(See the end of the chapter for notes .)

Chapter Text

Marco’s stomach dropped at his father’s words. “The... police wanted to see me specifically?”

“Uh… yes. They didn't say about what, though. Um, should I tell them that you aren’t here?” his dad asked, unsure of the whole situation.

“And what good would that do, Rafael?” his mom said, throwing her hands up in frustration. “I had a feeling that whole thing with Dr. Singer would come back to bite us eventually. What if they try to take Marco away?”

Marco took a deep breath. He’d dealt with authorities before, but he doubted his usual methods would work in this situation. It wasn’t like he could stage his death or anything. They actually had ways of making sure. Science and all that. But, worst came to worst, he could easily escape from them if they really did take him away from his parents. What would happen afterwards was anyone’s guess.

Finally, Marco said, “I’ll go talk to them,” with all the confidence he didn’t have. “You two can, uh, keep the nachos warm for when I’m done.”

His parents looked at each other in worry, but eventually nodded in agreement.

“So... just to make sure. You two wouldn't be against having to relocate from Earth if it came to that, right?” Kar asked.

“What?” Marco’s mom said, eyes wide.

“Kar!” Marco stared daggers at his arm. 'Seriously, that's the last thing she needs to hear right now!’

Kar answered Marco’s stare with with an irritated grunt. “Listen, Diaz, I'm not going to sugar coat this. You fucked up. Big time. You underestimated the people of this world and thought you could just whip me out and use magic whenever you wanted without bringing attention to yourself.”

“Kar, we don’t even know what this is about,” Marco retorted.

“Does it really matter at this point? You got caught somehow, and now your family's livelihood is at stake. I should’ve just stayed in your fucking arm, at least then maybe all the stupid shit you did in public wouldn’t be as obvious.”

“You shouldn't feel bad for being out, Kar'Margoach,” his mom said. “Like Marco said, this might not be about you.”

“Are you kidding me?” Kar said. “That doctor guy was nearly foaming at the mouth when he saw me. And I'm pretty sure I was threatening his life. Not exactly a good look.”

Marco's dad stepped towards Kar. “But that was only because of you trying to protect our son. Think about it, was there anything you two did since you've been back here that you should feel ashamed of?”

“Not really. In fact, yesterday we helped a little kid get his lost cat back. I couldn't have done that without Kar, by the way.” Marco smiled.

His parents let out perfectly in sync 'awww's while looking as proud as they could at the tentacle.

“It was a job on the Quest Board, Marco. The kid paid us to do it. We did it for the ice cream.”

“Oh shut the hell up,” Marco said. “You would've done it regardless. You have the biggest soft spot for kids and you know it.”

Kar was about to say his backup argument, but Marco’s mom spoke up before he had a chance.

“Kar, listen, we know you and Marco want to bring magic to Earth. To be honest, despite what I said to Moon, we were a little skeptical of the idea yesterday. We trust you, and we think it’s a great idea in theory, but our own personal experience with magic has been hectic, to say the least,” she said. “We love Star, but her magic has a way of making things... really difficult for everyone.”

“That's exactly what I'm trying to say, Angie. I'm been letting Marco do his thing, cause I’m a cool friend and all that, but I seriously think bringing magic to Earth is a bad idea. The potential chaos and-”

His mom put her finger against his mouth to stop him. “ But , we then remembered that you 're one of Star's spells. You assisted Marco in completing his quest, and you try to be so helpful around the house, and, well, if one spell can reunite a child with their missing cat, imagine how much better the world could be if even more spells like you were around.”

Whatever Kar’d wanted to say apparently got caught in his throat.

“What you do in this dimension is your choice, Kar, but there's no right or wrong in who you are or what you look like. Your existence alone is not a crime,” his dad said. “If the police really do have a problem with you being in this dimension, then we’ll just have to find a home that will accept you. It’s the least we can do for what you did for Marco.”

Kar was still for a moment, and then he took a deep, shuddering breath.

“Hmph. So that's where he fucking gets it,” he said to himself.

Marco couldn’t hold in the little bubbles of happiness at that statement. It took a second before his parents realized what he meant, but then they smiled wide at the two of them.

A loud, forceful knock on the front door dispersed everyone’s good feelings, though, and brought them back to their current predicament.

“Alright, I’m going to go answer it,” Marco said, before leaving the kitchen.

"Good luck, son," his father said.

Marco could certainly use a little luck right now...

‘It’s too bad you gave away your scissors to Jackie. Could’ve been an easy getaway if things go south,’ Kar thought.

Marco just hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He simply strutted to the door, while at the same time occupying his head with the various scenarios he could be faced with and how he’d deal with each one. They were mostly unpleasant scenarios.

With a quick breath to ready himself, he opened the door.

Standing in front of him was a fit man in his twenties- no, probably thirties- with a stiff armor-like vest across his chest. He had two guns on his sides, what was probably an extendable baton on his hip, and a tactical knife on his leg. Everything was positioned in a convenient way that would cause problems for Marco if it ended in a full out brawl, but he would certainly do his best to keep that from happening.

“Um, hi,” Marco said, finally looking up at the officer’s face, which for some reason was focused to Marco’s right-

Oh. Shit. Right. Kar! Damn it!

“Evening, Officer,” Kar said, like it was the most natural conversation.

The policeman blinked a couple of times at that, then after composing himself said, “Um, hello. I’m Officer Brooks. I’m with the Echo Creek Police Department.”

He greeted the two of them with a flash of his badge. An unnecessary formality, Marco thought, but it was clear that Brooks was a little nervous about this. Kar probably didn’t help.

“I’m Marco Diaz,” he said, “Even though you probably already knew that. Considering you're here for me...”

“And you can call me Kar,” Kar added.

Brooks looked between Kar and Marco and then asked, “May my colleagues and I come in?”

Marco looked behind Brooks, where there were two other policemen tricked out in just as much gear. It was one man, and one woman. All three of them were in their late twenties or early thirties. “Uh, yeah, sure,” he said. They weren’t taking any chances, huh?

Marco stepped back and let the three officers in, warily watching them for any strange movements.

Brooks sat down on the living room couch, and gestured his two associates to stand by on each side of said couch.

Marco was able to get a better look at the two of them in the light. The woman had tan skin like Marco, and curly red hair. Like Brooks, she was acting pretty nervous. The other officer was portly man with short blonde hair. It was clear the fitness standards for the Echo Creek police were a little loose compared to, well, everywhere in Hekapoo’s dimension. Still, even if the officer had the build of a farmer instead of a warrior, he still might be quick with that gun. Underestimating any of them was a bad call.

