by I'm Not Mister Mxypltk, Grimm and TheTimeTrust
Mick and Shirley's room:
"When are we gonna do it?" Shirley Francis asked.
"Wha--?" Mick Harrison said as the sense of sleepiness he had felt since he woke up suddenly disappeared. "Again?"
"No, you idiot!" Shirley said as she threw a pillow at him. "Not that!"
"Do what then?" Mick asked.
"You know..." Shirley answered.
"Oh..." Mick said, remembering, "...that. Dunno. How about now? I think everyone's in the kitchen."
"Ooookay..." Shirley said, opening the door.
They walked downstairs and then to the kitchen, where they saw... well, pretty much everyone. Before walking into the kitchen, Shirley turned to Mick.
"This will make it official, you know," she said quietly.
"I know," Mick replied, grinning. "Let's go."
As they walked into the kitchen, Mick coughed and said, "Excuse me, uh, we've got an announcement to make..."
Kristofer Schanz noticed Shirley was in the room and tried to make eye contact with her. She didn't seem to notice him. Is she angry at me? he wondered. Or maybe she's sad... but what could be the reason for her to be sad? And what is this announcement Mick has to make? Ah. Of course. It's so obvious. Shirley must have told Mick about her and Kristofer. Now Mick was going to announce they were splitting up. He should have guessed it before: Shirley felt sad for Mick. She's so sensitive.
"Shirley and I..." Mick began, looking around the room and seeing Grimm grabbing a container of milk.
"Well?" Grimm asked. "Spit it out, already."
"What the hell?" Mick asked, eyeing the skull-faced biker. "What is this guy still doing here?"
"He's one of us now, Mick," Kristofer said. "So are Dirk and Turkish."
"Are we really that desperate? I mean, I got nothing against Turkish... and Dirk seems okay... but this guy's a freakin' biker with his face painted like a skull! I mean, don't you watch movies? Nothing good ever comes with a biker, especially one with his face painted like a skull!" Mick said, looking at Kristofer. "And just who the hell are you?"
Kristofer looked at Shirley and thought, I can't blame him for hating me.
"He helped us in the fight the other day, Mick," Tobias Christopher said. "I think he deserves our trust."
"That fight? C'mon, that was a piece of cake, man," Mick replied.
"Easy for you to say. You were unconscious the whole time while your boyfriend M'xy did everything!" Grimm said.
Lance Lorenzo, silent until that moment, started laughing and fell off his chair.
"Yeah, well..." Mick started saying.
"WE'RE GETTING MARRIED!" Shirley yelled, almost bursting over with impatience.
Everyone in the room stopped talking. They looked at Shirley and Mick. Soon, they were all congratulating the couple. Even Mick and Grimm now shook hands. "Welcome aboard," Mick said to the biker from Hell.
Kristofer Schanz was frozen in place.
"Thanks, Mick. I'm really happy for you," Grimm said, taking the man's hand while leaning forward and putting his arm around Mick's shoulder. "But, uh, just so you know, it's not paint."
"Wh-what?"
Grimm leaned forward, empty eye sockets "looking" directly into Mick's eyes. Mick stared into the hollow cavities.
"I don't know if the others have noticed yet. Maybe they're just being polite. But, it's not paint. This is my face. Well, anyways, congratulations, pal!"
Grimm punched Mick in the shoulder in a friendly way, but almost knocking the stunned man to the floor, and walked off out of the kitchen.
Mick just stared off into space.
"Honey?" Shirley asked, walking over and waving her hand in front of Mick's face. "Are you okay?"
Mick continued staring and said, "It's not paint... it's not paint..."
While everyone was still gathered, Tobias said, "Lance and I have an announcement of our own to make."
"Don't tell us you're getting married, too!" joked Danny.
"No, nothing like that," Lance said, unusually serious. "Tobias and I... we're leaving the team."
Everyone was silent for a moment before Lance and Tobias explained the reasoning behind their decision to take indefinite leaves of absence from MBL Consulting.
Although they hadn't made it too evident, both Lance Lorenzo and Tobias Christopher had been disturbed by their brief reunions in the Castle of Crossed Destinies with the people they had loved and lost. Lance now wanted to find out if it was possible that his girlfriend, Donna Dover, was somehow alive. At the time he had originally been captured by the Chicago Police, Donna had been struck by a stray bullet. Lance was told she was dead, but he had never learned the truth for himself. Having seen an alternate timeline version of Donna who had survived, even if that timeline was merely a false vision, Lance was filled with fresh hope that she was still out there somewhere, alive. If so, he would let nothing stop him from finding her and making up for the years they had lost.
Tobias, meanwhile, wished to look for a lost young relative. He remained silent on his identity, but several guessed that T.C. wanted to find the boy he called Lucky during the Castle-induced vision. Tobias and Lance had decided to travel together back to the United States to begin their relative searches in Chicago, protecting each other on the journey as they had always done in the team.