to move faster.

Bowser grinned toothily again and jogged away. Seeing him do that always caused Junior's stomach to drop. The fear of more heart attacks never went away.

He peeked out into the hall, walked cautiously through and looked around again.

"I'm coming down now!" Junior shouted, "So if you're gonna prank me, do it!"

"It's not fun if you see it coming!" Bowser hollered from the dining area doorway. "Anyway, I have your hatch-day present."

Greasy bacon scents wafted into the stairway.

Junior's feet plopped onto the gray stone floor at the bottom of the stairs. He turned the corner and arched an eyebrow. "I'm supposed to open those later."

"Ohhh, this one couldn't wait."

"O…kay…"

"You ready for it?" Bowser's eyes gleamed excitedly.

It was a gag gift. It had to be.

"Um, sure?" Junior tensed his legs to brace himself.

Bowser stepped aside, and there stood Cherry. She had on a simple red gown with puffy short sleeves that didn't do much to hide how her shape changed as much as his. Her dark hair was gathered in a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck and a simple gold coronet sat perfectly centered atop her head.

His best friend, familiar, yet older, like him. Seeing her quieted a noisy part of his mind the way eating silenced a growling stomach.

Junior blinked twice to make sure he didn't imagine her there. His heart hammered his ribs. A lump clutched his throat. He swallowed past it.

"Uh…"

What were words again? What happened? What day was it?

Cherry clasped her hands together and grinned, revealing her braces. "Hi, Junior!"

Her face still did that cute scrunchy thing. She was there, with her freckles, and her nose, and her sparkling eyes, and her playful voice that sounded older while somehow staying the same.

They were both taller, worldlier, yet in that moment the lacuna between them disappeared like continents sinking beneath the sea.

Junior didn't remember crossing the room. One minute he was by the stairs, and the next they were hugging. He lifted Cherry off her feet and spun her around.

"Cherry! It's you! You're back!" He laughed and cried at the same time. "I missed you!"

"Hey!" Cherry had him in a chokehold of a hug. She giggled, kicking her feet. "Happy hatch-day! Gosh, you're so tall now!"

"Sorry! I kinda grew." Junior set her down and wiped the tears off his face. "Are you back for real? Like, staying at your castle again and all?"

"Yup! Sure am!" She beamed. Her smile never changed.

He covered his mouth and burst into tears, embracing her again. "Sorry— for crying— on your— dress!"

"It's fine." Cherry held him more gently, sniffling. She was barely up to his chin, so her head fit perfectly in the space underneath it. "I'm sorry that things got so messed up, Junior."

"Not your fault." He cleared his throat. "Never blamed you."

Her arms squeezed tighter.

At the kitchen table, Bowser rested his elbow on the tabletop and propped his cheek on it. He wore that self-satisfied smile he always got whenever he knew he pulled a fast one.

Junior met his eyes as new tears dribbled onto his cheeks and mouthed, "Thank you."

Bowser pushed himself to stand and slid a platter of peppered Bowser bacon towards the middle of the table.

Junior suspected he was going upstairs to nap. He let go of Cherry and embraced his dad.

"Best present ever."

"As it should be." Bowser patted his shell. Lowering his voice, he whispered, "Don't get handsy with her, and don't stare at her chest. Got it?"

"Wha— when did I…?"

"Twice. Behave. I'll see you later." He kissed Junior's cheek and playfully shoved him towards Cherry.

Junior laughed, rubbing the back of his head. He stopped himself from stumbling into her and gestured at the platter. "Um…hey. Wanna eat this on the go?"

Cherry munched on a piece. "Sure. What did he say to you?"

"Um…" He rushed to his face. "He told me to have fun and not let you get kidnapped."

Bowser snorted at that. He ate a piece of bacon.

Cherry giggled and slapped Junior's shoulder. "Bowser, what are you going to do if I kidnap Junior and force a wedding?"

He grinned with a mouthful of peppery meat. "I'll come help you plan. You can have him."

Junior buried his face in his hands. "Dad! You're embarrassing!"

"Damn right, it's my job to be embarrassing while you're a teenager. Which means I get to do things like this."

Bowser swallowed and unleashed one of his legendary wall-shaking belches without excusing himself.

"Dad!" Junior laughed. "Seriously?"

Cherry stomped her foot, cackling. "Amazing resonance!"

Bowser swirled his hand to his chest and gave a sweeping bow. "Thank you, m'lady!"

Junior glimpsed the happiness written on his face, like someone who found joy again after a lengthy sorrow.

Bowser swiped another bacon strip off the platter.

"I'll see you kids later." He pointed at Junior. "Love ya, brat."

Those words opened a pit in Junior's stomach. A pit full of his dad crumpling next to a Kart, his head flopping to one side and his gurney being wheeled away to surgery, with shadows of ventilators, IVs, closed eyes and spiked lines redrawing themselves across glossy heart monitor screens.

