Inspired by Community S6E8: "Intro to Recycled Cinema."

Piper POV

In Taylor Swift's 2010 hit song, "Mean," she states, "Someday, I'll be livin' in a big old city and all you're ever gonna be is mean," implying that bullies always get their karma while nice people are bound to be successful.

Never has such an icon been so wrong. If Dr. Taylor Alison Swift could see the way that things turned out here at New Rome Community College, she'd be beyond embarrassed.

Piper's speaking about Octavian's newfound success, of course. Ever since the latest season of Cocomelon dropped on Netflix, all anyone's been able to talk about is Octavian's role as Uncle Henry, who is the baby's uncle apparently, and as it turns out, the baby's name is not Cocomelon. That's just the name of the show. Piper does not know the first thing about this show because she is twenty-two years old and does not spend her pastime consuming children's media. Actually, she hasn't been spending her free time consuming any media at all; she's been pretty busy between working on political science term papers and locking into some opportunities for after graduation because that's just around the corner.

But she digresses. Octavian sucks and he does not deserve to become an internet sensation.

"I don't understand why you're letting this bother you so much," her fiance Jason says, holding the door to the study room open for her. "I mean, he isn't even popular for the role. He's just a TikTok sensation because the one scene he's in is a meme. Our enemy has turned into a meme."

"But-"

"And no, this is not worth comparing to 'Mean' by Taylor Swift."

Piper pouts as she takes her seat at the study table.

Leo turns his computer so everyone can see. "This is so stupid, guys, watch."

And then he shows them that video of Octavian that everyone on campus has seen by now. Hell, he's not even in the video. He just voices Cocomelon's weird uncle, and no, Piper does not care that the baby's name isn't Cocomelon. She just decided that.

"Imagine how much the footage of Octavian we got for that commercial is worth," Percy says.

"Woah, bro," says Jason. "Sore spot."

Leo slumps back in his seat. "I lost the raw commercial footage in the Robert Pattinson Batman incident of last year."

Piper remembers the Robert Pattinson Batman incident of last year, and no, she will not be elaborating. It was traumatizing for all parties involved. She's not sure she'll ever be able to hear Nirvana the same way again.

"You know what I do have though," Leo says, typing away on his laptop. He continues to type away.

"Don't leave us hanging, man," Frank says.

"Sorry, I was sending an email. Might have a job offer."

"Congrats?"

"Eh, factory maintenance probably isn't for me," Leo says. "Something to fall back on."

"Oh."

Piper rolls her eyes. She knows all about the factory maintenance thing. "Leo, what's the thing you have?"

"About three minutes of Octavian footage from this New Rome safety PSA that got scrapped."

"No way," says Hazel. "There was a safety video and I wasn't asked to be in it?"

Annabeth scoffs. "You wanted to be in the New Rome Community College safety video?"

"Well, no, but have you seen the admissions pamphlets lately?" Hazel asks. "At this point, I might post them on Instagram for Frank and I's anniversary because we're in all of them."

Piper winces. That's... rough.

"Oh, hello, New Rome Seven," says the dean.

"Shit!" Percy yells. "Can you not sneak up on us like that?"

"Like what, Peter? Are you judging me for coming to school in my Cocomelon drag outfit?"

"Uh, kinda?"

Leave it to Dean D to cash in on Octavian's fame.

He continues. "A little birdie told me you've acquired some footage of our famous friend that could be worth a whole lotta money and bring a whole lot of attention to New Rome Community College."

"I feel like Leo should have a camera right now," says Frank. "I'm just not sure why..."

"Leonard, what's an extra honor chord at graduation worth to you?" the dean asks.

Leo shrugs, "Probably about forty dollars even though it doesn't even cost a dollar to make one."

"Well, now you can have one for the affordable price of one feature film starring Oliver. I'll need it in about two days. Preferably sooner," he responds before answering a phone call. "For the last time, I was scammed on those Eras tour tickets, and I would like to report suspicious activity on my account!"

Percy turns to Leo when the dean leaves to finish his strange phone call outside. "I mixed up the date for my lab report and accidentally turned it in early, so I've got plenty of time to help you with the movie if you'd like. Annabeth does too."

"I do not."

Percy gives her his signature seal pout. "C'mon Wise Girl, what else are we going to do? Watch Rocky Horror?"

"Yes, may Meatloaf's soul rest in peace," she says.

"It's okay," Leo says. "I'm not going to do it."

