Chapter 29: It's 4am. Do you know where your children are?

Tearney doesn't care who these ghosts were in life, and she doesn't want to hear their stories. All she needs to know is that they are invading the homes of the living, and they need to go.

Beating them up isn't really a requirement of the job, but Tearney does it anyway.

Once she's shown them who's boss,  she banishes them.

Rory becomes a child.

The Bowmans put a pool in their yard, and decided to host a party to celebrate it.

The Fox family of course are invited. Their two teenage sons head immediately for the hot tub, where Tennyson is hanging out with her friend Tiffani Pelly. Their daughter Aimee goes out to play gnubb with Kelsey.

Tearney bought a new grill for the patio, and cooks up some hotdogs.

Aiden felt like he had to invite Patricia Bedlington, but all she does is complain about the number of children at the party.

Tearney gets into an argument with Kenji Midden when he suggests there are other ways of dealing with ghosts besides sucking them into the banisher.

"You could remind them of the full lives they've lead and ease their concerns about their loved ones and convince them to move on, " he says.

"They steal candy from children!" Tearney shouts at him.

As the party winds down, Kelsey and Rory retreat upstairs to play.

"That was success," Aiden says as he snuggles up to his wife, "Let's never do that again."

"Deal," Tearney answers.

Kelsey becomes a teen.

Jacy becomes a child. He wants to be an International Super Spy when he grows up.

As does his twin sister Jinx. She also has dreams of going to into law enfoircement one day, but as a Forensic DNA Profiler. Neither twin is aware of their family's criminal past.

The local business office is redecorating and wanted to display works by local artists. In Appaloosa Plains, there's only one artist, so Tearney gets the whole commission for ten new paintings.

"I think it's time you told me the truth," Tennyson confronts her father.

"Truth? What's this about?"

Tennyson sighs, "I'm obviously adopted. Out of five kids, I'm the only blonde, and I look nothing like either you or Mom. Were you ever going to tell me?"

"You aren't adopted, Tenny," Aiden says, "You're my daughter."

"But not Mom's?"

Aiden shakes his head, "You were born before Tearney and I got together."

"And what about my real mother? Who is she?"

"I can't tell you that. She can never know where I am."

"So, you just stole me away from her and went into hiding?"

Aiden rubs his hand over his forehead, "Not exactly. I had custody of you, because your mother was a minor. In high school. And I had to go into hiding...for other reasons. I took you with me rather than leave you with my parents. No one from my past can know where I've gone, Tenny, and that includes your mother. Do you understand?"

"You don't trust me?"

"It's not you I don't trust, Tenny," Aiden sighs, knowing he can't satisfy his daughter's wish and still protect his secret.

Tennyson and Dakota grow up,  get married, taking the name Fox-Bowman and move out together into a large ranch house. The Foxes give the new couple Thunder, the foal from their horse Willow. Tennyson goes into the medical career, while Dakota follows his mother into politics.

"She hates me," Aiden worries, "I took her from her mother and now that she knows it, she hates me."

"She doesn't hate you," Tearney reassures him, "She just wants to know where she came from."

Kelsey spends a lot of her time catching lizards, snakes and other creatures in the wild. She can't possibly keep them all, so she's thrilled to discover that the local pet store will buy them from her.

Tearney wakes at 4am, sensing an intruder in her home.

She's not about to let him get away with any of her stuff.

The fight doesn't go well for her, butt at least she stopped him before he took anything.

She watches the thief make his getaway, not daring to call the police. She is after all still a fugitive herself. Across the street Felipe Marshall and his youngest son are just arriving home, at 4am.

Kim Marshall is out on the porch telling ghost stories to their teenage son. Tearney wonders if they saw her scuffle with the burglar, and if they even care. She may be a ghost hunter and a fugitive from justice, but at least her kids are at home and in bed at 4 am.

Aiden finds that his kids are a great cover; people give him odd looks when he plays hopscotch by himself.

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Challenge Notes:
Party to Remember goal was achieved. I was originally planning to do the standard event type party, I even had Aiden learn guitar just to play the required song for it. But the one thing I was missing was an event. All my birthdays were falling on weekdays, and I hate trying to squeeze parties in after school.
So, I put in a pool and a BBQ and Gnubb set and went for a weekend pool party instead.

I've been having more issues with Tea's Ghost Hunter career. Most of the time she isn't getting credit for the jobs. The job tracker will list 0/5 spirits/angry ghosts/whatever even after she's taken care of them, and the job icon stays over the house, with the mist and other effects, even after all spirits/ghosts are dealt with, only disappearing after the 3 am cut off. So Tea never gets paid per job and never gets credit for completed jobs. Luckily she's made it to level 10 in the career just from Logic skilling and donating the spirits she collects. (And that's the only money she makes, too, along with her stipend. Even the rabbithole investigation jobs are broken and don't complete.) Weirdly, there are a few times that the jobs do complete. The last time she managed to get credit from doing one job, the other job still pending also disappeared when she finished the first one. This was ling before the 3 am cut off time, too.
So, as you can imagine, I've largely blown this career off. I send Tea out to collect spirits using the spirit tracker, and only send her on jobs where there are spirits to collect, and ignore the ghost jobs and rabbithole jobs. (Unless I need a fight for the week, then I'll send her on a ghost job to beat up a ghost, lol).

Kelsey has been chosen for heir. I'm really tired of Tearney's fighter requirement, and look forward to the next gen taking over. And yes, I'm totally counting the fight with the burglar as a fight for the requirement.
Of the five children, only Jacy inherited the French Culture trait. (Both Aiden and Tea have it from their Tricou ancestry). So, I will be sort of sad to lose it, though I am kind of tired of hearing the French song whenever Aiden or Tea showers or cooks. I miss Sun Young's Chinese song, lol.

Aiden reached Adult stage without getting a midlife crises. Martin once said that it's coded so that more fulfilled Sims don't get them, and that number of children is a factor in this. I've noticed that my Sims who have achieved the tops of their careers and their LTWs before reaching adulthood but who only have one or two kids often get a midlife crisis, while unemployed Sims or Sims that haven't gotten very far in their careers or achieved LTWs but have a bunch of kids don't get them. (Thessaly and Riley Enmity stand out. Neither of them put much effort into their careers, and did not achieve LTWs until some time after becoming adults, but they had 4 kids and got no midlife crises.) And here's Aiden, unemployed, still waiting on his LTW (Lap of Luxury. He needs 255k net worth, and we're at 190k or so), but he's got 5 kids and no midlife crisis. This kind of bothers me. I mean, that would be fine criteria for Sims with Family Oriented traits, but if they don't, I don't like that not having a bunch of kids while being otherwise completely fulfilled should trigger a midlife crisis, while being unemployed and unfulfilled, but having a ton of kids means you don't get one.