“Don’t mind these two, they’re just here to... observe,” Brooks said.

“Bodyguards, you mean,” Kar corrected.

Brooks raised an eyebrow at Kar and then chuckled. “Yeah. Fine. I’ll be honest. They’re bodyguards,” he said. “And before you get any ideas, there’re about ten men surrounding the house as well.”

Damn. “Right, so no escape,” Marco summarized.

“Exactly,” Brooks said. “I’d also appreciate if you kept your hands- I mean, your hand and tentacle- where I can see them and make no sudden moves. Especially towards any pockets.”

Ugh, was he under arrest or not? “Okay, I can agree to that.” It ruled out secretive ritual-casting as an option. They got him good.

“What in God’s name is that?” the female officer asked, pointing at the metal cage sitting in the corner, where the remaining pink hedgehogs had been locked in. They were all squeezed against each other to the point where their legs were sticking out between the bars.

“What in particular? The magic pink hedgehogs, or the implication of animal cruelty?” Marco asked. “Because to answer the latter, we tried treating them like real animals, but they don’t eat or drink anything we give them. If you look at their eyes, they’re always following me. I could be a hundred miles away and they’d still be looking in the general direction towards my location. To answer the former, they’re just hedgehog-shaped spells created to wake me up whenever I pass out.”

The officer raised her eyebrows, nodded warily, and went back to being a silent observer.

“So, what brings you to our humble abode?” Marco asked Brooks, trying to get back on track.

His parents slowly entered the room, though they kept their distance from Brooks and the other officers. They watched everyone in anticipation.

Marco took a seat on a lone wooden chair, staring Brooks in the eyes.

“First things first,” Officer Brooks said, in a tone of authority. “The girl that’s been living here. Where is she right now?”

“No longer here,” Marco said, without any hesitation. “Her mom brought her back to their home dimension.”

He could’ve easily lied to the policeman, but Marco specifically wanted the inhabitants of Earth to get used to magic and the idea that the universe was much vaster than they could imagine. Also, well, he wanted to see how shocked Brooks would look after telling him that so straight faced.

Marco didn’t get that satisfaction, though. Instead Brooks simply nodded and said “Pretty convenient, I suppose.”

“Well, that’s literally what happened, so you can take it or leave it,” Kar said, mildly annoyed.

Brooks sighed and took out a notepad from his pocket. He flipped through several pages, until stopping and saying, “We’ll drop the subject for now. I have some things I wanted to go over with you in particular. Does the date September 15th, 2014 mean anything to you?”

Marco saw, from the corner of his eye, his mom’s mouth make an ‘oh’ sound. So apparently that was a very significant day, but he couldn’t easily remember that far back. Assuming it wasn’t a couple days ago. Marco had no idea what today was, actually, aside from it being Friday. “I don’t remember that day. Why do you ask?”

“That day was a shitty one for me. I slept in, barely had time to grab some coffee before my shift, and then I was stuck doing patrols for one of the most uneventful areas of the city. I was bored, tired and cranky.”

Marco wondered where this was going.

“Then, at quarter-after nine in the morning, I see something flying out of the high school. A monster flying out of the district, with a screaming student in its grasp,” Brooks said, not breaking his stone-face.

Marco’s eyes widened ever so slightly.

“We chased the thing down for hours and got the student back, but the thing disintegrated into thin air before we could apprehend it. Thankfully, no one really got hurt, but it was all we were talking about for days. No one could believe it really happened.”

His face got more serious.

“That is, until it happened again.”

Brooks flipped to another page.

“October 3rd, 2014, another call from Echo Creek Academy. This time, some giant bird mother-fucker had snatched another student off the ground. This one was a lot more aggressive. I actually had to fire a few rounds into it before it let go of the student and tried to escape. Once again, it disappeared before we could catch it. Apparently, it wasn’t just the bird. A whole zoo of these monsters had invaded a friday night football game - giant squirrels and tomcats and such. I can imagine those things disappeared as well before we got there. Does this day sound familiar?”

“I-I suppose.” Marco shrugged. “But we’re talking about an after school activity, right? I might not have been there.” He honestly wasn’t sure. His teenage self didn’t seem the social type for a football game, though it was clear as day that Star at least attended the game, and had put her own spin on things.

Brooks snorted at this response and smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. “Really!? Now that is interesting!”

“And why’s that?” Kar asked.

Brooks leaned forward. “Cause that student who was kidnapped by the giant bird? That was you, kid.” He briefly showed the page on his notepad. Marco couldn’t comprehend anything that was written on it, except for the words ‘Marco’ and ‘Diaz.’

Fuck.

“I wonder if you’ve been having any other lapses in memory,” he said, with a sarcastic bite. He flipped to a new page. “November 17th, 2014. Another monster. A bug-chick with a nasty grudge against teenage boys. Every male in ECA is cocooned up in purple alien gunk, except for two. I bet you can’t guess who one of them was.”

Marco remembered that one. Him and Star’s crush were the only two guys left. He swallowed uncomfortably. “Y-yeah. I was there for that.”

Still not satisfied, Brooks continued reading off his notepad. “December 9th, giant lobster man destroys four city blocks. You and a blonde girl your age were sighted alongside it.”

“Yeah…” Marco didn’t remember that one, either, but he wasn’t about to argue with this guy.

“Hey, is there anything about me in there? I was around for a few days at most. Didn’t cause much outward destruction, but that’s because I, unlike other spells, had a sense of subtlety,” Kar said.

“Shut up,” Brooks ordered the tentacle, paying him little mind. “January 4th, 2015. This household reports a kidnapping. Your kidnapping, to be exact. The one to give a statement on it wasn’t your parents, but the foreign exchange student who was living with you at the time. Same girl you were sighted with. No one took the report seriously, because of the outlandish shit she spewed. Different dimensions, monsters, a magic wand. I think I was the only one who thought there was a layer of truth behind it.”

Marco didn’t say anything, though it was clear he was referring to the time Marco got kidnapped by Toffee.

“Then, we come back to give them an update, and they’re all gone. Car’s still there, lights are still on, phones left on the kitchen counter. We honest-to-god thought they got taken too,” Brooks said. “And then a few hours later, they show back up in fucking medieval armor and tell us to call off the search, and to have a nice day.”

Marco snuck a look at his parents, who looked sheepishly guilty.

