Part Five - "Giggling Deranged Lunatics"

December 11 ^th , 2020

"How long is this painting of yours going to take?" Fiona asked Ash as they began to get settled for the next section of painting. "I swear, we've been at this for hours and hours."

"It takes as long as it takes," Aisling shot back. "You want me to accidentally paint your ass too big because you moved funny while I was working on painting it?"

"I'll have you know; I have an amazing ass for a woman my age," Fiona sniffed, sounding perhaps a little hurt.

"You have any amazing ass for a woman of any age, Fi, so don't get your panties in twist over it."

"I'm not wearing—"

"Yeah yeah yeah, you know what I meant," Ash laughed. "I have to ask. Was this about what you expected when Andy invited you to come out and join him? A giant harem of beautiful and witty women, all of whom love Andy but all of whom are totally doing their own thing a lot of the time?"

"I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, y'know?" Fi sighed. "I don't think I ever stopped being in love with Andy, no matter what I tried to tell myself when he and I weren't speaking to one another. He was being dumb, I was being dumber, and neither one of us wanted to be the one who flinched and admitted it. I tried dating a cop for a while."

"How'd that work out?"

"Didn't," Fi said. "He wasn't a bad man, but he was... he was sort of the inverse Andy, I guess. He was used to looking for the bad in everyone and everything, convinced that everything everywhere was just one bad minute away from turning sour and going wrong. He was the most pessimistic man I ever met. Good heart, but just always prepping for the worst in everyone, and... that just gets... it gets fucking boring. So, one night while we're out at dinner, and Tim, that was the cop's name, he's telling me how he thinks our waiter's probably high on coke or something because of how he was acting, and I just up and decide I'm done with him, so I put the key to his apartment on the table between us, I get up and I walk out, not even saying a word as I go."

"Damn, Fi, that sounds pretty cold."

"It was," she chuckled. "But I think he actually appreciated me finally living up to his expectations. Anyway, we're not talking about me..."

"We are, actually," Aisling said. "I want to get at least a little bit of information about you in exchange for me telling you all this stuff about me. And you didn't really answer my question - what did you expect when you got the invite from Andy?"

"I knew a bit about DuoHalo and I'd heard about the Quaranteam serum from a confidential informant inside the Chiefs of Staff, so I wasn't entirely unfamiliar with what was going on, even if it seemed a little bit science-fiction-y," Fiona said. "But Andy explained himself pretty well in the message. I mean, did he show you the invite video he sent me?"

"No! I'd love to see that if you've still got it."

"Hang on a second, lemme see if it's still in my email," Fiona said, moving over to pick up her phone. "I bet it is. I'm kind of a pack rat about these kinds of things. Ah! Here it is. Turn on the TV in here and I'll throw it to that screen so you're not watching on my tiny ass phone."

A few seconds later, the television in Aisling's studio had sprung to life, connected to Fiona's phone and had an image of Andy sitting in his writer's room upstairs, long before they'd discovered the hidden extra floor. It was only recorded a month and change ago, but it felt like it had been an eternity instead. He looked a little disheveled, and it made Fi grin a little, knowing now that he'd been more nervous about recording this video than any of the other ones.

"Hey Fi. Long time no talk." He sighed, looking down at his hands before looking back up at the camera on his laptop. "How do I even start this? Where can I possibly begin? I'm sorry, okay? I can't even remember what it was we were fighting about, but I miss you, and I've been too fucking stupid and too fucking proud to get over myself and just call you, even after you sent me that Facebook friend invite. You know me, I hate confrontation. Heh. And yet, here I am, reaching out, out of the blue. I don't know how much you know about this whole DuoHalo virus, but the government has a solution for it. It doesn't work the way you would expect it to, though. It's... it's like a sexually transmitted disease that links women to one man, and I know how ridiculous and crazy that sounds, but here we are. I know it's real, because I'm already paired up with a handful of women.

