//------------------------------//
// Chapter 14: Unexpected Discoveries 
// Story: Partial 
// by Halira 
//------------------------------//

Nightmare Moon carefully pulled the car to a stop in front of the farmhouse and turned it off. He hoped this would be a short trip. He had a class he needed to study for, and he still wanted to spend some time with his foals before tucking them into bed. Plus, he didn't like leaving his foals' mothers near each other for too long without him being around. That tended to lead to violence. He especially didn't like leaving Blood and Harvest's mothers alone near each other since they were still pregnant with Blood and Harvest. He didn't think they'd risk fighting while pregnant, but tempers and jealousy were rampant among the mares, and he wouldn't put it past Waxing and Waning's mothers to instigate something. Moon's sisters weren't true-blood daughters of Phobia Remedy, and Charlotte didn't even intend to have foals. His line was the true line of descent from the Dreamwarden, and each of his foals' mothers wanted their foal to be the sole true grandchild of Phobia Remedy-Stone and the sole bearer of his name.

Blood and Harvest would be the last two for a while. Impregnating their mothers had earned him enough money to pay for the remainder of college tuition his scholarships hadn't. Each new one added was another that he was worried that the mother would take off and leave instead of trying to raise the foal with him. He would have more, but he would hold off a few more years and then add to his brood enough to pay for a house. The night pony population still had a gender imbalance that would still take a generation to correct to reasonable levels. Night pony mares, especially middle-aged ones worried about time running out, paid good money to have a night pony stallion get them pregnant, and the price for getting pregnant by a Dreamwarden's son was far more. Moon, if he wanted to, didn't even have to go to school. He could live off of impregnating mares. However, he wanted to be part of his foals' lives, and he had a passion for medicine that he would feel incomplete without pursuing a career in it–although he was seriously considering pediatric medicine. His mama, Rosetta Stone-Remedy, was a massive proponent of night pony stallions siring as many foals as possible and was proud of him for expanding their tribe. His mom was another story, and he could tell she disapproved, but she differed from Moon's mama on family and household matters, so she kept her disapproval to herself. She still adored her grandfoals, despite her dislike of how they came to be. 

"Why are we coming out here again? It doesn't look special," Wallace said as he looked out the window.

"Because my mom wants to," Moon replied flatly as he pulled his sunglasses out and put them on. 

"Because I need to talk to someone who cannot reach the dream realm," his mother answered. "And this farm is not all it seems to be. It is a farm, that is true, but its residents are rather unique."

Wallace looked doubtfully at some chickens being fed seed by a man in a fenced-off area. Moon had to agree with Wallace in this case; this looked like an ordinary farm. However, he knew his mom came out here fairly regularly, although Crystal usually drove her here. Crystal was away from home at the moment, as was Tempest. Tempest rarely came here either, although she never explained why. She only said the place unnerved her. Tempest was one of the most fearless people he knew. If this place made her uneasy, there had to be something seriously weird about the place. 

"I changed my mind; this place is weird, but at least we don't have to listen to the phone ringing off the hook. These people aren't normal," Wallace muttered. 

Actually, now that he got to looking around, he noticed that a few of the farmhands were heavily bundled up and had hoods on, even though it was still August and still reasonably hot. Both ponies and humans were doing this, and on any other farm, pony farm workers rarely wore much at all. That was odd. His mom did say the residents were unique. He wondered why they'd do that. It seemed like it would lead to them overheating. 

Wondering about that would need to wait. They stepped out of the car. Moon guessed that was the main reason he was included in this trip. He did promise Tempest to help Wallace out with bodyguarding while Tempest and Crystal were away, but this place didn't seem particularly dangerous. However, other than Crystal, he was the only person who could drive and had a vehicle in the household. With Crystal away, that left him as the transportation. His mom did fly, but she never flew out of sight of the house, and Wallace, being an earth pony, couldn't bodyguard her very well if she flew somewhere. Phobia Remedy went nowhere without one of her personal bodyguards; all the night pony mares guarding the house didn't count; they weren't the Elite. 

