Chapter 73: Busy, Complicated Lives

Rio dances for us in the living room of his house.

Pablo probably doesn't have much time left, so chooses to spend it wisely. He visits his sons as often as he can.

Rio is married to Maranda Burr, a descendant of both Quincy Newbie and the ill-fated Lance Burr.

Aside from their nice house and fulfilling artistic lives, Rio and Maranda have two children; Javier and Felicia.

Pablo approves of the view from their nursery.

So far, Javier is the only one of Pablo's descendants to inherit his chocolate-milk colored hair.

He has Pablo's eye shape, but the shape of his mouth and chin are from Maranda.

Javier also has Nol's lilac eyes.

Nol loses track of time, staying at home with the piles and piles of books she has yet to read. Special Snowflake III is out.

Nol finds her distant ancestors increasingly fascinating, since she'll be joining them eventually. She won't die anytime soon, though, she thinks. She's in good health. She still has books to read and write. Time slips away, but Nol's acknowledgment of it is minimal.

In the nursery, Kipp takes a break from the peg box so she can chat with Fischer.

Fischer has read every toddler skill book his family owns, and is no longer harassed by his father to play with educational toys he has already mastered. For now, he's free to play with Bruce.

One day Ashby receives a distressed phone call from her great-great-great uncles.

Their house is infested with angry gnomes, and pest control thinks it's a joke.

Caught in their less than flattering work attire, Arthur and Pavel do the panic dance to protect Sifton's toddler daughter, Janet. Janet has her Chinese grandmother's hair color.

Sifton rushed home from the office, but is too terrified to make it over the fence and into the house.

The gnomes threaten Sacha's abandoned garden.

Using her heat-proof gloves, Ashby gingerly gathers the gnomes for scientific study.

When it's all over, Sifton's teen son Stacey marches over to assure Ashby he wasn't scared.

Luke gives his mother a tight hug. He's neurotic and terrified of gnomes, and tonight's news has convinced him he's not crazy; gnomes do move! Ashby tries to reassure him it was probably vampire magic. Sometimes vampires fight amongst themselves.

Rex's stakeouts rarely uncover anything. The location of Riverview's secret gay bar doesn't count.

City Councilman Iago's evil schemes don't count either, since he can't get anyone to go along with them.

While Rex spies on Iago, a protest breaks out. Arthur attends with his girlfriend.

The vampires know the truth: the city is going to cut school funding so they can repair a baseball stadium, lest the Nessie team abandon Riverview for the nicer stadiums in Bridgeport.

Rex joins the protest. That's Lucy behind him, now a teenager.

The cutest couple.

Fischer ages up to child.

His first love is painting.

Fischer is again encouraged to play with educational toys, though. His mother lectures him about fire safety before he uses the toy oven.

Luke already used it to make some lumpy, horrifying sugar cookies.

It's a long lecture.

 Fischer is a natural.

Luke, however...

He holds his hand in front of his nose as black smoke rolls out of the tiny oven.

 Serious pie is serious.

"I have an idea!" Luke says.

The idea was to stop playing with the stupid oven and go play in the yard.

Sometimes Rex is forced to call in backup.

Or to consult the military.

The case of a missing pool ball leads Rex to the community swimming pool, where he runs into Donovan.

And beats him up.

"The world is full of stupid people doing stupid things," Rex tells Kipp with a sigh. He had hoped to make a difference in this town, but the more he sees of it, the more he thinks it deserves its fate.

Ashby was asking her mother for parenting advice when she died.

Grim appeared, as shadowy and menacing as ever.

"You have something I want, Nol Archer."

"M-my soul?"

He reached out and snatched a rather hideous flower from her. She found it in the garden and had meant to throw it away. "Not yet," he cackled, "but soon."

Grim restored Nol to the world of the living, and left to put the flower in a vase. The ones he got from Randy finally died, and he needed a replacement.

Pablo is just happy his wife isn't dead.

Nol visits her sister down the street. Kimberly lost her husband, Taylor, today.

"He was a great guy, for a crazy politician," Kim sniffs.

Nol doesn't mention her own death today.

Luke writes some Star Wars fan fiction.

Rex adds this funky door to the room he shares with Ashby.

He's not taking appointments at home, he just likes the door.

Another massive pile-up in front of the school. There are more vampires this generation than there are living children.

...This is Pauline, Arthur's out-of-wedlock daughter with his girlfriend.

Janet and Javier are old enough to attend school now.

An earthquake rumbles by; luckily the school is on the other side of the river. Ashby rushes from house to house, fixing gas leaks, putting out fires, and freeing sims trapped by rubble. She gets to Kerrie Ivanov just in time to stop the flames from consuming the woman.

Ashby digs out survivors with her bare gloved hands.

Hammers are so useful for stopping gas leaks.

Luckily no one was killed, and Ashby gets home in time to see Kipp age from toddler to child.

Now that Kipp is older, her resemblance to her real father is unmistakable. Rex always wanted to be sure.

Ashby was expecting this a lot sooner.

Being a genius, Rex simply told Tristan he was a suspect for a murder in Strangetown, one of which there was luckily DNA evidence lying about, and obtained a sample of Tristan's blood for a secret paternity test. (Tristan was relieved to later be informed he was no longer suspected of murder.)

"Why would you do something like this?" is one question. "Is your affair still going on?" is another.

"Don't shout at me, even though I deserve it," Ashby shoots back. "Not if you want to fix this relationship instead of tear it down. I had sex with another man one time, and all it did was prove to me how much I actually wanted you."

"You could have broken up with me before trying other men out!"

"I was an idiot! I know! We've been happy together since we married, Rex, but this has always been on the back of my mind. I was always afraid you'd find out and I'd lose you! There's no one else for me, Rex. Certainly not Tristan."

"Does he know he has a daughter?"

"Of course he knows! But I haven't let him see her."

"Well now you're going to let him see her. I still consider Kipp my daughter, but keeping her biological father out of her life like this is wrong. It's what I feared would happen to my boys when you refused to marry me."

Custody battles favor the mother, it's true, it's stupid and it's horrible. And it also gets children killed, if the mother happens to be some drug addicted sociopath. Happens more than you'd think!

Ashby begs profusely for forgiveness. In the end, Rex gives it to her. They've been close since their marriage, and he can see how much Ashby doesn't want to give up what they've built.

Ashby explains things to Kipp as gently as possible.

Kipp visits Tristan on weekends.
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Etc.: Nol's death flower was an accident. I forgot she had it in her inventory. I do like her, but she's my first elder I actually wanted to die, since the house feels very crowded with seven sims. There's no way I can comfortably manage them all, so she was left to her own devices. Nol chose to spend her time either flirting with Pablo or re-reading every book in the house. When she returned to life, her first wish was to visit a club.

Since we haven't seen them in a while, I'll point out that the ghosts above are Randy, Randi and Leona. And the one Nol is dancing with is Sacha.

Sorry the update is so long. I was anxious to get to the argument between Ashby and Rex, to give the drama I set up in previous chapters a bit of closure. Rex may have forgiven Ashby, but he may continue to take his annoyance out on her criminal/insane cousins. ;)

Maranda's house was on fire in Chapter 69, before she married and moved in with Rio.