-Alastor's point of view-

Ben was a learner. He was in and out of the kindergarten registry really quickly, leaving his brother in the dust.

"So, uh...Ben is smart as a first grader, but his handwriting is atrocious. So they're putting him in kindergarten anyway." Calypso explained.

"So he can kinda read?" Angel asked.

"Yes." Calypso nodded, smiling. "He's got the same amount of curiosity as his mother."

"Aw." I cooed, recalling how much Mercy loved to learn when she was smaller. 

She normally hyper-fixated on something incredibly specific, like frogs and mushrooms. Occasionally she would go elbow-deep into books about the Greek Pantheon. She enjoyed reading about deities. In fact, Angel used to tell her stories about favored gods, both his and mine, when she was still drinking out of baby bottles. He might've rubbed off on her.

"I think he might've learned to read a little with Lee." Calypso said, patting Ben's hair.

"Well she's always a good bet, being patient as she is." I chuckled. "Patient patient snake."

"I'm holding Frond for Ash!" Ben exclaimed, showing Angel and I his brother's koala plushie.

"Hello, Frond." Angel laughed.

I picked up Ben and balanced him on my hip. Ben absently wrapped his third arm around my waist to steady himself as he played with Mr Squishy and Frond.

Mercy approached with Ashton, Ashton half-flying, half-running to us. Mercy kept pace easily, barely running as she pushed the stroller with Eloise and Ambrose in it.

"Hi!" Ashton shouted happily at us.

"Hi!" Ben replied, wriggling out of my grip. He handed Ash the koala plush and the pair started talking about something related to sports, I don't quite know.

"How'd that go?" Calypso asked Mercy.

"Apparently Eloise is better at reading than Ashton. I'm not actually surprised, but man...we need to work on his reading skills." Mercy said, looking at Ash without any disappointment in her eyes. She seemed rather concerned, however. Lovingly concerned.

"Tutoring it is. We'll mess with Aziraphale, Jeff, and Lee to see if any of them mind." Angel decided, absently curling his hand around my hip. "Or, of course, Al."

"We know I'm not good at teaching people." I protested. "I'm a bit too soft for it, I'd pamper them."

"I'm not going to go against your judgement there." Angel said after considering. "But you did teach Bones calligraphy over the summer."

"That was because they wanted to learn. They wanted to impress people and label Husk's bottles fancier so they have more appeal from their display at the bar." I explained.

"Oh. So that's why they stole the bottles."

"Husk gave them permission." I muttered before a thought hit me. I looked up at Mercy and Calypso. Mercy's face was full of panic after she read my facial expression and Calypso didn't seem to know why Mercy was panicking. "Have you two gotten married yet?" I asked cautiously.

"No...?" Mercy replied slowly.

"Oh. At least I didn't miss that." I shrugged.

"We should probably get that done. I already have an outfit to get wed in in the works." Mercy told us.

"Really?" I asked.

"Yeah, but we'd have to get hitched after the nonsense with Heaven and some of Hell and Earth is sorted." Mercy replied.

"I'm the one putting together my suit and we got Stitches to help me with the wedding outfit that Mercy helped design." Calypso said softly, her soft little voice barely audible above the sounds of Ben and Ash playing in the backyard.

"Ah yes, Stitches...a jack of all trades, master of all, no art is his enemy." Angel laughed.

"He can paint, draw, use oil pastels, make crayon look expensive, hyper realism or cartoon...dance, sing, play multiple instruments, write, sew...etcetera..." Mercy mumbled, looking tired. "He makes me tired just watching him."

"I know right." I agreed. "I have no idea how he has that much energy. It's like he harnesses the power of the fucking sun. And then he has enough patience to bake and decorate big cakes. That boy is going places."

"Well, I certainly haven't been left in the dust, I've been keeping pace pretty well. I just got cleared to start my own therapy office." Mercy said after checking her phone.

"What type?" Angel asked.

Mercy looked at us with mild surprise.

"Yes."

"What do you mean 'yes'?" I asked.

"...I kinda studied all...? My professors at the college thought I was only taking one of the therapy courses, but then they looked at my bizarre schedule...they were impressed and thought I was insane. They didn't think I, with my Cs and Bs, could check all the required boxes. They were wrong, I was very good at that, using my hyper fixation abilities to get where I wanted." Mercy muttered.

"How much did you pause time." I sighed.

"Not at all. I didn't sleep for about ten straight months though, with the exception of hibernating on the weekends and days off."

"Holy fucking shit." I said, staring at her with disbelief.

"How much caffeine did you consume?" Angel inquired.

"Enough to kill an elephant per week." Mercy muttered. Angel laughed with disbelief.

"Bad." I said, patting her cheek in a way that mimicked me slapping her.

"Yeah, uh...I was kinda actually swerving into insanity for a while, but I got better." Mercy laughed nervously.

"I have no room to talk, as I matched my sleep schedule with hers when I had to work at the morgue a lot. I'm a mortician, by the way. There was a surprising amount of death while Mercy was getting college done. I'm not entirely sure she wasn't the one killing the demons and angels. But I am fairly disappointed in her for not sleeping." Calypso muttered.

"You're a mortician?" Mercy asked.

"Yeah. I never want to bring the dreary energy that working with the corpses brings home. Believe me, I have almost no fun with embalming and dressing for a proper burial. There is a rare occurrence where one of newer employees hits the muscles or tendons that move the arms when they're trying to embalm a body through the artery through the armpit, which is always hilarious. The body grabs you when you hit that tendon or muscle. I've started collecting clips of the employees responding to the corpses grabbing them." Calypso giggled before her smile faded. Her bright blue eye glowed as she stared at me.

I had to embalm your second body and bury it. Just had to tell you. I heard her voice in my head and saw her hands closing a coffin on my body. I saw the coffin lowering into the ground behind the estate as my family watched. All of them were crying and then I watched Calypso hug a sobbing Mercy from Calypso's point of view.

Oh. Well that's special. I thought back. Thank you so much, I really needed to be guilty again.

Sorry.