✅ My Cousin's Keeper [NaNoWriMo 2021]

Act V: 118. My New Leaf

Author's Note: The final act! I divided my rough plan for these books up into 5 parts, and I think they've all come out around the same length so far. So I hope this means that I don't need to worry so much about accidentally running into the 200-chapter limit. And for anyone on my Patreon who is watching me edit live, if your access to the documents hasn't updated just click the link to Act V on Google Docs, and send me an access request mentioning your patreon username. Thanks :)

I woke up in an uncomfortable position, and blinked a few times to clear the sleep from my eyes as I tried to work out where I was, and why. Not being completely sure wasn't exactly a rare thing after the last few weeks; it was almost like it was my new morning routine. There had been nights waking up in my own bed, or reclining in a gaming chair in my home office. Once upon a time if I was working late and nodded off, Ffrances would have wheeled the chair next door into the bedroom and rolled me into my bed; but she wasn't being quite so helpful now. A few times I'd ended up sleeping in the spare room because my fiancée was already asleep and I didn't want to disturb her; or even on the couch if Tess was already using the spare room.

Of course, if Tess was sleeping in the little box room I would always remind her to surprise herself with an accident; I didn't want her to get too used to sleeping without a nursery to make her feel safe. I'd eased off on making her wet the bed for the most part, now only saying the post-hypnotic trigger once or twice each week, but I thought that if she was removing herself from her other comfort items, planning to sleep without stuffies or a pacifier, she would need a little something extra to help her feel safe like a small child. All my more complex plans had been put on hold for a while, just to make sure that Ffrances would be ready to support me again when Tess needed to be regressed.

I wasn't comfortable. I wasn't lying down, either. This wasn't my home office, or the lounge, or my bedroom. Nor was it one of the little apartments in the Fitzgerald Building where I might have decided to crash when I was too tired to drive home after work. I fished around in my recent memories, trying to remember where I was, but there wasn't much coming to mind. Then I shifted position and felt the solid bulk of a metal shelf unit against my shoulder, and the connection that had been evading my sleepy mind finally clicked. I'd fallen asleep in my seat again, but not in front of a computer. I was in the break room at work, and must have been pretty exhausted if I didn't even remember going to sleep. I muttered something under my breath that might have been slightly impolite, or included a couple of four letter words, but my voice was probably too indistinct for anyone to be offended. I dragged myself out of my seat, stretched, and massaged some life back into my neck where my head had been resting on one side.

Next I rubbed my eyes, and tried to remember what I should be doing. It wasn't coming clearly. Ever since that conference, my sleep cycle had been pretty irregular. And apparently that wasn't good for timekeeping, or for remembering what I was supposed to be doing. After a few seconds of confusion I recovered my thoughts enough to look at my phone. That would tell me when my next meeting was supposed to be, and how long I'd been here. But as it turned out, the first detail that I focused on was the time. Bold pink numerals at the top of my lock screen said 7:24. I glanced out of the window, wondering how I'd managed to sleep so long past the usual end of my shift without anyone waking me, and it still took a couple of minutes to realise that something didn't look right outside the window; and a little longer to see that the golden glow painting the landscape orange suggested the sun was somewhere in the direction of home. It was seven in the morning, and my coworkers would just be starting to arrive for work. Once I understood that detail, I knew that I didn't need to worry too much. At least, not while my phone wasn't showing a message to say that I'd missed it.