The entire backstage of the theater had been utter chaos, more so than was presumed normal. Yelling, squabbling, and the flying of props painted the reality of the opening show that was to play that night, the very show Kermit had been dreading for this entire week. He snagged Robin's shoulder despite the young frog never intending a move; Robin mumbled a moan, slowly trying to slide his uncle's death grip off of him. Kermit gave a hard swallow, as he watched the waves of people crash into walls or one another. This wasn't a place for Robin to settle in, heck it wasn't a place to even work in.

"Chief! Thank goodness." A familiar orange face rushed to the frog's presence, his eyes darting in a frenzy, remaining alert for anything that could potentially trample him. "What the heck is going on?" For that moment, Robin's existence was swept under the rugs of Kermit's mind, as his eyes spiked daggers at a shivering Scooter, his voice filled with an explosive kind of venom. Robin stared at his uncle's vehement face in an uneasy silence.

"My uncle is coming to see tonight's show, he came by earlier-"

"What." Kermit's blood pulsed his head in the sudden fright of the news, as Robin continued to squirm under the strengthening hold Kermit had on his poor shoulder. "Uncle Kermit…"

Scooter pushed his glasses back up to his jittering eyes, smiling despite the anticipation of the frog's frustration. "H-He insisted, he feels as though you've—I mean—the show has been blowing through too much budget. He's been selling and cutting ties with a lot of other partnerships lately—-I mean I've tried to put in a good word but-"

"Grosse has been threatening a visit, but good grief, I didn't think he'd actually go through with it!"

"Uncle Kermit, you're hurting me!" Kermit flinched his hand away from a staggering nephew, his face dropping into a pained curvature. "Sorry, bud…" Robin did nothing more but offer a shudder as a response, but it hardly scraped Kermit's mind.

Lights and delicate consoles crashed against the floor, jerking Scooter away from the scene that appeared behind him. The monster froze, gripping what was left of a flimsy cardboard box as the crime scene laid for those with invested eyes; Scooter paled in horror, as Kermit's eyes dropped in a cold and calculated demeanor. "Oops."

"Oops, huh?" The frog's remark carried more snot than a sick dog with allergies, but lucky for the mangy beast, Scooter dawned a saving grace. "It's alright chief, we were gonna replace those anyway." The young orange gentlemen offered a stretched smile before ushering himself in helping the monster gather what had been dropped and crushed. His aid however became the replacement for the action, as the monster was more focused at the sight of there being twice as many frogs as before. "Who's that little guy?"

He could already feel Robin shifting behind his uncle's silhouette, his small hand gripping Kermit's wrists. "Ah, don't be scared. I ain't gonna hurt ya."

"I can object to that." The beast blinked, his lame bit of ignorance paving his way of thought before he finally caught onto the frog's claim. "Uh…well, I don't hurt people."

"Sweetums, how about you find something else to help with. I'm sure there are lots of other things to do around here." Scooter had finally scraped up the rest of what had been smashed, folding the lids of the box before handing it back to him. The young gopher's eyes sparked with a hesitance, whipping his head toward his higher-up. "Uh, if…that's a neat idea…?"

Kermit never closed his gaze off of this "Sweetums" character, with not a single muscle in his face ever fracturing from its stone expression. "As long as he doesn't bring the entire house down with him."

Sweetums prided himself in a creative smile. "Hey, I know a swell idea. How about I watch the little tucker for ya?" Kermit felt his chest jerk with something devastating. Robin, in a seeming opposite response, shifted his weight, getting a full view of the monster. Kermit snarled an emphatic "no" before scooping his nephew in his arms, much to Robin's protest, and making his way up the staircase to the dressing rooms.

The gopher and beast stood in an odd silence, before Sweetums took the first step in breaking it. "Was it something I said?" Scooter had to practically drag his gaze to meet Sweetums', fighting the inner demons that tempted the gopher to roll his eyes. "More like something you did."

"But Uncle Kermit-"

"I mean it."

Robin never doubted his uncle had, but it wasn't enough to stop his frantic protest. "But the entire day? What happened to being able to show me around?" For at least a few moments, Kermit breathed movement into his face, his dead gaze finally drooping into a grief hidden from a spotlight. "I know kiddo, but things came up that need to be dealt with."

"Why can't someone else do it? The man with the glasses seems to know everything."

"This is my job, Robin. This is what I do."

