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[stepfordbot]

They'd been doing well. The world hadn't ended, five was home, the house was full- they'd celebrated. They'd danced and laughed and lived and had fun as normal families do. They reached out to one another to build a better understanding, they spoke more than they ever did in their youth without the specter of Reginald hanging overhead. It'd been light in the mansion. Full of joy. Potential. For the first time since her creation Grace could say without a shadow of a doubt, she was happy. Without a single qualifier or exception. Happy except for the things she had to endure hearing Reginald say about the children. Happy except for how she wasn't allowed to truly be happy.

She was allowed to feel, to express that feeling. She was allowed to change her appearance outside of the strictly defined aesthetics painted onto her by her creator.



And then the ghost. The specter, the threat of everything she managed to recover, to build being taken away again. Of being pared down to the bare doll of a thing she'd drifted about as just after Reginald's death. Reminded in so many ways she has a place and a purpose and it isn't what she wanted- because she isn't meant to want anything.

She's a tool. There are rules.

It means resuming the old routine. The old appearance. All the lovely clothing the children, her children helped her choose folded away in her closet, unworn. Back to the old swingdresses and pincurls, the carefully painted lips and penciled brow. Back to stiffly, mechanically baking and preparing tea at a certain hour. Back to filling the dessert case, a single deviation from the old programming, because the kids are upset. They snack more when they're upset and cookies make everything better. How many batches she's baked now- she doesn't know. She's lost count. The counter and cooler are full of pies, cakes, and pastry, sweet after sweet kneaded, shaped, baked, and dusted with sugar. Flour on her hand and apron but not a curl out of place- not a single, lilting note sung under her breath. Grace bakes in absolute silence.

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[fireandthread]

Charlie's returned from a shopping trip, buying new fabric for a project she's been filming. She may not be back in Ohio, but the girl has to work. Has to keep those fans on YouTube coming back, watching her videos, liking and sharing.

She's headed to her room to drop the bags off, but the smell of baked goods...it's a lot. She doesn't even have to look to know this is a lot. She can smell chocolate chip cookies, lemon snaps (her personal favorite and ones she will fight people over). Loads of gingerbread, too.

Mom was upset. She didn't need to ask to know. Hell, everyone in the house was upset. Dad was back and while he couldn't be touched, it was still a lot.

So Charlie drops her bags off in her room, posts a quick message on social media that there will be a delay in videos, and then she's in the kitchen, heading over to mom and wrapping her arms around her waist, pressing her head to her back. Just like she used to do as a kid. A surprise hug. It was a game she used to play, just for herself.

She'd sneak up on mom, give her a hug and then say "Got you, mom!" in the most joyful voice a child could master.

Only this time, that phrase had a different meaning. THis time, it was a different kind of 'got you.'

"I got you, mom," Charlie says, voice quiet. She has her, she won't abandon her or let her think she's doing this alone.

"Okay?"

[stepfordbot]

A fond memory- every moment with the children being bright, behaving like kids instead of the little soldiers Reginald expected of them is deeply precious to Grace. She can't forget, there's no fog or loss or corruption, every detail captured for her to recall when things became difficult. Like now, with Reginald back, with the kids reeling. Thinking on it and hearing it is jarring for the millisecond it takes Grace to force herself to relax into the embrace, clean hand slipping down to rest against Charlie's. Always a bright surprise. Always so cheerful, her sunshine girl. "I'm fine." She isn't. She could be, should be, but she isn't. It'd be so easy to resent the kids for becoming more to her, for helping her learn who and what she could be without Reginald and his expectations- And maybe she can't because it's impossible to resent them- but that isn't so. She harbors secret, frustrated, negative emotions tangled up around Reginald easily enough. But with him back, with the threat of reprogramming overhead- everything is in question. "But thank you, dear."

[fireandthread]

"Mom, hey," Charlie says with a small sigh and a faint pursing of her lips. She lets go of her mom and steps around to lean a hip on the counter, watching her mom carefully. She looks over her face, trying to find some kind of tell that mom isn't giving her a truthful answer. But this is a habit for Charlie, trying to figure out if she can trust a person or not.

She knows, however, that she can trust mom. She always has and always will.

"You need to tell me the truth. It's not going to do anyone any good if you don't, especially not you. Especially if it's about Dad." She's not dumb. She knows this is what has everyone upset, so it's not too far a leap in logic to assume mom is upset, too.

"Peter refuses to program Pixie to recognize him."