"Now, I don't know what your situation is, so maybe you're married, or maybe you've got a boyfriend, or maybe you just don't want to leave D.C. still, but maybe, I guess, maybe there's a chance we could try and rekindle what we used to have. I can't promise you exclusivity, but I guess nobody can really do that anymore, because it sounds like the new status quo is going to be one man to a dozen or so women, and, yes, I know exactly how ridiculous all that sounds. I've been trying to be smart and adept about the women I let into my life, although this Oracle system they have is apparently very helpful too. I think you'd like all the women I'm in relationships with now.

"Fuck, what am I trying to say here? This is, like, my fourth attempt to record this, and I'm still just fucking it up like I have every other version. Look. I still have feelings for you, shit, I'm probably still in love with you, if I'm being candid, and the idea that I could help keep you safe but that my own personal pride stopped me from doing it? That's ridiculous and I'd be ashamed of myself if I let it stay that way. But I need you to know there's other women here that I love too, and while I get that it's super weird, it's where we are. That's where society is. But I want to make sure you're safe. That's important to me, okay? Regardless of all the other shit, you're important to me. Your safety. That's important.

"So, if you want to, the Air Force will relocate you from D.C. here to northern California, where you and I could be partnered. Maybe you're tired of Washington. I know your reporting for the last few years has certainly felt that way, at least a little bit. It's a lot to take in. I'm sure the whole thing actually feels a little bit insane, and I get that, but please, please, please take it seriously, okay? If you think there's a chance we could work on a long-term scale, and you're not with some other man, consider what I'm offering. I know it means having to put up with me for the rest of your life, or at least the foreseeable future, but...

"... I think a lot about our time together back in college, Fi. And you really were my first true love. I've got some other women I'm in love with now too, and I get that that's going to seem weird. Shit, think of how weird it is for me. I went like a decade with nobody wanting to fuck me, and now a bunch of women fuck me not only for their survival, but also saying that I'm the best fuck of their lives."

Andy laughed on the screen looking down at his hands.

"You remember that one song that was stupidly popular when we were younger? The one about sunscreen? There's a line in that, and I don't remember exactly how it goes, but it's about how as you get older, the more important it becomes to hang onto people who remember you when you were young."

He looked back up at the camera again.

"I remember when we were young and invincible, a couple of kids convinced we were going to take on the world and win. I remember us sitting on the roof of that house you'd rented, watching the stars until they set and the sun began to rise up on us, just because we'd never done it before. I remember how much you laughed when I tried to play 'Jack & Diane' for the first time on guitar, and how you told me I shouldn't give up my day job. And I remember the time we sat and read each other's work, my short story and your in-depth article, and how impressed I was by your writing, and all the kind things you had to say about my silly little story.

"Come. Don't come. Just let me know you're safe and sound from this horrible virus, Fi, and know that if the only thing stopping you from coming is me not asking you to come, well, I'm asking, okay? I'm not so proud that I can't admit I was wrong, I was wrong, and I should've reached out, and it shouldn't have taken a once-in-a-lifetime epidemic to get me to swallow my pride, but here we are. So, uh, be safe, and maybe I'll see you soon. Still love you. Bye."

The image of Andy tapping the stop button on his laptop hung on the screen for a minute before Fiona wiped it away, letting the screen turn black, hoping it would distract a little from the single tear she was trying to wipe away and hide. But when she glanced over, the smile on Aisling's face told her that she'd seen it, so Fi offered a little smile. "Sorry. I haven't watched that since I was on the plane flying to California with Moira in tow. I'd forgotten how eloquent he can be when he's trying, and especially when he's scared."

"I keep telling you, Fi," Ash said, wiping her own eyes, finding them a little damp. "You're basically the only member of the entire family whom he chose, no strings or conditions attached, no outside forces influencing him, or even other girls in the family. That puts you in a league entirely on your own."

"I don't think I'm any better than you, Ash," Fiona laughed. "Just a little bit older."

