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Once again, Rizzo found himself perched on the windowsill, staring into the vast blackness of the night sky as the chilly air sent shivers throughout his body. Normally, he would get bored of that kind of unchanging view- why people were so awestruck at the sight of the natural world was beyond his comprehension- but, in light of recent events, he couldn’t help but search the sky as though, amongst the stars, he would find what he had lost.
After all, Gonzo was up there, somewhere. Rizzo didn’t know exactly where, but he knew for sure that Gonzo wasn’t in his empty bed (which Rizzo had made the mistake of looking at enough times by now to know that it was best to avoid even glancing at it).
Unfortunately, the unwanted sight briefly entered his field of vision when his head instinctively whipped around to look at the door, even though the gentle knock that had prompted the movement ought to have gotten lost in the silence of the room and the tumult of Rizzo’s thoughts. Though, it couldn’t go unnoticed, considering how everyone had been avoiding him as they would were he carrying the plague that he never carried, not even once. Well, they weren’t necessarily avoiding him, but it seemed that- aside from the occasional invitation from Pepe to have a dip in the jacuzzi- they were operating on a ‘don’t speak unless spoken to’ basis with him. He couldn’t say he wasn’t grateful for the solitude; so much as trying to carry on as normal put more of a strain on him than anything he had endured in his brief stint as a labrat. What hurt to a lesser degree was seeing how easily this whole ‘moving on’ thing had come to everyone else.
“Hey, uh, Rizzo,” Kermit’s soft voice greeted. “Do you mind if I come in?”
“Go ahead.”
The door creaked open slowly, allowing the light of the hallway to seep into the room, which was already aglow with moonlight. When Kermit stepped into the room and went to close the door behind him, Rizzo turned back to the window.
“So…” Kermit began, approaching the rat as though any sudden movement would cause him to scurry away. “We’ve noticed you’ve been in here a whole lot lately.”
“How observant of you all.”
Although he hadn’t anticipated a warm welcome from the reclusive rodent, Kermit certainly hadn’t expected such a frosty reception. Awkwardly, he bobbed his head.
“Y’know, Rizzo, if you ever wanna talk about it, we’re all here for you.”
For once in his life, Rizzo- alarmingly- didn’t say anything.
“Rizzo? You heard that, right?”
Rizzo responded with an agitated hum.
“‘Cause, we miss him, too,” Kermit went on, hesitantly adding, “Maybe not as much as you, but-”
“You can say that again…” Rizzo murmured.
“Huh?”
Rizzo folded his arms.
“If all the rest of you miss him, you sure have a funny way of showing it.”
“Of course we miss him,” Kermit insisted, a hint of melancholy in his voice. “He was our friend. Well, he is our friend. But, life goes on. It has to.”
When Rizzo shifted uncomfortably, Kermit simply watched for a moment, before his eyes wandered to the sky. He sighed.
“But, I guess it’s kinda different for you, huh?”
The statement wasn’t accusatory, but Rizzo was clearly eager to feel attacked by something, as if he deserved it. Finally, he turned to look at Kermit, who, upon noticing this, looked right back at him.
“And, what’s that supposed to mean?” he questioned indignantly.
“Oh, uh, you know,” Kermit cleared his throat, suddenly realising how Rizzo had misinterpreted what he’d said, in that he hadn’t really interpreted it at all. “We both love him and all, but- well, it’s… different.”
Rizzo averted his gaze again, this time to his lap.
“ Oh.”
“Oh?”
Uncomfortable beneath Kermit’s stare, the rat fiddled with his fingers. After a moment of consideration, Kermit climbed onto the windowsill, sitting opposite Rizzo with one leg resting on the ledge and one dangling over the side. The cool night air finally hit him; he couldn’t help but shiver, giving Rizzo an excuse not to answer right away.
“I- uh… just figured no one really knew, is all.”
“If it’s any consolation, I don’t think anyone else knows,” Kermit replied. “Not even him.”
If it was any consolation, Kermit deduced that it wasn’t much of one. For a few seconds, the pair of them sat in silence, watching the sky.
“Why didn’t you tell him before he left?”
Rizzo glanced over at Kermit, but he had to direct his attention elsewhere before he could say anything.
“Before this whole alien thing, I just didn’t wanna screw everything up between us. And after… I figured if I’d ‘ve told him he might’a stayed, maybe,” Rizzo answered. “I couldn’t take that chance ‘n do that to him. Not after I saw how crazy he went trying to get those guys to find him. And, if it was that easy for him to leave, he obviously- well, y’know…”
Rizzo couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence, and Kermit didn’t need him to carry on to understand what he meant. Sensing Rizzo wasn’t done, he didn’t reply. All he did was wait out the silence.
“I still wish he’d stayed- even if things never changed between us. It ain’t the same without him.”
As Rizzo fixed his eyes on the sky, Kermit nodded in understanding and did the same.
“I wish he’d stayed, too.”
The stars reflecting in his eyes, he let out a wistful sigh.
“Ya do?”
If he had taken even a second longer to think about what Kermit was saying, Rizzo probably wouldn’t have sounded so surprised at what he considered a revelation. In his defence, the frog had stoically taken Gonzo’s departure; he hadn’t hid himself away in his room and rooted himself to the windowsill on self-appointed lookout duty.
“Of course,” Kermit answered. “I’m glad he did what was best for him and what made him happy. It’s just a shame that he couldn’t be happy here with us.”
Another moment of quiet fell upon them. It gave Rizzo another chance to think, and Kermit noticed the way he tensed up- squirmed, even.
“What’s on your mind, Rizzo?” he asked gently.
With clear discomfort, Rizzo scratched the back of his neck.
“I’m… I’m just feeling kinda crummy about the jacuzzi.”
“The jacuzzi?” Kermit repeated cluelessly.
“Yeah,” Rizzo responded. “Pepe sorta tricked him into building it- it was easy ‘cause he was, like, totally nuts. I laughed along with it. Neither of us fessed up.”
Kermit got the feeling that, looking back on it, Rizzo couldn’t see what was so funny.
“I take it that’s why you haven’t used that thing since he left, huh?”
The lack of a reply from Rizzo confirmed his suspicion. This time, it seemed that Kermit didn’t have the words of comfort that Rizzo had hoped for. He cleared his throat.
“D’you have any regrets about… this whole thing?”
“Yeah,” Kermit bobbed his head. He swallowed thickly and looked down. “I wish I could’ve done more to make him feel like he belonged here.”
“Don’t beat yourself up about it, man,” Rizzo insisted with a dismissive gesture. “I mean, I’m the one who’s supposed to be in love with the guy, and it’s not like I did a whole lot to get him to stay. Knowin’ you, I bet you did all you could.”
A faint smile tugged at the corners of Kermit’s mouth.
“Thank you, Rizzo,” he said softly. “Don’t beat yourself up, either.”
Reluctantly, Rizzo nodded.
“Y’know,” Kermit added. “There’s a chance he’ll come back, someday. Maybe we’ll be able to do what we didn’t get to before he left.”
Rizzo groaned.
“Here’s hoping, buddy."
With that, the pair of them shared the windowsill in perfect silence, watching the limitless sky with the knowledge that he was up there- somewhere- and the hope that their wait for him wouldn’t be long.