Not a single worker even glanced in their direction or gave any sign that they'd even been noticed, despite several working within just a few meters of where they were standing. None of the farmworkers were talking to one another either. Moon heard one singing something in a language he didn't recognize, and another was whistling, but they seemed somehow too focused on their work. There was also something off with the smell of the place. All the usual farm smells were there, but there was something else underneath all those smells, something that smelled not only out of place and strange but very wrong, something that made Moon's fur bristle. 

Wallace seemed to have also noticed something was off, and Moon spotted rocks forming on Wallace's legs.

"Keep your powers under control. This is a farm; these people don't need you sapping the minerals from their soil," Phobia Remedy chided Wallace as she looked at his legs. 

Wallace hastily shook the rock from his legs and pounded the stone into gravel. "Sorry, Dreamwarden."

The Dreamwarden smiled at her young Elite bodyguard. "Please, relax. None of the residents mean any harm. I know this place can put nerves on edge, but this farm is safe. I'm as safe here as I am back at the house."

"Are these OMMR agents, and is this some secret OMMR base?" Moon asked his mom. 

The Dreamwarden shook her head. "This place was bought and paid for by the OMMR, but it was as a gift. The owner and her son do some things for us sometimes, but it is more as a favor than because it is their job. Getting favors from them is somewhat of a negotiation process. Tempest and Crystal, along with some of the other Elite, are currently doing what they can to appease them. We need information, and the person we need to get it from can sometimes be difficult."

"You bought them this farm as a bribe?" Wallace asked in surprise. 

"No, we bought them this farm because the son has problematic powers that get more problematic and dangerous if he tries to bottle them up. He needs a place where they can be used freely, away from the eyes of others. This farm serves that purpose," Phobia answered. 

Moon looked around again. Aside from the odd behavior and attire of the farm workers, he didn't notice anything out of place besides that smell. There was something very wrong about that smell. 

Moon's mom started walking towards the farmhouse. "Come along. They will wonder why we're standing around staring if we don't get a move on. We don't want to come off as rude. The person I need to negotiate with has a rigorous view of manners. Remember to wipe your hooves before entering the house, especially you, Wallace. Don't track your stoneskin into the house."

As they approached the farmhouse's front door, Moon took note of the two mounted deer heads on either side of the door, along with a third above the door. They were angled oddly, so instead of staring straight out into the yard; they faced whoever was at the door. That was a little creepy. 

The door opened without anyone knocking, and a tall, bulky man wearing a hood and heavy clothing stood there. With the door open, the uncurrent smell got stronger. It smelled like rotting meat with maybe a hint of wine. It made Moon want to gag. 

"Miss Remedy," the man said, bowing his head. His eyes flicked to Moon and Wallace. "These two walk with warriors' gaits."

Moon's mom bowed her head as well. "The earth pony is named Wallace, and he is one of my personal bodyguards. He will reveal nothing he sees here, nor will he take hostile action against any of your incarnations or the mother. The other pony is my son, Nightmare Moon. What I said about Wallace can be said of him as well. Crystal is away on business, so other bodyguards had to be arranged. They can be trusted to keep your secrets. Do you have a name that we may address you?"

"Urash is our name. You have addressed us before," the man replied. He then stepped to the side. "You may enter. The current incarnation's mother is bathing us at this time. So you shall have to wait in the living room until we are done."

Okay, that was beyond strange. The man didn't seem to be in the process of a bath, given how heavily clothed he was, and why someone else's mother would be giving him one was a mystery. Did the man just lie straight to a Dreamwarden's face? There were some weirdo cult vibes in this place. That would explain the odd attire, but it didn't explain the reek. Given this seemed like some sort of cult, Moon was unsure if he wanted to know what the smell was coming from. 

They followed Moon's mother into the house, and Urash shut the door behind them. 