Brooks took his hat off and dragged his hand through his thinning hair. “I could go on, but I think you get the point. We’ve seen it all. We know every single crazy and weird incident that happened in Echo Creek over the last eight months or so. It all revolves around you and that girl, and we’ve come to accept that it's something out of our control. Magic is, and always was, real, after all.”

Hold on. They weren’t here to tell him to stop?

“So then why are you here? You’re right that Star was the source of all that, but she’s not coming back to Earth ever again.” Marco felt bad for saying that, but wording it that way would help assure them. “Trust me, your jobs will be a lot easier from here on out.”

Brooks sighed. “Unfortunately, our jobs are a lot harder now. Because as much as we can blame the trauma and structural damage of those events on leaking gas or weather balloons, we can’t do that for a murder.”

“What?” Marco said, his stomach dropping.

His parents gasped in unison.

‘Huh, so I guess you and your mom were right, this really wasn't about me, ’ Kar thought. 'I know it sucks that somebody died, but this is probably the best case scenario in terms of the police being here.’

‘And what is that supposed to mean?’ Marco shot a dirty look at Kar. He frankly didn't care if he looked weird in front of Brooks or his friends here. They already bought into the idea of magic existing, so clearly explaining that they could telepathically communicate wouldn't even bat an eye.

'Hear me out, Marco. The guy said it himself. Weird magic shit happening around us is an inevitability. They’re not here to 'stop’ you. They're crawling to you for help. If someone really died due to something magical they can't understand, then you're their best bet to understanding it. Take advantage of this opportunity, oh Wise and Knowledge Spreading Mage.’

Huh, Marco didn’t think of it that way. All the protection and weapons Brooks and co were holding perhaps gave him the wrong impression.

Maybe they just wanted help?

Star was the source for a lot of magical mishaps in Echo Creek, but that didn’t mean she was the source. Technically speaking, Ludo and his monsters came to Earth of their own volition, and Moon seemed to imply that Earth may have been used as some hideout for interdimensional outlaws or something. A lot of Earth phenomenons could already be explained away by the intrusion of beings from other dimensions.

Marco looked up, and saw an impatient Brooks and his confused colleagues staring back at him.

“So, you need my help solving this case, right?” he asked with a grin.

“You’re jumping the gun a bit there, kid,” Brooks said, holding up his hand. “Yes, in a lot of ways, you’re the only lead we have, due to your first-hand exposure to magic, but you’re more involved in this than you think. Even more so than Star Butterfly.”

“W-who was it? The person who was… murdered?” Marco’s dad finally asked.

Brooks sighed. “Doctor Jonathan Singer.”

“Oh my god…” Marco’s mom whimpered, as he held onto her husband.

Marco nodded. That certainly changed things. There was no way this was a coincidence, but before jumping to conclusions again, they needed to know everything Brooks knew.

“Do you know what the cause of death was?” Marco asked.

“Excuse me?” Brooks glanced at Marco’s parents and then back at him and Kar, possibly noting the sheer difference in reaction between the two pairs. Marco’s folks were already in tears over the death of a man they barely knew, a man who even threatened their lives. He really did have the kindest people in the world as parents.

“Is it okay if I help my mom and dad to another room before we continue this?” Marco asked, getting out of his chair.

His dad shuddered. “Oh! Don’t mind us, son. We’ll excuse ourselves. We’ll… make sure the nachos stay warm.” He took his wife’s hand and and escorted her away from the living room. Brook’s team stared dumbly at them, not exactly giving them permission to leave, but not objecting to it either.

“Sorry about that, folks. Those two have had… an emotional week. Figures it’d take a guy kicking it to finally break them,” Kar said.

“Does, erm, Marco here need a minute or two to process this as well?” Brooks asked Kar, as if somehow knowing the tentacle understood Marco’s every thought.

“Nah, he’s good. Please continue.”

“Are we really going through with this, Brooks?” the female officer said. “The situation has already gotten out of hand. If they tell anyone about this we-”

Brooks put hand up. “Everything is under control, Pierce. And it’s a little too late to go back on this.” He leaned over towards Marco. “Though I do find your reaction curious. Even the most try-hard badasses your age get a little shaken up when being told that someone they knew died, no matter how small the connection.”

“Probably because he’s an actual badass about twice the age you think he is. Not to mention the fact that he’s witnessed more death than you’ll probably see in your entire career.” Kar huffed. ‘Condescending prick.’

On the brightside, Marco finally got that shocked expression from Brooks he was waiting for.

“I, uh, Kar, I didn’t want to tell them that much ,” Marco said.

“I know, but the sooner they stop treating you like a little kid, the sooner we can get to the bottom of this.” Kar faced Brooks. “And you know there isn’t a good reason to doubt us on this.”

Brooks scratched his head. “Well, I did talk to you a few months back, Marco, and you seem a lot different now since that interview. You've got a completely different aura to you, and a hell of a lot more confidence. So, screw it, I’ll believe you for right now.”

The two other officers made odd faces at that, and the one that wasn’t Pierce said, “Mike, are you really going to just believe that?”

'Mike' Brooks eyed his colleague. “Did you see how they reacted to Dr. Singer’s death? You can’t just fake that. If people can teleport between dimensions, who’s to say there can’t be a-” He stopped and turned to Marco. “How old are you again?”

“Thirty,” Marco said with an awkward cough.

“Who’s to say there can’t be a thirty-year-old walking around in a teenager’s body?” Brooks said. “We can’t say that magic is real but only the shit we’ve seen! ”

“Alright, I get it man, chill. Point fucking taken,” the non-Pierce officer said. “Are we just gonna show him the video, then?”

“Video?” Marco said. Now, that was interesting.

Brooks glared at Not-Pierce and then turned back to Marco with a sigh. “Yes. We caught the murder on camera.”

“Nice. Can we see it?” Kar asked for the both of them.

Brooks looked Marco up and down. He’d said he’d believed in Marco’s apparent age, but maybe showing him an actual murder was crossing a line.

“I promise I can handle it,” Marco said. “I’ve been covered in a person’s blood as they took their last breath. This is just a video.”

Pierce swallowed uncomfortably, and Brooks stared at Marco, like he was trying to find any hint that the teenager in front of him was lying.

Finally, Brooks said, “Okay. Get over here.” He pulled what looked like a large, flat phone out from behind his armored vest. .

Marco instantly walked behind the couch, trying to get a better look at the device. Pierce nervously stepped aside so that Marco and Kar could stand right over Brooks’ shoulders.