"Then what about me." Kermit felt a sudden rush of cold infect his entire body. He sighed, rubbing his neck in a forced contemplation. "I promise, I'll make it up to you. Just stay here for now, alright? You have a bag with everything you need." He gestured toward the sack he had helped Robin prepare that morning, just in case something occurred for these precise moments. "I'll be back in a bit to check on you, alright?" Robin eyed the bag in a defeated stance, obscuring the most notable pulls in his face. "Yeah…"

Kermit hated the thought of having to leave Robin all by his lonesome, in the theater of all places; he wasn't left with a real choice at this point. Just as he clicked the door closed, a certain blue creature rammed himself into the frog; Kermit danced a stumble, smashing his back against the wooden balcony with an audible groan. "There you are!" It was safe to say the frog was far less happy to be greeted by Gonzo than Gonzo himself had been. Kermit's gaze burned with a certain vexation that could flame even a lily pond. Gonzo had been comically complacent.

"I wanna change my number."

"Gonzo, I can't—I don't have time for-"

"Come ooon, hear me out! Here, picture this…" He wrapped an arm around the amphibian's shoulders, squeezing them as he gestured at the cobwebs no one dared cleaning from the ceiling. "A waltz…but not any waltz!" Gonzo yanked Kermit's torso in a direction that forced the frog to face him, looking deeply into his scolding eyes. "One with fireballs and chickens!" Kermit responded with nothing more than a thin lip and a deadpan.

"Oh come one, Kermit. Me and Camilla have been planning this for weeks!"

"Then why didn't I hear about this before?"

"The owner of the theater is coming tonight, right? This would be the perfect time to put it on the show!" The frog's mouth began the bitter taste of a dry sahara; he couldn't argue against something that would ultimately help the show, could he? Yet he couldn't shake the sense he got from Gonzo, nor did that feeling make sense. There was nothing Gonzo did specifically, but the moment the strange man whisked within Kermit's sights, it ruptured a kind of earthquake in the very pits of the frog. Almost a hatred, yet far from it.

"I mean, think of the drama! A dance between two lovers, against the face of death itself!" Gonzo had finally stepped away, only to swirl in a maniacal fantasy; despite this, the frog still felt some sort of grip the blue creature had been teasing over him.

"Right."

"Their love able to withstand anything in their way!"

"Uh huh."

"The very nature of their happiness-" The frog snapped harder than a rubber band stretched a mile. "Fine." There was more of a burdened pain that carried in his voice than what Kermit wished to stuff behind his curtains. Gonzo snapped his attention back to the frog, finally committing to a sobering reality, his hands still frozen in the air in a half gesture of something grand. The frog still felt his heart jittering moments after, despite giving a harsh breath to fuel his composure. "Fine, just…do what you have to do."

"You mean it?"

"Wanna change that?" It only took a single scowl before Gonzo got the memo, for once. "Right, right. Thanks!" With that, the walking doomsday dashed away, knocking into many others along the way. Kermit heaved what seemed to be the tenth sigh that day, rubbing an eye with the palm of his hand. The moisture in his eyes began to burn, lulling him into a familiar sleep, despite his standing position. "Kermie!"

Oh what now.

Even through the chaos, the sudden emergence of perfumes had been an assault on Kermit's senses. He lifted his head over his shoulder in a tense motion, the muscles in his neck straining to keep such an awkward position. He saw a snare of golden bop in his direction; Kermit felt a familiar deadening pollute and spread through his every vein.

Piggy brightened him with a suave smile, her gaze of gentle remarks. "I must speak with you."

"Then spit it." Piggy froze in her place, her face exaggerating a form of perplexity. Kermit didn't shudder at what he said. Hesitantly, the swine slowly began to replicate the frog's image, narrowing her eyes with a spiteful tone. "What?"

"If you got something to say, get to the point. I don't have time for anything. Otherwise, don't bother." He waited a few moments for his response to sink in, before making the bold move of walking away from Miss Piggy. Frankly enough, he hadn't expected her to take it so well.

He felt something snatch his shoulder, reeling him back from his destination, as the pig forced herself into his views. She kept the sweet appearance of a smile, while her gaze tied themselves in knots in order to not fuel a becoming fire of outrage. "Vous is obviously tired from the preparations of today's show, so moi will pretend she didn't hear that." The frog's face didn't change, and nor did the pig's.

"My dance number-"

"I'm not swapping again, Piggy."