The living room was lit with sunlight coming in through windows with gaze curtains. The furniture was plain but well kept, made with both humans and ponies in mind, and wouldn't be out of place in any regular house. The other furnishings were more disturbing. The walls were adorned with mounted animal heads, primarily deer, but there was also an alligator and bear. The shelves and tables all featured various animals that had been taxidermied. There were several squirrels and multiple types of birds, including crows, pigeons, vultures, bluejays, ducks, and one hawk. Moon quickly lost track of how many dead and stuffed animals were in the room. There were three doors, not counting the front door, all shut, and he was unsure which went into rooms and which were closets. There was a staircase as well, barely wide enough for a human to walk up, too small to be used for transporting most furniture. 

"You may take seats. The mare and current incarnation will be down shortly," Urash instructed. He then went and stood by the front door, hands folded in front of him, unmoving. Moon wasn't even sure if the man was breathing. The smell was more pungent here. Perhaps Urash spent a lot of time holding his breath so he wouldn't gag. 

Wallace looked around at the mounted animals nervously and shivered. "I swear they're watching me."

Moon's mom took a seat on a couch. "They are, but don't let that bother you. Most won't give you much thought or even have thought. If any do happen to be malevolent, there isn't anything a body in their condition can do other than stare."

Moon inched away from the squirrel he had been standing next to. Wallace looked even more nervously at a vulture. If Phobia Remedy said something, it was true, or at least, she believed it to be true. If Moon's mom believed these things possessed some consciousness, then it was highly likely they did. This was a haunted farmhouse; what fun. 

There was a sound of running upstairs that made them all glance upward, aside from Urash, who kept standing where he was, not even blinking. 

"I believe we are about to be greeted by one of the more eccentric residents of the house. She normally rushes to see me when I come to visit, but you two might have made her nervous. Please, be nice to her," Moon's mom instructed. She looked at the staircase. "You may come down, Patches. Be careful on the stairs. You don't need any more stitches.

The running went to the stairs, and Urash grunted with annoyance. "That one of us never listens to instruction. Never learns our lesson."

The galloping sound echoed doe the staircase, and a tiny foal accompanied it, a small foal who tripped and faceplanted on the floor on the last step.

"Oopsie," the foal said, sounding unhurt 

Wallace gasped and jumped backward at the eight of the foal. Moon gave him a confused look as he took in Walace's look of abject horror. He then looked again at the foal and its strangeness. Each of the foal's legs were a different color, and it had various colored splotches of fur on its main body that seemed to have been sewn on. Its tail was utterly hairless–and missing parts of the flesh as well, revealing the bone underneath. When the filly lifted her head, she revealed she was missing flesh and fur from part of her face, and her mouth had what had to be a permanent skeletal grin where nothing but tooth and bone could be seen. The scent coming off her was strong, and at last, Moon knew precisely what he was smelling. He smelled a corpse. He was smelling death. 

The abomination stood up and looked herself over before giving an excited hop. "No stitches popped!" She then looked at Moon's mother. "Hi, Miss Phobia! We beat Pac-man today!"

Moon's mom tilted her head, seemingly unconcerned a monster was talking to her. "You beat Pac-Man? How did you do that?"

The abomination hopped in place. "We made Pac-Man eat up all the dots. Nom nom nom!" The filly worked her mouth like she was eating, which was extra disturbing with that mouth. 

"We cleared one level," Urash explained. "That one of us doesn't understand there is more to the game. We also cheered when the ghosts ate Pac-Man."

"We beat Pac-man!" Patches proudly proclaimed. 

Moon's mom chuckled. "I appreciate that you can find joy in both outcomes. If only all foals could have similar dispositions. Ghadab may have a different opinion on the matter, but it still brings a smile to my face. I would love to hear what other adventures you have gotten up to this week, but I really need to talk to Moses. Will he be upset if I go upstairs and visit him?"

Patches tilted her head as if confused by why the question would be asked. "We love you. We wouldn't be upset." What was with these people talking about themselves and others in their group in the plural?

The Dreamwarden stood up and left the couch. "I shall do so then. You can tell my son and Wallace about your adventures as they wait for me to return."