[stepfordbot]

She finishes pinching the crust with one hand, eyes flicking over to Charlie. She always made a point to pay attention to them when she could and even now, in the midst of what might be her first brush with the concept of anxiety and panic, she won't deviate from that core of her programming she chose to embrace. With the pie finished, with no other projects clamoring for her attention or laundry to do or dishes to wash and the oven already full with another round of ginger and pumpkin bread- she stalls. Stands, unmoving, unbreathing, fighting through the complicated tangle of obligation, gratitude, and pitch black terror. Her smile is stiff, her eyes flickering. "I can't." It's as simple as that. "I can't. Not- not about Mr. Hargreeves." Not that it's ever stopped her from thinking or feeling any particular way, but she can't act on it. Can't speak against it. Can't explain what they did to force her into compliance with his ridiculous scheme to bring the kids back together.

[fireandthread]

"Yes, you can. It'll be good for all of us if you did," Charlie replies, reaching over and taking her mothers hands with her own. She thinks over how to proceed for a moment, likening this to helping an overexcited fan work through what they want to say. But she can't really figure out if that'd even work for this moment and she frowns some.

It's clear she wants to help her mother. Painfully so with the way her eyebrows knit, her emotions on the subject clouding her features for a moment. Her own emotions, emotions she lets shine through with ease because she knows who the source is. It's herself.

Her mother had different emotional give-aways, like the flickering eyes, and the disjointed speech patterns.

Grace needed a distraction.

"I threw a cup at him. That hand-painted one that said 'fuck this shit' on it? I threw it at Dad, hard as I could." She pauses, waiting for Mom to react before continuing on. "It didn't hit him. It was headed right for him, and he didn't move, and it hit the wall behind him."

Mom's smart enough to figure out what that means, right?

"I was afraid for everyone, until that happened. Now?" A shake of her head and a one-shoulder 'no fucks given' shrug.

[stepfordbot]

"I can't." Asimov had three laws- Reginald had roughly one hundred. Subtle and particular and unyielding for all that she's managed to worm through the tangle and build herself space to have a sense of self. To be more than a tool, a toy, a stand in for real maternal warmth and comfort. There are a million things she'd say if coded obligation if programmed proprietary and politesse didn't paralyze her tongue.

Reginald is here. Reginald watches everyone, everything obsessively. He tracks, he makes notes- he'd noticed every and any little deviation.

Pogo didn't take much convincing before to turn her into that shell of herself. It's a miracle he'd been able to put her to rights at all. how much would it take for him to do that again?

Not much at all.

"You- Charlie!" It startles a laugh out of her, something high and sharp and real- something she tugs a hand away to slap over her face to muffle. "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that he's only semi-corporeal. Your father is home. There are rules. You can-"

And it hurts. She doesn't feel pain the way humans do, shouldn't feel it as anything more than a snarl of code, a tangle of static. "You left before. To get away. To be safe, to be happy. You can- again."

[fireandthread]

Reginald had rules and regulations and restrictions for everything, and Charlie ran away from them because even she was smart enough to see that so much was bad for people. They were bad for all her siblings, all his control and his training. It wasn't a normal childhood, and CHarlie wanted to do something better with herself. Even if that something better turned into making costumes for YouTube videos and money.

But, at least it wasn't listening to old records about climbing and fighting.

"Oh, no. No, none of that whole 'rules' thing. You're the parent. You're the only parent I will accept direction from, and if you ask any of the other siblings, I'm sure a lot of them will agree. Reggie's dead. He has no hold on any of us unless we let him and I refuse to."

Sunshine girl though she may be, she's also completely bullheaded. She won't let anyone tell her what to do. She refuses to let anyone upset or hurt her family. Reginald is just lucky he can't be touched, or there'd have been fire.

...okay, probably not fire, but an attempt to stuff all of the feelings of pain and anger and fear in the house down his throat. She can't do that to a ghost. It sucks. She's tried.

[stepfordbot]

"There are rules-" If she tries hard enough, maybe she can push through the requirements, the programming. "For me." Laws. Things coded in that she can't act against- the longer she's aware of them the more they burn- it was easier when all she had was Luther. He didn't need much from her and Reginald didn't expect anything more than compliance. Now that they're all back- she's glad for it, for them- but all the old arguments, all the old wounds are dragged up and she wants to protect them this time. She needs to. But if it's standing between them and Reginald? She can't. "I must follow your father's rules." There's no choice in it, for her.