A/N: This is the first story that I have submitted to this website in a while.

This story is based on the M. Night Shyamalan film 'Old', about some holidaymakers who go to a beach and find themselves ageing at a remarkable pace. Due to various circumstances that I shall not go into, I have spent most of the last decade isolated inside of what I like to refer to as a loony bin. As such, I began to suffer from loneliness and boredom for years prior to the pandemic.

In any case, I hope that you enjoy this story.

As Homer slowly drew his car into the parking space, Marge looked out over the beach.

"Are you sure this is the place?" she asked.

Homer gave a snort. "Marge, I found it online."

"That doesn't answer anything," she frowned at him.

Homer gave a whine and got out of the car, calling, "Come on, kids. Let's enjoy the last day of summer vacation."

When they started to make their way down the stone steps on the grassy slope, Bart saw that Jessica Lovejoy was here with her father. Blushing a little, Bart licked his fingertip and pulled his hair back.

Lisa rolled her eyes, but when she saw Nelson sitting at the rock-pool, scaring away crabs with a piece of driftwood, she couldn't help but let out a small giggle.

"I hate the beach," Abe complained as he made his way behind the rest of them, "It's too hot and then it's too cold. And it reminds me of D-Day."

"Dad," Homer grumbled, "Stop whining."

Abe grunted. "You do the same thing every day."

Santa's Little Helper wagged his tail as he walked behind them. Sniffing the air for a second, he began to growl.

"What is it, boy?" Bart asked, leaning down beside him.

"Oh, he probably smells cats," Marge waved her hand around, "There's a pet cemetery next door."

"Why is there a pet cemetery next to a beach?" Lisa asked.

"I have no idea," Marge replied as they reached the bottom of the steps and she struggled to try and open the beach umbrella.

Bart and Lisa chose to walk together by the edge of the cliffs. Lisa wanted to try and find peculiar shells, while Bart simply wanted to find rocks to throw at crabs. As they made their way further down, Lisa noticed a sandbank.

"Hey," she knelt down and pulled out a doll, "I think this belongs to Sherri. Maybe Terri; I'm not sure."

"Oh, who cares?" Bart grumbled as he pushed some sand aside with his foot. Then his eyes widened as he took a closer look. "I think this is Skinner's toupee."

"Ew," Lisa groaned, "Bart, put that down."

Bart shrugged and for once did as he was told. He started to scratch at his shorts. "Lis, I think my shorts are getting a bit tight."

"Well, why don't you eat them?" Lisa muttered under her breath, still looking for shells.

She picked up a piece of paper in the sand. Shaking the grit off, she took a closer look at the symbols. How fascinating. But perhaps she should carry on with the task at hand.

Abe had fallen asleep in his deckchair already. Homer had to walk away, mumbling that he wanted a beer but Marge wouldn't let him take beer on a family trip.

Marge was trying to read a book underneath her beach umbrella, Maggie sitting between her legs. Moving her sunglasses down her nose so that she could look at Homer, she asked, "Homer, what are you doing?"

"I'm making a sand-angel."

Marge just rolled her eyes and went back to her book. She placed her hand in the picnic basket for a cookie, but when she found nothing, she turned her head to peer inside.

Most of the food was gone.

"Homer," she asked, frowning at him, "Have you eaten our food already?"

"No," Homer answered truthfully, still making a sand-angel.

Marge looked up and saw Bart and Lisa sitting by the rock-pools, scoffing away at sandwiches and juice cartons and string cheese. Jessica and Nelson were beside them, also eating away heartily.

Well, at least they were sharing.

"My jacket feels tight," Nelson stood up and pulled it off, discarding it in the pool as the crabs snipped away at it.

"Nelson," Lisa argued, "Don't dump your clothes in the water!"

"It gets wet anyway," Nelson shrugged, "Stop nagging me."

As he walked off, Lisa wondered if she needed another swimsuit. It was digging into her chest and her chest certainly felt tight. Particularly around the top for some reason.

Krusty was smoking another cigar, the ashes hitting the ground as he fumbled with his phone. Grumbling that he couldn't get a signal, he threw it into his bag and decided to wade in the water.

Reverend Lovejoy was talking to Hibbert about a small mole on his back, which the good doctor believed was nothing.

Marge was falling asleep in the heat, after handing Maggie over to her father. Santa's Little Helper crouched down beside Marge and fell asleep as well.

