The felt had never felt better in her hands, the sewing machine clicking with an eerie precision as she continued her efforts to capture the essence of his personality. Eliza had always been excellent at making puppets, at getting their emotions just right, but for whatever reason, she'd been struggling with this one for weeks now, and hadn't yet managed to get it just the way she'd wanted. The way she'd hoped. She pulled away from the machine, the table, and pushed her glasses up her face so she could rub her eyes, groaning. The Hole was starkly quiet in a way that unnerved even her for a change, and she thought to herself maybe now would be a good time to get a snack.

Eliza headed out from the building and entered the main production area, walking to the vending machine. She stopped, slipped her hand into her pants pocket and pulled a few quarters, jingled them in her palm, and then started feeding them into the slot. She wasn't entirely sure what exactly it was she wanted, she just knew she wanted something that would be tasty enough to make her forget, even albeit momentarily, about her troubles with her work. She stared at the contents of the machine, running the gamut from salty pretzel sticks to chocolate covered raisins to, for some reason, a box of what looked like some kind of foreign trail mix.

She could still hear his voice in her head. She rested her forehead on the machine and raised her wrist, absentmindedly pressing in a selection, then listening to the whirring of its innards as it sprang to life to grant her request. She heard it drop into the bucket below, knelt down to retrieve it and when she stood back up, she screamed at the sight of someone standing behind her, visible in the reflection of the glass of the machine. Course, it was just Keagan. Eliza turned to face her.

"You can't sneak up on me like that!" she said sternly.

"Sorry," Keagan said, her voice hushed, as though she were frightened someone would hear them, despite them being, as far as she knew, the only two in the building right now; Keagan glanced around and stepped closer, "I need you to see something."

Eliza nodded, then quietly followed Keagan down the hall. They walked for a while, until they exited the building and were on the backlot of the studio now, where the mobile buildings sat. Keagan pulled a set of keys from her pocket, Eliza munching away, silent and confused, but watching intently as Keagan unlocked the door and then stopped, palm on the door as she turned to face Eliza once again.

"You can't tell anyone what you're about to see, is that understood?" Keagan asked.

"What are you hiding, a dead body?" Eliza asked, as Keagan pushed the door open, and the two of them stepped inside. There, sitting at a table, was a young woman, about Eliza's age, honestly. She had familiar features.

"You're back," the woman said as Keagan approached, "I was starting to think I was gonna just be a prisoner in here forever."

"I'm sorry that took so long, and don't worry, you won't be stuck here much longer, I've arranged it with a mutual friend of ours that you can stay with her for the time being," Keagan said, causing Eliza to furrow her brow in a mixture of confusion and suspicion; Keagan then turned to Eliza, motioning towards her with her hand as she said, "This is Eliza, she does all the puppetry and set stuff for the show. And Eliza, this is Claire."

Eliza reached out and shook Claire's hand, as she'd always been taught to do.

"Nice to meet you," they said at the same time, laughing nervously at the accidental synchronicity.

"And Eliza," Keagan said, exhaling as she looked back to Claire, "this is Claire. Bea's daughter."

Eliza had been hit with some whoppers in her lifetime. The death of her mother. Her feelings for Michelle. Liam's absence. But Bea having a daughter? That one took the cake.

***

Lexi was laying in bed when her curtains opened.

She wasn't undressed, hell, she wasn't even in pajamas. She had slept in her clothes - low rise jeans and a shirt with a leather jacket - after having passed out from drinking too much. As she lifted her head, hand half covering her eyes, she spotted the culprit of this invasion of privacy to be none other than Michelle herself.

"What are you doing here?" Lexi asked, groggy and frustrated.

"I'm getting you up," Michelle said, "what does it look like I'm doing? Now get up."

"Leave me alone," Lexi said wearily, tugging the blanket up over her head.