"You think he loves one of us more than the other? I don't. I don't think he's capable of that, differentiating levels of love, not consciously at least," Ash said. "He's just following his feelings. I don't feel any lesser than you. Never have. Don't expect I ever will."

"Good, because if he ever thought one of us thought we were better than any of the rest of us, you know we'd never hear the end of it from him."

"So, if I'm First Among Equals, you're Most Senior Among Equals."

Fiona laughed, moving to get back into place. "Something like that. You ready to keep going?"

* * * * * * * *

When we heard we were being relocated, none of us were quite sure what to make of it. The word had come from Phil that they knew we were going to need more space, so they were relocating us to someplace bigger. I think around that time, at least I'd figured out things were way worse than Phil was letting on. I'm pretty sure Andy knew too, but we were putting on brave faces, clinging to the notion that if we stuck together, we'd get through it together. I tried not to ask Niko about it, because Niko had promised to tell me everything and I... I didn't think I was ready to know just how badly fucked we were just yet.

But Phil had come by and told us to be prepared to move, and so in typical Andy fashion, we went home and figured out everything we would possibly need if we were to move and got to packing. It was late August, and with the news that we were being moved, Phil had upped how bad he was describing things, making it sound like we were looking at nearly half the male US population being dead.

He was still underselling it.

When Niko and Andy came back from their meeting with Phil, Niko told me that Andy had figured out she and Phil knew each other. I asked her what the giveaway was, and she said it was the fact that Phil had let her call him Mister Marcos without correcting her, even though she worked at the research lab. That was all it took for her charade to come tumbling down. She was surprised Andy wasn't mad at her; I wasn't. I'd even told her that he wouldn't be.

Phil had made it sound like they were just going to come get us immediately that day in August, but it turned out it was a few weeks later, in September, when they finally showed up to relocate us. Us girls had basically just packed our suitcases back up and some of the other stuff we'd brought with us, and Andy had thrown most of his stuff into his large suitcase, as well as breaking down his desktop computer, and packing up food, water and litter for the cats. We had some excess stuff that we had to load into Eric's car, but it was just him, Lily and Jenny at that point, so there was room for a bit of Andy's things in Eric's car that Andy just couldn't bear to leave. Like, you'd better believe he brought that box of advance reader copies with him, ha ha. If just one of them got him all this? Can you imagine what an entire box must be worth?

We got into Andy's car and drove up 680 past Pleasanton, Dublin and San Ramon, and I remember laughing that there was a Dublin in California, which I'd never really noticed, since I'd been more of a peninsula girl rather than living out on the eastern side of the Bay. A little bit north of San Ramon, we turned west and started headed up Bollinger Canyon Road, working our way up into the hills until we turned onto Bear Tree Road, which eventually brought us to the entrance point of New Eden.

Even at the time, I realized that the pavement on Bear Tree Road was very new, and almost all the buildings behind the military checkpoint gate screamed recent development. Nothing in the area felt like it could be more than a decade or so old, and even then, that was being generous. I haven't really been able to dig into it that much, but the satellite data on Google Maps for the area when I last looked was marked 2017, and it only had about three mansions in the area, with the little single building off to the side that I know now is the Quaranteam lab. It was all still technically San Ramon land, I guess, up until it was finally zoned as New Eden in September or October.

You've seen the drive it takes to get up here now. We're nestled in obscurity, completely off the beaten path, and yet, not really that far from anything. It's only an hour and change to San Francisco if the traffic is cooperating. I'm not surprised nobody knew it was going up, even before people were locked in their homes. Once it needed to expand, construction happened at warp speed, because the workers were given immunity from DuoHalo themselves just to make sure everything zipped along nonstop.

It's amazing how much incentive it is to cut to the front of the line when your life's on the line. And with New Eden, they built Little Eden, the sort of adjunct area for support staff and local services, not quite mansions but great houses nonetheless. I've asked Phil about it, and almost all the manors of New Eden were like 70-80% of the way done, but all work had stopped because of Covid and DuoHalo. But the idea of making the staff commute further meant the people working on Quaranteam would be at risk, and so the Air Force bundled them up nice and tight.