He scrambled ahead of his dad and caught his broad shoulders, not noticing Cherry's confused look.

"Are you okay?"

"Huh?" Bowser bit into the bacon strip.

"Every time you said that, you thought you were going to die."

Blinking, Bowser swallowed without hardly chewing. "Really? I, uh…wow, I didn't realize!"

He looked upward and touched his own throat with two fingers, checking his pulse. His hand moved to his chest next. Then he lifted his eyebrows and smiled, eyes bright, alive and focused.

"I feel great! I guess it popped out because it's true. Nothing's happening, kiddo, I promise."

Junior exhaled the breath he held. "Sorry. Okay, sorry. I just— sorry."

Bowser's expression softened. Junior hugged him tight enough to push the breath out of his lungs. Once, he could only wrap his arms around his leg. Where did all that time go?

"I love you too, dad."

"Now who's the mushy embarrassing one?" Bowser embraced him, careful not to get grease on his shell.

He freed an arm to take a crunchy bite of his bacon. "Don't keep your girl waiting. I'm fine. Go on."

Junior let go, once he trusted himself not to shake in fright. He blushed, rubbing the back of his head.

Everything was okay. Everything would be okay. He could relax.

Bowser winked and swept past him, his spiked shell disappearing up the stairway.

"What was that about?" Cherry came alongside him.

"Uhhh…long story." Junior vented smoke through his nostrils.

She touched his arm. "You okay?"

"Oh, yeah! I am now." He met her eyes and smiled. "Let's fly."

.o

The Koopa Clown Car carried them over verdant plains. Below, a broad, fast-moving river flowed towards the valley.

Junior and Cherry talked a mile a minute, each catching up over the years they missed while they dined on a paper bag full of Bowser bacon.

"…and Toad got covered in it!" Cherry giggled into her hand. "The whole snowman fell on him!"

Junior doubled over in mirth and reached into the bag. "Oops, we ate it all. Heh, heh!" He tossed the bag backwards over his shoulder where it tumbled on the wind.

"Hey, remember when we trick or treated?" Cherry remarked, leaning on his side.

"Yeah, we snuck into that Godzilla movie and beat up some jerks." Junior remembered it fondly. "Feels like that was a lifetime ago."

She sobered, laying her head on his shoulder. "Sounds like your dad had it rough."

"It was pretty scary for a while, yeah. He's doing a lot better now."

Cherry sighed, rubbing her nose. "I ripped out the step."

"Huh?"

"The broken one everybody ignored until mom died. I ripped it loose with a crowbar. They can't ignore it now, so it's getting fixed."

"Nice!"

Junior followed the river to the craggy valley cutting into the earth. The river opened into a titanic waterfall tumbling several hundred feet.

Hard to believe water could do that. Then again, he remembered the tide almost sweeping Cherry away once.

Time worked like water— a relentless thing that weathered everything it touched.

He gazed up at the clouds. Just a few years ago, he bowed his head over Peach's grave and asked her to bring Cherry back to him.

Maybe she set her afloat on time's currents when they flowed in his direction again. Or was it all those wishes he pleaded for over his hatch-day candles?

Did it matter?

"Thank you," he whispered to the sky.

"Were you talking to me?" Cherry eyed him.

"Oh, uh…no. Just, uh, thanking the universe for us."

Junior grasped the control stick and eased the Koopa Clown Car into the valley. Damp brown crags festooned in moss rose like massive jaws.

"Hey, wanna see something cool?"

"Sure!"

He stopped in the middle of the valley and bellowed at the top of his lungs, "PRINCESS CHERRY TOADSTOOL IS MY MOST ULTRA BESTSEST BEST FRIEND IN THE UNIVERSE!"

His voice echoed off the valley walls. Once. Twice. Three times. Four times.

"Wow, let me try." Cherry leaned over. "PRINCE BOWSER KOOPA JUNIOR IS MY MOST ULTRA MEGA BEST-BEST-BESTEST BEST FRIEND IN THE UNIVERSE!"

Her higher pitched voice echoed five times before it was indistinguishable.

Junior watched how strands of her hair blew across her tanned face while she shouted. What he felt for her was more than friendship. He didn't know what to call it yet, but he liked the way it twisted his stomach and quickened his heartbeat.

Maybe, someday, it would be something more.

"Friends forever?" Junior held out his hand.

Cherry took it, her fingers tiny next to his. "Friends forever."

She smiled mischievously. "Show me how to fly this thing?"

"Sure. You just take the control stick and— WHOA!"

Junior grabbed the rim when Cherry pulled the control stick towards herself. The valley rang with their laughter as the Koopa Clown Car whirled towards the crystal blue sky.

.o

.o

"So you're thinkin' it's endin',
But it's only just begun.
Your whole life is there right,
Right in front of you

Life's a story that is all twists and turns.
All that matters is the lessons we learn…"

—Celine Dion, "Unfinished Songs"