Back to the FutureBilly had been very busy recently. As he sometimes does, he’d remembered that he was a Renaissance Sim and rolled a wish to max a skill: gardening, in this case.
And then there was the future-changing quest he’d embarked on, with help from the Time Traveller. (Come to think of it, that’s almost certainly why Emit turned up at the house again.)
Billy liked the meteor magnet so much that he took to using it autonomously, even after he’d completed the testing for Emit.
In the end, I had to put the magnet into the family inventory to keep him away from it. Most of my Sims are good enough meteor magnets on their own, without help from advanced technology.
On the day of Thyme’s birth, he reached the ‘trash talk the environment’ step of the chain. I sent him to the Summer Festival, where there’d be plenty of other Sims to talk to. It rapidly became a much less pleasant place to be.
Fluellen was also visiting the festival.
Even though it slowed down Billy’s progress, I was delighted that he flatly refused to listen to the trash talk. Anyway, plenty of others were willing to give Billy a hearing.
By evening, the time portal had changed to an ominous fiery glow. Billy dived right back in, followed rather more slowly by Alison.
They emerged in a very different Oasis Landing.
(And how did she manage to arrive first?)
Even though the future now seemed like a much less pleasant place to be, they bought a home there. Having their own place would be better than staying at Base Camp and it wasn’t as though they were short of money, after all.
Once they were settled in, Ally returned Erik and Nick to the graveyard, apologising because it wasn’t quite as pretty as when they’d left.
Then she went off to get a job. Billy had done more than his share of joining careers, looking for potential fathers. Here, with no children to care for, she had time to do her own research.
On her first day as part of the clean-up crew at the Bot Arena, she met someone who seemed highly compatible.
“Oh, I like this one, Hazel!”
She invited Melvin home and launched into the romantic interactions.
There was only one hitch. Once he’d agreed to woohoo, Melvin headed upstairs to the dream pod
in the bedroom where Billy was painting. Why couldn’t he have chosen one of the others?
Fortunately, Billy, placid as ever, was happy to swap virtual canvases, continuing with the painting on his other easel in the living room, while Ally and her smelly lover Tried for Baby.
Several times. No chimes. Why didn’t I put the heart bed in one of the rooms here?
A few hours later, it became clear that they’d succeeded anyway…
…and I discovered that pregnant Sims can’t time-travel. This baby was going to have to be born in the future.
Ally spent her pregnancy playing with the high-tech items around the house…
…although I think she prefers old-fashioned water-type showers. Billy was doing rather better with the advanced technology skill but still preferred painting. And both of them loved the pool. Why? Their pool at home was much pleasanter but was almost totally ignored. Here, everything was dingy and smoggy and there was always the risk of…
Oh no! Billy, I don’t think you should have used that magnet so enthusiastically.
Don’t duck; run! 
At least Ally was safe. But where was Billy? That explosion seemed to be almost exactly where he was standing.
Yeah, probably a bit late to run now – but I’m so glad you’re OK. (In fact, he didn’t stop running until he’d reached a shower and got rid of the ‘singed’ moodlet.)
After that, I kept them both indoors and doing nothing in particular until…
Since Billy went into full-on panic mode again, it seemed like a good idea to try out the hospital facilities in Oasis Landing.
Is that just a random horse following Ally home or is there some kind of equine-assisted birthing in the future?
As soon as they were back in their future home with little Thistle, they left it again for the portal on the roof of the base camp – and the safety of their own time.
Yes, Billy, it’s a baby. Haven’t you seen enough by now to recognise them? Now go and pick him up off the damp grass and put him in a cot.
Because Ally’s pregnancy happened in the future, Thistle and Thyme are effectively twins. It’s going to be a while before the nursery has room for another child.