"Your life doesn't end just because his did," Michelle said, causing Lexi to pull the blanket back down a little, their eyes meeting; Michelle sighed and sat on the side of the bed, hands cupped in her lap as she added, "listen, I know what it's like, you know? To have your father taken away from you? You don't even get to say goodbye, or anything. He's just...gone. I know that feeling, Lexi, like, way too well."

"First he left me on purpose, then he left me by sheer happenstance," Lexi said weakly.

"He didn't leave you on purpose, he went to jail," Michelle replied, "and, for what it's worth, he was framed, as we know, so it wasn't even his decision."

"Yeah, well," Lexi said, rolling over to avoid further contact, "it was his decision to be involved with people like that, to work all the time and forget he had a daughter. I bet if I'd been a son he would've included me. Made time for me. But no, same gender as my mother, whom he also couldn't stand, so I had to be excluded as well."

Michelle sighed. She could hear, and understand, the deep pain in Lexi's voice. She stood back up and started to pace, rubbing her forehead. Finally she stopped and looked at Lexi, who was now staring at her.

"Come with me," Michelle said, "you want to prove your father wrong in regards to your knowledge about business? Come with me today."

"Where are you going?" Lexi asked, and Michelle grimaced.

"To help Bea settle Liam's estate," she replied quietly.

***

Eliza, now seated back in The Hole, was stitching.

This was deliberate stitching though, the kind that came with intent, not something she was doing as a way to maintain her sanity. The kind she did on days she was feeling bad to keep herself from falling further apart. Actually, as it turned out, this was a puppet she'd been working on for a while now, and she was finally coming close to completion, maybe another week or so at best. Not that she'd show it to anyone. As her fingers busily worked, her mind turned back to what Keagan had told her about Claire.

She'd come here from the city, and she'd been staying in a hotel on Keagan's dime, without Lexi knowing. The whole thing smelled like an emotional bomb waiting to go off, and frankly, Eliza didn't want to be at ground zero for this one.

So instead she set her sights, her focus, entirely on the puppet. She had everything she needed, of course - after all, the studio kept her fully stocked with material - but she also had the things she really required beyond that to make it personal. The items that had once belonged to them. Hell, even the fabric for the puppets suit had been made entirely out of one of their actual suits. She had reference photos, though, again, not that she'd need them. She knew what they looked like. After all, she'd only spent a good portion fo her life around them.

Beatrice had a daughter. Eliza bit and chewed her lip as her glasses slipped further down her nose. If Michelle learned this...course, Keagan had made her swear to secrecy for the time being, not that she would've said anything anyway but still. But if Michelle were to learn, no, when Michelle learns of this, goodness, the total and complete obliteration of her heart would be impossible to watch. Eliza knew of the road of shrapnel that was ahead of her, and sadly, her vehicle wasn't all terrain. Eliza finally stopped, her busy hands now sitting calmly in her lap as she leaned back in her chair, pulled the loupe up from her eye and exhaled deeply, blowing her hair from her face.

Everyone grieved in their own way, this just happened to be hers.

***

"I'm still not entirely sure what it is I'm doing here," Lexi said, as she and Michelle walked from the car into the law offices where Bea was preparing to meet with Liam's attorneys. To spare her the trouble of having to manage his estate while working through her grief, Liam had made it so that a few months could pass before Bea was contacted about the whole matter, and she did greatly appreciate that.

"You majored in business, that was, like, your whole thing," Michelle said, "I just...I guess I thought using it as a way to get you out of the house, and maybe be a voice of reason here, would be good for you."

"I don't think anything is good for me," Lexi said.

"Not even Keagan?" Michelle asked, grinning, but Lexi didn't return a reply, which made Michelle worry; Michelle tossed her hair, cleared her throat and added, "look, really it's just a way to make sure Bea doesn't get screwed, you know? Not that Liam would try to do that, but still, it's good to have extra eyes on stuff such as this and-"

"She's so busy with that call in show that I rarely see her," Lexi said, "between her work and my work and...I just...how do you stay a couple when you rarely interact? That might work for others, but that doesn't work for me."

