Mr. and Mrs. Strongwell’s Daughter

3/8/4999

Jessica's mother walked into M.U.G. and tapped her on the shoulder causing her to scream in surprise. She turned around seeing her mom and started to laugh a little but quickly stopped herself seeing the look on her mom's face.

"When was the last time you ate?," Mrs Strongwell asked her daughter.

"What like a couple of hours ago, when you gave me soup," Jessica said about to turn back to her work.

"JESSICA JESSE JANEWAY STRONGWELL DON'T YOU TURN YOUR BACK TO ME!," Her mother screamed. Jessica flinched not understanding what she had done wrong. Her mother picked her up and began to carried her away from the workbench and back to their house. Jessica didn't know why her mom was angry but she buried her face in her neck and breathed in deep the smell of her mother and promptly fell asleep.

Honestly this girl, her mother thought bringing her into the house.

"The last thing she ate was the soup from yesterday," Her mother announced walking in through the backdoor.

"What in the hellscape is wrong with M.A.V.I.S.," Mr. Strongwell asked anger filling him up.

"She is so busy with the new unpacking plant," Mrs Strongwell started, "and avoiding the fight they were supposed to have she just now alerts me that Jessica is in another work frenzy."

"We are going to have to call back the nurse P.A.I.L. from her vacation early," Mr Strongwell said a little sad to do it but all of the safeguards they had in place had failed them somehow. He picked up his phone and said, "Peter Strongwell"

Peter who was on a tropical beach somewhere on Karth where it was the beginning of summer answered, "Hey hey Strong man, how is it hanging?"

"FRAK YOU," Mr Strongwell bellowed into the phone.

"WHOA what did I do?," Peter asked confused.

"This isn't about what you did. It is however, about the fact that whatever it was you have been doing for the past day was more important than a promise you made. The one you swore to me only a few cycles ago that Jessica would never work for more than 10 hours straight without sleeping or eating and yet I now have a dehydrated and underfed daughter sleeping in my wife's arms," Mr Strongwell had flames coming from the top of his head.

Peter's face fell and put his shirt back on to fly home, "Is she ok?"

"I am calling Dr Smith next," Mr Strongwell said.

"I am coming home," Peter replied.

"Don't bother," Mrs Strongwell called out, "She is honest with you for once and you frak off to who knows where and leave her to kill herself." Having heard the story from Harmon who had called to ask when she could babysit the dragon and they got to chatting.

She pulled out her nursing kit and looked at her daughter hp levels and seeing them the lowest they had been in cycles she was ready to rip the Fae's wings off with her bare hands.

Jessica was of course in no real danger of dying but she had taken her dedication to her work so close to that point on far too many occasions before and her parents had developed a system of reliable people to keep it from happening again. The whole system had collapsed and they were righteously angry. Jessica's health bar was the largest on Karth, other than the Fae of course. Hers was ¾ the size of a Faes but just like they didn't have quantifiable levels on Karth their health bars where only indications and had no numerical value.

She had not even used up 10% of her health but her parents were worried about the unknown long term side effects that working nonstop forgetting food, water and sleep could do to her. They had forgotten the loft not because they had been discussing the secret things she had shown them up there. Their memories of the loft were wiped when they found her lying on the floor of M.U.G. one morning with health bar so low it had turned red.

"That fucking loft again," her father had said.

"We just saw her 10 hours ago, how long did she slip out of time to make this happen?," Her mother had questioned and then they had spelled themselves reflexively forgetting the loft and its secrets. The new reality that knew was she could deplete herself to near death in less than 10 hours unsupervised. The truth was Jessica had spent nearly 2 months worth of time developing the genetic code for her steel-silkworms. She had come out occasionally to double check her figures and that is how it appeared to be a full 10 hours. It was a good thing at least some time had really passed or her parents would have believed someone had assaulted her.

They sat waiting in their kitchen taking turns holding their daughter for about an hour when Dr Pepper Smith arrived. She smiled warmly at them. The only thought in their minds about exactly what they had been through waiting for her to be conceived. 50 long cycles of trying they didn't care how self reliant she was she would always be their miracle.

"I am sorry, I couldn't get here sooner," She quickly apologized, "With the transports now functioning I was visiting some old patients that other doctors had taken on. I trust them and have worked with most of them for a long time but my patients are still mine and I like to do my own exams."

"We understand and thank you for cutting your travels short," Galen Strongwell said relaxing a little now that their trusted family friend was there.

"I see you have been giving her fluids," Dr Smith observed the bag floating of its accord above Jessica's head and to the left a bit.

"I know that doctors and nurses shouldn't treat members of their own family but I knew what she needed and had to do it," Galen said looking at her feet.

"That is perfectly understandable," Dr Smith said pulling out some smelling tablets from her bag. She would like to let Jessica rest a bit longer but she knew that her parents could not wait. She walked over to Jessica and broke the tablet releasing a foul stench under Jessica's nose. Jessica wrinkled her nose back and began coughing.

"Peter, you AssBitter, how dare you fart in my face while I am sleeping!," She yelled out without opening her eyes.

This made the three of them burst out laughing. Relief filled her parents but the worry was not gone entirely. Hearing them laugh and feeling her dad's arms holding her she began to open her eyes to see what was so funny. Dr Smith saw them first and gasped her right hand covering her mouth. A pang of worry seeing her reaction raced through her parents. They looked at their daughters eyes.

"Baby, your eyes," Her mother said.

"How though?," her father asked.

Jessica took her parents into a time lock instantly restoring their own memories of the loft and said, "It happened when I entered the admin password but I am going to let the doctor come to the conclusion that it happened when I teleported ok?"

They nodded their agreement and Jessica dropped the timelock. She could have said the same thing by thought but her connection with humans needed a more physical interaction than with the Fae.

The visit took about an hour and the doctor took some blood. She couldn't see any real problems with the eyes but took new high resolution pictures of them to update Jessica's iris code in the Karth database and to study later.