Chapter 114: The Show Must Go On

With Ceth and Floyd gone, Acheron is left with his very own house, which he'd like to redecorate. The first things to go are the counter tops; they were getting old. Acheron invites Claire over for her thoughts on the new tile with its veggie designs.

"I like it! I don't think you should re-do all the blue, though."

"Why not?"

"You're named after a river. I think the color suits you."

He gives her a bemused look, but doesn't argue. Replacing the cupboard doors and repainting the walls would be a lot more work than just leaving them alone.

During the long silence, she leans in to kiss him.

As if it were the most natural thing in the world, he pulls her closer. They meet in the middle.

At the beginning, they didn't want to put any pressure on their relationship. But as time goes by, Claire and Acheron find themselves wondering about, and talking about, the future. Claire says she wants badly to start a new life, with a husband and a child or two, but she worries that she only wants it so she can run away from the empty hole that has consumed her... "past life", as she awkwardly calls it.

Acheron tells her not to worry about the reasons she might want what she wants.

Whatever the reasons, he wants to be by her side.

Claire cries tears of relief.

They weigh the pros and cons of a wedding party, and in the end decide on a private wedding, so Claire can move in with Acheron that very night.

A husband that cares very much for her, a new house, plenty of space, no financial worries. Claire's personal life could not be going any better. 

Acheron is happy he'll be able to look after her. If he can make her happy now, maybe it will make up for his failure to fully save her in the past.

 Claire could play the housewife now, but she'd be terribly bored.

Stubbornness leads her to continue with her career just as Acheron continues with his. It's more of a hobby; he loves to play those instruments, and she loves to sing.

Claire has achieved some notoriety around town, and finally has the chance to impress Anthony La Mer, the proprietor of a newly built park with a big stage.

Luckily, Anthony's big weakness is cuddly stuffed animals.

Claire wants to think her voice is what really does the trick, but either way, Anthony is easy to win over.

Acheron returns from work to find his wife swimming in the circular pool his great-great-grandmother had installed for her ice sculpture garden. When she sees him, she climbs out and snuggles close to his side, pulling him down into the grass so they can watch the stars together.

"The pool is awfully small," she points out.

"It's more of a... decorative pond."

"O-oh..." It's Claire's turn to stutter, embarrassed.

She gets over her embarrassment, and tells Acheron about her scheduled gig at the park.

It's scheduled for 8 PM, and she'll need to bring her own stage lights if she wants anyone to see her.

Claire and Acheron arrive at the park early for set-up, and immediately there's disaster.

Sommer Pesce is useless, as are all the other sims wandering around, so Acheron drops whatever he was doing to save his wife from fire.

"We need to get you to a hospital!" he cries.

Claire looks herself over and announces she'll be okay. How many times has she seen her father blow himself up with the chemistry set, only to keep on going without even a shower? The show must go on.

Night falls, and Claire takes her place on stage.

The crowd gathers closer, fascinated by her choice of appearance.

A charred woman singing in front of an underwater backdrop? THAT'S fresh!

The show is a hit with the audience. Claire soaks up the applause.

The next day, Anthony calls her to request that she sing at the park every week at the same time.

Despite her success, she hasn't outgrown sing-o-grams. People are willing to pay quite a bit for them now.

(And it's smart to have some assets of her own; she wouldn't want to feel dependent on Acheron's money.)

"Again?" Amy laughs. "Nelson knows I'm with Jamal now."

Time passes, and Claire decides the time is right to have a child.

Acheron asks her if she's sure this is what she wants. Venues probably won't want her to perform if she's pregnant. Claire assures him that she can handle taking a break from live shows. She wants to focus on recording her first album instead.

And so, they agree to get started on this baby project.

Claire can't wait to see a child running and playing through this spacious house. She has the hope that it would alleviate some of her inner pain, her inner longing to run and play like a child herself. She thinks she only feels this way because of her inability to remember her own childhood, and maybe helping another sim grow up would fill in this hole for her, and make her feel more her age.

Ceth is excited to be a grandmother.

Floyd says something or other about not wanting to miss out on this grandchild's childhood, even though he can never re-do the years he should have been there for Acheron. Acheron grunts, and doesn't bother to look out from behind the morning newspaper.

Claire's parents were informed of the pregnancy before Acheron's, and they visit often to check up on her. Nigel is genuinely happy for his daughter, though he's a bit shocked things turned out the way they did. He knew about Claire's teen crush on Ceth's boy, and how Acheron turned her down for prom. People grow and change, it's true, but something about this feels suspicious. Nigel feels like there's a part of the story no one is telling him.

Nigel is the first to receive a copy of his daughter's completed album.

Ceth is never far away these days, and won't miss an opportunity to harass Nigel with smalltalk.

Floyd still thinks Nigel is a total dork.

Claire reads a book about pregnancy.

She can be naive sometimes, and doesn't want the birth of her child to be one of those times.