All in all, it seemed to be a normal afternoon.

Except that everything would dramatically change very soon.

Marge woke up to the sunlight shining in her eyes. Grumbling, she pulled her sunglasses back on and noticed that the beach umbrella had fallen on its side. Getting up, she stepped over the dog and started to try and pull it open. Looking down at her watch, she noticed that she had been asleep for nearly an hour. It was amazing that she hadn't turned red in the sun.

Just as Marge started to open the beach umbrella, she felt a small tug on her shorts.

"What?" Marge squawked down at the girl looking up at her. "Well?" she asked, her hands out at either side.

She gave a groan as the beach umbrella fell down again. "Lisa, if you don't have anything to say –"

"What, Mom?" Lisa's voice came from behind the rocks.

A chill ran down Marge's spine. Turning around, she took a good look at the anxious-looking girl standing next to her. She was wearing a blue bikini, but Lisa had arrived here wearing pink…

Marge crouched down and squinted, staring directly at the bow on her daughter's forehead.

Gasping, Marge held a hand close to her mouth. "Maggie?" she asked in a small, choking voice.

The girl nodded, holding her arms out for her mom to hold her. The pacifier was tucked inside of her bikini, her toes sticking out of her sandals. Maggie was no longer a baby. Instead she seemed about six years old.

Marge dared herself to slowly look upwards as her other children came out from behind the rocks.

They were both much taller. Bart's hair was longer and his limbs were lankier. Lisa's hair had started to curl at the ends and her pearls were now wrapped around her wrist in place of a watch, far too small for her neck.

Marge tried to calculate how much older her children seemed. They had been on the beach for just over two hours. If Maggie had been almost two this morning and was six now then it stood to rights that her children had somehow aged four years in the space of two hours.

"MARGE!"

She was broken from her trance by the sound of her husband shouting. Looking over her shoulder, Marge saw a commotion further down the beach. Homer, Dr Hibbert, Krusty and Reverend Lovejoy were all kneeling down around something. As Marge ran closer, she saw that it was Abe.

He was lying on the ground, his arms outstretched, as Dr Hibbert tried to apply pressure to his chest.

"Mom?" She heard Lisa call. But Marge barely noticed that her children were getting closer, even as she felt Maggie clutch onto her shorts.

"Homer?" Marge asked.

"Wake up!" Homer was shouting into his father's face. "Wake up!"

"It's no use," Dr Hibbert stopped banging the old man's chest and hung his head, "He's gone."

Homer placed his head in his hands and began to cry. Marge clasped her palms in front of her lips and wondered what ungodly force was present on this beach.

"A-Are you sure you can't climb up the steps?" she asked Dr Hibbert.

"No," he shook his head, "I tried. I just blacked out."

"What's happening on this mashuggana beach?" Krusty put his cigar out in a rock-pool.

"The children," Marge grabbed Dr Hibbert by the shoulders, "Something's happening to the children!"

Dr Hibbert took a look. Now he could see that all three Simpson children seemed visibly older. Looking over at the other beachgoers, he could see that the same thing had happened with both Nelson Muntz and Jessica Lovejoy. Jessica was lying on her back, her swimsuit having torn in two as she had sunbathed. Nelson had stopped trying to scare crabs when he noticed that he had outgrown his shoes.

"I – I don't know wh-" Marge began, her eyes darting around.

Dr Hibbert looked at the woman's face. "Marge, are you frowning?"

"Of course I'm frowning!" She shrieked at him.

He put his hands up. "No, that's not it. Marge, you have crow's feet."

Marge pulled her powder puff out from her pocket and pulled at her eyelids. "Oh my god," she gasped, feeling the edges of her eyes, "I – I look older! How – How old do you think I look?"

Dr Hibbert shrugged. "I'd say…I'd say that you look almost fifty." He laughed and then frowned again. "This is very serious, Marge."

"Of course it's serious, doc!" Homer finally stood up. "My dad's dead!"

"Homer," Marge told him softly, or as softly as she could under the circumstances, "Look at your children."

He did so and gave a small scream of fear.

"Thanks, Dad." Bart muttered.

"It's clear that this place has been touched by Hell," Lovejoy glanced back at his daughter as she grabbed a towel, "Look what it did to my daughter!"

"Hell didn't do that." Bart muttered under his breath.