"What?" Jason asks. "Leo, you love making movies. You okay?"

Leo nods. "You're right. I do love making movies. However, I will not be caught compromising my artistic integrity so the dean can make a quick buck. Movies take time, and they certainly take more than three minutes of footage."

"But Leo," Hazel says. "This could be our last time doing something fun like this as a study group." She elbows Frank.

"I... wouldn't mind helping out," he says.

"But I could be watching Rocky Horror," Annabeth complains. "Percy, back me up."

"I just said I wanted to be in the movie..."

"Jason, back me up." She narrows her eyes at Piper's fiance.

Jason looks to Piper for some indication of where they stand on the issue and then says, "I mean, we could be planning the wedding instead." Again, with the wedding stuff. It's starting to feel more like a chore than a fun couple's activity to Piper.

Piper, always the mediator, stands up and says, "How about we watch the footage you have of Octavian tonight? If there's enough footage, we'll try to make a movie. If there isn't... well, we won't."

Leo nods. "Can you not pour your seasoning all over my popcorn tonight?"

"Absolutely."

✎✎✎

They have exactly three minutes of Octavian footage. It takes longer for the microwave popcorn to finish than for them to get through the footage.

And it's bad footage too. Of course, it's raw footage, so when Octavian points to invisible lists, no safety procedures flash on the screen.

"And remember," Octavian says on-screen, "when your clothes catch fire, stop, drop, and roll." He points to the negative space next to him where each word should appear.

"This," says Leo, "is not a good three minutes of footage."

Jason comes out of the kitchen holding two bowls of popcorn: one large one with seasoning in it for him and Piper to share, and a small one filled with plain popcorn for Leo. Even though he was only using the microwave, he has his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a little bit of sweat on his forehead. Piper loves it when his gel starts to wash out because his blonde locks get a little bit fluffy.

"Did he say when your clothes catch fire?" Jason asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes," Piper adds.

Jason takes a seat next to her on the couch. "I'm guessing since I missed the entire screening, we don't have enough footage for a movie?"

"Probably not," Leo mutters.

Not noticing Leo's less-than-chipper demeanor, Jason takes a seat on the couch and wraps his arm around Piper, pulling her close. He tosses a handful of popcorn into his mouth and holds one against Piper's lips.

She rolls her eyes, but she won't complain about being handfed one of her favorite movie treats.

"Since you're done with the clips," he says, opening a drawer in the coffee table, "I thought you might want to look at these centerpiece arrangements. I circled my favorites; let me show you."

"Show me what?" Piper asks.

Jason clutches a catalog in his hands. "Centerpieces... for our wedding reception."

It's a wedding catalog. Of course. He wants to plan the wedding together. Is it bad that she's not really into this? There are a lot of things she'd rather do right now. Maybe she could finally get Jason to take her on that Build-A-Bear date she's always wanted to go on and they could write letters to each other to stuff in the bear. Hell, she'll take an extra hour of homework over wedding planning, or maybe even a shopping trip with her mom, and she hates those things.

Then, she notices Leo, looking kind of sad and dejected on the other end of the couch. He hasn't seemed right ever since Jason proposed. He doesn't even feel like making movies anymore!

That's it.

Piper would much rather make a movie with spliced footage of Octavian than pick out centerpieces for her wedding. Hell, these centerpieces all look the same. What difference does it make? It's going to be pastel with some kind of floral pattern, right?

"You know what Leo?" she says. "Let's make your movie."

He jumps. "But you heard the dean. We'll only have the weekend to film, and then I'll only have like an hour or so to edit, and that's if I pull an all-nighter."

"The Leo I know doesn't back down from a challenge!" Piper says. She stands up, causing Jason to accidentally spill the popcorn all over his lap and the couch.

"I don't know, Piper," Leo says.

"Well, I do. We're going to make that movie. Everyone, get a good night of sleep because we're going to be working all day tomorrow!" she yells. "Dibs on first shower!"

✎✎✎

Space Cowboys: The Musical begins filming today. It's not the best idea for a movie, but with the footage they have of Octavian, it made the most sense out of all the ideas, which is saying something considering how little sense that concept makes.

Piper will be playing the leader of the squad, who has this weird ability to see into the future. Leo tried to push for a magic mirror or a magic knife, but Piper thought it would be way cooler if the premonitions just happened randomly like in That's so Raven. Anyways, she's got this awesome space-cowboy outfit that involves lots of tassels.