Parches rushed over to Moon and started wagging her bony tail like a dog. "Hi, we are Patches! Yesterday, we found an ant hill. The ants were running all around doing funny things like carrying leaves." She giggled. "We were going to try to eat some of them to feel them run around inside us, but the rest of us told us that if we did that, they would eat our insides up, and we wouldn't be able to play anymore. So we didn't eat the ants."

Moon licked his lips. "Um, that's…interesting." He looked for his mother, but she was already gone.

Patches laughed. "The day before, we found a dead bird. We took it home, and we– Moses we– said we'd put more of us in it after it was fixed up and add it to the fence so we can watch more. We are still trying to get us up on all the fence posts so we can see everything around the farm."

Wallace looked at the bear's head on the wall. "When you say we see, who are you talking about? Do you personally see?"

Patches gave him a confused look. "We all see. We all hear."

Urash stepped forward. "We can explain better. We are all one. We share eyes and ears. What one sees or hears, all see or hear. We each have our own personalities, own thoughts, but we are aware of all things seen, heard, or felt. We are many, and we are one. We are shades of the dead, contained in whatever bodies our incarnation, Moses, can find." He pointed to himself. "We had been asleep for more than four thousand years and am of this world, from the Land of the Noble Lords." He pointed at Patches. "That simple-minded one of us had been dead for much longer, at least ten billion years, and we know not where it originated."

"Ten is bigger than four. Mine's bigger than yours," Patches giggled, not fathoming the difference between the terms thousand and billion. Ten billion years, at least? What was that thing? It was no pony. It was nothing from Earth or Equestria. Neither of them even existed ten billion years ago. That might predate the Devourers. It was never clear how old those were. Moon had no idea what the Land of the Noble Lords was, but it was less interesting than wherever Patches came from. 

Urash gestured at the walls. "Those of us working outside are from many sources, but these others of us, adorning the walls, tables, and fences, are even simpler creatures, less than beasts, incapable of emotion, useful only for their eyes." He turned and pointed at the squirrel. "Except that one of us, that one is nasty and vicious beyond compare. Be joyous and glad that it cannot move or bite, or it would rend you limb from limb. The great kings and heroes would tremble in fear and wail in terror if they knew what horrors it inflicted in life."

Wallace backed further away from the stuffed squirrel. 

"We talk a lot. Can we play a game instead?" Patches asked excitedly. "Words confuse us, which is fun, but we like games more."

Moon understood now why Tempest avoided this place. Nothing about this place was normal. Necromancy, hive minds, patchwork fillies filled with the souls of eldritch creatures from so far back in time that the universe itself would be unrecognizable all vered soo far into the weird and unnerving that any normal person would be disturbed. What did his mom want with these people, and why had she given them this place to live and practice their dark arts?

"What game do you want to play?" Moon asked.

Patches seemed to think about it before doing another hop. "We can play a game that we learned the other day. It's called tic-tac-toe. It's really hard."

Some kids were odder than most, and then there was this kid who was an eldritch horror contained in a body stitched together out of multiple dead foals. What did it want to do? It wanted to play tic-tac-toe. Every day was a new adventure. He couldn't wait to get back to his sons and give them hugs. 





Jordan sighed as she shut the last door on the second floor, purse at her side. She'd been going room to room, starting at the top of the house, checking out what was in each room, except for the rooms belonging to the other residents, including the room for Auntie Sunset's rehabbing younger brother, Sinker. She now knew generally what was in every room upstairs. She'd made a few notes about items that caught her attention, making two lists, one for things that needed to go and another for stuff she definitely wanted to keep. The two lists only accounted for a small amount of what was in the house, and she could easily be overlooking valuable things that could be auctioned for a lot. This would be easier if the appraiser was allowed to walk around the house and look at the stuff herself.

