Finally Over

I stepped foot into the kitchen to a scene of the couple working together in silent harmony. As Candice cut the fish, Roy prepared the other ingredients. Sometimes they would speak to each other to check the jar, or the fryer. But other than that, it was the perfect scene of teamwork.

Ken and I stood quietly at the entrance to the kitchen, waiting for the cooking to proceed to a phase where the four of us could talk together. The moment we had entered, Candice and Roy had noticed us, but Candice had given a look that told us to wait patiently like good children, and so we waited patiently. Like good children.

Thankfully, it wasn't long before Roy was finished with his part. Wiping his hands on his apron, he whispered to Candice before leading us out of the kitchen and back to the dining room. He didn't forget to grab two cups of drinks for us before he left though.

"So what do the two of you want to speak to us about?"

Putting one huge bicep on the table, Roy placed the cups gently in front of us.

"Father, I'm sure you heard that Alex came to our planet a little more than a month ago. During that time, I told her about ...big sis. And kind of asked her for a favor in finding a way to destroy what we have in the basement. Alex has said that she has a way."

At the last sentence, Ken turned to me and handed me the reins of the conversation.

"Me and someone else have a substance that will neutralize the poison in the preservative. They are very similar to your family, and have also lost someone to the poison, so they want to help out the families of similar victims by giving the neutralizer to them."

I gave Roy a brief on why Liz was so willing to do such charity, but kept her relation to their family a secret. I'm sure it would be more appropriate if Liz told them herself.

Midway between my brief, Candice silently joined us, and I explained the logistics of the plan to all three people.

Candice, after listening, gave a thoughtful look before pulling up her personal terminal. She then nudged Roy to do the same.

"So is there any tentative date they will come?"

"Well, there was one but Ken said that it would be better to give the families some more time to gather everyone they need. So I told that to her and we decided to push back the date. If it's alright, maybe you can discuss with the other families for an appropriate date range and I can liaise with them for a better date?"

Typing away on their personal terminals, Candice and Roy both nodded their heads.

"We'll talk with everyone and try to give you a good date as soon as possible. We also need to call Samuel and Thomas back. Thomas should be quick to arrive. The problem would be with Samuel. Since he lives quite far away and he's usually busy, I'm not entirely sure he'll arrive very fast."

Giving a sigh only a mother of a child that has left the nest could give, the both of them continued typing. Roy was the first to stop, leaving Candice to continue typing as he dragged us back to the kitchen to help finish the dishes they were in the middle of cooking.

Handing us a couple of aprons that were lying around, he started ordering us to take this material, pour that material, do this then do that.

We were sent all over the kitchen, grabbing things from drawers and putting ingredients into jars. Fortunately, the layout of this kitchen was quite similar to the layout of the kitchen at their own house, so I could roughly locate most of the equipment needed by myself. If there was something I didn't know, all I had to do was shout and Ken or Roy would answer me.

[Compared to Vastum, this is so much better. They actually talk and involve people into things, instead of leaving them aside as if there was nothing they could do.]

Well there wasn't really much we could do at the research facility though. Due to the education gap, it was much easier for them to do it themselves than teach someone everything.

Although I wanted to comfort Sazzy and lessen the amount of grumbling she was doing, I was so busy running around the kitchen that I couldn't type on my personal terminal until after Candice had rejoined us in the kitchen.

When she had appeared at the doorway, Roy tried his best to convince Candice to let the three of us do the cooking while she went to rest. Too bad for him, Candice was better at talking and managed to argue back that it had been a while since I had returned, and that Ken and I should be allowed to spend time together to play.

Following a huff from Roy, we were then unceremoniously kicked out from the kitchen.

"Well since mother has so generously said so, I should take the day off! We can go to the fishing farm again. It's the best place to go to kill time, and we can play with all the Ribbon Fish!"

Grabbing my hand, we ran all the way to the Red Ribbon Fish Farm, where Jim was standing with a fishing net in his hands again. Seeing us approach, he didn't say anything but just pointed to the door of the cabin.

Smiling from ear to ear, we ran inside and changed into overalls and boots and waddled over to the Red Ribbon Fish to play with them.