I remember driving up to the mansion thinking it was insane, that even split between the two households - Andy's and Eric's - the place had more than enough space, and I remember suspecting that they were going to add two or three more households to the mansion, because it was way too much space for just us. That was around the point when Eric made a joke about how the place clearly wasn't big enough for our two households. And then we found out Eric wasn't staying with us, but, in fact, had the mansion next door, which sort of blew everyone's minds.

Now, keep in mind, I think we were all sort of expecting someone to jump out and yell "Ha ha! Fooled you!" at any minute while we were being given the tour, but that never happened. In fact, Andy and I split our attention during the tour a little bit, because while I was busy reveling in the fact that the house came with its own pool and hot tub, Andy was doing math and not liking the numbers he was coming up with. Major Peters, our tour guide, had told him that there were twelve bedrooms in the house, so not enough that every woman he would eventually have could have her own bedroom, which I had totally glossed over, but Andy was already starting to panic a little bit, thinking about how many women he was going to be sallied up with.

A little bit later into the tour, Major Peters told Andy that men were being paired up with between twelve and fifteen women, but that more was definitely an option. We were also told that once we'd passed our 'induction quarantine,' we would be free to move about New Eden as much as we wanted, and without any sort of protective or safety gear. There were restaurants, a movie theater, a bookstore... we were eager as hell to get out of the house but were told it was going to be three weeks of isolating inside the mansion. In fact, food would be delivered to us, so even the staff - Jenny, Katie and Nicolette - weren't allowed to leave the grounds either. I've never been entirely sure of the reasoning for it, but I think I heard Phil say at one point it was to ensure we weren't spreading Covid instead of DuoHalo.

I remember being introduced to the staff and immediately knowing there was going to be some initial weirdness we were going to have to overcome. So, first thing's first - Phil had told Nicolette to call herself Yvette and to put on an atrocious French accent, because he wanted to see how long it would take Andy to figure it out. Nicolette was terrified we were going to be pissed at her when we found out, but we laughed about it like any reasonable people would. (You get the Clue movie reference, right? Just checking.)

And while it's just the two of us, let me just say that if I had to pick a member our household to swap bodies with, holy shit would it be Nicolette in a fucking heartbeat. I am so fucking jealous of her tits that I don't even want to admit it, but I can't fucking hide it either, they're so fucking ridiculously perfect. I'm very glad she's cool about playing with other members of the household, because I will confess, I've had some fun with her more than a few times, sometimes with Andy around and a couple of times without. They're not the biggest tits in the family - that honor, I think, is always going to go to Hannah, because, well, dayum, but I'd say that Nicolette's are the ideal. Large but not overwhelmingly so, perfectly shaped, perfect ratio of nipple to breastflesh... they even jiggle great! I mean, fuck her, right? Heh. Anyway, getting settled in with Nicolette was easy. Even before the serum, she was the perfect definition of volunteering sexual submissive.

Andy was more than a little nervous about getting settled with Katie and Jenny, though, because he was suddenly stepping into someone else's marriage. Katie and Jenny had been married for a couple of years at that point, I think, although I'm not entirely sure. And they'd told the government they were both bisexual, which, theoretically might not be a lie now? But it probably was at the time. Katie was a strict lesbian, and didn't have any attraction to any man, but Jenny swung both ways, although Andy sort of figured that out immediately. That's one of his secret superpowers - he's so damn nice that people just tell him things. He told me he was talking to Jenny and Jenny just blurted it out at him.