The book assures her that her cravings for felafel are normal.

They have one incident, where Ceth and Floyd have a bit of a falling out, and Ceth asks if she can stay with her son for a few nights.

Acheron does wonder if she's doing this to get closer to the baby, but her commitment issues are probably the real culprit, and he cannot turn his mother away.

Ceth now has the chance to constantly fish for every detail about Acheron and Claire's careers. She's so happy her son shared her love of music, and that he married a person with similar interests.

Claire tries to make this situation pleasant for everyone, and suggests activities all three of them can do together.

Luckily, not much time goes by before Floyd tries to make amends with Ceth.

He reminds her of how much fun they can have.

And by the end of the hour, Ceth and Floyd have totally made up, and are living in their new house together again.

So, Claire and Acheron again have the house to themselves by the time the baby arrives.

Claire calmly walks to the car; Acheron is more nervous and hurried.

They bring a healthy infant son home from the hospital.

His name is Harcourt.

Harcourt seems as happy to be home as his parents are to have him here.

Ceth insisted she and Floyd stay the first night, to "help Claire recover".

Acheron never changed his mother's bedroom. While Ceth cuddles her new grandson, Floyd decides he'd rather get some sleep. That's when he begins to feel... sick.

Somehow, death is not what Floyd expected it to be.

Ceth rushes to Floyd's aid. She promises they'll get him to the hospital and he'll be okay, and as she's struggling to make that happen, Johnnie calls her about something stupid.

"Not now!" Ceth growls into the phone. "The reaper is literally outside my door!"

She then hangs up, leaving her cousin's sanity potentially even more tenuous than before.

Ceth tries reasoning with the reaper.

All she finds out is that she and the enforcer of death have incompatible traits.

Grim takes Floyd away, and there's nothing she can do about it.






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Etc.: Acheron was at home getting ready for work when Claire caught fire, actually. She was only seconds from death when he managed to get to the park and put her out. She'd been giving Sommer a random sing-o-gram, which would have likely unlocked the option to sell Sommer an album and raise Claire's job experience. 

Acheron's preferred vehicle is the family fire engine, so when he rushed across town to save her, I made him turn the sirens on. I was seriously worried she'd die and I'd have to quit the game without saving.

Acheron is generation 9, making Harcourt generation 10! Yay! His roll is: couple, 1 child, author, fishersim, perfect careers, multicultural. I haven't rolled multicultural this entire legacy, but I've done several outlandish plots, and, as I stew over how to wrap up this legacy, I'm just not feelin' the love for multicultural. So I'm using the "dream generation" rule thing to change multicultural to something totally boring and uninvolved. *drum roll* RUNS IN THE FAMILY. Congratulations, Harcourt, you are a light sleeper.

As you know, Acheron is a light sleeper. Turns out Claire is, too! Claire's full list of traits are: good, friendly, light sleeper, social butterfly, and hopeless romantic. Once I'd saved up the rewards points, I changed social butterfly to natural born performer. Social Butterfly was interesting; she rolled wishes to talk to everyone who was on the lot with her, and her social bar tanked really, really, really fast. Getting it back up again did not get rid of the "it's like I'm invisible" punishing moodlet for letting it get low. Like, even after getting the attention they wanted, they continued to dwell on the time when no one was paying attention to them. That's a touch of realism in the game, I suppose, but not something I felt like micro-managing, since everything in this generation has felt like micro-management. We'll see if Natural Born Performer makes all of Claire's concerts amazing.

Poor Floyd clocked out at 96 days, and about an in-game hour after Harcourt was born. In a way this was super convenient for me, since managing Claire's career plus Acheron's live-your-trait has become very involved, and having Ceth back home to help with the baby is gonna be great. (There's no reason for her to live alone somewhere by herself; she only left with Floyd because Acheron was uncomfortable around his father.)

On the other hand, this means I'll be unable to write about Floyd's struggle to make up for not being there for his son, and Acheron's struggle to overcome all the misplaced anger he had about Floyd, compounded by their inability to relate to each other. So that's a bummer. I was hoping I'd find a way for them to connect. But they never did! Sometimes too late is too late!

Claire's singer name is "She Cloud". I kept hitting the randomize button, and the game was coming up with gems like "Pill Yeah Yeah Yeah", "Snuggles Duckington", "Sand and Screaming", "Appears Llama", "Sleep Lord Modulation", "Candy Vamp", "Sail Fighter", and "Mother Scanner". It was hard to choose.

I'd always intended to name Ceth and Andy's band "Magical Flux What", in honor of a search term that Google/Blogger claimed led someone to my old R&R Legacy: "wow screenshot magical flux what". But naming their act never made it into the story. Other terms that led some poor saps to my old legacy were "take it like a man and dance", "cheap bathroom lighting", and "kipp legacy kaboom". But wow screenshot magical flux what was always my favorite.