(Odd Squad Otis and Olympia Fanfic) The Perfect Partner

Broken Friendship

Otis and I rushed toward the lab where Oona was joyfully pulling two perfect pieces of toast out of her toaster. We had defeated the time loop and avoided being doomed to eternity together. Which is great because eternity is an awfully long time.

Oona smiled joyfully at both of us as we ran up to her. In triumph she held up the two pieces of toast. "They're perfect! Well, now we know that if you want a perfectly toasted piece of toast all you have to do is get caught in a time loop with it for a few years and ta-da! Perfect toast. You have to be super patient though. Thanks for your help guys."

I smiled and adjusted my glasses, "No problem. Now we're time loop escaping experts. We could even start our own business. 'Otis and Olympia's Time Loop Solving Co; You Have a Time Loop, We Have a Solution.' It'd be great! Although, if someone was stuck in a time loop it might be hard for them to get to us, or for us to get to them...We'd make it work somehow." I glanced excitedly at Otis. For some reason he didn't seem to be a fan of my idea and shook his head.

"Weeellll, now that we're back in normal time I'd better work on fixing the Before-Now-Machine. I should probably put some sort of safety lock on it so this doesn't happen again. In fact, I should probably put safety locks on all of Oscar's time machines, which will probably take me all night...but that's cool." Oona thoughtfully bit off a piece of toast and closed her eyes savoring the perfectness of it.

We stood silently for a moment while Oona chewed her toast. After about seven seconds I decided to break the awkward quiet.  

"Well if you have so much work to do we should get back to our work. Or we could go to the Cake Room to celebrate the fact that we don't have to live the same short segment of time over and over again. What'd say Otis?"

I began to leave when I noticed that Otis wasn't behind me. I turned back to find that he hadn't moved from where he was standing. "Otis?"

Otis stared at the floor and mumbled a reply, "You can go if you want. I think I'll stay here and help Oona put safety locks on the time machines."

"But you don't know anything about gadgets. And besides, we're done working in twenty minutes. Oona doesn't need help. She'll be fine." I felt a strange desperateness rise inside me. Why was Otis doing this?

"Oona might need someone to get tools for her or something. I could help. It would be hard for her to be here all night." Otis glanced at me as if trying to make me understand. But I didn't understand. What was he doing?

Oona popped out of the back room; her arms piled high with gadgets. "That'd be awesome Otis. If you helped, I might be out of here before midnight." She looked gratefully at him and then looked at me. "It would be double awesome if you want to help too, Olympia."

I was momentarily stunned. For some reason the last thing in the world I wanted to do was to help Oona and Otis work on gadgets. I usually wasn't a selfish person but at the moment all I wanted was for me and Otis to just have a nice, celebratory piece of cake in the Cake Room, BY OURSELVES. No one else. Just us.

"No, I want to finish up some paperwork or something. You two should have it covered." I started walking away but quickly turned back. If I had to put up with this, there was something I wanted to know. "Actually, Otis, can I talk to you for a second?"

"Sure." He walked over to me looking uncomfortable and confused. "What?"

"Why do you want to help Oona so badly?"

"She looks like she needs help and it's a nice thing to do." Otis made eye contact with me and I was surprised to find that he looked...angry?

As he continued to speak, he held eye contact, "If you have a problem with me helping people then maybe you should try helping more people yourself instead of always being so self-centered."