Anyway, Katie got mad at Jenny, because they'd agree to hide it from Andy, and she was just going to sort of fake it or consider it a job task, but Jenny said she didn't feel right deceiving Andy, since he was being so nice to them. Andy wasn't mad at them about considering lying to him, and told them if they wanted to leave, he'd okay that. Of course, he also knew that they'd been injected with the Quaranteam serum about two or three days earlier, and that it was probably starting to get to them, so he just laid all his cards down on the table, gave them their options, and told them whatever they wanted, he'd endorse.

The plan, the original plan, was that he'd never deliver to one of the two women without the other, and that he'd never push them into trying anything they weren't comfortable with. He genuinely would've been okay with Jenny just jerking him off into Katie's mouth, if that's what it took. They'd both been briefed by the government about the effects of the serum, but Andy told me Katie didn't really believe what they'd been told, until she got that first hit from tasting his precum, and that priming orgasm rattled her to her core.

Here we are, some four months later, and I have to tell you, Fi... Katie's not as much of a staunch lesbian as she used to be. I've talked to her and Jenny about this, and the way Katie feels about it is the strangest thing. She doesn't find men attractive, at all. She's looked at straight porn and there is nothing exciting about it in any way shape or form to her. And I've shown her loads of pictures of various hot guys, from the slender and heavily groomed to the big, bulky and rough around the edges, and none of them do anything for her at all.

But Andy?

Don't tell him this, although I bet he already knows, but I'm pretty sure that before the end of the year, Katie's going to ask him to fuck her. Like, genuinely fuck her. And I bet she's going to love it. We've been starting to see that with a couple of people in the household in the inverse - women who said they strictly weren't into women when they got here but have become a little bit more open and curious the longer they're with the family. Even Lauren's admitted that while she thought Andy was kind of cute at first, he wasn't necessarily what she would've called "her type," but the longer she's in the family, the more sexually attractive and compelling he becomes to her. She used to be shy and nervous in her first couple of encounters with Andy, but as of late, she's been voracious and ridiculously eager. Like, I don't think it'll ever overtake her love of Taylor, just like I don't think Katie's attraction to Andy will overtake her love of Jenny, but it's interesting to see how much the serum affects us all in little ways that we're still just beginning to learn about.

And even though they've all said they're just staff, I saw that slight hint of jealousy in Nicolette's eyes when she heard that Niko and I were pregnant, and I'm willing to bet that most, if not all, of the women on staff will eventually want to have a child with Andy. I don't think he'll mind. I don't expect any of us fiancées will either.

You know what the hardest part of the move into the mansion was? Keeping tabs on the damn cats! Ha ha! I swear, Muninn and Huginn loved to find all sorts of nooks and crannies in this place long before anyone else. Shit, they even found the hidden basement, after we'd been living here for months, none of us at all the wiser. You'd have thought we'd have figured it out at some point during that period, but I think we had more than enough going to distract us.

Also, Fi, I gotta tell you - during the period of time where we were locked in the mansion, we fucked in a lot of different places. Like, it was almost like we made some sort of silent pact that if Andy hadn't dosed somebody in a particular room of the house, it wasn't really ours yet. So, we got around. Also, we didn't have much of anything to decorate with, meaning for the first few weeks, it felt a lot like we were living in somebody else's house. We didn't think to bring pictures or posters or wall art with us, so we were stuck living in this massive space with no interior design beyond these endless white walls. That's why we were so mad to go get everything from the old condo once they told us we could leave New Eden, and how we decorated the shit out of the house after that. I know you still think it's a little too busy in some places, but believe me, we wanted every person in this house to feel like there was some expression of who they are somewhere on the walls of the house, and we wanted to make sure nobody got left out.

Oh! Oh! I also totally forgot to tell you about the one crazy day where I think we all nearly lost our fucking minds! It's hilarious. We'd been in mansion lockdown for over two weeks, and out of the blue, Andy asks Katie if she's got any paint, so that maybe he can paint the walls in a room, to add some color. She responds that yes, she's got loads of buckets of paint in the tool shed, and though we couldn't do the whole house, if we wanted to do a room or two, she could paint it up for us. Andy immediately told her that she wasn't going to lift a finger and that he was going to do it, or that we were going to do it. I can't remember which first, but I know that before the paint had made its way to one of the rooms, we'd badgered Andy into making sure all of us were going to paint it as a group.