Percy is playing the brute strength of the team, but his character is really sweet, so he probably qualifies as a himbo. His weapon of choice, however, is a ballpoint pen, which sort of takes away from the threatening factor.

Meanwhile, Annabeth, whom Piper still can't believe is his girlfriend, is making pretty good use of the fishnet tights she forced her to buy a couple of years ago. Although she would rather be watching Rocky Horror, she's in the study room on a Saturday, ready to play the brains of this space-cowboy operation.

"Annabeth, can you lose the hat?" Leo asks.

She tugs the Yankees baseball cap lower over her brow. "No can do. Bad hair day. Really, really bad hair day."

Piper hasn't known Annabeth to have a particularly bad hair day or to care about that sort of thing for that matter, but she chooses to accept it anyway because that's what friends do.

Leo snaps a rubber band against his wrist. "But the movie... my script..."

Time for some improvisation. "Hey," Piper says. "We can make the best of this! Maybe it's... an invisibility hat! Yeah, we could use a character with that ability."

Leo looks at his rough script and then back at the actors. "That's not a bad idea I guess. Let's start with the first scene."

Jason, who has assumed the role of script supervisor, reads some notes for the group. "Okay, so in this first scene, you guys are in the spaceship receiving your mission from your captain, who is going to be played by the three minutes of Octavian footage we have. We'll put him on the greenscreen in editing, and it'll be like a hologram type of thing. I'll read his lines so you guys know what he's saying. Got it?"

Everyone nods.

Jason continues his annoying speech. "Your characters will also be joined by a CGI alien voiced by Frank because the other day we found out he can do the Animal Crossing voice and it's really funny."

Percy raises his hand.

"Look," Jason says, "I know there isn't much of a script; most of this is going to be based on improvisation. Just remember your characters and say what you think they would say. The point of this scene is that your characters are receiving their mission and it's going to end with Piper saying something like, 'let's go' and she'll pull that comically large lever to move the spaceship."

"Got it," Piper says.

"What's my character's name?" Annabeth asks.

But before anyone can answer her question, Leo calls "Action!" and Travis rolls the camera.

Jason reads Octavian's first line. "Event of an emergency."

Wow, so they are scrounging for lines.

Piper should probably start since she's the leader. "Oh, no! What kind of emergency, Commander?"

Jason reads, "Natural disasters such as earthquakes and wildfires."

Percy turns to Piper. "What should we do, Captain, uh..." He looks around the room for some inspiration. "Tableton?"

Captain Tableton is a terrible name, but Piper supposes she is now Captain Tableton. That's okay because now she can give Percy an equally stupid name. "Everything we can to help, Harry Himbo." While she's at it, she might as well name Annabeth's character. "What's the plan, Doctor Brain?"

Leo tugs on his curls and lets out a silent scream for some reason.

Jason looks at the rough script written in Leo's calculus notebook and scribbles some stuff out.

Annabeth looks at Piper, her jaw just about hitting the floor. What? What did Piper do? Is that such a bad name?

To fill the silence, Frank speaks some Animalese into Jake Mason's boom mic. Wow, that is spot on.

"You're right, Frank!" Annabeth says, talking to nothing and naming their CGI alien friend after the actor who plays him. "We'll just figure it out when we get there. Captain Tableton, punch it!"

Piper reaches for the obnoxious prop of a lever, but then accidentally pulls the entire thing off the table. "Oh no! The ship! It's broken!"

Percy and Annabeth start to rock back and forth because the ship is broken. "Yeehaw!" Percy yells for some reason.

Nobody knows what to do now that they've strayed this far from the script, and nobody happens to have a wrench on them, so they just rock back and forth like this while Hazel blasts smooth jazz out of a speaker.

Sick of this shit, Percy yells, "Wow! Looks like we're about to crash land exactly where we need to be!"

In unison, Annabeth and Piper yell, "Woah!" while Frank spews some Animalese.

"Cut!" Leo yells. "That was awful. Can we do it again, except this time, Piper, please don't give Annabeth that much power to rewrite the script."

Jason holds his script so the others can't see what he's saying to Leo.

Leo groans. "In a turn of events, that was good enough and we don't have enough time to re-do it. Notes from anyone else?"

"Please be gentle with the props," Hazel says. "I don't think the glue is dry yet. Also, be careful that you don't get glitter on your clothes because Silena has to return some of the costume pieces tomorrow."

