The Little Jovian

It was a normal day in Denton TV Station. Cosmo and Nation were in the dining room going over a new script while LP was with Miracle and they were playing a little game together. Even if Miracle had to worry about twin babies she was about to bring into the world, she luckily still had time and energy to spend with her best friend. They were now playing hide and seek and Miracle was the seeker.

"Come out, come out, vherever you are!" Miracle called as she was nearly lost in the station still not finding LP. The younger girl must have been a great hider. Miracle hummed and was coming to the transit beam that was hidden in the station. There was a glow coming from it and it surprised the girl. "Oh, my gosh... LP! LP, come over here!"

"Are you trying to trick me?" LP asked, her voice coming from Rest Home Ricky's closet.

"No, I found something." Miracle said back, her voice shocked.

LP opened the closet door and walked out from it to join Miracle. She was shocked too and let out a surprised gasp.

"NATION!" both girls cried.

The red-haired doctor came in. "Girls, please, do not yell..." she warned the teens about yelling with sick people living in the station now. "What's the problem?"

The girls stepped aside and allowed another girl to come from between them. She looked very young and was very short and chubby. She had blood-red eyes with coco like skin with periwinkle hair tied into pigtails wih white ribbons, white gloves, a sleeveless orange dress with a yellow stripe, and white boots. Nation bit her lip in surprise.

"We don't know who she is or where she came from." LP whispered to the doctor woman.

"Well, did you ask?" Nation asked the girls.

"Ve vanted to see if you knew her first." Miracle explained.

Nation glanced at them, then looked down at the girl with her best friendly smile. She then hunched down, holding her bent legs to crouch down to the girl's height. "Hello, I am Dr. Nation McKinley, little one. I never saw anyone like you around here before."

The girl smiled shyly and tilted her head. "Salutations, Dr. McKinley. My name is Dorothy and I am from the planet Jupiter."

Nation was impressed with the girls vocabulary, then the Jupiter thing nearly caught her off guard. "Jupiter, you say?"

"Yes, ma'am," Dorothy confirmed. "The fifth planet from the solar system sun with eight moons."

Nation was again impressed. The girl was very young, but very intelligent. "You would make a great scientist someday... Why don't you go help yourself to some snacks in our kitchen? My brother is in there now." she pointed to the direction.

Dorothy smiled and went there, leaving the three older ones alone.

"Is she crazy, Nation?" LP asked.

"Yeah, I didn't think Jupiter vas populated." Miracle added.

Since they were aliens, it had to be true since they themselves came from a distant planet.

Nation shook her head. "She is from Jupiter... She had red eyes, all Jovians have red eyes. They're very endangered these days."

"In danger?" LP raised an eyebrow.

"Endangered," Miracle corrected, using her Earth knowledge she picked up from a Denton public school. "It means that not a lot of them are living around anymore because of termination of their population."

"That's right, Miracle," Nation said to the blonde girl. "Now, I'm not sure how she got here or why she came to us, but I expect you both to be very nice to her until we get her home to her family. Understood?"

"Yes, Nation." the girls agreed.

"Good," Nation smiled. "Why don't we go see her now?"

Nation, Miracle, and LP went to the kitchen. Dorothy was sitting in the glass dining table with the candlelight as she snacked on some cookies she found. Cosmo stared at the girl, standing by the door-frame and looked at the girls as they came in.
"How on Earth did a Jovian get here?" Cosmo whispered to the girls.

They all shrugged.

"She vas in the transit beam." Miracle said, quietly.

"Why would she come to us?" Cosmo looked back at the little girl feeding herself.

"We don't know, but don't excite her, we don't want to scare the poor girl." Nation told her brother.

Cosmo nodded, then put on a friendly smile. "Dottie, is it?"

"My grammy and daddy call me 'Dottie'." the Jovian girl said to him.

"Oh, okay then, Dorothy," Cosmo corrected himself. "Welcome to our home, I'm Dr. Cosmo McKinley, you met my sister and colleague, Nation. And those are Little Precious, Nation's step-daughter, my step-niece, and that is Miracle, a cousin of mine."

Dorothy smiled fondly. "Salutations."

"That's a mighty big vord for such a little girl." Miracle observed with a smile.

"I'm a child prodigy," Dorothy smiled proudly. "I'm only four years old and in the seventh grade."

"Jovians are very intelligent." Nation told LP and Miracle as a lesson.

"That must mean you go to an Earth school..." Cosmo noticed how she mentioned grades.

Dorothy nodded. She indeed did.

Macy came in, looking around and gasped, jumping back as she noticed Dorothy. She was about to scream, but Nation put a hand over the blonde woman's mouth.

"Shush!"

"That little girl has red eyes..." Macy whimpered to Nation. "Is she sick?"

"Sh-She has rare genetics, Macy..." Nation covered up nervously. "Why don't you go practice for tomorrow morning's broadcast?"

"I can't Nation, no one offered to be interviewed by me! If we don't have a new broadcast tomorrow, Farley might flip!"

"I know, but I don't know what to tell you."

The blonde woman glanced at Dorothy. "What's your name, little girl?"

"Dorothy, but my family calls me 'Dottie'." the purple-haired girl replied.

"Hello, Dottie," Macy smiled fondly at her. "How'd you like to be on TV?"

"Macy..." Nation nearly hissed.

"TV? As in television?" Dorothy asked.

Macy was astounded by her big vocabulary for her age. "A child prodigy... It's perfect! Our ratings will be through the roof!"

"Oh, I don't know about that..." Cosmo said nervously.

