The summer went by with no danger from Jeff The Killer or Slender Man. But there was also no more word from Mission Headquarters, no news or communications for Jessica.
It was routine as usual as summer ended and fall rolled around, and then past into winter.
That's when things got anxious and then exciting.
First, Jessica's older sister Julia was hospitalized, requiring back surgery.
Jessica frequently dropped by her parents' place after work to catch up on the news, and went to visit Julia on the weekends when she wasn't at work.
The surgery was a success, and though Julia would need therapy and time to recover, she was home by Christmas, and doing very well.
Then Kitri was invited back to the North Pole over Christmas and into the new year to do some shows. She took Tina with her and mandated that Toby join her as well.
He agreed, but only until the Christmas Eve show, then he had Carma take him back home to Jessica's.
Kitri stayed into the new year, because she was wanted for a few more shows.
With Kitri gone, there were no more combat training sessions.
By the end of January/start of February, the household was in the midwinter blahs. The excitement from Christmas was over, spring seemed so distant, and no one seemed motivated or energized to do much of anything. Even Holly and Jet tired of just playing indoor games or out in the yard.
Jessica was also experiencing a bit of malaise. More often than not, she would come home from work, eat dinner, then go to bed early, only to get up too early the next morning before anyone else, and without any idea of what to do with the spare time before going to work again. It didn't help that her phlegmy cough came back. It had been bugging her to some degree for the better part of a year since she had been so sick the Christmas before. Then she thought she was finally rid of it with the last fall cold. But anxiety caused it to flare up again.
In Tina's absence, Peekaboo still played games with the adults, and sometimes with Brittany, though play was considerably calmer with the latter.
One day, Jessica came home after work to find things were amiss with the furbies.
Everyone but Sybil and Peekaboo clambered to greet her when she stepped in the door.
Jessica took off her jacket and walked into the kitchen to fix something to eat. She was about to look around and try to find out what was up. She had noticed something just a bit off with everyone, though they were all just as happy to greet her.
"Jessica," Brittany said, following her into the kitchen.
"What's up?" Jessica turned to look down at her, puzzled.
""Peekaboo slept in, much too long this morning. Sybil couldn't get her to wake up. She still can't. She is worried sick."
"Oh, dear. Well, I think I might know what happened."
"Something that can be fixed, I hope." said Brittany.
"Yes."
So Jessica went looking for Peekaboo, with Brittany in tow.
On their way, they heard raised voices in the basement.
"Oh, not again." said Brittany.
"I don't like the sound of that." Jessica replied, shaking her head. "If it doesn't stop by the time I - " Suddenly she turned to look at Brittany. "what do you mean, not again?"
"Toby's in a bad mood. He's really irritable lately."
Jessica frowned. Looks like Peekaboo isn't the only one out of sorts."
"Chill out, dude!" Floyd was heard saying.
"Bug out, dude!" was toby's retort.
"Guys! Jessica called out. "Enough!"
"Sorry, Jess!" Floyd called back.
"Yeah, sorry," Toby added.
A few moments later, Jessica found Peekaboo, sleeping where she usually did, on a shelf. Sybil was there, worriedly trying to rouse her, without success.
"Oh, Jessica, what are we going to do?" sybil said tearfully. "She won't wake up!"
"There, there," Jessica said, reaching out to pick up Peekaboo, and stroking Sybil down one side. "I'm sure it's nothing serious. Let me see what I can do."
She took Peekaboo with her into the front room and called everyone together. Then she announced, "Peekaboo needs a little assistance waking up, so I'm going to get it for her."
"Want some help?" Dmitri volunteered.
"No, thanks. It won't take long."
Dmitri looked downcast and heaved a sigh. Even he was going stir crazy.
"I know, man," buck said to him.
"Don't worry, guys, I know what to do about this. She'll be just fine." Jessica headed out with Peekaboo, and was soon driving off.
"Can't take much more of this." toby muttered irritably and withdrew.
"What's with him lately?" Jet asked of no one in particular.
"I know, he's such a crab these days." Misty agreed.
"I heard that!" Toby called back from somewhere else in the house, but he didn't sound particularly angry.
"Oops." said Misty.
"I'll go talk to him." Sundown said quietly.
"I hope he's not getting sick like last year." said Buck.
"If he won't talk to me and just wants to be left alone, he probably is. Hope not." said Sundown. "I haven't felt much like the life of the party lately either. It's just not the same around here with Kitri away."
The other furbies expressed agreement.
Sundown found Toby flopped down on Jessica's bed just in front of the pillow. He startled him by jumping up onto the bed to approach him. "What's up? You feeling okay?"