Then his eyes widened when he looked down at Santa's Little Helper. The dog had not moved from where it had fallen asleep an hour ago. Just like Abe, Santa's Little Helper seemed to have died in his sleep.

Krusty argued, "I'm going back up the steps."

But as soon as he made his way up, he started to sway and then fell onto the grassy bank, before sliding back down to the sand. He opened them and called out, "I'm OK!"

Bart asked Marge, "Mom, does this mean I'm old enough to drink?"

"No!" She cried, furious, "You're sixteen!" Then she paused. "I think."

"Well, how sure are you?" Lovejoy asked as his daughter came up.

"We've been here for two hours," Marge counted on her fingers, "And, well, Maggie's teeth have not only all grown in but they're starting to fall out."

Maggie was indeed holding up a tooth that had fallen from her mouth.

Dr Hibbert placed his hand under his chin. "It seems that we seem to age much, much, much faster on this beach than normal."

"Any of us could work that out!" Krusty snapped, pulling another cigar from his trunks.

"So that means that we age one year for every half an hour on this beach." Marge inadvertently pulled Maggie closer, digging her nails into her youngest child's skin.

"We'll be dead by tomorrow," Marge gave a small whine and placed her head in her hands as she began to cry, "When I said I wanted to grow old with Homer, this isn't what I meant."

Homer placed an arm around her as he looked back at Dr Hibbert. "Does that mean that Dad – died of old age?"

"I think so," Dr Hibbert sadly nodded as Reverend Lovejoy pulled a towel over Abe's body, "It's affecting all of us."

"Maggie will have wasted her whole life on this beach," Marge looked back at her daughter, who now looked closer to seven than six, "She never even said her first word."

"I never got to use a fake ID!" Bart cried. Then he paused. "No, wait, I did."

Before Homer could strangle him, he asked, "Hey, where's Lisa?"

Dr Hibbert then asked, "Where's Nelson?"

"Nelson, I'm scared," Lisa curled up underneath the stolen beach umbrella.

"I know," Nelson pushed back onto his elbows, "I always wanted to steal a car. Now I'll never get the chance."

"I never got to graduate," Lisa ran a hand through her thick curls, "I never got to solve mankind's most difficult mathematical equations. I wanted to be on the same scale as Mozart, Salieri, Edvard Munch or Voltaire. Now I am stuck somewhere that is the mirror image of Ponce DeLeon's dream!"

"I didn't understand any of that, Lis." Nelson admitted truthfully.

She gave a small smile at him. "I know."

Ten minutes later the two of them emerged from under the umbrella to see Homer and Lovejoy burying Abe's body.

"Dad?" Lisa asked.

"Yes?" he asked, slowly turning his head, still in mourning.

However, he immediately snapped out of this once he got a good look at Lisa's tummy.

Marching up to them, he shouted at Nelson, "What the hell did you do?"

The others all turned to look. Then they saw Lisa and Nelson holding hands, looking obliviously at the party.

Once Lisa's eyes turned downwards she gave a loud scream.

"My daughter's pregnant…" Marge's voice trailed off.

"And I thought I'd be a teenage parent first." Bart murmured.

As soon as Homer had decked Nelson across the face and the two of them started to wrestle each other in the dirt, Lisa begging for them to stop, Marge ran up to her and placed her hands around her.

"Lisa, how –" She started to ask, but Lisa was weeping profoundly.

"Mom, why am I pregnant?" She began to wail.

"If she came into the waiting room, I'd say that she was six months gone." Dr Hibbert pointed at her.

"Lisa, I don't want to have to say this," Marge leaned down as the two men stopped punching each other, "But you're going to give birth in a few minutes."

"What?" Lisa started chewing her nail as Marge started walking her over to the towels in the shade.

"Please," she told her, "You have to be strong. For me, OK?"

"OK, Mom." Lisa was still crying.

Nelson was scowling at the whole situation. Then he did perhaps the most mature thing that he would ever do. Storming up to Reverend Lovejoy, he demanded, "I want to marry her! And I'm not gonna leave her like my dad did!"

Between Lisa's huffing and screaming, most of the party did the best that they could. Marge was squeezing her daughter's hand. Homer, whose cuts healed up almost instantaneously, knelt at the end, calling out rather unhelpful remarks. Dr Hibbert took over and began guiding Lisa through her contractions. Maggie, who now seemed to be aged nine or ten, pulled her legs close to her chest and twisted the pacifier between her thumb and fingers. Jessica Lovejoy could simply stare at the situation. Krusty, however, was smoking the cigars like there was no tomorrow, although you could say that this was true in his case.

