Chapter 39: Space Rocks

Blaze has space on the mind.

And on his jammies.

Zoe has a birthday today! Zinnia forgets Blaze is there and sits down next to her teenaged sister.

"School is fine for learning numbers and things, but the real truths of the universe can't be found in books," she tells her sister. She's a little pretentious, this one.

Blaze looks up from his cake mid-bite and stares at Zinnia. "That was so cool," he says. "Are you into science?"

Zinnia jumps - she didn't realize he was there - blushes red, and bolts.

Since Zoe skipped a lot of school as a kid, I didn't get to choose her teen trait. She's now Brave, in addition to being a Heavy Sleeper, a Couch Potato, and Grumpy.

Meanwhile, Tony is at the Elixir Shop as usual. Today he feels he is close to discovering the secret to immortality.

What's this? He peers closer. "Bottled Vampire's Bite," he reads aloud. This is it! Becoming a vampire would make him the most powerful man in Storybrook County!

Time to get brewing.

When Tony gets home, the Bottled Vampire's Bite is safely in his pocket and no one is the wiser. He decides to play the good boy and do some chores around the house, to make up for having an F in school (due to never going).

He even does Blaze's laundry. For a while, people will be suspicious of his good behavior. But after some time, they will begin to forget that he was ever evil in the first place. And then, when they least expect it, he will turn into a vampire and make them all his slaves. Muahahahaha!

In the meantime, it's Leisure Day, which means he has to attend his mother and Josie's big stupid party.

It's been a while since Rolando and Racquel spent time together. They have been drifting apart lately, which is painful for them. They grew up together as kids in the foster home, fell in love as young teens, and have been together ever since. But with the onset of age and midlife crises, they are getting in more and more arguments and spend less and less time with one another. So they dedicate today to making up and making out.

Zoe is grateful her mother invited some teen boys... It's just too bad they all brought their girlfriends with them.

The nerd corner. It's not that Blaze dislikes parties, really; he just doesn't really care.

Jonesy tries to look interested as his younger daughter bemoans the lack of a community garden in Storybrook County, and describes, in detail, the toxicity of city air.

He distracts her with a pillow to the face. She insists they go outside to pillow fight. "Even bad air is better than no air," she says, looking pointedly at her mother as they pass. Zinnia has been complaining a lot about lack of room and fresh air in their apartment lately. She longs to move to a bigger house in the suburbs, but Josie explains that they just can't afford it right now.

Stop thinking about depressing things for once, Zinnia. She's way too serious for her age.

Zinnia often finds herself lonely when her dad isn't around. No one else at home seems to pay much attention to her. To be fair, she doesn't bring much attention to herself, but she can't seem to help it. She craves and dreads attention in equal measure.

She plays with her teddies instead. They aren't scary to talk to.

She also likes the dollhouse, imagining herself in a big, peaceful house with a loving husband and surrounded by children and dogs and a white picket fence.

And a big garden that she can do experiments on. 

While Zinnia occupies herself with her imagination, real life gives Zoe a whack on the head. Some gossip rag spread rumors about her peeing herself in public! She didn't even know gossip rags wrote about her until kids at school randomly started laughing at her and snubbing her, calling her "bed-wetter" and other nasty names.

"It's not fair," she complains to Josie. "I didn't even do anything, I just want everyone to leave me alone! Why am I even famous in the first place? This is all your fault!"

Josie didn't think of how her fame would effect her children. Although it's been a long time since she was in the public eye making drinks and going to parties, she still throws her weekly holiday parties and is good friends with a number of major celebrities. She doesn't know how to help Zoe, except to try and show her the positive aspects of being famous.

Unfortunately, Zoe isn't like Josie very much at all, and prefers to keep to herself. So really for her there are no positives to being famous.

On Saturday, Racquel goes to the beach to photograph landscapes, and instead finds horses.

The resulting photographs sell for a lot of money. Someone in Storybrook County must really like horses...

Racquel is propelled to the top of her career later that day.

More diligence from Tony. Unfortunately, all of the members of his household have already written him off as a lost cause, and no one seems to notice his apparent change of heart. His plan is already failing.

Much like his grades.

Josie tells a silly story. "....and that's how BEN drowned!"

Tony: "Yaaarughhgahhh!"

Racquel and Zoe: "Really, dude? That wasn't even scary."

Payback.

Sisterly bonding over video games. Zinnia is playing a farm simulator, and Zoe is dressed for prom.

"I saw you playing with that bear yesterday. Aren't you too old for that stuff yet?" Zinnia's birthday isn't until tomorrow, though, so she thinks she still has the right to play with teddy bears without being mocked.