"Just think, you guys," Macy smiled at the siblings. "People will probably watch and know all over the world about a four-year old genius! She'll have more views than when my niece came to visit us!"

LP and Miracle slightly rolled their eyes at that.

"Come on, sweetie, let's see what you look like on set." Macy took Dorothy's arm and pulled her to the set of Good Morning, Denton.

"I really wonder what that little girl is here for..." Cosmo said aloud.

Nation nodded in agreement. She then looked at the time and looked down at the teenage girls. "Well, Miracle, it was nice having you, but you better get home for dinner with your parents."

"Yeah, it's getting qvuite late." Miracle agreed.

"Awww..." LP moaned.

"Don't vorry, Lil, I'll come over tomorrow after I finish my chores." Miracle looked at her, smiling.

"Yay!" LP cheered, then hugged the girl.

Miracle hugged back and patted her back. "See ya later!" she then went out the doors and went down the street to find the forest and then the castle.

"Come here, Precious, you can help me with dinner." Nation offered, seeing how sad LP looked as Miracle was gone again another day.

LP smiled and followed the woman. They went to the kitchen, Cosmo went to check on some patients, and Macy was with Dorothy. Even Bert seemed to be drawn to Dorothy, and no doubt Laura. Eventually Frank came home and grew curious of the attention and had met Dorothy. Finally, when Macy went back to her apartment, Farley turned down for the night and the studio audience went home to get to bed and the patients were sent to bed after Bert signed off, the aliens all met together and decided to privately talk with the new additon who didn't seem to be worried about going home.

"So, Dorothy, you say you're a Jovian, but who are you?" Frank asked.

Dorothy looked at Cosmo, Nation, Laura, LP and him.

"You can tell us anything," Frank allowed her to remain calm. "We're all friends here."

"You're more to that to me," Dorothy replied, softly. "I'm not just any Jovian... I'm from the future," she turned to the former Transylvanian princess. "You're my grandmother."

All eyes fell on LP as that shocking reveal was shown to them. Dorothy wasn't just any Jovian. She was from the future and LP's granddaughter. But how could that be? LP wasn't married yet or had any children. "How am I your grandmother?" she couldn't help but ask.

"I was adopted. Your elder son is one of my adoptive parents."

"I see..."

Frank felt instantly old. "That means I'm going to be a great-grandfather!"

"And Queen Lavender will be a great-great-grandmother." Cosmo chuckled a bit.

Frank glanced at the bald man. "Shush you."

Cosmo chuckled again.

"So, what are you doing here in our time, Dorothy?" Nation asked.

"I just need your help to get back to the future, I was with my family and something weird happened. We were vacationing all together in Transsexual, Transylvania... I found this old thing and wanted to explore it. It had this transmit beam and I went into it to see if it still worked... I guess it was a time machine and somehow I wound up here. Please, you all got to help me get back home, I really miss my parents."

"Don't worry, little one, we'll get you home." Laura assured her.

Dorothy glanced at her and smiled a little. "You remind me of my other grandmother..."

"Oh?" Laura sounded touched. She now wondered if her future included that she would have a child with Ricky at some point or another.

"Yes," Dorothy smiled back, then frowned and shook her head. "No, I shouldn't tell you all too much. No one should know too much about their own destiny. So please, everyone, do all that you can to get me back home."

"Don't worry, I have the technology, I believe, I am a scientist after all." Frank tried to soothe his future great-grandchild.

Frank took Dorothy into his pick-up truck and he drove her to the castle. He looked all around and parked up and saw that most of the lights were still on, meaning that Riff Raff and Magenta hadn't gone to bed yet. It wasn't completely dark, but it was pretty late to be out on a week night. Frank helped her out and knocked on the front door and waited for an answer.

Riff slowly opened the door and looked out to see Frank with a little someone. "Hello..."

"Riff, we need the lab." Frank said abruptly, without a greeting.

"We?" Riff raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, Dorothy and I need it this instant before it gets too late."

"Ah, yes... The Jovian... Miracle has spoken of you... Come inside."

Frank bobbed his head and took Dorothy's gloved hand inside the castle. Dorothy looked all around it like she were having some sort of nostalgic outburst of sorts. She must have visited the castle numerous lots of times in her day. Frank and Riff worked in the lab and had everything set up in the transmit beam of the castle to send Dorothy back where she came from.

The scientist and handyman came up to the Jovian.

"Well, Dottie, you can go back home now..." Frank said, nearly sniffling. He held the girl in a tight hug and patted her back.

"Thank you... Great-Granddaddy..." Dorothy whispered softly.

Frank sniffled and let go of her and wiped his teary eye with his pink rubber glove. "Go on now... See you in the future and now playing in the time space continuum."

"Yes, sir." Dorothy nodded, then went in the transmit beam to send her back in time. She waved to the men and she was gone in a flash of bright light.

Frank returned to the station later, without Dorothy. He had told everyone what happened. They were sad to let her go just as she met them, but then again, they would see her again eventually. Frank decided to put LP down for bed this time since he had been gone a while and she had rarely seen him all day.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, Little Precious?"

"Why did you send Dorothy back?"

Frank pulled the cover over her. "She needed to go home, honey... Her time period needs her just like me and Nation need you here."

"But, Daddy..." LP yawned as she got comfortable. "I'll miss her... When can we see her again?"

"Darling, she's your future granddaughter, I'm sure we'll see her again someday when you're older."

"Maybe..." LP yawned a bit more as her eyes started to feel heavy.

"Good night, sweetie," Frank kissed her forehead. "We'll see Dorothy again in the future..."

LP hummed, then fell asleep. She had really hoped to see her future granddaughter again very soon, but not too soon.