Now Katie, clearly not trusting us giggling deranged lunatics, put down tarps, taped off kickplates, covered up windows and made sure we couldn't do too much damage, which was smart, and then set down like three or four various buckets of paint, opening the tops of them for us, so we could pick the one we wanted to do the whole room in.

This, it turns out, was her worst idea ever.

For the next hour or so, instead of putting splotches on the wall to see what we thought of the color, we spent the time chasing each other around the room with paint-loaded paintbrushes, slapping paint on the wall like we were each trying to out Jackson Pollock the other.

Hang on, I still have a picture of it on my phone. Let me show you. Look at that! Isn't that insane? I think that's my tits imprinted off in blue to the side, and that's got to be Lauren's ass done in red paint splotches over here. I know for sure that's Niko's handprints up here. And that white outline over here? That was when we decided to paint like a chalk outline of Andy against the wall like he was a murder victim.

Anyway, the next morning, after about twenty minutes of laughing at what total prats we'd been the day before, we decided on a nice pine green and painted the inside of the room from top to bottom. That became Andy's writing studio (at least until we found the basement), and we painted the room next to it in shades of oceanic blue, which was my studio, although let's be real - I spent... well, spend most of my time in Andy's studio with him. I feel a little antsy when he's somewhere I can't see him. Nothing severe, just, like, a tiny bit on edge.

We also spent loads of time on FaceTime. With my family. With Andy's brother Matty. With Niko's mom. With Lauren's mom. Even spending hours talking to Eric or Lily or Jenny (Eric's Jenny) or even Phil, just to have people to talk to.

And I'd also be remiss if I didn't tell you there were plenty of times when we got lost in our own house. We've been here, what, four months now, and I think I have a pretty good handle on the whole layout of the place? But there's still loads of points where I forget whose room is where, which is why we eventually went out of our way to put doorplates next to each door, just so that we'd remember if a particular bedroom was going to be used for something or someone. We didn't need it right then and there, but Andy was clearly thinking about what was going to happen when new women started showing up, and he wanted to be ready, which I respected. Besides, it gave us all something to do.

During that month, Andy tried really hard to get the staff to relax a bit, but that was a push-and-pull battle the final results of which still aren't entirely in. They all say they want to keep a completely professional working relationship split away from the sexual dynamics associated with the Quaranteam serum, but I think to some extent, we all know that's bullshit. But there are lines they don't want us to push them to cross - like joining the family for every meal - and it took us a bit of time to sort of wrap our heads around that rule. Sure, when there's a big party or something, they'll spend a little bit of time mingling, but they also go as much as they can out of their way to ensure that we never let that line of separation be completely wiped away, because at the end of the day, they have their own emotional connections and bonds that they don't want us intruding into.

They love that we love them; they just don't want to feel obligated to have to love us back, if that makes any sense.

We did spend a ton of time exploring the mansion, though, including each of us having sex in both the pool and the hot tub at least once. Andy found the whole idea of having a 'pool house' sort of ridiculous, and as soon as we were walking through the place, he was already joking about having to repurpose it. I remember joking that if he wanted to, he could relocate some of my family in, only to be absolutely horrified when he took it very seriously and I had to back him down off it. Don't get me wrong, Fi. I love my family, but no way in hell am I letting any of them live in our back yard.

* * * * * * * *

"Anyway," Ash said. "That sort of gets you through to the point where things get chaotic, and I had to really start putting my foot down." She stepped away from the canvas, a laugh on her lips as she started to pull the sheet over it to cover it up. "The next real milestone in the house happens right around the time that they were going to let us explore New Eden, which was the arrival of Taylor, but we can talk about that tomorrow. I think we've done enough for one day, don't you?"