Michelle and Lexi stopped in the hall, letting some people walk by them, waiting for them to pass before continuing.

"Have you told her this?" Michelle asked, and Lexi, leaning agains the wall, arms folded, shook her head. Michelle sighed, adding, "well don't you think you should, especially since it pertains directly to her?"

"I guess I don't think you should have to constantly be fixing things for a relationship to be manageable. Something shouldn't be so broken that it so consistantly needs replacing," Lexi said, shrugging, "and she would probably agree, but you know Keagan, she's like...well, she's like Bea. She's whole heartedly in love with the work. It's weird, it's like...it's almost like you and Keagan are both sides of Beatrice but cleaved into two halves."

"That sounds...painful," Michelle said, the girls chuckling.

"Like," Lexi continued, "you know, like...Bea loves her work, but she also loves the people around her. Keagan is like her in the sense of loving the job, and you're like her in the sense of loving the people. Not to say they don't overlap for both of you - obviously, you're capable of caring about the artistry just as much as she's capable of caring about the people - but I'm just saying it's like Bea's two main interests got split between you two, and she's...she's always going to drift more to work than to me. That isn't a dig against her, either, it's just who she is. She's driven. Motivated. I respect that, it's....it's like, one of the things about her that I was wildly attracted to, but at this point in my life..."

Lexi looked down the hall, tears forming in her eyes as she bit her lip, voice wavering.

"Attraction to a singular trait doesn't mean said trait can carry that attraction forever," Lexi finished, "at some point, you need more than that. Not everyone does. But I do."

Lexi and Michelle locked eyes, and Michelle nodded slowly, her heart breaking a little. She knew what this was. She was witnessing, first hand, the death of a relationship, whether it wanted to die or not. Michelle sighed and they continued walking again, Lexi wiping her eyes with her palms.

"Eliza and I...I think maybe it's that age gap that helps us," Michelle said, "she's old enough to recognize that her work isn't her defining legacy and reconciling the fact that her connection to someone, like me, is far more important in the long run."

"Well lucky you then," Lexi said coldly.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to make you feel-"

But before she could finish, they reached a room where Bea popped out through the door, exhaling, rubbing her forehead. She smiled at them both, then hugged each one of them tightly.

"Thank god you're here, both of you," Bea said, "I don't know what to make of what he's left me."

"...what did he leave you?" Michelle aske.

"Everything," Bea said softly.

As Michelle would soon learn, she meant that quite literally. Everything the franchise had ever made, that'd he gotten paid for, he'd kept. He kept, gained interest on and put aside for Beatrice in the result of his early exit before her. Now that that plan was the reality, this meant Bea was on the cusp of inheriting a lot of money, the kind of amount of money she didn't know what to do with, and that scared her. Wealth of that magnitude scared her to death.

"Alright," Lexi said, rolling her eyes, "allow me to help where I can."

And with that, she walked past Bea and into the office.

***

"Do you...do you think she'll be happy, you know, to see me?" Claire asked.

Claire and Keagan were still seated in the mobile office on the backlot, while they ate food Keagan had ordered in for them.

"I can't imagine not, if what you're saying is true, which, considering what you've told me so far, is hard to imagine it isn't. You're way too specific and detailed to be some kind of con artist," Keagan said.

"I just really wanted to know her," Claire said, "I always wanted to know my mom and...and when I finally had to face the truth of my birth parents, I just felt like I had to reach out no matter what the outcome might be."

Keagan smirked and nodded, listening closely. After all the horrible things Bea had endured in the last few years, she figured having Claire in her life may finally make up for it all. But for everything that seemed like it had the potential for positivity ahead, the same couldn't be said for Eliza, who finally finished her work and stood up, gripped the puppet and slipped one arm inside it before raising it to match her eye level, smiling.

"It's so good to see you," she said, sounding so relieved at its presence. And why wouldn't she be?

She had always liked having Liam around.