We played until it was almost dusk, when Jim roughly chased us off his farm and back home.

While changing out of the overalls, Ken received a message on his personal terminal from Candice.

"Mother said that you can stay at our house. You didn't bring any bags, right? We can head to the shopping district to buy a couple of clothes, and then head back to the house."

In slightly wet clothes, the two of us entered several stores and the shopkeepers helped me choose several clothes. Then holding the bags in my hands, we both headed to their house. Then after bathing and changing clothes, the two of us cooked dinner then went back to sleep.

The next morning, we headed back to the inn to help Candice out. She also updated me occasionally about how the discussion with all the families was progressing. Finding a common time between more than a handful of families was quite hard after all. But eventually we did settle down on a date.

For the next couple of days, this routine repeated. Helping out the inn, going to the fish farm if we had the chance, or going shopping and having fun. Then we would head back to the house to sleep.

Soon, the chosen date arrived and our routine changed. Instead of going to the inn, Candice and Roy had closed the inn for the day and picked us up at the house. Then, the five of us, Thomas managed to arrive after 1 day, went to the AT center to pick up Samuel. He would make it just in time.

After we were all there, we headed to the private landing area behind the AT center. It was just a large piece of flat land with no trees.

There were a couple of families already there, so Candice and the others talked to them while I chatted with Liz as she updated me on the progress of shipping the neutralizers over.

Since the neutralizers weren't poisonous themselves, she didn't need professional scientists to join her, so it was just her, Kyle and some of her people.

"Ok, we should be arriving soon!"

Seeing her text, I looked up at the sky to see the familiar space ship fly down and land on the private landing area. As the door opened, I saw Liz and around 19 more people, including Kyle, holding jars of neutralizers in their hands.

As we saw them, the crowd around us started buzzing louder and louder. In everyone's hands were the boxes and jars that contained all the preservatives that they owned. Candice had helped me tell them to bring it all, as well as how much of it they had, so we could burn them together after mixing the neutralizer in.

Kyle was the first one to step out of the spaceship. With a very serious no nonsense face, he directed the crowd to line up neatly to receive their neutralizers. Liz's people would look at how much preservative was there, take the corresponding amount of neutralizer, and instruct the families on how to mix them together safely. The families would then be pointed towards another area where some people were setting up a large burnable pit that the families could empty out their jars and boxes into. But Liz and her people would collect the jars and all that since they could not be burnt.

Given the amount of people, this entire process took about almost 2 hours. And that was after the majority of those who came to help were regulated to teaching people what to do. There were also some families that would help teach others how to mix the neutralizers and the preservative, freeing up the staff to attend to more people.

Once everyone had finished pouring out all the neutralized preservatives, we all stood in a circle around the pit as lit torches were handed out to us. Then, when Liz gave the signal, we threw the torches into the pit in one go and watched as a large fire engulfed the cause of suffering for so many families.

Around me, I could hear sobs and sniffles. Even Ken had his face scrunched up to hold back his tears, although his red eyes and nose betrayed him. As I saw the fire reflect on his eyes, I saw Candice pull her entire family into a hug, as we all stood still to remember those who had gone before us.

Once the fire had run out of fuel and went out by itself, Liz ordered her people to clear up the place as families slowly started to disperse back to their homes.

I could see Liz's nervous figure as she plucked up her courage to approach Ken and his family.

Candice, seeing her approach, cracked a large smile on her teary face and went over to give her a hug.

"Liz, thank you."

Seeing Liz's surprised face at the fact Candice had actually remembered her, she looked in my direction, her face questioning whether I had told them about who she was.

Shaking my head, I gave her my best reassuring look that I kept my mouth shut.

A large smile with a hint of sadness then filled her face as she reciprocated Candice's hug. The two then whispered among each other for a while before Candice dragged her over to the rest of the family.

We all talked for a while, Candice convincing Liz to stay on Aquarius to catch up after so many years, before we left for their house.

Turning back, I saw Kyle giving a last look towards our leaving group. As we met eyes, he gave a small smile and waved us goodbye before he disappeared into the spaceship. It then took off and disappeared into the sky.

It was finally over.