"Yeah, we've covered a lot of ground today," Fi said, "but I think I'm really starting to get a good idea of how much you're the glue behind the scenes that holds everything together. I'm sure Andy doesn't know half the stuff you do for him."

"Eh, I prefer it that way, actually," Aisling replied. "He's got enough on his mind day-to-day without him thinking that I'm stressed out about this, that and the other th—" Her phone began to ring, playing Tom Petty's "American Girl," which made Ash tilt her head as she picked it up. "Niko, hey, what's up? Something go wrong over at the base?" She paused a minute, letting the woman on the other side explain things to her. "Well, fucking finally. I was starting to wonder if Andy was just the unluckiest person ever when it came to that kind of thing. You and Piper got both him and Melody loaded up okay? Yeah, no worries. I'll grab Fi and a couple of others and we'll meet you out front to help. Yeah yeah, two minutes, we should be out front right as you get here." She tapped her phone to end her call. "Andy's finally getting his turn at a regeneration cycle. Apparently, his pairing with Melody triggered it, so it's just Niko and Piper conscious in the car and two zonked out bodies laid down in the back. Get dressed and we'll go help them."

Fiona got dressed as Aisling did, wondering exactly how much Andy was going to change as part of the regeneration. She'd been reading up on it, and sometimes the effects were minor, like regrowing lost hair or fixing a trick back, but sometimes they could be incredibly strong, curing longtime ailments or regrowing missing organs. Xander's spleen had grown back, which had taken everybody by surprise, and the scar from the surgery he'd had to remove it when he was like nine was completely gone as well.

As they were heading upstairs, Ash was already on her phone, sending a text message, and when the two of them were arriving on the front steps, Niko was pulling up in the Tesla. Just as she brought the Tesla to a halt at the bottom of the main staircase, Nicolette, Sarah and Lexi came walking out the front door. "You said you wanted extra sets of hand, Ma'am," Nicolette said, "so I grabbed the first few people I saw. What's up?"

"Andy's regeneration triggered when he was imprinting Melody," Ash said, as Niko was getting out of the car. "How's our man?"

"Other than out like a light?" she giggled. "Perfectly normal. Heartrate, breathing, the whole nine yards. Had him entirely checked out before we left the base, and they say he's five by five, nothing for us to be worried about."

"Right," Ash said, interlacing her fingers together and cracking her knuckles. "Piper, you, Sarah and Lexi carry Andy up to the master bedroom. Neeks, you and me, we'll get Melody and take her to one of the last couple of open bedrooms. Fi, run down real quick and get a bottle of orange juice and a bottle of water to put on the nightstand. Nicolette, can you bring in both Melody's bag and the sack Niko threw Andy's stuff into?"

"Yes Ma'am," Nicolette said. "Anything else we need?"

"Meet us up in the master bedroom after you've done that."

A few minutes later, both Melody and Andy had been put to bed in their respective rooms, Andy stripped down to nothing, and the whole house was aflutter with talk about Andy's regeneration. In fact, nearly every woman in the house had gathered around Andy's bed to peer down at him.

"Okay, I know everyone's all a bunch of gossipy bitches," Ash said, clapping her hands, "but this is no big deal, okay? Andy's just going to go through about a day's worth of recovery time, so we'll keep someone stationed in the room at all times, make sure there's cold orange juice waiting for him when he gets up, but other than that, this is no big deal, alright? Anyone who wants to can come in and check on him, and anyone who wants to sleep in bed with him can but just don't be touching him, which, yes yes, I know it blows, but he's regenerating, so let that happen, and we'll just find out how much has changed tomorrow. Now scoot!"

Once the room was mostly empty, Ash put Andy's phone on his charger on the night stand next to the bed, set his glasses next to them and then turned on the speaker to play Andy's list of post-rock bands to give him something quiet and mellow to sleep to.

"C'mon, Fi," Ash finally said. "Let's go get dinner."