“Oh, right. I’ll make sure not to do any of those subtle movements or anything,” Marco said.

“Um, thank you?” Brooks said.

The device was almost the length of a forearm and about two-thirds the height. It was thin and sleek, if a little scratched at the edges, and had a black screen that covered the whole front.

“Comprehending a video being played may be a little tricky for me, Marco. So I’m counting on your brain to process every little detail. Got it?” Kar ordered.

Ignoring his comment to Marco, Brooks tapped a few things on his phone-computer-combo and then put it sideways so that everyone could see it.

He hit a triangle button and the static picture of two people in a room came to life. Marco had forgotten how fucking cool technology was, able to capture a moment like this and have it readily available for so many people to relive it.

‘God I wish I had eyes…’

The video was silent, of two people talking in a hospital room. The taller figure was obviously Singer, and upon closer inspection, Marco noticed Rachel the nurse, who was facing the camera. Nothing unusual so far...

Singer walked over to a wall and started writing on it. There was an uneasy feeling in Marco’s stomach, watching this scene progress in front of him, coming from the phone of a policeman investigating a murder. Logically speaking, Singer would be attacked at any moment, and it bothered him that it might end up being Rachel.

‘When has magic ever followed logic, though?’

Rachel joined in writing on the wall, and even though Marco couldn’t hear them or read the writing, he had a good idea that they were trying to figure out something big. It was hammered in when Singer drew a picture of a planet and then wrote something above it.

Marco almost wanted to ask Brooks what the wall said, but didn’t want to interrupt the video.

Singer and Rachel seemed to get more and more excited as the conversation went on, culminating with some sort of epiphany in Singer, which he only began saying before a portal opened up beneath him and he fell through.

Then, in the same second, he fell in through the ceiling, through another portal. As he hit the ground, Marco noted the way his head was twisted too far around.

Rachel ran up to him to check his vitals, but Marco could already tell from afar that Singer was dead. He watched as she helplessly discovered the lack of heartbeat or breath, and then she screamed silently, before running out into the halls, and out of the camera’s vision.

Marco stared at the screen, even as the image stopped moving and everything went dark.

Brooks slowly lowered the device and put it back into his vest pocket.

“Someone killed him with dimensional scissors,” Marco said.

“Yeah. We figured that much out,” Brooks said, keeping an eye on Marco, possibly still making sure he was okay after seeing a death on video. “I’ll even save you the trouble of explaining them. We already know that portals like that exist. We know that you go in one and come out the other, and that they can lead to a whole slew of crazy-ass worlds. We also know that they come from magic scissors.”

Wow, they knew a lot.

‘Still, who could’ve done that?’

Marco had no idea, nor did he know why they had done it to Singer.

“What were they talking about?” he thought out loud.

“They were talking about you. You and the tentacle. The drawings on the walls were their theories about how this craziness came to be,” Brooks said.

Marco wasn’t expecting such a direct answer to that, considering how the entire video was silent, but that probably meant that Rachel was still alive. So, Singer told her about Kar?

‘And after I threatened his life, no less.’

“Where is Rachel?” Marco asked.

“She’s currently in our custody. Been there since yesterday when this all broke down. Right after he was killed, she went into a panic. The patients and other hospital staff did their best to calm her down, but once they realized this was because of a dead body in the room, security held on to her until we arrived.”

“But it’s clear as day she’s not responsible for this,” Kar said. “You have proof of that right here. Why are you holding the poor girl against her will?”

The three officers gave worried looks at each other, before Brooks responded. “That’s exactly why this situation is so fucked up. Despite video evidence saying otherwise, no one wants to believe it, especially the higher ups. They all think this was premeditated, and that Ms. Simmons somehow hacked into the cameras and put her own edited footage into them.”

“Wait, could she even do that?” Marco asked, really feeling the weight of how much he’d forgotten about the limits of Earth technology.

“Probably not, but it’s a lot easier to believe than magic portals,” Brooks said.

“You’ve been obsessively keeping records of every single magical incident Star and Marco got themselves involved with. You people have literally been facing off against her collateral damage. Why isn’t anyone buying into a couple of portals?”

Marco had to agree with Kar. This didn’t make any sense. If the Echo Creek police were already aware of Star’s magic, then they could easily believe that it was involved in Singer’s murder, and not just assume Rachel is some tech-savvy super hacker. How could they simultaneously accept magic’s existence while outright rejecting its relevance for this one case? And they were here right now asking Marco for help! It was one big contradiction.

Brooks glared at the tentacle. “My ‘obsession’ with magic is more of a hobby than anything else. The rest of the force still buys into any other plausible explanation for those incidents. Everything from drunk cosplayers to ‘Balloon Boy’ copycats. It’s no different from when Marco was kidnapped earlier this year.”

So, Moon had been right all along. Humans would find any excuse to not believe in magic. They did it with Star and they even did for a murder!

“In fact, the only people on the force that have come to accept magic as a real concept are the three of us in this room.”

Marco looked at the other two officers.

Pierce shrugged and then held out her hand for Marco to shake. “Officer Pierce. We met already. You guys destroyed my car by hitting a taco sign with a rainbow.”

That sounded oddly specific. Marco shook her hand carefully. “Oh, sorry about that.”

“It’s okay. Kind of woke me up to the whole magic thing, so I guess I should be thanking you?” she waved her hand unconfidently.





“Uh…then you’re welcome?” Marco tried. “And you?” He asked, turning to the other officer.

“Call me Newberry. There was a monster she conjured that chased me for miles,” he said. “Turns out it just wanted the chocolate bar in my pocket. Ripped the thing right out of my pants and then scurried away.”

“Wow.” Marco didn’t remember that one, either.

“So… the ten guys outside...” Kar said.

“Yeah… that.” Brooks scratched the back of his head. “We made it all up. We couldn’t afford you thinking you could run away from this so easily. That’s why we’re armed from head to toe.”

“Are you serious?” Marco asked.

“Now’s probably a good time to also mention that the three of us are doing this off-duty. We’re technically not even supposed to be in these uniforms, let alone borrow a squad car,” Newberry said. “So please don’t tell anyone about this, or we can kiss our jobs goodbye.”

Marco frowned. “If your jobs are on the line, then why did you go through with all of this?”

“Because we want to get to the bottom of it,” Brooks said. “If we don’t stop this asshole soon, there could be more bodies. It was fine when it was just you two causing trouble, but at this point we can’t still pretend everything’s fine.”