"Nelson, don't you think you're a little young –" Lovejoy began to argue, but the young man pointed a stubby finger into his face.

"I was ten this morning! Now I'm twice that age! And I might not live to see tomorrow! If I wanna marry her, I'll marry her!"

Lisa gave out a horrific scream as her waters broke.

Then there was an awful silence.

Bart, knowing that something must be wrong, started to push Maggie away, shielding her from what was going on.

"I think I know why the children started eating all of the food." That was all that Dr Hibbert could say.

Lisa began weeping again as she held the small bundle in her arms, as her mother started to join in.

Lisa's child had not survived the birth.

It took two hours before anyone said anything else.

Marge sat with Homer under the beach umbrella, now moved back to the main part of the beach. Maggie, now in the first stages of puberty, was wrapped in a spare towel, her bikini breaking in two long ago. Jessica Lovejoy sat looking out into the ocean, her father by her side as he recited Bible verses in a bid to comfort her.

Krusty had passed out from drink, which was probably the best way to go, considering that he might not last more than three or four hours. Dr Hibbert kept suggesting theory after theory, all of which were as daft as the last, but made perfect sense considering the situation.

Bart, Lisa and Nelson had buried the baby in the sand next to Abe and Santa's Little Helper. Lisa stood up and wiped her nose on her hand.

"Hey, hey, Lis," Bart tried to reassure her, "We'll get through this."

"I don't know if we can, Bart," Lisa argued, too weak to try to raise her voice, "Going back up the steps won't work. I doubt that swimming will work. How will we get off of this beach?"

"We'll climb."

With that, Nelson started to grip the edges of the cliff. Bart and Lisa stood back, watching him go. Lisa kept pleading with him not to do this and Bart screamed at him to go on.

The commotion caused everyone else to look around. As Nelson managed to get around ten feet up, they all wondered if he would actually make it. After reaching twenty feet, Lisa dared to call out his name.

A few feet further up from that, Nelson started to feel woozy. As his eyes closed and he started to drift away, he slowly but surely managed to let go and fall down onto the sand below.

Marge and Lisa gave out loud screams as Nelson's body hit the ground with a sickening crunch.

It was sunset by the time that Dr Hibbert chose to check on Krusty. As he had expected, the man had started to decompose. He must have been dead for at least fifteen minutes.

At least he had gone out the way he wanted and not like that poor Muntz boy.

"A mother at sixteen," Lisa said to herself as she wandered barefoot in the sand, Marge's top and shorts fitting snug on her body, "and widowed at twenty-three. And I'm still eight."

"I know, Lis," Bart knelt his face against hers, his bristly chin tickling them both, "I know."

Lisa took a good look at her brother. If it weren't for the fact that he was blonde and quite a bit thinner, he looked just like Dad. She looked back at her parents, now having moved to the entrance to the cave. Maggie was trailing after them, still a baby even though she was physically old enough to drink. Lisa wondered if her little sister would have ever left her mother's side, even if they had never come to this evil place.

"I'm sorry that I chose this place," Homer told Marge as they sat down on the sand, Reverend Lovejoy lighting the beginnings of a campfire, "I never would have suspected –"

"No-one would," Marge held his hand in a comforting gesture, the last few blue curls in her hair falling across her eyes.

She leaned in and gave him a kiss. "I still love you, Homie." She whispered, closing her eyes and pressing her face into his cheek.

Further into the cave, Jessica Lovejoy was scanning the tunnels.

"We've tried that," her father told her, supporting himself on a rock behind her, "Jessica, I think it's time to accept our fate."

"You might, Dad," his daughter sighed, gripping the end of a branch in her hands, "But I'm not so sure."

He gave a small smile. "The young; always so curious and determined."

"We've always been like that, Dad," she chuckled, "Even when we're rebellious."

"You remind me of your mother," he frowned as he tried to remember Helen, now a blur at the back of his mind, "I wonder what she will do when we don't come home."

"She'll survive," Jessica told him, her back still turned, "They always do."

"They'll always want to know," Lovejoy argued, "I wonder if Flanders will take her in. She – She'd be a good mother to those children."

"She's a good mother to me," Jessica strummed her fingers across the branch, "I never realised until now."

