"Alright, bed time," Annie called.

"And you should at least get started on that Driver's Ed course," Carl added, giving Sammy a pointed look from his spot on the couch.

"Oh yeah!" Sammy exclaimed, her eyes widening.

Bobby, trying to look less sleepy than she was and looking even more adorable as a result, shut the footrest on the recliner Carl usually sat in and battled ineffectually with a yawn.

Carl looked to his left and gently nudged Mina, who had fallen asleep against his side a short while ago. She burrowed her face deeper into his shirt with a cute murmur, but he wasn't about to let that stop him. "C'mon, Mina. Time to get to bed."

The oldest of the trio squinted up at him and grumbled, stumbling a little as she got to her feet. With Sammy in the lead and Mina in the rear, the three trouped out of the room and over towards the stairs—intercepted along with way for quick hugs from their mom—with some hushed conversation breaking out along the way.

Annie stood in the doorway, looking after the girls with an approving smile. After the muted sounds of footfalls on the stairs ended, she turned her gaze back to him and stepped into the room. "That went really well," she said as she approached.

"Really did," Carl agreed.

Annie moved to sit next to him but then fell to sit across his lap, putting an arm behind his neck to steady herself as she stared into his eyes.

They sat like that for a short while, just watching each other, until Annie reached up and stroked a hand down his face. She leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. "Becca went to bed an hour ago," she whispered. "Check on the girls, then come to bed." She gave him another kiss, this one teasing, before she got back up and headed out of the room with a considerable and very noticeable amount of sway in her hips.

In Carl's estimation, his wife was still maybe acting a little unusual, but she seemed very happy, and he wasn't going to question that. He was feeling pretty happy himself with how real-today had gone. He couldn't imagine it having been any better: his new boss turned out to be awesome, he now had way more free time, he'd gotten in touch with Tim again after way too long, Mina was somehow here where he could make sure she was safe, his girls were all happy, Annie was extremely happy, and even Rebecca seemed like she was being very slightly less annoying than usual towards the end of the night.

These were the things he considered as he gave himself a couple minutes to cool down from his wife's show of affection. When he judged that he'd relaxed sufficiently, he double-checked that everything was off and put away in the kitchen—which it was—before making for the stairs.

His first stop was Mina's room, because she was sleeping on the pullout in his office for now until Rebecca left, and it was the closest to the stairs. He knocked on the closed wooden door, as was part of the protocol for being a dad when there were teenagers in the house.

"Come in," came a sleepy call.

Carl opened the door slowly, as was also part of the protocol. The lights were off, save for a small nightlight next to his desk that had been relocated from the kitchen. "Hey, Mina," he said quietly as he walked over to sit on the edge of her bed. "What'd you think of your first day?"

"It's wonderful, Carl," she said in a reverent tone. "It feels as though I've been dreaming since my arrival."

The sentiment made him grin. "I'm glad. If you need anything, let us know, okay?"

She sat up in the next moment and moved forward, squeezing him into a tight hug and pressing her face into his shoulder. "Thank you so very much, Carl," she said, her fingers flexing into his shirt.

Carl returned the hug and brushed a hand through her hair. "Get some sleep, okay? I'll work from home tomorrow, so we can hang out a bit then."

His oldest daughter, as he was already thinking of her, yawned cutely, and her grip slackened. "Alright," she mumbled, leaning slowly back towards her pillow. "We'll…speak more…then."

Carl suffered a small amount of cuteness overload damage, but he persevered, pulling the covers up and tucking the girl in before activating his Dad Stealth to soundlessly exit the room and shut the door once more.

Following his first check-in, he went to Bobby's room next door where the door was still open. "Hey, pumpkin," he said.

Bobby glanced away from her desk and the notes she was studying on her school notebook. "Hey, Dad."

Carl entered the room, taking in the algebra notes on the screen.

"Mina's pretty awesome," Bobby said as she flipped to the next page.

"Yeah?"

"I thought she was kinda noob when we started racing, but she's got crazy good reflexes. She beat me on a couple tracks even though it was her first time playing 'em." His daughter looked up from the screen again. "Is she a robot?" she whispered.

Carl chuckled. "No, Bobby, Mina is not a robot."

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"Oh." Bobby seemed to think for a few seconds. "Well, she's cool anyway. I didn't think she'd like actually playing games because she's older and so pretty, but—"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Dad, everyone knows…"

Carl immediately grew suspicious at his daughter's sudden silence. "Everyone knows what?"

"Nothing," Bobby said, studiously keeping her eyes locked on her notebook. "I gotta study a little more, Dad. 'Night."

"Bobby—"

"Studying."

There were times when Carl knew he could press on for answers, but he wasn't really in the mood right now, and probably this was just going to be some kinda school rumor thing that didn't really matter that much anyway.

Also, he still had one more daughter to check on, and he was betting on hearing something then.