“That and... the last guy to say magic is real was put on mandatory leave,” Pierce said. “So we can’t solve it the normal way. We’d be risking our jobs and we’d probably be pulled before we could get any information anyway.”

So it was out of desperation that they were turning to Marco. It was all falling together in his head. That could also explain why they had approached him and his family during the night time, instead of in daylight where the neighbors could see. Marco wasn’t dealing with the system, he was working with the rebels.

That was fine, though. It kind of felt like old times. He felt a huge weight come off his shoulders, actually. Now it felt less like the wrong words would lead to his arrest and it was a lot more like they were solving a mystery together.

And they were taking it seriously, too. Not only were these people sincere in wanting to stop this murderer, they were also doing it carefully. All the more reason to help them.

“But,” Marco began, “what about Rachel? If we don’t solve this will she be the scapegoat?”

“Well, odds are they won’t find enough evidence to convict her,” Brooks said. “But she was the only other person in the room. If they don’t find the real killer, she might not go to jail, but the public will think she did it, and that label will basically ruin her life.”

Yeah, Marco had been there. “Have you talked to her yet?”

“For a little bit, yesterday. No one was able to get her to talk about what transpired in that room. I saw the surveillance footage, so on a whim I showed her my notepad. As soon as she saw your name on there, I couldn’t get her to shut up.” Brooks smiled. “I have to be honest, it felt nice being able to openly talk about how fucking weird you and that girl are with another person without the fear of being judged.”

Pierce and Newberry looked mildly offended.

“What did you talk about?” Kar asked.

“You, that girl, other dimensions, and magic. She told me how when you were admitted to the hospital, Singer was apparently ecstatic at the possibility of discovering a new sickness within your right arm. Then, it turned out to be a giant-purple-tentacle-demon-thing instead and both of them had to come to terms with magic being a real thing,” Brooks said.

“Hey, the purple-tentacle-thing has a name,” Kar said.

Ignoring him, Brooks continued. “They went into the hospital room, which had apparently been magically soundproofed, and discussed it in depth. What everything meant, where it was all coming from. It was only as Singer was in the middle of saying that your friend was from another dimension that he got taken by the portals. Or, at least, that’s what Rachel thought he was about to say, but that seemed to be confirmed by your comment earlier.”

A million possibilities swam through Marcos head at once, but he tried to remain focused and listen to Brooks.

“Then he popped out of the ceiling and landed on the floor. It wasn’t until they were dragging his body away that she realized he’d sent her a text. A text he had apparently typed and sent out mid-air as he fell through the portals, as hard as that is to believe.”

“He sent her a dying message? What did it say?”

“‘ Find Marco and tell him to run’ ,” Newberry said, coldly.

“Oh,” Marco said. So, this whole thing wasn’t just the police needing the help of a magical expert. It was also their attempt at protecting Marco and his family.

“Are you okay?” Pierce asked.

Marco had to give Brooks credit, he was being very careful about the order of information he was feeding him. Had he opened up with Singer’s message, he may have seriously tried to do run away, and get as far from Echo Creek as possible, if only to keep his parents out of the potential crossfire.

Knowing he had these three as allies though...

“Yeah,” Marco said. “If they’re after me, then we might be able to use that to our advantage. We could bait them out.”

A million names and faces flashed through Marco’s head. Anyone he could have upset badly enough to come after him, and to kill an innocent bystander along the way. Oh, and they had to be alive.

Assuming that they somehow left Heckapoo’s Dimension not long after Marco and before they died of old age, it was quite a list.

“Not to mention the fact that at any point after you left, it could have harbored into a family grudge, and their descendants could be the ones after you,” Kar added.

Yeah, that made it even more complicated.

“Do you have any idea who would come after you like that?” Brooks asked.

“I have a few ideas, but nothing concrete,” Marco said.

“That’s fine. Hopefully this will clear some of it up,” Brooks said, pulling out his not-phone again.

“Hey. What are you doing with that?” Kar asked, warily. Marco didn’t remember what the device even was, let alone what it was capable of, so the possibilities were almost endless.

“We caught the culprit on camera as well,” Brooks said.

What? How?

“Well why the fuck didn’t you lead with that?”

“I wanted to make sure Marco wasn’t involved in the actual murder first,” Brooks said. “And that he could handle this shit.”

Brooks showed them the device and there was a new video on the screen.

“We were scouring through all the hospital footage of the last two days, both inside and outside room 406,” Brooks said. “We saw all the stupid magic bullshit you kids did in there, but also, a few hours after you left your hospital room, this happened.”

He held up the phone and hit play, and it showed the same angle of footage from the last video. This time, the room was empty, and it stayed that way for a moment, until a portal opened up in the middle of the room.

A mechanical foot stepped through, followed by the rest of the being’s body, half robotic and half organic, with pointed ears and long black hair flowing behind her. She wore practical plate armor, and she appeared to be amputated at base of all her limbs, with plants and machinery taking their place.

She walked through the room, seemingly examining every inch, most likely looking for something. She eventually stopped looking, though it wasn’t obvious if she had found what she was looking for or not, and then walked towards the back of the room.

She reached her mechanical hand out and a vine started growing from within the machinations. From the vine grew a stem, and then from the stem grew a yellow lily. She ripped the base of the stem and then placed it on the ground.

Then, with a final look around, she stepped back into her portal and the room was empty once again.

“Suffice to say, everyone’s convinced this footage is just more editing on Rachel’s part.” Brooks pulled the device away and tapped at it a couple times. “So, what are your thoughts? You know this chick?”

“No,” Marco said with certainty, still going over the footage in his head. “And I don’t remember pissing off any elves, either.”

“Have you met any elves?” Brooks asked, a curious eyebrow raised.

“Oh yeah, plenty,” Kar said. “They’re a mostly reclusive people who live in the woods. They love their plants and dirt and hate society and technology. They’re basically hippies without the pacifism.”

“Yeah, well, this one seems to like her technology,” Newberry said.

“Maybe we could use this, though,” Brooks said. “Do you think any of your elf-acquaintances could know who she is?”

“Nope,” Marco said. “They’re all dead by now.”

Everyone stared at Marco and he just sighed.

“I met them in a dimension where time moves a lot faster than in ours,” Marco explained. “It’s been hundreds of years from their perspective. They’re definitely gone by now.”

“Actually, it’s been sixteen thousand four hundred years, give or take,” Kar said, “if we’re talking decimal system.”

