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Is that what lyme disease looks like? She had an itch on her leg after brushing up against some grass while working in the garden, ticks could be anywhere after all. It wouldn't develop in only a day, would it? Maybe a quick visit to the hospital would sort this out.

Maybe some individual research first. Let's see here... stink juice potion... liquid horror, who made this chemistry book? A quick glance at the publisher explains everything. Funology Scientific Learning for grades 3-6. Perfect, she'd been using the easy bake oven of chemistry sets.

Eugene and Lize have a date and she shows him how spritely she is, despite being heavily pregnant with his child. He sees nothing wrong with this and appreciates her hard work, but tries to convince her they can afford normal toys for their baby once it's old enough.

Meghan gets a call from Edvin after getting a free consultation and discovering that the lyme disease from this morning was just her imagination.

He suggests they go out for a bite to eat and then he can help her study at the library. “My mom does that to everyone when they come over, sorry if she scared you.” He says.

Meghan smiles. “I just realized it was getting late last time.” She lies.

He immediately ditches her in the library and she's stuck doing homework on her own. Again. Making friends is really difficult, even though she does like people. The voices begin creeping back into her psyche, after having been quiet for so long. “You need us... can't do anything on your own..... lonely, lonely little girl.-”

“I missed you guys.” She tells them, knowing it would shut them up a little. They were only happy when she was miserable.

A bamboo bedroom set is a great start to welcome home a new baby. The baby is a boy, and Eugene can't wait to get back to work to earn nice things for him to grow up with. Eventually he'd like to make an addition to the house, so people don't keep coming up to he and his wife's bedroom to do all their socializing.

Winter already? Where did fall go...? Weird place.

The locals have nothing to tell them the passing of time, other than the changing of the seasons. Half of the population doesn't even own televisions. Instead, wealth is measured in daring-do, one would imagine if this was the only picture they'd ever seen of the place.

Sven from the Fjord gets it (probably not his real name). Time to show off how manly he is. If only someone would stop by this park and help out his ego with a little ogling. It's hard to meet people in such a small sleepy town. But the neighbors all have telescopes too, so it's never a bad idea to show off a little.

The burrito grows up, too. 

His name is Leon, mostly because Eugene was late in getting to the hospital from a shift at work and she won the name war by default. Her grandpa's name was Leon. Eugene wanted a shortened version of his own name, 'Gene'. This is a rare moment where he is jealous of the baby's ability to take up all his wife's attention. He still wants at least one more in the future. 

That's one's getting his name for sure, boy or girl, he thinks.

Time to enjoy indoor activities. With everything frozen over at home, the public pool is obviously the best place to be.

Edvin actually hangs out for once, but Meghan has long since given up on having normal friendships.

He's bad at darts, so she illustrates it to him. “This is you, for the last five minutes.” In case he didn't see all the great faces she was making behind his back about it.

Ironically he likes when girls are catty to his face, so this does the opposite of make him feel bad. She was.. interesting.

She was just trolling for attention though, and doesn't really notice or care by this point, having written off the friendship. By now she just wanted to prove to herself that she could have a friend, even if that friend didn't like her that much. She wanted to win against her lonely memories.

“You're a lot better at this than I am.”

“Yeah I am.” She says dismissively as she leaves. She misses the plants in the garden.

Dustin also hangs out with Loki sometimes, one of his friendlier classmates who Meghan and he are close in age with.

“I'm not staying in Aurora Skies, Dustin says nonchalantly. “I'm gonna be famous.”

“Why can't you just be famous here?”

Dustin makes a face. “Have you seen here? It's the kind of place people come back to when they're old, to retire in. Not the place you go to be recognized.”

Loki nods slowly, “I get that. I don't want to be lost out here when my brilliance could serve the world better elsewhere.”

Both guys laugh, knowing that neither is really joking.

Loki doesn't really know how to dress himself, but Dustin's not a great DJ either. They both sense the other has secrets, but neither pry so it's a low cost, easy friendship. Both are the type to get along well with others.

Dustin will forever remember this night as the one time he had 'mad DJ skills'. He knows he could entertain people like this as a career one day, but music wasn't really his niche. It got boring too easily.

Dustin was the last to leave the pool and so the first to get caught.

It turns out not getting brought home by the cops was a house rule. Go figure!

Lize is nurturing, but not in the mood for this with a rambunctious toddler upstairs to feed. “You better do something around the house to get on my good side,” She comments as if reading off an illustrated page from a 'how to deal with teenagers for dummies' book.

He gets grounded and has to sneak out of the house to attend school the next few days. Which MAKES PERFECT SENSE.

“So everyone in our class is already dating.” Meghan says out of the blue during one of Eugene's murder mystery shows. She liked to say things abruptly and gauge people's reactions.

Everything was an experiment with her, he mused, too smart to be surprised about things he did himself when he was younger.

“Those people are probably not doing too well academically,” He cautions lightly. Don't you have bigger ambitions than high school?”

“I do.” She confirms, and he relaxes a little. He was thinking about how his cousin wanted to give her space, and thinking about where his mind was at that age. “They just look so happy and I don't understand it. What's so great about dating?” She asked, openly curious.

He smiles. “People don't want to be alone, so they rush things because they feel insecure. Or do the opposite.”

She looked at him,waiting for an explanation.

He sighed when she didn't take the bait and ask him directly. “They put things off when they're scared to be serious. Like my idiot cousin.” He adds at the end, his mouth quirking into an ironic smile.

“D-ustin doesn't have anyone he likes." She says too quickly.

He shrugs. "If you say so."

She suddenly doesn't feel like talking anymore and abruptly gets out of her seat. "That's dumb. I'm gonna go do the laundry. Besides no offense but I think I know him better than you do.”

“Is that true?” He asks gently, smile still in place.

She pauses. “Yes, it is. We're always together, and he's the same dork he's always been, nothing's changed.” She defends, confident in her assessment.

“Yeah, you two are always together.” He says smugly as if that answered everything.

“Okay...?” Annoyed but not sure why, she stomps away and gets the washing from the hamper. What a smart ass, she thinks. If Dustin liked someone I'd be the first one to know about it. “Nevermind.” She huffs, having had enough of whatever this conversation was turning out to be.

Eugene smiles broadly after she's gone. There's definitely something there. Not normally one to meddle, he couldn't help but notice how clueless these two were about their feelings. Well, one more than the other. His son's birthday was coming up so maybe there was opportunity in that. A plan solidified, a truly simple yet great idea. All the best ideas were simple in nature.

This was going to be almost as fun as working on leisure day when all the other office-drone type losers let him get ahead of them on articles and interviews.

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Eugene is crafty until he gets distracted, like a fair weather smart ass. He also is 'inappropriate but in a good way'.

I take way too many in-game pictures because I want their actual experiences to tell me what's going on, and for the most part write the story from that. Unless I note otherwise, they're pretty much doing things in the order I've shown here. I thought Eugene and Lize could use a nice night on the town so I sent them to the theater for a date and when i clicked back over to check on them Lize was dumpster diving and Eugene was just standing in the middle of the road.

Sven was some random guy running around in his trunks at the park, swimming in a frozen lake... Also, everyone I've tried to add to the story as friends for Dustin and Meghan haven't worked out. Probably the last we'll see of Edvin because he ages up soon.

I really only took one or two pictures in fall, it rained a lot and I forgot it wasn't summer. Also it seems like there;s no fairgrounds in Aurora Skies to remind me what the time of year is, so they didn't really do anything for fall other than go to school. This is funny too because my images folder for his challenge is approaching 1gb, lots of pictures get cut this way.