Spring comes to Roaring Heights mercifully fast that year. Dustin takes on the local waters to go boating as he planned.
Jyoti follows. They've been spending more time together doing watersports, inspired by their vacation.
EAXIS actually got the water and the sky right in these scenes. It's gorgeous.
(The water is always a shade darker than the sky in real life- they don't always get water right, a lot of times lakes are the same color of the sky or the reflections in the water are wrong, like when the islands are covered in mist in Isla Paradiso, the mist should be in the water too, anyways...)
Meghan has been left to care for the pooches at home. Which she does by forgetting how to science. “You're right, Gabby, I should stop while I'm behind, for once.” Meghan doesn't want to admit that she didn't want to be on the water today, as much as she loves hanging out with Dustin.
Dustin is taking full advantage of the warm early spring weather and is not afraid of a few raindrops.
Jyo is keeping an eye on him, from a distance. Solitude isn't as bad as it used to be. She hasn't asked Kevin what they are going to do, or if he's planning to leave his wife, she still hopes he doesn't. She's been nervous about calling him to talk about what they did the night of the gift-giving party. He has a good thing going and she doesn't want to break up his family. But she is going as far away from shore as she is comfortable with right now. To think about it. Kevin was serious about her, could she stand to be in another serious relationship, where she fell too hard for someone, too fast? It may be, that she's overthinking everything and it would just be two long time friends who can make their relationship work on a deeper level. If it wasn't for Noemi.
She finally gets tired of the chilly rain pelting her in the face and heads back to shore.
Her dad waves as she turns back.
And while she is out, death comes...
...for Leila.
Dustin's reaction to the news when Meghan tells him right after getting home is to raid the fridge for a cookie.
Caz is out too, heading to the library for a study date after school where he really plans to check out all the newest games in their library...
Jyo was on the beach when her mother called her to tell her about Leila.
She finds herself wandering the coastline, not wanting to go home to a place without her best friend. She wanders in and out of shops, looks at monuments that no one can explain anymore, aimless and tired of losing. Since that night with Kevin she's realized that she's lost him as a friend, that he expects so much more than she may be capable of giving. It may have felt great in the moment, but they could never go back to being what they were before, either. Without Leila to greet her at home, she almost isn't sure where home even is. Roaring Heights is pretty, and it has substance, but it doesn't feel like home right now.
Eventually she heads inside a nearby gas station and convenience store to get out of the rain and is noticed by one Gil McGinnes, whom we can only assume is a nice guy as he stops picking out taquitos for a moment and comforts her. “Are you okay Miss? You don't look steady on your feet. There are chairs here, sit.”
She explains briefly trying to control her breathing- a pat answer, that anyone would accept. She's tired, was out windsurfing and came in for a refreshment when she got the bad news about her pet passing away. She's going to sit down, and will be fine after a while.
She thanks him, and stops- noticing something over his shoulder. “Could you- excuse me please?”
“If you're sure you're alright.” Gil nods and congenially moves out of her way. The people at Roaring heights are very well-mannered. At least, the ones she works with or meets out and about. Strangers don't notice each other having a hard time where she comes from.
She feels like her throat is tightening up as she peers over Gil's shoulder.
She swallows her spit and nearly chokes on it.
He must have a twin, she thinks. But he only had one brother, so...?
The girl behind the counter attempts to get her to stand in line. “If you're next-” She says, warily pointing to a stanchion with nobody standing by it. Jyoti barely hears the woman, who seems to notice that nobody's waiting and she's merely on autopilot. “Sorry, usually we get schoolkids, it's a habit- what can I getcha...?”
“...nothing, that's okay...” The woman trails off awkwardly as Jyo strays behind the counter like a sim possessed.
“...Malcolm. Malcolm... Meir?” Jyo's voice sounds hollow to her at first.
The man turns, and she's right in his face before it even occurs to her to be polite. What strikes her in the moment is the smell of his deodorant, until now she hadn't realized that he always wore the same kind.
He laughs softly, it's the same laugh he used to make involuntarily whenever he was too nervous to speak.
Instinctively (and to get a better look) she steps back a foot. “Y- you're not possible.” She breathes.
The man who looks like Malcolm- her dead husband- offers only a pained smile. They stay feet apart, staring at each other for several full minutes before anything can be said.
He breaks the silence, taking in a deep breath. “Jyo. Jyoti Sparrow-Meir.” He says each word pointedly, savoring her name. As if a spell had been broken. “I can't believe he was right.”
Realization dawns over her face as she watches him. “Who-who was right?” She asks but he doesn't hear her.
“You look amazing. Beautiful.” His voice sounds like the sun breaking through the clouds of a stormy day. Unreal.
“You're alive..? You're really... did someone clone you?” It sounds absurd even as she says it.