She'd already seen everything on the first floor. Nothing had been added to her notes from it, but she could do that later. The only part of the house she hadn't seen was the vaults and the basement. There was no going into the vaults, but she could at least take a look at the basement and the door to the vaults since she hadn't seen that part of the house as of yet. She'd look at it and then check out the two side buildings, the chapel and the old groundskeeper house that had been converted into guard barracks. How many guards were on the property at once? It seemed like a lot. It was costing someone a fortune to pay them all.

She walked downstairs and opened the basement door. The guard standing on duty next to the door glanced at her but stayed at attention without trying to stop her. She'd been unsure if the guard would or not. 

The stairs going down seemed normal enough. It was plain wooden steps lit by a hanging bulb. The passage was narrow, and so were the steps, so she took it slowly. When she reached the bottom, she was in a small room. There were two doors, one wooden and one iron, a desk, a television on the wall playing a movie, and a guard sitting at the desk. 

"Miss Gilmore, is there something I can do for you?" the guard on duty asked. 

"Just checking out the house. This is the last of the rooms I haven't seen. May I look?" Jordan asked. 

The huard waved a hand. "It's your house. You may go where you please. The vault door is in the room behind the iron door. There's not much to see in there other than the vault door. The other door goes to the furnace, primary AC, backup power generator, fuse box, and water heater. If you go in with the vault door, I recommend not trying to open it or even touch it unless you know for sure how to do it. Failure to open it with the right combination results in instant death. The room is a high-powered compactor, and the ceiling and floor smash together faster than you can move."

Jordan felt a little ill. "I think I'll skip this part of the tour and go check out the chapel. Have fun on your shift."

"Thank you, Miss Gilmore," the guard replied. 

Jordan let out a long breath. Her Auntie had decided to use a completely non-magical trap for guarding the vault door, and somehow it seemed more horrible. 





Jessica checked the time on her phone again as the elevator rose. It was forty-five minutes to spare before they were supposed to move Mark to his foster home, plenty of time to soothe him. She could spend some time with him, get him to trust the social services workers enough to let them transport him without a fight, and then get her moving done. She'd even rented the van yesterday, despite it costing extra, so she could be sure everything flowed smoothly today. Her dad would be there shortly since he had to go to his office first before coming to help with Mark. 

Getting the moving van last night wasn't as easy as it should have been. It seemed like her phone had been ringing every ten minutes with NASA on the line. She didn't know how many different people at NASA she had spoken to. She didn't understand why they didn't give each other the memo that she didn't know what the flying fudge that thing out in space was. Over and over again, she told them to get in contact with the Dreamwardens to get more details. Over and over again, they called her like she hadn't given the same answer to the last dozen people. Turning the phone off had been an opinion, but she was scared she'd get an important call if she did. Still, she had gotten sick of it, and she knew her little brother had gotten sick of NASA intruding in what was supposed to be their time together. Muting the phone hadn't stopped the calls; it just turned her phone into a vibrator and filled up her voicemail. It was still on silent mode now because although the calls had slowed down, they hadn't ceased. She'd change her voicemail to a message saying not to call her about it, but that would require her inbox to have space left for the voicemail message to kick in. She could empty it, but that would require going through all those voicemails and deleting them. She didn't have the patience for that at the moment. 

I hope they're blowing up Phobia's phone like they are mine. They may be too scared of annoying the Queen of Nightmares to do that. Perhaps they'll call the OMMR headquarters to attempt to get another Dreamwarden to talk to them.

The elevator door opened, and she stepped out. Before she saw the nurses' station, she heard that it was the friendlier nurse on duty, the one who thought of her first and foremost as one of the heroes of the Cataclysm of Riverview. It wasn't what she wanted to be remembered for, but it was better than what she had gotten from the other nurse.

She walked over to the desk, and the nurse's ears briefly perked up before sagging. "Hello, are you here to see Mark? He's getting transferred out of here today."

She nodded. "Yes, I am. I know he'll have a difficult time with strangers trying to move him to yet another strange place–not that I'm insulting your hospital or the foster home-"

"Oh, don't worry about calling it a strange place. Being afraid of hospitals is not unusual. It's natural to find places filled with the sick to be unsettling. You're not a pony, but if you were, you could smell the sickness in some of the rooms. It would be stranger if you weren't uncomfortable," the nurse replied. "I come into work every day, hoping to make people's stay a little easier for them. I want them to get better, both in mind and body."