"Okay, okay, good luck with your quiz tomorrow," Carl said, giving her a squeeze on the shoulder.

Bobby turned in her seat and gave him a lightspeed hug as he leaned down for it, but then she was back to the business of last-minute cramming for a quiz that she'd probably ace without having glanced at her notes.

Like her father, however, Bobby preferred to double-check important things.

After closing the door on his way out of the room, Carl moved to the door across the hall and knocked.

"Who is it?" Sammy called like usual.

"Santa's former roommate."

The sound of a disgusted sigh leaked through the door, so he slowly turned the knob and even more slowly—managing to make a noticeable amount of noise as only dads are capable of doing—opened the door.

Sammy was standing with a frown in front of her closet, probably trying to decide what she was going to wear to school tomorrow.

"Can't decide if I wanna wear a dress or another skirt," she grumbled.

"Try coordinating with other girls from the team since there's a game?" Carl suggested.

"We did that last time you suggested it," she said in a dismissive tone.

"Oh. Well… Toss a coin?"

"Dad, coins don't even exist anymore."

"Sure they do. You—"

"You better not try to pull a coin out of my ear."

"What? No, I wasn't gonna…"

"Dad, c'mon, I'm not five anymore."

"Okay, okay, we're retiring it. But I'm gonna tell Santa about this."

"Uh-huh."

While Sammy definitely wasn't any less cute now than she had been ten or so years ago, she definitely… Well, she… There were some things about her when she'd been younger that were cute that he missed now.

"Dad, don't look so disappointed just because I'm too old for the coin trick. I'm sure you can still do it to Bobby."

"No, she figured it out when she was eight."

Sammy, who had continued to have coins pulled out of her ears until she was at least ten, pressed a hand to her face. "Dad."

"Anyway, I just came to say goodnight, sweetie," Carl said, enfolding his facepalming daughter in a hug.

After a second, she wormed her arms out of his and returned the hug. When they broke apart, she looked up at him. "How long's Mina staying?"

"Why? You want her to leave?"

"What? No, she seems cool. I was just curious."

"Maybe a while. Would you be okay with that?"

Sammy shrugged. "I guess. She just seems…" She scrunched her face up cutely like she was thinking really hard. "She's really, really pretty, and most of the girls at school like that are kinda… I dunno, full of themselves? But she's…not. She's just so nice. About everything. Is she faking it?"

Carl smiled. "Nah, she's just a really sweet girl. That's why your mom and I wanted to help her."

His daughter frowned. "Mom said she really needed our help more than anything. Even me and Bobby's."

Carl nodded.

"Are we like, supposed to do something?" she asked, nodding her head forward for emphasis.

"Just be yourselves," Carl said. He squeezed her shoulder. "You and Bobby are the sweetest, nicest, best girls on the planet. Just seeing that will be a big help for Mina, I think."

Sammy grinned. "We are pretty awesome, huh?"

"If you wanna be really awesome, I bet she'd really like getting hugs from both of you," Carl said, recalling how traumatized the girl had seemed when they'd encountered her real sister.

"Okay, but she's tiny like Bobby, so you can't blame me if I accidentally squish her," Sammy said, her grin turning a little mischievous.

"Being a giant is tough," Carl said in an imperious voice.

Sammy giggled.

Carl turned to leave, then turned back as he recalled his earlier line of questioning. "Bobby mentioned something that you probably know the answer to. What would a girl who was older and prettier do instead of actually playing games?"

His middle daughter's eyes slid away from his and back to her closet. "Oh. Um… Well…" After stammering awkwardly for a couple more seconds, she stammered awkwardly for another second and then got a hold of herself. "Well, you know how you can do a lot with VR these days," she said slowly, spending a lot of time examining one of her favorite dresses. "And if you're older, then you don't have the parental restrictions, which means you can go on dates in VR…"

"Oh," Carl said, immediately wishing that he hadn't asked this followup question, which had revealed any number of things that should absolutely have been obvious to him, the least of which was that his cute, adorable daughters were aware of this kinda thing, which meant… What it meant—and absolutely the only thing it meant—was that this was a really common thing, probably to the point that he now seemed even older and more out of touch than he had, which meant that in addition to learning about this, he'd also hurt his own reputation as a cool dad—something that he valued probably within his top five things—not to mention…

"Well, 'night, Sammy," Carl said after suffering enough regret damage that he respawned before he could fumble the door closed on his way out.

"'Night, Dad," Sammy called after him.

Carl walked down the hall slowly. He took a breath. He put out of mind the most recent thoughts he'd had. Then he took another breath, this one much better than the first one. He reached the door to his bedroom and turned the knob.

Seconds after he closed the door behind himself in the dimly-lit room, a hand grabbed his and tugged him towards the bed, where Annie straddled his lap and pressed her lips to his.