Sorry for being a day late! I'm really busy with school (I'm behind, blegh) right now. Have a good day/night, and please enjoy! 

   Claire sipped her peppermint tea and glanced up at NotEnrique, who innocently raised his brows and stirred the sock deeper into the smoothie. Enrique was curled up on her lap, his thumb half falling out of his mouth.

   "So,"

   He blinked. "What?"

   "Are you staying and meeting Grandma?"

   "Eh. She might get freaked out by me. I'd rather let you have your time with her, Sis."

   "Aw, thanks."

   "I figured it'd be a big hassle trying to get her to not try to kill me because she might think I'm a demon or something."

   Claire rolled her eyes, and the doorbell rang. "Oh no. She's early. You'd better go, Bro."

   "Alrighty then," NotEnrique hopped off the kitchen island and ran around the corner to the back door as Claire picked up Enrique and walked over to open the door.

   It was dark out, and the air smelled fresh. Claire's grandma stood there with a bag slung over her shoulder and a grin on her face, making little lines crinkle around her eyes, which were slightly lighter than Claire's.

   "Hi!" Alma cried, following her granddaughter inside the house. When she had put her bag down, she hugged Claire and Enrique. He stirred in his sleep and his curious eyes peeledopen.

   "Hey, Grandma." Claire said, rocking him in her arms.

   "Can I?" Alma asked, gesturing at Enrique.

   "Of course!" She let her hold Enrique. "Dad's upstairs, either sleeping or on his phone, and Mom is out at work. You came early!"

   "'Course I came early. I wanted more time with you."

   They moved to the living room, where Claire brought her grandmother a mug of hot jasmine tea.

   "Want to watch a movie?" Claire asked.

   "Always,"

   An hour and a half later, Ophelia came home to see Claire laughing on the couch with her mother and Enrique. Mom stood up to give her a hug, Claire smiling up at them. Enrique played with her hair, which she had pulled out of her short ponytail.

   "Hi! When did you get here, Ma?" Ophelia asked.

   "A while ago, so we watched a movie." Alma replied, grinning.

   Ophelia shook her head.

   "Well, I brought some food from the store. Why don't we make dinner?"

   "Sounds good!"

   "C'mon, Claire. You're helping." The two adults made their way to the kitchen, chatting about Ophelia's work and ruminating over random things they used to do twenty years ago, 'back in their era'.

   "Alright, one sec!" Claire called, gently picking Enrique up and bringing him over to the highchair in the kitchen. He fussed, not wanting to be strapped, but she didn't stop trying until he settled down.

   "Claire, could you help grate the carrots and set the table?" Her mom asked.

   "Sure, Mom."

Claire rolled over on her bed to reach her phone, and smiled at the screensaver of Jim with his hands tucked into his pockets.

She called him, and he answered after one ring.

"Hey! Howsitgoing?" Jim asked, his voice slightly fuzzy-sounding.

"Good. My grandma is having a good time,"

"Are you?"

She grinned. "Yes. Now tell me updates! I'm dying to know what's going on with the amulet and everything."

"It works. I'm sorry that we did it without you and Toby. Tobes wasn't happy about that, but Douxie said we needed to make sure it operated right."

To be honest, Claire was a little bit unhappy about Jim using the amulet for the first time without her and Toby there, but she understood why they did.
"It does operate right, right?"

Jim paused.

"...Jim?"

"Yeah, sorry. I just-well, I can't summon the sword."

"Oh. don't overthink it. I'm sure Douxie can fix that."

"But he was confused that it didn't work. So was Krel."

"Weird."

"Douxie is gonna look at it again tomorrow when you guys come over for dinner."

"Oh yeah. What are you planning on making?"

"Chicken enchiladas."

"That sounds amazing! I can't wait to eat it."

"I can't wait to see you,"

"You saw me a day ago, Jim." Claire laughed, blushing.

"I know."

"Go to bed. You sound exhausted," 

"You called me, Claire. "

"Good night. I love you." She made a kissy noise by the mic, and heard him scoff.

"I love you too. Mwah!" He blew a kiss.

And he hung up, lying on his own bed and turning his head to stare at the ceiling. It was late, and he'd studied a lot already today, so he got ready for bed and went to go say goodnight to his mom.

She was reading the newspaper in the living room with a cup of hot chocolate. "Hey, Kiddo," Mrs. Lake said, looking up at Jim. "Going to bed?"

"Yeah,  are you?."

She got up and hugged him. "I'll be fifteen minutes. G'night."

Jim hugged his mom back and said, "I love you, Mom."

"I love you too."

Walking back up the stairs, he organized his desk and made sure there wasn't much stuff on the floor cluttering up the space, then brought out a new poster Toby had gotten him for his birthday a few weeks ago and put it up on the wall. 

Turning off his light, he clambered into bed and tried to get comfortable, closing his eyes. Slowly, he fell into a dream.

     He, Toby, and Claire wandered through the dark, abandoned pathways that crisscrossed through Trollmarket, sadly looking at overturned sock-vendor stands, wagons full of weapons or TVs, the odd gnome skittering across the ground that glanced at them before vanishing from sight.

A Troll stood in the middle of the street, his eyes dark, urecognizeable, and full of turmoil. His claws were sharper than most Trolls Jim had seen. Toby and Claire had disappeared from view, and he was left alone with the  Troll. 

Something about him was so familiar. His gray-blue skin was dark and it seemed to reflect in his eyes. Suddenly, the darkness in his eyes melted away and Jim found himself staring into his own ice-blue eyes that radiated fear.  The Troll was himself, and he was scared.

Jim woke up sweating, his heart beating way too fast, and he sat up and looked outside of the window. The sky was so dark, but penetrated by the streetlights, which glowed orange through his blinds.

Trying to go back to sleep, Jim bundled up under the sheets again, but he couldn't relax, so he got out of bed and checked his clock. 04:11. Had it really been that long?  

Whatever. Time to make hot chocolate with marshmellows and cinnamon. 

Sneaking downstairs silently, Jim made his way into the kitchen and got out all of the ingredients he wanted: cocoa, vanilla extract, salt, milk, sugar, cinnamon, and the marshmellows, then heated up the stove and started stirring the ingredients together.

Making something made him feel so much better. Mixing certain amounts of certain things together in order to create something new was always easier than real life was. If it went sideways, then he could always start over with more ingredients with food, no harm done (unless he started a fire). With life, it was much more complicated, and harder to fix.

He slumped onto the couch when the hot chocolate was done, and sipped it from his mug, staring at the wall, deep in thought. Jim didn't care what happened today, he just knew that he'd make it a good day. 

No matter what.