Toby jumped and straightened up to look back at Sundown with displeasure. His expression softened a moment later. "First Kitri and Tina go away for over a month. Now Peekaboo's having issues. And I can't run combat training for Kitri, not that anyone really feels like doing much these days. And every day it's the same thing. We never hear anything about the mission we're supposed to be preparing for. What's the point? This doing nothing is driving me out of my mind. And when will Kitri be back? Will she be back?"
Sundown nodded. "I'm feeling it too. Especially concerning the mission. I haven't said anything to Jessica, because she's not in control of when things get done there and I don't want to make her feel even more anxious and under pressure.. I know her. She's got to be wondering too. And I think you'd be great for running our training while Kitri is absent. You've done it before."
"Not when I don't even know if we'll actually be needed. Maybe we're just being silently overlooked. We're just a bunch of furbies, what can we do, really?"
Sundown moved closer and beaked Toby playfully on the side of his head. "Toby, you're the last one of us I thought I'd ever hear saying this. You've already done something really worth while. have you forgotten about Mark?"
Toby scoffed. "He was only another furby."
"But he was still a furby that slender Man thought he could use. If slendy can use furbies on his side, those in control of our mission can use our help too. Anyway, you've downed a bigger opponent than a furby before. You won that practice fight Kitri set up with Jessica too. Before Denny and Rachel came last year." Sundown reminded him, then he added, "And they are stuck doing nothing currently right along with the rest of us."
Toby shifted and heaved a frustrated sigh. "And nothing's happened since then. We've heard zip from whoever's supposed to give us our assignments."
"I'm not gonna lie, that's getting to me too. But there has to be some explanation. Villains can make themselves really difficult to locate, let alone catch. And we have no idea how swamped things probably are at Mission Headquarters - I'm sure Slendy and Jeff and the like aren't the only things they're working on over there. But if you're still thinking we're being overlooked because we're just furbies who can't really do anything, I'm proof that isn't the case." Sundown looked steadily at Toby as he continued explaining. "None of you were here yet when I went on my first two missions against a couple of creepy humans, one of them was a violent criminal no less. Did Jessica ever tell you about this girl named Maggie, and her loser ex-boyfriend Justin, or Lickman?"
Toby shook his head, but looked back at Sundown with interest. "What happened?"
"Justin was my first mission. Mine and Pumpkin Jack's, one of Beth's furbies I had the pleasure of working with. We were sent, along with some lawn gnomes and rather frightening little human babies to face Justin and see him get arrested for assault and issuing threats. The next mission I was sent on was to unnerve Lickman and flush him out so the cops could arrest him. He broke into people's houses, killed their dogs, and did other things too. But he was scared stupid of me. He ran out from cover, squealing like a stuck pig, right into the arms of the police." Sundown laughed at the memory."
Toby snickered.
Sundown smirked and continued. "Kitri took on a vile human being too, remember that troll who started a chain letter about his then girlfriend Allysa and planned to kill her? Kitri helped Beth and Hannah take care of him.
Toby smirked.
Sundown grinned, and continued. "Tell you what, let's get back into training tomorrow anyway, even if Kitri isn't back. I'll coach right along with you."
Toby looked uncertain, but said, "Deal."
"Keep your chin up, my friend," Sundown said, "This humdrum time too shall pass."
"Thanks, bud." said Toby, giving Sundown a week smile.
"Wanna rejoin the others?"
"Nah."
Sundown flashed him a look of concern, but said "See you later, get some rest before Jess gets back." Then he jumped out of bed and scuttled back to the front room to wait with the others for Jessica to return with Peekaboo.
Before long, Jessica drove up again, and this time, she came in the door, with Peekaboo perched on her shoulder.
"I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaack!" The furbling said cheerily.
"Good as new!" Jessica added, as Peekaboo took a daring leap off her shoulder and was mobbed by the other furbies.
"So what happened?" asked Duckling.
"Same thing that happens to any of you once in a while, dead batteries." Jessica said with a grin. "The difference here is I couldn't just take them out and put another set of rechargeables in. I went and got her new ones. And we'll do it again next time it happens."
"Oh, Peekaboo," Sybil said as she finally got through the mob to greet the furbling warmly with furby hugs and a kiss.
Peekaboo returned the bunny furby's affection for a while, then broke it off with "Nothing like being killed by love."
Sybil got the joke and let Peekaboo go with a grin.
But Peekaboo wasn't safe from bunny love yet. She scuttled out of Sybil's grasp and straight into Toby's. He had heard the commotion and came out from his rest to show Peekaboo that he was as overjoyed as everyone else that she was back to normal.
"Ack!" Peekaboo said through muffled giggles as Toby gave her a quick kiss on one side of her face, then on the other before letting her go.
Later on that night, Jessica turned the TV on while checking her email.
The detective/cop show started off with the discovery of a badly beaten woman whose name happened to be Jessica. She was blubbering incoherently in terrible distress.
