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Me: Oh boy! I better go to sleep soon so I can get up early and actually get sleep! :)
My Brain: Comes up with ideas for a Fanfiction where Opal/Claire from Jack Stauber’s OPAL escapes her house to go on a quest to find Opal’s Burgers.
And on the way there she goes in a grocery store (Which has Opal’s Burger Patties on sale). And there she meets “Jeff” from Jack Stauber’s SHOP: A Pop Opera, who was last minute grocery shopping for the holidays. (the store was out of turkey/ham, and Jeff decided to settle for burgers. And that's where he found her. Standing there. Staring at a box of Opal's Burger Patties. ...Blocking the way Jeff needed to go.)
After startling her, (and apologizing) Jeff manages to make friends with her. Jeff initially tries to find her family in the store, when he realizes that she was all by herself. He asks for her name, but since she doesn't really talk, she taps on the logo of the box she's holding. ( "...Opal's Burgers? Opal? Your name is Opal?" *insert Opal being happy here*)
Jeff asks her what she's doing there all by herself and she taps at the box again. Sadly, Jeff doesn't understand and misinterprets it as her saying she wanted burgers.
He then offers to help find her family. Opal reacts very negatively to this. (A bit of a meltdown?) She does NOT want to go back home. It takes a second, but Jeff gets the message and assures her that he won't bring her back to her family. Once Opal calms down, Jeff offers to pay for the burgers she was holding.
He pays for the burgers as well as his own groceries and walks out the store with her. Jeff soon realizes that Opal didn't have anywhere to go, so he invites her to stay with him for a little while.
At Jeff's home, he prepares some burgers for the both of them. Opal, overwhelmed with joy but also confused on what she's supposed to do with the burger, does what she does in the beginning of the OPAL short. (imagine Jeff encouraging her to eat by saying "Go on, you can do it!" and then she starts dancing.) Jeff is very confused and kinda concerned ('Does... Does she not know that she's supposed to eat it??'), but cheers her on anyway to make her happy. Eventually he gets her to eat her burger (much to his relief) and later sets up a spot on his couch for her to sleep.
Opal stays with Jeff for several weeks. All the while, Jeff is having trouble deciding what he should do with her. He didn't exactly plan to have a kid, and bringing her back to her (what he correctly assumes is abusive) family is out of the question.
He tries to make Opal happy at every opportunity he has, and makes sure she's never out of his sight.
Each time they go back to the grocery store, Opal ALWAYS points out and/or picks up a box of Opal's Burgers. Jeff usually gets it for her if she asks, but sometimes refuses and tries to get her to try something different instead.
This often frustrates Opal for multiple reasons. Opal's Burgers as a brand has been a major source of comfort for her for a long time, and to be rejected them doesn't feel very good. Not only that, but she has been trying to tell Jeff that she wants to go to The Opal's Burgers restaurant so she can live with the family that she assumes will be there. And while Jeff gets that Opal is obsessed with this brand for some reason, he doesn't yet understand what that reason is.
As much as she likes Jeff, Opal one night decided to take things into her own hands once again and ran away to find the Restaurant.
Jeff wakes up the next morning to see Opal is no longer there, and freaks out. For a moment struggles to decide whether he should search for her on his own, with help of authorities, or just move on and pray for her.
Eventually Opal finds the restaurant and goes inside to look for the family on the billboard. The employees, seeing she's all alone and a mess, let her in and give her a free burger. She just blankly stares at the burger.
After a while, an employee goes up to her to ask if she needs anything. Opal responds by pointing at the family printed on a flyer. It takes a moment, but the employee eventually figures out that she is looking for the people on the flyer.
The employees then break it to Opal that the family in the advertisements weren't real. It wasn't a real family that ran the restaurant. They were made up just to advertise the food and the restaurant chain.
Upon hearing that, Opal broke down into tears. The family that saw her really wasn't real. Nobody could ever see or know her.
The employees then proceeded to comfort Opal, and report that they had found a little girl.
Jeff, who was frantically looking for her at this point, heard that a little blonde girl was found at Opal's Burgers and rushed over there as fast as he could. And when he got there and saw Opal, he rushed up to hug her and began crying happy tears.
Seeing Jeff so happy to see her okay made Opal realize that maybe there ARE people out there willing to look out for you.
The employees explain to Jeff that Opal wanted to meet the family in the advertisements. Jeff, realizing that she probably viewed that family as her own, apologizes to her for not understanding what she was trying to tell him.
The employees then ask if Opal is his daughter. Jeff, unsure what to say, decides to ask Opal if she was okay with being his kid. Opal happily nods and hugs him. The two then live happily together.
...However, Jeff is having a little bit of difficulty. The cost of supporting another person was completely unexpected, and he was having some trouble getting by on his own. So he does everything he can to find a job to support them both.
Not only that, Opal came from a completely different home. And he still has to figure out how to actually legally adopt her. Because he fears that if he doesn't, Opal would be taken away from him. And the thought of her going back to her old family or somewhere worse really scares him.
He might have to meet Opal's old family and learn her real name in order to adopt her. (Imagine Jeff going through Opal's old house in a similar matter that Opal did in the short. And he wanted to go alone so Opal didn't have to experience it, but Opal probably came along (or snuck along) anyway so Jeff didn't have to go alone.)
Either way, these two end up being a very happy family.