OOM: Conversations With Dead People
Something smells delicious.
That's what wakes Claudia up in the first place - the one recipe she never could get the hang of, no matter how many times Joshua made spaghetti for her. So she goes tearing out of her room at Leena's and down the stairs (not the stairs at Leena's, but she's not paying that much attention yet) and says, "Joshua, you complete brat, why didn't you tell me you were--"
And she stops short when she reaches the kitchen and finds... definitely not her brother tending to the sauce. The almost-but-not-quite-middle-aged woman in the kitchen has the same mousy brown hair Claudia's been dying red since she graduated and her brother's nose, and then she realises she hasn't come down those stairs, or been in this room, since she was a kid.
"...coming," she rallies, "because you are definitely not Joshua, is why. Um. Hi, Mom. I. Didn't know this was an option."
Her mom smiles. "Not usually, no, but I thought the loophole was worth using. You've grown up well, dear."
"Don't know if I'd say that. I mean, too-smart-for-her-own-good college dropout who had to kidnap someone to get a real job? Probably the point where most people would say I should still be in the loony bin." She hesitates, then adds, "You're not gonna tell me you're stuck in some interdimensional space too, are you?"
She's not really sure she can go through all of that again, even if it is her mother. But the loophole thing has her... concerned.
"Oh, no. I'll leave the interdimensional spaces to you and Joshua. In fact, I was mostly here to say the opposite."
"The... opposite?"
Her mom breaks a handful of angel hair pasta over a pan of boiling water (that Claudia could swear wasn't there a second ago, but maybe it was). "Your father and I died in a car wreck, plain and simple. It was dark, he misjudged a corner and plowed into a tree, and that's the end of the story."
"...oh." It's definitely not what Claudia expected to hear from this kind of reunion, and she's not sure what to do with it, so she just stands there until her mom puts the ladle in her hand and has her stir the sauce.
"Considering the world you've ended up in, I thought you should know that. Not everything comes down to those Artifacts, or someone out for your blood - sometimes these things just happen."
"Oh. Well. That's - not okay, I mean, it still sucks that you're dead, but..."
"I know. I'm sorry I've missed as much as I have. But you've made the best of it. Now, tell me about this project you're working on."
"--The backup terminals?" Claudia grins. "Okay." So she talks her mom's ear off until the spaghetti's done, and maybe it's just that this is either a dream or an Artifact at work, but it's every bit as good as she remembers Joshua making it, and she says so.
Her mom smiles. "If Joshua doesn't still have the recipe, that Bar of yours probably will. Ask her. You could probably pull it off if you tried making it now."
She wants to ask how her mom knows about that, but then she starts awake - on a couch in Milliways, of all places.
So that might've been the weirdest dream she's ever had, and there's some pretty stiff competition for the honor.