At the sensation of a furby's shuddering on her shoulder, followed by the sounds of gulping and sniffling, the real Jessica turned off the TV, (which was going into the show's theme music anyway), and took Toby off her shoulder to examine and console him.
She looked into his crying eyes a moment, then held him tightly to her. "There, there, shhh."
For a while, Toby's sobbing intensified, and Jessica kept speaking compassionately to him in low tones,holding, rocking back and forth, and stroking him fervently to calm him.
When he subsided, Jessica continued to hold him until he wiggled out of her grip, hopped back on her shoulder and nuzzled her in the neck.
"Thanks." he breathed.
"You're welcome." Jessica turned her head to get a good look at him. He looked much better, his expression was calm and his eyes were clear and bright once more.
"I've seen this episode before," she told him. "That Jessica survives, and is in the process of recovery by the end of the show. It was not even a random person who was responsible, it was someone she trusted, and his crazy jealous greedy girlfriend.
"They need their faces rearranged." Toby said with a scowl.
"They get arrested and jailed." Jessica said. "Now, how about we get something to drink and maybe a snack?"
Toby nodded.
"Good. Let's go." Jessica stood up and went to the kitchen.
There, she made herself some hot lemonade, and hot vanilla milk for Toby, and they munched on some cookies.
"Hey Jessica," Sundown came in.
"What? I thought you had gone to bed." Jessica looked at him, puzzled.
"Yeah, but I can't sleep. I was wondering if I could use your phone for a little while?"
"Sure. I'll get it for you." She went and got her smartphone and turned it on. But while she was doing that, Sundown hopped on to the table to join Toby. He perched on the edge of Jessica's mug. "Darn. No straw." Jessica had drank enough so the level of lemonade was too low for Sundown to lap.
Toby stopped chugging long enough to laugh and grin at Sundown. "Want this one?" He indicated the straw Jessica had given him.
Sundown smirked. "I don't think she'd appreciate that with it having been stuck in your drink before."
Toby snickered and gave Sundown an impish grin.
"It's been a while since you made a joke. Good to have you back." Sundown grinned back.
"Thanks to you and Jessica for letting me unload on you. Maybe I won't get sick this time."
Jessica came back with her smartphone.
Sundown got a drink from the tap and returned to work the phone.
The three of them talked quietly while Jessica and Toby finished their drinks. Then Jessica and toby left to get ready for bed, leaving Sundown with the phone.
When he was finished with it, he shut it off and left it on the table, then joined the others in Jessica's room for the night.
The next day, Peekaboo and Toby were fine.
And Jessica and furbies got a surprise visit in the evening when Jessica was home from work.
"Carma!" Dmitri exulted, launching himself from the front shelf as Jessica answered the door.
Carma laughed. "Hi Jessica, and oh Dmitri!"
"Hey everybody, it's Carma!" Dmitri called out, and all the furbies came thronging about to greet her.
Rachel and Denny, the two pokemon hadn't forgotten their first owner, and they ran up to greet her enthusiastically.
"Come in!" Jessica invited.
Carma followed Jessica in and took a seat in the front room. "I've come bearing gifts." She announced.
Toby approached one of the packages and sniffed at it excitedly.
"Yes, that's one of them, go ahead and tear it open everyone." Carma said with a broad grin.
It was a rather clumsy spectacle as Jessica pried and tore, while the furbies tore and chewed at the taped sections Jessica couldn't manage as well with her fingers.
They eventually got the box open, and...
"Jessica!" Kitri exclaimed, jumping out and on Jessica's shoulder.
"Kitri!" Jessica squealed, giving the furby a tight one-handed hug to her.
"Kitri!" The other furbies shouted, and they mobbed Jessica as they tried to greet their long lost friend all at the same time.
Kitri cackled gleefully through tears. "I missed you all so much!"
Tina and Peekaboo took off, whirling each other around in some sort of dance hug combo.
Carma and Jessica talked at length about the mission while Rachel and Denny continued to vie with Dmitri for Carma's attention.
So Jessica was assured she was not being ignored or forgotten. Mission Headquarters and everyone involved received Jessica's messages, and had actually written back to let her know they were working on things. But Jessica said she never received any response. In addition, the timestamps were all whacky. So she and Carma theorized that it was either technical glitches or someone somewhere was up to no good.
The rest of what Carma brought for all company was an assortment of favourites of theirs,including pokepuffs, poffins, and berries for Rachel and Denny, some of which were loved and hated by various furbies. She told Jessica that giving the furbies and pokemon a bit of this food supply daily would help keep up their well-being and hopefully prevent them from becoming weak or sick. Everyone had to be in top condition, even if it was not clear when and where the mission would take place.
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