"Thanks for understanding. Mark is not used to anywhere, but his grandmother's apartment, and a hospital isn't the best introduction to the world outside. Personally, I've been on life support twice, so hospitals unnerve me."

The nurse looked uncomfortable. "I'm sorry for asking this, but some people were talking and…I don't know how to ask this, so I'll ask it straight out. Did you threaten the weekend night nurse?"

Jessica stepped back and squeezed her hands into fists. "WHAT?! I threaten did not threaten that bitch! She treated me like trash and a felon for existing. I told her off and wasn't civil about it, I admit that, but I did not threaten her. If that's what she's been saying, she's lying."

The nurse cringed a little. "I didn't mean to make you angry. It was just that everyone was talking about it when I first came in today."

Jessica took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. The incident the other night made me angry, and I've been on edge lately. I'm on vacation, and for some reason, I seem even more stressed than normal. I didn't mean to come off harsh to you. She was hostile and nasty to me from the moment she saw me, and I'm confident that it was because I'm a partial and she's a bigot. I lost my temper with her, and I shouldn't have done that. I heavily implied she couldn't count higher than ten after she mistook me saying I was a physicist as me saying I was a physical therapist. It was immature of me to have said it, but I didn't threaten her. That's what happened. She is exaggerating the incident to garner sympathy and demonize me."

The pony gave a slow nod. "That does sound infuriating. I don't want to take sides on who is telling the truth in a she-said-she-said situation, and I can't verify anything because our cameras don't have sound, only video feed. I did review the footage and saw you both seemed very angry. I'll let people know what you told me since they're only going off the weekenders' side of the story, and people deserve to hear both sides."

Jessica's ears flatten. Her word apparently didn't count for much. To be fair to this pony, they didn't know each other well, but she'd hoped her hero status in this pony's eyes would have counted for something. Now she was unsure if she even had that status anymore. It didn't matter. After today, she didn't plan on returning to this hospital. 

"Is it okay for me to see Mark?" Jessica asked, just wanting to get away from the nurse. 

The nurse nodded. "Yes, he's available. Just make sure he doesn't get loose from his room. He's supposed to be transferred soon, and we don't want to delay that because he's run off again."

She didn't wait to exchange any more pleasantries. She headed straight to Mark's room. 

Making sure not to open the door too wide, she cracked it open just enough for her to slip through. She didn't think Mark would try running past her, but she wasn't going to make a fool of herself by letting it happen. Mark's heartbeat and breathing had been back towards the window but moved as she opened the door. 

"Mark? It's me, Jessie," she said as she entered the room. "I'm going to sit down and talk to you."

She sat where she was, back pressed against the door. She could hear Mark under his bed. His heartbeat and breathing weren't elevated, so he wasn't scared of her. That was good. 

She took another deep breath before continuing. "You are getting moved out of this place to a home. You need to be good and let them take you there."

"No!" Mark objected. 

"Mark, it will be better than here. There will be a nicer bed. There will be nicer food. There will be other kids. There'll be less weird noises. That mean nurse won't be there."

"No Grandma."

"You're right; she won't be there," Jessica conceded. "She needs to get better; that means more hospital for her. You don't want to stay in the hospital while you wait, right?"

Mark was silent. She was unsure how to continue. 

She looked helplessly in the direction of his bed. "Did your grandma ever say anything to you about what would happen when she got too old to take care of you?"