Zoe goes to prom in the rain.

She doesn't have a date, but she's hoping to dance a lot and maybe meet someone special.

Tony does not go to prom. He goes to work at the mausoleum instead.

He makes faces at the prom limo as it leaves.

As Tony and Zoe are leaving, Blaze spots a large meteorite falling from the sky! He quickly hops on his bike to go check it out.

Cool, it's huge! Blaze doesn't have the tools to analyze it yet, but the Science Center gives him a neat bundle of cash for the discovery.

He doesn't stop talking about the meteorite all night.

"And, I mean, it was so big, you should have seen it, the coolest thing ever, they wouldn't let me touch it though, I wonder why, and when I saw it falling down I nearly peed it was the coolest thing ever," yada yada yada. He goes on and on, Josie is bored to death, but Zinnia eavesdrops and thinks the whole thing is fascinating.

After a while, Josie can't handle any more and leaves, so Blaze turns to the next closest person.

"Do you like space rocks?" he wants to know.

Zinnia bites her lip, fighting the urge to flee. Slowly, she nods.

"I don't know that much about space, though," she blurts out. "I only know about how meteor impacts can change local climate and... flora...." she trails off, blushing.

Blaze just grins. "Cool, tell me about it," he says, and they head straight for their books, reading aloud to each other and trading facts. Blaze is really into outer space and geology, while Zinnia likes nature and life sciences. They mostly talk about where their areas of interest intersect: earth science and extraterrestrial life and more, and it's several hours later that they think to take a break and have dinner.

"Trade you half my hot dog for half your tofu dog? For science."

"OK."

Zinnia smiles. She's made her first ever friend! Blaze smiles as well, because the pretty girl he always thought didn't like him has turned out to be extremely awesome.

Reading up on plants to impress the girl. Blaze has to squint to read without his glasses. His eyesight is really terrible.

At night, Tony comes home with something shiny.

And Zoe comes home with the prom queen title, despite not having any friends at all and barely knowing her classmates' names. Not to mention being dateless, and turned down for dances all night. Must be my stupid celebrity status because of my stupid mom, she thinks sullenly. She doesn't even want the stupid crown.

Finally, it's morning, which means birthdays!

Blaze:

He's now a bookworm, and reads every chance he gets. He especially likes the superhero comics.

Zinnia:

She got Green Thumb. I like this pic because you can see how genetics played out in her and her sister's faces. Zinnia inherited Jonesy's small, full lips but has her mother's face shape, while Zoe has Jonesy's rounder face with Josie's mouth. They both turned out very cute, I think.

I later give Zoe a hat, though not pictured this chapter, because their hair is just too similar.

Another one of Zinnia, just because.

Birthday hugz. Poor Blaze doesn't get any. 

After the festivities:

"So, happy birthday," he tells her with an uncomfortable laugh.

She chuckles. "Happy birthday yourself."

It's a little awkward, wanting to ask out the girl you lived with your whole life but only just started talking to yesterday. Blaze forges on anyway.

"Do you maybe want to go to the planetarium show tonight? Together? It'll be cool, I've always wanted to go."

"I've always wanted to go, too," Zinnia admits.

"I mean I wanted to take you," Blaze says, and wondering what in the world possessed him to say such a thing.

Zinnia blushes, but she's smiling, too. "Oh," she says. "Yes, I'd love to go."

He wants to hold her hand really badly, but he's still not sure if she likes him that way. She's so quiet and serious, it's hard to read her.

At the observatory.

Blaze: "This is gonna be so epic!"

It's an excellent show, but what's more epic is afterwards.

Neither of them are sure if this is a date, but it's an awful lot of fun regardless.

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Notes -

Zoe is the prettier sister, in my opinion, but Zinnia is still my favorite. In fact, I'm probably focusing a little too much on Zinnia given she isn't the heir, but oh well.... Oh, right, so technically, Blaze is the heir. I rolled for 3rd child as heir and planned for it to be Zinnia, but things didn't work out and somehow Blaze was born less than one hour earlier. So he was the third child and, therefore heir. But since it's pretty obvious what I'm doing, I don't think it's spoilers to say that I'm setting Zinnia and Blaze up so that she can stick around. Since I luff her so much.

I mean, but Blaze is pretty cool, too. He grew into his face, I think, or maybe I just got used to it. I think the glasses help too, 'cause his eyes are pretty small. Also I'm excited to have a male heir for once.

PS - the title is a pun. because space rocks, but also, space rocks. \m/ *rimshot*