Homer and Marge were lying against the stone wall, facing the fire even as their eyes began to fail.

"Marge, do you remember the first time we went camping?"

"You drank a six-pack of beer and urinated on a skunk," Marge groaned.

"I know," Homer chuckled, "Ah, that was the summer of 1974."

"1974?" Marge asked. "Are you sure? It – It feels much later than that."

"Really?" Homer asked.

Marge nodded. "1974 seems far too long ago for us to have been teenagers."

Homer shrugged. "Must be my memory in my old age."

Marge chortled. "Oh, Homer."

She lay her head across his lap. Maggie, sitting a few feet away, groaned loudly.

"Where's Dr Hibbert?" Bart asked as he reached the cave entrance.

"I think he went out to the waves," Marge said, sleepily, "To tell you the truth, I wouldn't blame him."

"Mom?" Bart asked, "Can – Can I sleep here tonight?"

Marge smiled. "Of course, honey." As she shuffled further up, her son took his place beside her. "What's that?" she asked.

Bart looked down at the piece of paper in his hands. "It's a bunch of symbols."

"It's a code," Lisa gasped as she leaned over and pointed, "I just need to remember which ones. Bart, wasn't this the paper you found at the top of the steps?"

When he nodded, she grabbed at his arm. "Maybe it can help us find a way out!"

"Lis, are you sure?" he asked.

"We have nothing left to lose!" she cried, her voice echoing around the cave.

"I'm not sure," Marge interrupted them, "It could be a dead end."

"Mom," Lisa pleaded, "We could still get out of here alive!"

"Please," her mother begged, "It's too dangerous."

But Lisa was scanning the paper anyway. Writing the letters into the sand with her finger, she examined the symbols carefully.

By now Homer was falling asleep. In the dim light he bore a remarkable resemblance to Abe.

Marge took a look at her watch. They had been here for fifteen hours. She was already starting to look her age, with her gums growing steadily sorer by the minute and her voice cracking. Lying down on the sand, she looked across at Homer beside her.

"Marge," he mumbled, half-asleep, "Why – Why did we want to leave this beach in the first place?"

The corner of Marge's lip curled and she started to rub his upper arm. She held her hand out and clutched Maggie's hand.

"Maggie," she whispered, "Don't leave us, please. Bart, Lisa, I don't know if you can hear me, but…please don't leave us. Don't…don't abandon us. We love each other. We stick together."

Then she gave one last sigh before closing her old and tired eyes. "We've been together for more than thirty years. We'll always be together."

Bart reached over and held his mother's head in his arms. Marge seemed to register this, turning slightly as she let herself fall into the sand.

Maggie kissed both of her parents in turn, saying the words that they had longed for her to say.

"Mommy. Daddy."

Bart tugged the final towel out from Marge's bag and covered his parents, before making his way back to Lisa.

"Have you gotten anywhere?"

Lisa stood up and pointed at the message she had drawn messily into the sand. "Go through the coral."

Then she looked towards the cave entrance. "Bart, there's a coral reef by the rocks. I think there's a tunnel. We can go through it. We can get out of here!"

"But what about Mom and Dad?" Bart asked, looking back at his parents. Maggie had pushed herself to her feet and made her way over, expecting instructions.

"I don't think they'll make it," Lisa's voice started to croak, "Bart, I've lost so much today."

"I know." Bart held both of his sisters close to his chest as he let them silently weep.

"We need to try," Lisa marched towards the back of the cave, calling out, "Jessica?"

Jessica Lovejoy was leaning over her father, lying still on the ground. "Just go," she said without looking up.

"Jessica –" Bart began, but she repeated herself.

He paused for a second before kneeling down and kissing her on the cheek. She still didn't look up.

The three Simpson children made their way out of the cave, holding hands as they went.

Sometime later Jessica made her way over to the fire. Picking up Marge's powder puff, discarded on the sand, she opened it. Then she double-checked the woman's watch, still on her wrist.

They had been here for twenty hours. Jessica herself was now about fifty years old. She wondered if Bart, Lisa and Maggie had made it. Going over to the entrance, she saw Marge's shawl caught in the coral.

Placing a hand to her mouth, Jessica tried not to cry. The three of them must have been caught in the waves and swept out to sea. Was that better than staying on a beach where you aged at an alarming rate? Jessica wasn't sure.

All she knew was that she was the last person left.