Mark was silent still. She hadn't expected an answer. It was unlikely anyone would have had that conversation with a four-year-old. His grandmother wasn't dead yet, but she might as well be. At four years old, Jessica might have understood the idea that people get old and die, but even then, it would have been a complex idea for her to grasp. It wasn't a math concept or even a physics concept, and while she understood many subjects academically by that age, that didn't mean she understood certain realities of life. If she couldn't have been expected to understand, how could she pretend that he would understand it any better? There had to be someone who could explain this to him in ways she could not and gently. Kids sometimes had to deal with death at a young age. Kids went into foster care for many reasons, and someone had to explain why. Someone must have found an easier way of explaining this. That was a problem, even if she knew how to explain it because he didn't trust anyone else. Perhaps she could get him to listen to her dad. In his line of work, her dad had to have had this conversation with kids more times than she wanted to think about. Her current struggles with finding what to say gave her a lot more respect for her dad–not that she didn't have respect for him before, but living one of the things he had to deal with gave her an entirely new appreciation of what he had to deal with. 

She pulled out her phone and started searching for options. There had to be some easier way of explaining this on a level he could understand. She thought she usually did a good time talking to people on their level. Her parents had stressed to her from a young age she shouldn't ever come off as overly intellectual or a know-it-all by talking over others' heads. That didn't work as well with a four-year-old as it did with teens and adults. 

"Cartoons," she said. "Mark, do you watch cartoons or puppet shows?" She felt silly asking a child that, but he didn't have a normal upbringing so far. 

"Yes," Mark answered. 

She stood up. "Okay, then. I'm going to put on a show. Maybe it can explain what I can't."

She went over to the television's tablet and started searching. She had one show in mind based on what she'd quickly researched. Maybe she could have found something better with more time, but her dad and the other members of social services would be there soon. 

It took a few minutes to find it, making her more relieved she had chosen something short, but she got it started and then sat down between the two beds on the floor as the opening title was showing. 

"You can come out and sit on my lap if you want," she offered. "We can watch the show together."

Mark crawled out from the bed and into her lap without hesitation, and he sat there facing the television, only briefly looking up at her as if asking if the way he was sitting was okay. It seemed like a practiced habit. She wondered if he had done this with his grandma. 

This was an old episode of Sesame Street. She wasn't exactly sure what year it originally aired, only that it was before she was born, which meant there were no ponies on the show yet or any of the episodes she watched when she was young that had Spike The Brave And Glorious guest-starring, which were her favorite episodes. Still, the furry muppets might be better for Mark–something humanoid with fur. That was her reasoning; hopefully, it would work out.

It ended up being much simpler in what it was saying than she expected, maybe too simple. This might not be enough to help Mark understand. Yes, it did explain that sometimes parents couldn't take care of kids and talked about for-now parents, but could Mark understand this in a five-minute explanation?

"Are you my for-now grandma?" 

Grandma?? How old does he think I am?! Was the first thought that ran through her head. It took her a second to recover her thoughts from that before she could answer. 

"It won't be me," she answered. "There'll be nice people who want to help you. That will care about you and be there for you."

He started tearing up. "Why? You care. You here."

She looked at him and his tear-covered face. She couldn't stand to see him cry. She wanted to help him, not this. She wanted to protect him…..She wanted to make sure he was taken care of….

Fudge me.

He was right. It was a horrible and illogical idea, but he was right. Deep breaths. 

She licked her lips. "I'm not going to be your for-now grandma; that's not happening. I'm nineteen; I'm nobody's grandma."

His tears started flowing heavier, and she quickly wiped them with a finger a shushed him gently. 

"I'm not going to be that, and I can't be your for-now mommy either–since what's happening today has to happen, but maybe…maybe I can be your maybe-later mommy if that's okay."

He looked up at her in confusion. "Maybe later?"

She nodded. "Maybe later."

He wiped his eyes. "When later?"

She shook her head. "I don't know yet. I'm very smart, but there are a lot of things I don't know. I'm going to do everything I can to find out that answer for you, okay? You just have to be patient and be good for the for-now parents. Can you be good for them for me?"

He seemed reluctant to answer but finally nodded. "Okay."

Jessica felt a mixture of relief and sheer terror. What had she decided to just do? How could she explain to her dad what she had just told Mark? How was she going to explain she meant it? She had better figure that out real soon because she could hear him and others at the nurse's station.