"Not too many, I hope," said Kelly. "That'd be an awful lot of... goodness goin' around."

"Well it would balance all the badness," she said, "I saw more of that while you were gone than anything else..."

He tilted his head at her. "Oh?"

Lily chewed her lip and nodded, "People are...they're a lot more cruel when you're all alone," she said.

"Ain't that the truth..." Kelly raised an eyebrow. "Who's been pickin' on you?"

"While you were gone it was one of the directors I used to work for when I was still doing acting," said Lily.

"What happened?" Kelly pressed. Though his tone and expression didn't change, the ends of his hair had begun to writhe...

"Well he thought I must be lonely and....he tried to...'keep me company'," said Lily, hoping that that would say enough.

Kelly's eyes narrowed, hair now blowing about behind him as though in a gale. "Did he hurt you?"

"I got away," said Lily uncomfortably.

"Tell me who he is and I'll find him," said Kelly.

"He lives in a mansion with lots of bodyguards!" protested Lily, "You'd get hurt!"

Kelly smiled at her, brows knit in question. "I would, huh?"

"Well...maybe not," the corner of her mouth lifted ever so slightly.

Kelly's hair stopped billowing and wrapped around her, cocooning her to him as his expression softened and he gave her a kiss.

Lily snuggled into him, "I'm glad to have you back,"

"Glad to be back," said Kelly, brushing his claws through her hair. "Shadows ain't much fer company."

She giggled and kissed him, "I hope we never part again,"

"I don't plan on it," he assured her. The hair unfurled itself and he gave her one more pet before standing and stretching his spidery limbs. "How 'bout we take a walk?"

"That sounds wonderful," she said taking his arm.

Kelly led her along the beach, the sight of the two of them together creating a bit of a stir as they passed through more crowded areas.

Also on the beach were Bert and Antimony, Bert was leading Antimony onto the surf with a net in his hand, "We're going to have a clam bake later so I thought we'd do some scrounging and see if we find anything tasty,"

"You ever go clam-diggin' before?" asked Antimony.

"Couple times, Kurt spends a lot of time out here when he's not at work and he was nice enough to show me how to do it," said Bert.

Antimony paused as xe tried to imagine Kurt and Bert doing something together. "That musta looked weird..."

"It felt sort of weird, like I was looking at a fun house mirror showing myself years from now," said Bert as he dragged his net along the silty bottom, pulling it up to reveal a crab and various shellfish.

"It'd be neat to see my future self," mused Antimony, holding out a bucket for whatever had been caught.

Bert fished through the net and put in only the large, healthy looking muscles, clams, oysters and crabs, "You'd be Randy VII, Only blacker," Bert teased giving xet a kiss.

Antimony giggled. "An' with better fashion sense," xe added.

"Ain't it the truth," said Bert as he held up a particularly gnarled looking lobster, "Ew, look at 'im!"

"I seen some shit, man," said Antimony in a gravelly voice intended to be that of the lobster.

Bert gave a laugh, "You think we should eat 'im or throw 'im back?"

Antimony squinted at the lobster. "Throw 'im back. He made it this far..."

Bert tossed the lobster back into the sea, "There 'e goes!" he put an arm around Antimony, "Think we got enough food or will we need another bucket full?"

Antimony snorted. "We gonna need another bucket."

"Of course, the way you and the rest of the family eats we might need six buckets," said Bert.

"Then we best get fishin'," laughed Antimony, skipping ahead of him.

On their way to their beach towels to get another bucket Bert accidentally knocked over a sand castle, "Hey! Watch it foo! I fight you!" said Burt.

Antimony wrinkled xet nose at him. "He ain't do it on purpose, ribbetang!"

"Ribbit? Is you a frog?" Burt prodded Antimony.