Jessica lay on her back, choosing to look up at the stars during her last few hours on Earth, even though they would soon be swallowed up by the rising sun.

"Lisa?" She heard Marge calling, "Is that you?"

Jessica had no idea what to do. Eventually she replied, "Yes."

Marge gave a small groan before asking, "You didn't try to escape, did you?"

"No."

Marge murmured something before she rolled over.

All was quiet after that.

Once the sun was high in the sky, Jessica Lovejoy made her way back out to the beach. Her vision was worsening and her hair was going grey.

Just like her mother's.

Jessica wondered what her mother was doing. She must be worried now. Maybe she had gone to that useless fatso cop and tried to file a police report. Mom didn't know how lucky she had been by going to the book club instead of the beach. At least the Simpson family had been together.

Sitting cross-legged on the sand, Jessica shut her eyes as she listened to the waves. She suddenly realised that she hadn't seen any seagulls. Aside from the crabs, there were no signs of life here whatsoever. Since Santa's Little Helper had died then surely all animals on this beach suffered the same way as humans.

Jessica Lovejoy was not sure how long she sat there. All she knew was that she could feel the midday sun on her aging back, before it shone onto her face. When she opened her eyes again her hands were crooked and the bones were jutting out.

Sighing, she looked out at the waves and breathed her last breath.

"I love you, Daddy."

"Well, that trial was certainly a success." Mr Burns lowered his binoculars as he stepped out of youth chamber.

"Sir, I don't see why extracting the youth from civilians is a good idea. Why didn't you stick with prisoners?"

"Smithers, when one reaches their fifth century, they tend to experiment a little. As I recall, you chose to do so at university."

"That was private."

Burns looked at the results on the screen. "Yes, it seems that I have gained another two hundred and forty-six years. There's no such thing as being too careful. By the way, what happened to those Simpson children? How many years did I extract from each of them?"

"31 years, nine months and one day, sir."

"All three of them?" Burns squinted at the results on the chamber's screen. "They can't have left the boundaries, could they?"

There was a knock at the door. Before either of them could do anything the Springfield police and the FBI had stormed into the mansion.

"What in the name of Vesuvius is this?" Burns scowled, his stick-thin arms folded on his hips, wearing just a lilac towel.

"Mr Burns," Chief Wiggum faced him, "You are under arrest for unethical experiments and at least a dozen counts of murder."

Burns scoffed. "Prove it."

"We can," a voice came from the front entrance. Bart, Lisa and Maggie stepped into view. They were still in their swimming costumes, tired and miserable, but they had managed to convince the police to believe them. Which was not that difficult, to be honest.

After the beach had been closed off and was being studied by the FBI, it was decided that the Simpson children (for lack of a better word) were to live with their aunts.

None of them were very pleased.

When the two hags came to pick them up from the police station, Patty and Selma looked the three of them up and down.

"Well," Patty groaned, a cigarette still dangling from her mouth, "at least you didn't end up looking like Homer."

"We're not exactly thrilled about this either." Lisa grumbled.

When they were inside of the apartment, Bart asked his aunts – who were now physically only a few years older than him – as they set up the VCR in order to watch MacGyver, "Do we still go to school?"

Selma snorted. "I dare say that Lisa could easily pass her final exams if they were handed to her right now."

"But you," Patty pointed at him, "You're another story entirely."

Bart gulped.

The two hags eyed each other and grinned. "You're going to get a job. Nothing fancy; maybe a burlesque club or a bartender –"

"I've already worked at both of those places."

"Then you'll know what to do," Patty stubbed her cigarette out in her ashtray, "It's either that or you take care of the two of us."

Bart groaned.

Lisa grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and dragged him towards the kitchen unit. "Bart," she hissed, "Consider yourself lucky. We could have died on that beach!"

Then her eyes started to well with tears. "My baby died on that beach, Bart. I might finally be as old on the outside as I seemed on the inside, but due to my physical and psychological age, I will never have another baby."

She didn't want to say that there was still the slight possibility that she might one day become an aunt, but decided to leave that for another time.

"We have to be glad for the years that we did have with Mom and Dad and Grandpa, Bart. Because we're grown up now. Both of us need to take responsibility."

The two of them glanced over at Maggie, who was reaching up towards the cigarette smoke and wafting her hands around. Then they looked at the last photograph that had been taken of the five of them, framed on the wall.

They clasped hands and silently made a promise that they would not let Homer and Marge down.