"You're up early." It was about four in the morning and Cary was sitting on the couch on the porch, watching the rain.

"I… Didn't want to sleep."

Stan frowned and sat next to Cary, wrapping an arm around him.

"Because of the dreams?"

"A little. But mostly because I didn't want it to be morning."

"I'm gonna miss you too," Stan said.

"What do we do? To make it easier?"

"We'll call and text and "video call" and ask for help from the people around us."

"Why'd you put video call in air quotes?"

"I don't really know how it works," Stan admitted.

Cary laughed.

"You'll figure it out."

"Yeah. It'll be okay."

"What do we do to make it easier right now?" Cary asked.

Stan thought for a moment.

"Want to eat some birthday cake and watch the storm?"

"Yeah. That could help."

So they spent their early morning watching the rain and eating the wonky cake Ford had made. And it actually did help, a little.

Ford got up a few hours later and found Stan and Cary asleep, leaning against each other. He took a photo for his lock screen and then gently shook his brother awake.

"Hey, sleepyhead."

The rain had stopped and the morning was cool and clear, good weather for traveling.

"I suppose it's time to go?"

Ford nodded, "Soon. You should go get ready. I'll hang out with Cary."

Stan gently stood up, trying to let Cary sleep a little longer. But she woke when Ford took his place.

"Good morning, Cary."

"Mmph." Cary sat up and rubbed their eyes.

"Your dad's inside getting ready."

Cary nodded, blinking sleep out of his eyes before turning serious. "Take care of him, okay?"

"Of course. I just got my brother back, I'm not going to let anything or anyone take him away."

"And you'll call me if something happens?"

"Of course."

"Thanks, Uncle Ford."

"You have to update us, too."

"I will."

"Especially about the Beast."

"So you don't want updates on my love life?"

"That too. Did you and Wendy have your first kiss last night?"

"Yeah, it was awesome. We climbed up on Tambry's roof and kissed in the moonlight."

"That sounds lovely. I wish you two the best."

"It feels right." Right now being with Wendy was the only part of their future that they felt secure about.

Stan was doing his best to calm his own nerves, so he was actually relieved to see Soos in the kitchen trying to make breakfast.

"Hey, Soos, can I ask a favor?"

"Any day of the week," Soos said earnestly.

"Take care of Cary, okay? And the Shack. And yourself."

"Will do," Soos promised.

"I know you're going to be an amazing Mr. Mystery. But don't be afraid to put your own spin on it. You'll be good because you're you, not because you're trying to be me."

Soos smiled and offered Stan a hug. Stan rolled his eyes a little but happily accepted the hug.

"I've got to get ready to leave, I'll be back for breakfast in a bit. Cary and Ford are outside."

"I'll get them when the food is ready."

Cary deserved a few more minutes to say goodbye to Ford. She'd had hours to say goodbye to Stan, and they'd sat in silence, each knowing the goodbyes they couldn't make real.

Stan went to get cleaned up and grab his things, moving slowly through the house to say a tender goodbye. This might have been his brother's house first, but it had been his home and Cary's home for so many years. He would miss the Shack, and the town, and the people who had become his family. He would probably even miss some of his enemies.

Finally, satisfied with his solemn goodbye to the house, he headed back to the kitchen for his last breakfast with his kids. Unlike yesterday's pancake feast, they couldn't shake the feeling of finality. They weren't as casual and jokey, each bite of scrambled eggs was somber.

Stan hated it. He was desperate to make Cary laugh or even just smile. Finally, he thought of a little bit of levity.

"How about I call the school and tell them you have one of those 24-hour bugs? That way you can have a day off to adjust?"

Cary offered a half-hearted smile, "That would be nice."

"Just don't make a habit of playing hooky," Ford warned.

"Don't worry, I can't miss many rehearsals anyway. Even though I'm already off-book and Hermia forgets her lines every time."

"You're gonna do amazing, kid," Stan promised.

"Hell yeah, I will."

Stan called the school then, laying it on thick with the administrative assistant, which made Cary laugh a little. But after the phone call, it seemed their time was up.

Ford stood first. "Stanley, we have to be going if we're going to be on time to pick up our boat."

"Right." Stan stood too, hugging Soos and then Cary. He still didn't have the heart to say goodbye so instead he said, "See you next summer."

"It'll be here before we know it," Cary said, also unable to say farewell.