"Which ones?" Annabeth asks.

Hazel reads from her notes. "Percy's fringe jacket, Piper's space boots, Piper's armored pants, and Annabeth's leather corset top."

"So like theoretically if someone had done something stupid like stuck an open Snickers bar down her shirt and it got a little melty, how much hot water would she be in?" she asks.

"About two hundred dollars worth."

"Sheesh," Annabeth says. "Good thing none of us did that!"

Even though the camera isn't rolling, Piper looks into it and winces.

"Okay, moving on," Jason says. "This next scene was supposed to also take place in the ship, but uh, I guess we don't need that anymore. Piper, stand in front of the greenscreen and hold your wrist up like you're talking to your watch."

Piper is not wearing a watch. "Okay."

"We're going to put the footage we have of Octavian yelling at Leo here because the Commander is mad at you for crashing the ship."

"Then what?" Percy asks. "Are we supposed to like, put out the forest fires?"

"After Octavian's exit, you'll have to hijack another ship," Leo says. "I know it's an entire extra scene, but the script that I have sort of depends on you guys being in a spaceship."

"Also, I only made props and sets for the spaceship," Hazel adds.

Piper decides not to ask if they were going to address the cowboys aspect of the movie at all.

Juniper snaps one of those clapperboards and calls out, "Space Cowboys: The Musical. Scene two: 'You Belong With Me.'"

Wait, what?

"This is stupid!" Jason yells. "Everyone knows that nobody is safe here!" They must be using the part of the video where Octavian has his diva moment and yells at Leo.

"But Commander," Piper says. "Just give us another chance!"

"We'll get you another ship," Percy promises.

"You owe me," says Jason-as-Octavian.

And then the intro to Taylor Swift's hit song "You Belong With Me" starts playing, and Piper is going to have to admit that she was more into One Direction than Taylor Swift as a child and does not know all the words to this song.

And then something even weirder happens.

"You're on the phone with your girlfriend, she's upset," Percy sings.

Annabeth looks at him with wide eyes. So not even she knew that he was a Swiftie.

Because she can't just stand there, Piper pumps her fists in the air and Annabeth mumbles the lyrics because most normal people do know the words to this song.

The song comes to an end and Piper addresses her space-cowboy crew. "Alright, team, in this new ship—that looks just like our old ship—we should be unstoppable."

Hazel starts playing smooth jazz again for some reason, and then the curtain that was serving as 'space' falls.

Frank, who hasn't said anything in a while, starts speaking angry rapid Animalese.

"Oh, no!" Annabeth shouts. "Frank betrayed us! He supports forest fires!"

Percy clicks his pen and starts stabbing the air. "He's just so fast!"

"Cut!" Leo shouts. "What the hell just happened?"

"What the hell just happened was you played Taylor Swift without telling us, and you didn't even play Taylor's Version!" Percy yells back.

Leo rakes his hands through his hair. "But you guys turned Frank into an enemy! He was supposed to be the comic relief! Now what, Annabeth?"

"I'm so sorry, dude," she says. "I'll figure it out. Percy can be the comic relief."

"I can? I can!" Percy agrees.

"Alright," says Jason. "We need to move on to the next scene... Hmm..." He rubs his chin, trying to come up with some way to salvage Leo's original script. "In this next scene, you're going to battle Frank and a bunch of his evil alien minions, since he betrayed you I guess."

"Only problem with that is where are the minions?" Leo asks. "Who will play the minions?"

Frank zips up his motion-capture suit with the ping-pong balls all over it. "Don't worry about that. I found a bunch of these suits in Dean D's office."

Hazel shrugs one of the suits on and ties a string around her waist where it sags.

Grover hobbles onto the set, now an expert with motion capture. "Somebody wanted minions?"

"Yes! Yes!" Leo shouts, clapping his hands. "Alright, in this scene, everyone is going to fight the aliens while smooth jazz plays in the background. I'm going to need a lot of Animalese from Frank."

"The good guys are supposed to win," Jason says. "I'm going to play a couple of Octavian's lines over this, so if you hear his voice coming out the speaker, that's why."

"Action!" Leo calls.

Annabeth, Piper, and Percy are cornered at the edge of a hall. "There are so many of them!" Percy yells, stabbing at Grover with his ballpoint pen.

"What should we do?" Piper yells.