Everyone stared a Kar. Wow. That was actually a lot longer than Marco thought.

“What? I’m good at math.”

“Well, then that solves our question about the technology,” Pierce said.

“What do you mean?” Marco asked.

“If it’s been that long, then I’m sure customs would change and eventually elves would have to adapt crazy sci-fi tech like that into their way of living, along with everyone else from that dimension, right?”

That was a pretty good point, but...

“Not possible. The people in that dimension could never get to sci-fi level technology,” Kar said. “There’s a crazy higher being that comes by every time things get too civilized and wipes the place clean. It’s been holding them back for eons.”

That was… one way to put it.

“Oh,” Pierce said.

Kar was right. Maybe Heckapoo’s dimension had nothing to do with this. Maybe it was from something he did before the quest?

“That’s not to say a time-dilated dimension has nothing to do with this, though,” Kar said. “Our elf chick used it to kill Singer.”

“What?” Brooks said.

“You said that Singer sent Rachel a text sometime after he fell in through the portal but before he hit the ground, right?”

Brooks leaned forward in intrigue. “That’s right. We’re trying to figure out how he was able to do that in such a small window of time.”

“So, what if those two portals never connected to each other to begin with?”

“Ah,” Marco said. Kar was suggesting that Singer passed through Heckapoo’s Dimension, or at least another dimension that worked in a similar way.

Pierce seemed to catch on, too. “Are you saying there was a time-dilated dimension that he passed through?”

“Exactly. He could’ve been in there for days,” Kar said.

“Plenty of time to get his neck snapped and send a text,” Marco said. “Uh, not in that order, obviously.”

Brooks was vigorously writing into his notepad. “I think I’m piecing it together now. Marco, did you spend years in this dimension? Was that how you became an adult in a kid’s body? Seems to be the only way you could be an adult with actual years of experiences under your belt, while still looking like that.”

Holy shit. He was right on the money. “Uh, yes, actually.”

Brooks smiled devilishly and the other two officers stared at him. “So, then, simple math puts you at somewhere between fourteen and nineteen years there?”

“Sixteen,” Marco answered automatically.

“Ahem, Eighteen years,” Kar corrected.

Eighteen? What was he-

Oh. Marco had been just telling people sixteen years without realizing it wasn’t the decimal conversion.

‘Yeah, I kinda realized it in Skullnick’s class today.’

Newberry frowned. “Why do you two have different answers?”

“I had a different numbering system in that dimension, and it’s hard to stop myself from using it,” Marco admitted. “Kar’s reaccustomed to Earth’s numbering system already.”

“Oh,” Newberry said. “That sounds stupid and complicated.”

Marco shrugged. “What isn’t these days?”

“Moving on.” Kar faced Brooks again.

“Right,” Brooks said. “How many hours had passed in Earth time when you eventually returned?”

“Eight minutes,” Marco said.

More writing. “I see. So, if Singer was only gone a second-”

“Closer to a fraction of a second, Sir,” Pierce said.

“It still could have been days. Don’t worry. I already did the math in my head.”

“Then any number of things could have happened,” Brooks said.

“I don’t think he was gone that long, though,” Marco said.

“What makes you say that?”

“His clothes. A white coat like that is bound to get dirty really quick.”

Brooks nodded understandingly. “They were still perfectly clean, so it’s safe to assume he was only gone for a little bit.”

“Less than a day, for sure.”

“Wait a second,” Newberry said. “I just want to clear something up really quick.”

Everyone turned their attention to him.

“Marco, you went to this crazy time-dimension and then came back as a kid, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So was anything else different? Did it put your clothes back the way they were, too?”

Oh, yeah, that could throw a wrench in their idea if it’d been true.

“Well, when I came back, I was wearing the clothes I’d been wearing as an adult, but they shrank to my size as a kid, too. They still had all the rips, tears, and dirt on them.” Now that he thought about it… “And most of the wounds I’d had and organs I was missing healed as I stepped through. Everything except a burn on the back of my head, which was just inflicted on me before I stepped through.”

He got a look for the “missing organs” part, but they continued like he hadn’t said it.

“So then maybe transitioning back to our time flow heals everything but fresh wounds,” Pierce said.

“Which would mean that Singer was killed right before he came back through,” Brooks said.

It made sense. Singer’s neck was still twisted when he hit the ground.

But that meant he had time.

‘No. We’d be helpless for hours, dude. If this chick is after us, we should leave that as a backup plan.’

Yeah, Kar was right. They’d save the Seance Ritual as a last-ditch effort for answers.

Which meant it was time to come up with the main plan…

“Whatever happened to that flower?” Marco asked. “The one the elf put into the hospital room.”

There was a moment where everyone adjusted to the change of subject, and then Brooks said, “It disappeared. In the confusion right after Singer died, the bitch opened a portal right underneath it, and it popped through. Caught that on camera too.”

“By the time we arrived it was gone,” Newberry said.

Shit. “It was a surveillance system. Elves use flowers to communicate with each other pretty often, actually. She was listening in on their conversation.” It could’ve even been used to track her down, but that was a moot point now.

“Damn,” Brooks said.

“Almost like a cell phone being left alone on speaker,” Newberry said.

“That could’ve been useful. It was our best lead. Waiting for this lady to attack me is less than ideal. She’ll be doing it on her own terms with dimensional scissors. We need to get her before she strikes again.”

“I just realized,” Pierce began. “With those scissors, catching her would be nearly impossible. Even if we set up some sort of 24-hour protection system for the Diaz's, she could open one of those portals right next to him and slit his throat open.”

Ugh, Marco rubbed his neck.

“And even if we shot at her, she could just recover in that time-dilated dimension and then come back,” Newberry said.

“Plus, even if she gets caught and we confiscate the scissors, she may have friends to bail her out,” Pierce added.

“There has to be a way to stop those scissors from working,” Brooks said, turning to Marco.

Actually, everyone was staring at Marco like he had all the answers.

Right. He was the resident magic expert, after all.

And yet, he couldn’t think of anything.

“There’s definitely a way to stop them,” Kar said with confidence.

“What makes you say that?” Marco said.

“Moon said that counterfeit scissors were easy to get ahold of,” Kar said. “So, if they’re really everywhere, someone must have come up with a way to render them useless, right?”

Marco raised an eyebrow at Kar.

“I mean, if not, I feel like Mewni would’ve been taken over by someone new just portalling in and assassinating the queen, like, every other week.”

That actually made a lot of sense.