Cary watched them leave from the porch, staying strong until they were out of sight. And then the tears started streaming down her face.

Soos felt awkward and unqualified, not sure what to do or say. He offered a hug, which Cary accepted, but there wasn't much else he could do.

"Do you, uh… Do you want to do something today? To take your mind off of this?"

"Maybe later," Cary sniffled. "I think I'm just going to go back to bed."

"Okay, well I'll be here if you need anything."

"Thanks, Soos."

Cary went back to their room and crawled under the covers, hugging their haunted duck for comfort.

He shot off a couple of texts, one to Wendy to explain his absence and one to Thompson to pass a message along to their drama teacher. Then he fell into a restless sleep, hoping for once that the dreams wouldn't come.

Instead, Cary was greeted by the image of her dad in the passenger seat of his own car, head in his arms on the dashboard as he wept. Knowing that he felt just as broken up as Cary did, unfortunately, did not make her feel better. Dreams about the immediate future were just full of tears, which wasn't very encouraging.

The day passed painfully slowly. Eventually, Cary couldn't bring themself to wallow in bed any longer so they puttered around the room doing small, unimportant projects. They painted their nails a glittery purple, practiced lines in the mirror, then started on a new outfit for Miguel, who watched approvingly.

Her pirate duck became a little concerned when Cary began to sob over her sewing project. She couldn't help thinking about how Stan had taught her how to sew when she was younger. He'd had to make a lot of different costumes for his different grifts so he'd picked up quite a lot of sewing techniques, which he'd then passed down to Cary.

Cary really hoped the next six months wouldn't be like that. If he cried every time he did something he'd done with his dad then he would be crying 24/7. The thought of crying from a trip to Greasy's Diner or the lake was annoying enough to snap Cary out of his gloom. He set his sewing aside and headed to the kitchen.

It was early evening, around closing time. Soos was still in his suit when he stepped into the kitchen, though he'd taken off the eyepatch and fez. He looked surprised to see Cary.

"Oh! You're up."

"Mm-hm."

"How are you feeling?"

"Introspective. But I'm trying to shake it off."

"Yeah. It's gonna be weird for a while, but we're going to get through it." Soos hesitated before offering a fist bump, "Team Pines?"

Cary cracked a smile, "Team Pines."

"Wanna get pizza for dinner?"

"I'm not super hungry."

"Well, you didn't eat lunch, so you have to eat something." Soos did his best to sound authoritative, instead of like a 22-year-old who was suddenly out of his depth.

"Pizza is fine."

"Do you want to come to town with me?"

"Yeah, sure. I need to pick up some melatonin from the drugstore. Handsel thinks it'll focus my mind and sharpen my visions."

"Have you had any dreams recently?"

"Yeah, I've been having a lot of dreams about dad and Uncle Ford. I think this is gonna be good for them, but I know it's gonna be hard on all of us."

"Hard, but not impossible. Though… Even if it were impossible, our family is pretty great at handling impossible things."

"Yeah, I guess we are."

"C'mon, dude. Let's go see what impossible things life throws at us next."

"Well, now you're just asking to be cursed by the fae."

"Are the fae real?"

"According to my extensive research-" (Playing Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream) "-they are."

"I think I killed a fairy once."

"Then we're already doomed," Cary laughed.

"Yeah, but we're doomed together." And they chanted "Doomed together!" all the way to Tony Mario's Pizza Shed. And then all the way to the drugstore while they waited for their pizza to be finished.


This chapter was so hard to write so I'm allowed to end it however I want. I'm gonna go back and re-edit all of the chapters and outline arc 3 before I start on it. I think we'll preemptively say this next section is arc 3 because if I let it be arc 2 still it will become a beast too big to ever be tamed. Will arc 3 also only have ten chapters? I have no idea.

Normally I ask for your questions but this time I have a question for you! The next section will cover November-April and Arc 4 will start in May, so I was wondering if you guys would like a Christmas or Thanksgiving chapter? We could do one or neither but probably not both. Lore-wise, neither Cary nor Wendy usually celebrate Christmas so if we did have a Christmas chapter it would be about them finding a way to celebrate when they usually don't. Lore-wise for Arc 5, in the future Thanksgiving will be very important to Wendy and Cary for reasons, but it may not be important for them yet, so we could skip it if we wanted to. I have no preference. Let me know what you think!