"Don't worry," says Annabeth. "I'm invisible and they won't see me if I throw... this!" She reaches into her cleavage and retrieves a half-eaten Snickers bar. The chocolate smears on her chest a little. That is disgusting.

Percy goes along with this as if it was scripted. "Thank goodness! A grenade!"

So Annabeth takes the "grenade" she pulled out of her cleavage and tosses it at the minions.

The sound of people vocalizing explosions and "pew, pew, pew" comes to a halt because Annabeth just killed about everyone on the spaceship.

"Cut!" Leo calls. He smiles at last. Piper knows this movie isn't going exactly how he envisioned it, but it's nice to see that he's at least having fun with all the weird improvisation that they're doing.

✎✎✎

After filming various other scenes and musical numbers for the movie, Leo is finishing up the final edits on Sunday. Everyone should be doing homework, but this is significantly more interesting. Homework is temporary. Space Cowboys: The Musical is forever.

Dean D is looking over Leo's shoulder, much too close for comfort, enjoying the early screening of the film.

He grunts. "I don't love that part where Octavian's speech skips, but I suppose we can't help that. This isn't a bad movie, Leonard," he says when the screening is over.

"Thanks," Leo says, inching his chair away from the dean.

"I do have some bad news though," he says.

Leo nods. "I can handle it. I know this isn't my best work, but we had a lot of fun making it."

"I need you to cut a scene out of this. Preferably a long one," the dean says. "This film has to be an hour and twenty minutes, and if we're going to try to include a post-credits scene hinting at a sequel, we need to lose some dead weight."

And as if this is obvious, Leo says, "Well, that would be Piper's transformation scene, of course."

Piper's transformation scene is absolutely not dead weight. That is the part where Captain Tableton unlocks her true potential, a treasure trove of mind powers, and a super cool outfit to go with it. They cannot just cut out her transformation scene! She sang Shania Twain's "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" better than she ever has at karaoke night. Seriously, no voice cracks or anything.

And they think that her special moment to shine is just dead weight, better replaced with some shitty footage of Octavian! She'll have none of this.

Before Leo can delete the scene from his project, Piper snatches his two-in-one laptop-tablet device and bolts out of the study room.

She tears down the hallway and opens up the first closet she can find, which isn't a real closet but is actually the janitorial supply closet the custodians turned into a break room.

"Hello!" Bob the janitor says with his mouth full of a ham sandwich.

"Hey," Piper grunts. She opens the laptop and finds her beloved scene. She is going to add a couple of extra sparkles to this scene, auto-tune her voice, and then convert the project to its final file type so that it can be shared with the world.

She does not know how to use movie editing software. She should have paid attention all those times Leo tried to share his special interest with her.

"Dammit," she swears before scrambling to Google some YouTube videos.

Bob holds out a Pringles chip.

"No, thank you," Piper says. "I'm in the middle of a time-sensitive mission." She presses play on a video, where some computer science nerd with about three whole subscribers tries to walk her through using this video editing software. Maybe he'd have some more views if his example project wasn't a compilation of cat videos.

Bob moves to open the door when someone knocks on it. It's got to be one of her friends! Oh, god, they sent Jason and now she's going to have to have that talk with him that she really really doesn't want to have.

"Bob, don't open it!" Piper shouts.

But it's too late. Contrary to what she predicted, they didn't send Jason in to set her straight. Behind the door is none other than the director himself, Leo Valdez.

This is his project after all. God, she feels like such a jerk for stealing his laptop and putting up a fuss about her stupid scene.

"Hey, Leo," she says.

"I'm not very good with feelings," he says. "You know this by now."

"You're a hell of a lot better than you were four years ago," she says.

Leo sits down on the floor next to her. The couch is nothing if not questionable. "Do you want to talk about what you're going through?"

"I'm sorry," Piper says, handing over the laptop. "I shouldn't have gone ape-shit like that. I know this project is important to you."

"It's not."

That's not like him. Leo always puts one hundred and ten percent into every project he takes on, even if it's something stupid like this.

Then again, the only reason why he took on this film in the first place is that Piper pressured him into doing it with three minutes of Octavian yelling at him and giving poorly delivered safety instructions.

Piper sighs. "I'm also sorry for making you take on this project. That was selfish of me in the first place."

"I'm surprised you wanted me to take this on so much," he admits. "I mean, I'm glad you did. I learned a lot about improvisation and had fun doing it. I don't think I could have let myself have that kind of fun without you guys' support."