He laughs a short, quizzical laugh. “That would be something. No, no it's me. I died that day, that part is true. I was brought back when ...someone revived me.”
“Revived you?” She whispers, afraid to ask too much right now. Unable to recall all the random things her brother had been telling people. Her brother who believed in ghosts. What if that's what he actually is, and he vanishes into smoke right before her eyes? She hates to think it, but- “I buried your ashes, Malcolm, there's no coming back from that.”
He nods, slowly. Things were slowly starting to surface in his memory. Many of them... unpleasant. “Let's just say that I've made it through several bad situations, and lived. Not that it matters now, with you here.”
“Can't we just say... whatever is the truth?” She asks in a small voice.
“The truth is, you never had my ashes.” He tells her softly.
She looks him over, drinking in every detail. Memorizing his voice- a bit deeper than she remembers. His clear green eyes are as direct and unavoidable as ever, but clouded over with emotion. There is stress- a tightness around his eyes that wasn't there before. Some sort of wariness. “You work here, at the convenience store, in Roaring Heights?” She sputters.
He shrugs lightly. “I suppose I do.”
“Can we go somewhere?”
“Sure.”
“In fact- Lydia? I quit.” He tells the woman at the opposing register.
The woman's yawn is interrupted by this news. “Well that's great.”
Jyo walks woodenly around the counters and towards the door, but stops again.
“My husband... always made time to do whatever dumb jock thing I wanted, even if he found it embarrassing.”
“Are you saying you don't believe that I'm him?” He asks her, tilting his head just a little bit.
“Not yet!” She starts an old cheer from... who knows as she never went to college, and fully expects him to go along with it.
“Go, gerbits.... what's a gerbit, anyways?”
“I don't know I'm just following your lead.” 'Apparently Malcolm' says, arms still in the air. It's like he's forgotten to be shy as the somber tone of the moment has been broken.
And before he can put his arms down she just walks into them. And breaks down; crying, laughing, sobbing. Trying to remember to breathe. She cannot for the simulation of her, think of which reason she is crying over more. Leila. Malcolm. Kevin! Should she be apologizing?! Her breaths become shallow and she can't say anything for several moments.
“You're not even wearing your ring!” She accuses him as she cries, instead. He noticed that she doesn't have hers either. “It was taken from me.” He says. “I'm sorry.”
“If you... want me to have one, then I'll have to get one again.”
Her body shakes with sobs until she laughs, until she gasps, tries to breathe better and all he can do is wait it out, encircling her with his arms.
“I, I cheated on you, then.” She groans. She feels his body stiffen, but a second later he pulls her closer to his chest.
“That's not your-”
He tries to comfort her but she interrupts him. “And Leila is dead. I don't want to go home anymore. Because.. you're not there and now you won't go with me either- I was stupid, I didn't believe it, no I didn't want to-”
He tries to make eye contact but she won't look up. He slowly releases her from the embrace.
“It's not your fault, Jyo.” He says softly. “I forgive you, it's okay... If not now, then it will be, we can recover from that too.”
She finally looks at him again. And sees that he's just waiting for her.
“I don't think you heard what I said. I ch-cheated on you...”
“W-well, it's not like you knew what you were doing." He adopts her stutter. "You thought that I was gone.”
She takes a long time just to look at him. “You are... alive, right? Ghosts don't come out during the daytime.”
“I am alive.” Malcolm says, and finally he starts to feel like it.
They leave together, Jyoti tells him she's parked off of the beach down the road. So she has to walk in front to lead the way, but she can't help but look over her shoulder at every opportunity to make sure that he's still there.
Every time she looks back he is.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Literally... the first autonomous thing they did was a stupid cheer. I see we're setting a tone here... >_>;
Stupid eye defaults, I have no idea what I was doing in the game at the time of playing all this. Probably trying to break it with lots of CC, as per usual.
I don't think I found his original hair for years, until my recent install and the Malcolm's Aside series, so please put up with it for my sake, it's passable but barely. I want to move the story forward.
Leila really came in clutch, dying when she did. I didn't even have to pose anything because Jyo broke down in tears at the perfect moment, right after we had found Malcolm. Then again, I did have her look around at the shops I had put along the beach because we hadn't been in them yet, and I figured with Leila gone, Jyo wouldn't want to run home right away. Leave it to NRAAS Register to make Malcolm slave at a register for seventeen or eighteen game years (like 30-34 in game days) where we could never run into him. He and Emir were placed in a random empty house when we moved to this hood because that's how Packer operates. What a ride. I don't remember the name of the lot I used for the store, but it's also a gas station.
Oh yeah, and the whole thing with Kevin? If I hadn't been impatient and let her look for Malcolm a little longer it never would've happened. But I had given up on finding him. I know I can use NRAAS to just click on his portrait or search for him that way, but I didn't want to. It's a Random legacy, and I wanted it to be true to game play.