"Oh no, I simply wanted you to be in it, Kermie." Whatever grogginess had taken possession of the amphibian had evaporated within an instant; Kermit shot his eyes with alarming speed. "...what?" The swine stretched a wider smile, this time a genuine one. She began to wrap her arms around the frog's sides, whipping her head in a dramatic, dazzling effect. "Moi has seemed to have forgotten to find a proper dance partner to match moi's wits." Her embrace became a stronghold, while the frog's soul shivered at the way she gazed into and through him, slicing his very essence into nothing but what it had been, revealing whatever he thought he disguised so well all these years—years even he couldn't seem to remember. "And vous has been the only one to ever match it."

"It's hard for everyone at first." It was cold and dark—the Muppet Theatre had been lucky enough to receive an entire outage that prevented the use of lightning, sound effects, the phone line, and even control over the temperature. The rent had supposedly been dealt on time, so whatever had caused the outage had been by odd circumstance. It drove Piggy insane.

She was preparing for her first dance number, something that she had insisted on taking upon herself. The upcoming star had been struggling to find any sort of tutor who would fit for a low wage of payment, with stunningly no success. It hadn't been until the head of the ongoings of the show stepped out and gave the generous offer of teaching her a few basic steps.

Kermit had a certain kind of graceful and peaceable nature Piggy hadn't quite seen before; the frog had been one of a kind when it came to interactions. His eyes were sweeter than a ripe fruit for picking, with a smile that could melt a friend or foe into quiet submission. He was quiet with a purposeful nature, with a mind that was always hidden behind a curtain of curious darkness.

"Heck, I could barely keep my knees from giving out when I started." The frog had brought in a portable gas lamp from one of the prop containers, and had been jimmying around with it until it finally flickered to life. The light shaded the outlines of his figure into a warm variation of green; his countenance spoke of comedic effect drawn upon what the frog had said previously. His unique set of pupils carved Piggy's own figure, as if yearning for some sort of reaction out of what he hoped to be a consoling comment. The pig restricted herself to silence.

"...Piggy?"

"Hm?"

She broke away from her dreary trance, only to be dragged back to the deep end as the director smirked a chuckle. With a gentle grace, he took her hands into his with a loose face. "There's a first time for everything."

Piggy would never forget that memory, even on the brinks of her last breath. Every smile that frog gave her, every curious gander, even the way he danced with her that night. He was a burdened blessing placed on her life, someone who saw her for the lonely dancer she was. He was the only one who could ever see her. That was the utter magic of Kermit The Frog.

So what in the world happened.

"No." By some cosmic force, the frog had managed to budge the pig off of his body, his face decomposing to that of trepidation. "No?" Piggy hadn't even attempted to maintain her grip on him, as she had been too stunned by the impact his response did to her brain.

Kermit stared directly into her eyes that gave a bad aftertaste of something bitter. "I'm not doing it."

"Well, why not?"

"I'm not dancing." The frog resumed his escaping walk once again, as his pursuer began to tail him in an angry hunt.

"I asked a question, frog!"

His spirit snapped into separate daggers that managed to drill themselves into both of Kermit's eyes. He finally whipped his attention around back to her, in an abrupt cutoff of his retreat, the color of calamity flushing his features. "Because I'm not dancing with you, and nor will I ever." His voice boomed through every wall, every door, every room, and every ear in that entire theater. "I'm not dancing. I'm not dancing with you, and that's final. Now just leave me alone, will you? Good grief."

And just like that, the frog was gone. He left her in the obscure shadows of his words. The frog was gone, forever lost in an unimaginable abyss, in a place not a single hand could reach him. The frog was gone, and now the pig was a lonely dancer once more.

Author's Note:

Sorry about the giant pause with this story. Life kinda happened. I can't make any promises on when the next chapter will be, but what I can guarantee is that I will finish this story-I just won't know how long that will exactly take me. The same goes for my other major projects.

I've gotten some comments in the past regarding how I write Kermit in this story, about how uncharacteristically cold and shut-off he comes across as opposed to how he is actually depicted in modern Muppet media. I did this with a purpose, as it really plays into his ultimate character arc. I took a lot of inspiration from how Kermit was characterized in the original Muppet Show, particularly the first season or two. I'm having this story take place between the transition of Kermit being cold and satirical against kind-hearted and hopeful. So by the end of this story, Kermit ends up being the character we all know and love.

Hopefully this chapter played out well, and I'm looking forward to continuing to write the next one. Thank you so much to those who have been patiently waiting, and I hoped you enjoyed reading it!