"That means a lot to me-"

"But yeah," he says, cutting her off. "I just was wondering why you were so eager to do this. I mean, you and Jason have a lot of planning to do for the wedding. It's all he talks about."

Piper's eyes burn with tears. For a guy who doesn't know all that much about feelings, Leo is so totally hitting this nail on the head.

"Oh, shit, you're crying—Thanks, Bob." Leo passes her a tissue from a package with some inspirational quote on it like WWDPD? as in WHAT WOULD DOLLY PARTON DO?

Piper dabs underneath her eyes as if her makeup isn't already doomed.

"That's it, isn't it?" Leo asks. "The wedding?"

"You said it," Piper blubbers. "It's... It's all he ever wants to talk about and I'm just so overwhelmed. I shouldn't have put off the planning because now I've got like three term papers and finals are coming up and—Oh, god, Leo, what am I going to do?"

Leo's quiet for a minute, and then he says, "Do you still want to marry Jason?"

"Yes, it's just... It's all happening so fast!" She blows her nose in another one of Bob's tissues. "How do you do it?" she asks.

"Huh?"

"You're putting together this amazing film with a budget of two dollars and an egg of dried-up Silly Putty."

"Piper."

"Uh-huh?"

"This movie is ass."

"Yeah, but it isn't absolute ass," Piper says, her voice cracking. "You do all this for us on top of your school load and having to deal with living with me and Jason, and don't tell me that we don't annoy you because we have some loud sex."

Leo offers a weak smile.

Piper buries her head between her knees. "The worst part of that movie is my transformation sequence."

"You know," Leo says. "There's always a light at the end of the tunnel. Whether it's the sun or a train, I can't tell you, but you'll pull through."

She sniffles. "Thanks, Leo."

"I mean it. Life... It's like Space Cowboys: The Musical. Most of it doesn't make sense. It's chaotic and unpredictable, and the only way you can manage is with a hell of a lot of improvisation, but you know, now and then, Annabeth pulls a Snickers bar grenade out of her cleavage and saves the day."

Piper giggles at that ridiculous yet on-point analogy. "Are you saying I need to stuff food down my bra? Because I don't think I can pull that off as well as Annabeth does."

"No, but you could take better care of yourself. Cash in on those free New Rome therapy sessions or something," Leo says. "Maybe take some stuff off your plate."

Piper looks at her friend's warm eyes, and then she sees the janitor, Bob, cleaning the glass on the fish tank with Windex. "Can you help me with something, Leo?"

"Yeah?"

"I think I need to push back the wedding."

"Until when?" he asks.

"Until I'm ready, I guess."

✎✎✎

The final screening of Space Cowboys: The Musical does not include Piper's tacky transformation scene, but it does include a post-credits scene that's even better.

Captain Tableton and the Commander, played by Octavian, are in some sort of underworld drinking tea together. Because it is hot in hell, Piper's clothes catch fire, and Octavian walks her through the process of stopping, dropping, and rolling.

Jason tried to hide his disappointment when Piper told him she wanted to wait a little longer to get married, but he didn't do a very good job of it. She promised him that they can take the opportunity to plan the wedding slowly when they are both excited and on the same page, and he seemed okay with that.

He is perfect.

Tomorrow, she'll call the counseling center and find someone she can unpack all her stress with. It never hurts to speak to a professional, and besides, it would be a waste for her to not take advantage of the free therapy sessions that come with her tuition.

When the official movie screening is over, Dean D comes to the front of the room, probably to make some announcement about how much Diet Coke this movie can buy.

"Well, students, I have some unfortunate news," he says. "The deal is off. We can't sell this movie anymore."

"What happened?" Percy asks. "Did they not like my singing? I can do it again."

"No, no," says the dean. "It seems our famous friend's fifteen minutes of fame are up. The uncle from Cocomelon is no longer relevant. You won't hear me say this often, but I truly am sorry that you put in so much work for nothing. Also, the only musical scenes we could have afforded to keep were the ones featuring Helga's weird smooth jazz because as it turns out, playing Taylor Swift is hella expensive. See you all tomorrow!" He cracks open a can of Diet Coke and leaves.

"Well?" Jason asks. "Now what?"

"Do you want to show me those centerpieces you were looking at?" Piper asks.

He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I've got a couple of weeks until my papers are due. And besides, there's no pressure to pick one out right away."

"Okay," he agrees. "No pressure."