“Is Mewni the dimension with the elves?” Newberry asked.

“Well, there might be elves there.” Marco shrugged.

“No, wait,” Brooks said, holding up a finger and then immediately flipping through his notebook in concentration. “I recognize the name.”

He stopped on a page and his face lit up in recognition.

“Mewni is the dimension the blonde girl’s from. She mentioned it when Marco got kidnapped.”

“Oh,” Newberry said.

‘Looks like you’ve got a stalker, Marco,’ Kar thought.

Marco coughed awkwardly. “Uh, yeah. And it might be the dimension with the answer on how to contain our elf.”

“You could always ask Heckapoo.”

“No. I wouldn’t know where to find her, and I don’t want to see her anyway,” Marco said.

“So, then, who would know what’s stopping the queen from being assassinated every week?” Pierce asked. “Are there any people you know within the castle? Maybe a guard or servant?”

Marco groaned. “The queen.” He would have to ask Moon about this. Moon was exactly the kind of person who would know everything about it, too.

Pierce and Newberry raised their eyebrows.

“Makes sense,” Brooks said. “Blondie’s the princess, right?”

Marco looked over at him.

“She mentioned it when you got kidnapped,” he said.

“So then, why don’t you contact her ?” Newberry asked.

“Honestly?” Marco said. “Because she wouldn’t have the information I need.” And also because if he contacted Star first, Moon would probably murder him before the elf even got a chance.

“Either way, you can get our containment in gear,” Brooks said. “Now we just have to find the elf.”

Marco nodded. He would have to talk to Moon, but he could do this. He took a deep breath. The easiest way to do that would’ve been with the flower, but they didn’t have that luxury.

‘So then, time for the backup plan?’

Yeah, it was. “Can you get me a piece of Singer’s body?” Marco asked them.

Without a second’s hesitation, Pierce said, “Yes. I can get it for you by tomorrow morning. Will that be okay?”

The other two officers looked at her with curious eyes.

Marco did the math in his head. Assuming the death was yesterday, he still had 2 more days before the plan was moot. “Yeah, tomorrow morning is perfect.”

The officers would probably arrive around the same time as Jackie would with his scissors, so it could all match up so that he could go contact Moon, get the anti-scissor magic, and then perform the seance ritual once they got everything set up.

Hopefully all the timing panned out.

“So, are you gonna talk to Singer?” Brooks said, a sly smirk and a bit of a twinkle in his eye.

Marco blinked. “What?” How could he know?

Brooks smiled. “You’ve gotta get a piece of his body so you can magically talk to his ghost or something, right?”

“You’re correct,” Marco said.

“Does it need to be anything specific?” Pierce asked.

“It needs flesh on it,” Marco said. “So not just hair or bones. A finger’s probably the best bet.”

Pierce nodded. “Got it. Consider it done.”

“Awesome,” Newberry said, obviously trying his hardest not to ask Pierce how she could get ahold of a body that easily. “Now we just have to figure out protection until then.”

“Your family can stay at Newberry’s house for the night,” Brooks said.

“What?” Newberry said, indignified. “Why mine?”

“Because you have a bigger house than either of us, and you live alone,” Pierce said with a shrug.

Newberry looked mortified, but then sighed and said, “Okay, fine. I can grab the blow-up mattresses.”

“That’s not necessary,” Marco said. “It doesn’t matter where we are if she has dimensional scissors.”

“It does if she knows where you are,” Pierce said. “If you switch locations, she may just assume you went running.”

“I’d rather have the home advantage,” Marco said. “And I have a temporary solution to keep myself and my parents safe till the morning.”

Brooks nodded, seeming to take that at face value. “Okay.”

“So then the last thing we have to figure out is what we’re doing with her once we catch her,” Kar said.

Everyone turned to him, confused.

“Like, are we going all vigilante justice on her, or-”

“We’re going to put her before a trial and make her pay for her crimes legally,” Brooks said.

“And finally prove to everyone that we’re not fucking crazy,” Newberry said.

“That magic is real,” Pierce corrected.

Marco couldn’t agree more. This would be better for everyone. If there was an actual elf in Earth’s custody, it would bring magic to the eyes of society much faster than his original plan of letting it slowly build from a few select people, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, Marco was starting to get giddy just thinking about it.

‘Is that an ulterior motive I hear?’ Kar thought.

‘I’m doing this to clear Rachel’s name and avenge Singer first and foremost,’ Marco thought back. ‘But… yes, I’m also really excited about exposing magic to the mass populace.

But... if an elf was in custody and she knew magic, they’d have to make damn sure they could defend against that.

“Hey,” Marco said, a little awkwardly. “Do you guys want to learn how to do magic?”

Everyone stared at Marco in bewilderment once again.

Then, with a little too much excitement, Brooks said, “Yes!”

“We can learn magic?” Pierce asked.

Marco nodded. “What better way to help prove magic is real than to know how to use it?”

“It would be a good back up plan for if our elf escapes to another dimension indefinitely,” Newberry said.

“Not to mention the fact that it might help us catch her to begin with,” Pierce added.

“Yes,” Brooks said again, at the edge of his seat in giddiness.

Pierce let out a snort at Brooks and then said, “I’m down, too.”

Newberry shrugged and said, “Count me in. Might as well, right?”

Marco nodded, a huge smile across his face. “Hell yes. Once I talk to Singer, we’ll play it by ear. You might not actually learn anything until after we’ve caught our murderer.”

“Sounds good to me,” Pierce said. “I’d imagine most murder cases would be chump change the second any of us could talk to ghosts like you do. Actually, now that I think about it, this could have a big impact on trails. Imagine a victim's finger on the witness stand.”

“Well... I might keep that particular spell to myself,” Marco said. “Don’t get me wrong, I also see the positives, but it’s part of a specific subset of magic the world is better off not knowing.” His ritual magic was dangerous already, but Marco also thought that teaching it to humans would disappoint Jackie and Star, so he wouldn’t.

Newberry eyed him for a second and then shrugged. “Well, you’re the expert, I guess.”

“You’re just going to take it as it is?” Pierce asked him.

“Listen,” Newberry said. “I’d rather not introduce a new nuke to the world.”

“The fact that we can learn any magic is a miracle, honestly,” Brooks added. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

Pierce sighed. “Yeah, okay. Fine.”

