Tao wakes up the morning after his disastrous party with the crushing realization that Tomika is out of his life for good.
"She wasn't good enough for you," his mother insists, "You are much better off without her."
"I love her," Tao answers, "I just want her back."
"You'll get over her," Regan promises.
"I hope you aren't angry at me," Regan says.
"I heard what she said to you," Tao answers, "I know you weren't the one trying to seduce her. It's not your fault."
"I'm several kinds of asshole," Regan agrees, "But I'm not the kind of asshole that sleeps with his best friend's girl."
"She's not my girl anymore," Tao says, starting to tear up.
"And that's her loss," Regan says, smiling, trying to cheer his friend up. "She was nowhere near good enough for you, you know. You deserve a lot better. If I were a chick, I'd be all over you, you know. But you actually deserve better than me, too."
Days pass without bringing Tao any relief from his misery. The best he can do is try to distract himself by going to the movies. Outside the theater, he meets a young woman going to watch the movie alone, like him.
"You're Tao McDermott, aren't you?" she says, "You're Regan Goth's friend."
Tao nods, now recognizing her as Regan's most recent girlfriend, Ivy Gilliland.
"Does Regan every talk about me?" she asks. Tao winces uncomfortably; Regan talks too much about his girlfriends, and says nothing Tao would ever want to repeat to any of them. Before he is made to answer, Ivy continues, "Did he say anything about why he broke up with me? Everything was going so great with us, I really thought we had a good relationship, and it was getting serious. Then, out of the blue, he told me it was over. I just want to know why. What did I do wrong?"
"I promise you, it wasn't anything you did," Tao sighs, "That's Regan's pattern. He falls for a girl, gets too close and cuts and runs." Ivy looks sadly up at him, like she was expecting some miracle from him that would reunite her with his fickle friend. "The movie is going to start soon, why don't we go inside?" Tao suggests.
After the movie, Tao and Ivy get dinner, and talk about their broken hearts. Eventually, they ended up in his bed, spending their grief in passion. After he fell asleep, Ivy slipped out of his bed and left, and he didn't hear from her again the next day.
Time eventually dulls the pain, and while Tao does still think of Tomika from time to time, he isn't reduced to tears by it any more. His energy is focused on raising his daughter Meilin. He's heard that Tomika is already dating again, she's been seen around town with Ricky Andrews.
Tao is surprised to get a call from Ivy, asking him to drop by her house. When he visits her, he is even more surprised to see she's pregnant. As though it weren't obvious, she announces her pregnancy to him, and informs him that the child is his.
"You're sure about that?" he asks.
Ivy's face grows red, "What are you implying?" she demands, "If it were Regan's, don't you think I'd be going after him and his wealth for support? I wish it were Regan's, so I could get him to talk to me. Of course it's yours."
Tao apologizes for doubting her, and asks what she was planning to do. Their one night stand isn't really enough to base a relationship on, especially when she's still hung up on Regan. But he's ready to accept responsibility for his child, in whatever form Ivy demands.
"I don't have the time or money for a child in my life," Ivy tells him, "Can you take her once she's born?" Tao agrees readily.
Regina Goth died suddenly, quickly followed by her husband, Herman. After the funeral, Tao went up to the Goth house to offer condolences to Regan, and was greeted at the door by a woman he'd never seen before, who introduced herself as Ashley Goth. "You must be Tao McDermott," she says, "Regan has told me so much about you."
"Are you a relative? I didn't know the Goths had any relations outside of Sunset Valley."
"I'm Regan's wife," Ashley answers. Tao's jaw drops. Regan? Married?
"I see you've met my lovely wife Ashley," Regan says as he pulls Tao into a hug.
"I'm sorry about your mother," Tao says, saving his questions about Regan's new wife for when she's not in the room.
"My love, could you give me a minute alone with Tao?" Regan says to Ashley. Ashley nods and leaves the men alone in the kitchen.
"I am so freaking out right now," Regan gasps as soon as they are alone. "I can't believe I'm married."
"Yeah, that's completely not like you. Who is she? What made you decide to get married so suddenly?" Tao asks.
"My mother," Regan sighs, "She put it in her will that if I don't produce a proper heir before I turn 35, the estate will fall to my half-brother Lawrence. As if! The clock is ticking fast, and I've dated nearly every girl in town. Ashley just relocated here, she's a cop like me. She liked me right away, and doesn't know me by reputation, which is a huge plus. She's got the kind of genes I'm looking to pass on to an heir, so I swept her off her feet, made her completely crazy about me and proposed. I probably should have knocked her up first, just to be sure I'm getting an heir out of the deal. But done is done, and I'm married now."
As soon as Ivy brings their daughter, Rain, home from the hospital, Tao comes to take her home with him.
Regan had been on the phone with her namesake, Regan Goth, to congratulate him on the birth of a daughter, Cassandra. Regina would have been so pleased, Regan thought as she hung up. She missed her friend and cousin dearly. At that moment, death came to claim her as well.
With the death of his mother, Tao is left to raise Meilin and Rain on his own.
(Challenge Notes: I neglected to mention my roll for generation 6 in my last post. Gen 6 will be a couple with one child, Inventor as primary carer and Business as secondary. The generation goal will be living green, which I look forward to because you need to build a community lot park, and misc. fun will be No Strangers.
So, with Tao's second child I ended up not moving the mother in while pregnant. I tried to, but I got an issue where the game got hung during the move in process and I had to restart the PC just to get out of the game. So, I let Ivy give birth on her own and used Twallan's master controller to move Rain in after birth. I hope that isn't considered cheating, it's the only thing I could think of to do when moving pregnant Ivy in failed. The rules say you can move in the pregnant mother, not that you must. On the downside, Rain's traits, Friendly and Heavy Sleeper, were chosen by the game. On the plus side, even though I have SP set for normal baby aging, when I moved Rain in she had 0 days to transition to toddler. She was born around 11pm and I moved her in the next morning around 7:30 am, after I took pictures of Tao holding her in Ivy's house.
So Tao has two children as a single parent, which completes Gen 5 requirements. Assuming both girls live to YA without being taken by SS, but I've never lost a child in my history of playing Sims since S1, so I don't expect anything to go wrong here.
Tao has reached level 6 of the Gardener career, and has maxed gardening skill. I still haven't decided what other two skills I want to max for his LTW, but he's at 8 Charisma just from interaction with Sims, and he fishes a lot, so they might be the ones.
I haven't yet chosen an heir for Gen 6, I'll decide when I see what the girls look like as teens.)
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