“Alright, so the plan is,” Marco said. “You get Singer’s finger and meet me with it in the morning. I’ll go to Mewni after you give me it, and I’ll figure out the containment. Then, either before I come back or after, depending on which is safer, I talk to Singer and we see if he has any clues about our elf. Then, we’ll either go after her or I’ll teach you some magic while we wait for her to act again.”

“Got it,” Pierce said.

Brooks got up from the couch. “Then I suppose it’s time for us to go.”

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Marco,” Newberry said, holding his hand out.

Marco shook it. “Yeah, you too.”

“And you, Kar,” he added.

“The pleasure was all mine.” Kar wrapped his tip around Newberry’s hand.

They all shook hands and tentacles and said goodbyes, and then they left through the door, looking just as professional as when they first entered.

“Well, that was an experience,” Kar said once they were alone.

"Yeah," Marco said distantly. He was finally beginning to process how fast this was all going. To go from improvised magic lessons in a high school cafeteria to joining forces with the police force to expose magic. All within the same day…

"You have the luck of the devil, kid. I always thought that, but today basically confirmed it."

Lucky? Marco doubted that. Would anyone with any amount of luck that wasn't zero end up in Scissors Quest to begin with? An informal, unplanned quest upstarted by a crazy sorceress' morbid curiosity.

"Um…the fact that you survived said quest with no prior training or prep is nothing short of a miracle. You brush with death countless of times but somehow always came out on top. And then when you end up back on Earth, seemingly unable to provide anything productive to this advanced society, an opportunity to change it to suit your needs is placed right on your lap. Like I said, you're lucky."

That was a good argument, actually. 'Lucky' wasn't exactly the same as 'easy' when it came to Marco’s life. But shouldn't he be saying how they're really lucky?

"Kar, you told my mom that you didn't think bringing magic to Earth was a good idea. Do you really think that?"

Kar sighed. "Look, I don't want to make this a big thing between us. Let's just agree there's a lot of nuance to it. Magic can be a great thing for Earth, or it could terrible thing. Mirria and Ennio showed us a lot of the bad magic can do."

Kar was right, as much as Marco wanted to to ignore it. There was a lot of bad that could come from it. Marco could try to contain what people were learning, but sooner or later, more dangerous magic would be bound to show up. “What if this is a mistake? What if I'm just being selfish? What if I even don't have Earth's best interest in mind, and I want to make it more like Hekapoo's Dimension so I don't have to… reduce myself to a normal person?"

"Oh yeah, I definitely recall you thinking that in your head. Can't believe I missed it."

"Or, fuck, what if this is somehow Heckapoo's plan? We befriended a lot of her clones. Showed them that the lives in that dimension had value. She must have realized through them that ruling over an entire dimension is messed up, and wanted to correct that. You ever notice how we didn't even have to fight her? She just… stood there and let me blow out her flame. At that point she wanted me to return to Earth! She wanted me to liberate Earth from the High Commission!"

"God you're stupid.”

Honestly, just the tone of exasperation Kar had calmed Marco down a little.

“It doesn’t matter whether Heckapoo wants you to do this shit or not. Fuck her. She doesn’t matter anymore. Your life has never been some grand plan laid out by anyone but your own choices,” Kar said. “You’ve always had a knack for finding the best reasons to delegitimize yourself, but every single grand thing you did was because you chose to do it.”

Okay. Maybe he was just trying to trick himself into getting cold feet.

“More specifically, the grandest shit you do is when you chose to do it, and you stick with it till the end,” Kar said, nudging Marco.

Marco laughed. “Yeah, okay. I’m convinced.”

Kar smiled. “Good. Your boring when you’re wishy-washy.”

“You did make a good point though. Even if my heart is in the right place, magic could be bad for Earth.” It had already taken a man’s life, in a roundabout way.

“So Instead of arguing over whether it's inherently bad or good, let's just try to make the best of it. Whenever you're head is stuck in the clouds or your ass I'll ground you to reality. That’s how we always did things before."

Marco wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I guess everything is all wrapped up for tonight?”

It was Marco’s dad, who was still wearing his cooking apron for some reason.

“Uh, yeah,” Marco said. He briefly looked out the window and saw that Brooks' car was indeed gone.

His dad put his hand on Marco’s shoulder reassuringly. “Good. Let’s go eat.”

“Hell yes. I can’t wait to try nachos with cheese made from cow milk.”

They all walked back to the kitchen, and the giant plate of nachos sat in the middle of the table, surrounded by… a bunch of other foods.

They didn't just keep the food warm. His parents had cooked while they waited for him to finish up with the police.

Marco smiled. That was so like them.

His mom smiled over at him from the sink, where she was washing one of the pans they’d used, and said, “Hi, boys. Did everything go well?”

“You could say that,” Marco said. It had ended on a hopeful note, at the very least.

“Good,” she said, turning the sink off and wiping her hands dry on a small towel. “Then let’s finally have some dinner.”

They all sat at the dinner table, which had a miniature feast surrounding the nachos. Marco didn’t remember the names of half the dishes, but it was easy to identify the rice and beans, which now had their own plates and a bunch of other stuff mixed in with them.

The food was delicious, but everything that was going on ruined his appetite a little. It was better to catch his parents up on it all now, rather than later.

He had to tell them that it was a deadly elf who had killed Singer. She was after Marco and would most likely kill anyone who got in the way of her path. He had to tell them that lives were going to be in constant danger for the foreseeable future because Marco somehow dragged his problems back with him to Earth.

Marco knew his parents were trying to act strong, but if he was going to adequately protect his family, then they needed to know everything.

Marco took a deep breath. “Um, hey, Mom, Dad?”

His mother took a big glob of nachos and put it on the plate in front of Marco. With a heartwarming smile, she said, “Honey, it’s okay. We’ll be fine. Just eat your nachos.”

Kar swallowed his food uncomfortably, then turned to Marco expectantly.

Marco put his fork down. "This is really important, though. I need to tell you what officer Brooks and I discussed."

Now his father began looking between his son and wife in worry.

"I know. We will talk about it, but for fifteen more minutes, let's forget about all that and enjoy our dinner together. You haven't done that in well over a decade," she said.

In almost two decades, Marco thought to himself.

"Don't worry about anything else right now. Your father and I believe in you. So please eat with us. You've earned it."

Marco looked back down at his plate, which had been stuffed with a little bit from all the foods across the table.

“You know what?” Marco said, a small smile tugging at his lips. “You’re right.” He had earned it.

Besides, fifteen minutes wouldn’t kill them.

So, with his mind cleared from their problems, Marco took a nacho and shoved it in his mouth.