After she had come to, Anne spent a moment getting her bearings and taking in her surroundings. The house that Robert lived in had been his parents' house and the room that he slept in was the same room that he had slept in growing up, and nothing in it had changed since Anne had first been in it twenty years ago. The Dan Marino poster was still on the wall and the signed Lou Garrick baseball that he'd gotten from his father was still in its glass case on top of his chest of drawers; he was even still sleeping on the same bed. It wasn't just that Robert didn't like change, he was terrified of it and did everything in his power to fight against it. Laying on Robert's bed in his room and thinking about this, Anne felt a strong sense of longing. Robert had always been very sensitive and Anne had always felt very protective of him because of it. She missed that feeling that being with Robert had given her, of course that was because she missed Robert. When she had first seen Jessie, Anne had thought that she was Robert's girlfriend and had been penetrated by a stab of pain at the thought of Robert being serious with someone else. Anne needed to resolve her feelings where Robert was concerned and she was going to do that now while she was here with them getting the full picture of what the story was with these talking animals. Aside from the goose laughing and talking Anne could remember hardly anything of what happened before she'd fainted. She had a vague memory of Robert referring to himself as the chosen one but that was it, she would need to be filled in by the others on everything else. She got out of bed and went downstairs to join others, who were all sitting on the couch and watching Caddyshack together. Robert was sitting with a huge bowl of popcorn in his lap that he and Jessie were taking handfuls out of and feeding the animals with in addition to eating some of the popcorn themselves. Being together like this the five of them looked like a family, a family that she was intruding upon.

"Hey, you're awake," Robert turned and said to her after seeing her reflection in the television, "are you feeling okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Are you hungry or thirsty or anything?"

"No, I'm fine. What happened to your hair?"

"Oh, I asked Jessie to give me a haircut and a shave, you were right, I was looking like a nutcase."

"You didn't ask me, I had to practically wrestle you to the ground and shave you against your will," Jessie protested.

"That's not how I remember it," Robert said jokingly.

"That's how I remember it," the wolf said.

"Me too," the goat said.

"And me," the goose said.

"Four against one, you lose," Jessie said.

Watching them, Anne could see that they had fun like this often and it made her happy to see Robert surrounded by such love.

"What did you guys have for dinner?"

"We haven't eaten yet, we were waiting for you to wake up."

"What are you doing for dinner?"

"We'll just order some pizza."

"Ooh, get the meat lovers, get the meat lovers!" The wolf said animatedly.

"I'd rather something vegetarian," the goat requested.

"We'll get half and half; Jessie, call the pizza place."

"Alrighty," Jessie answered enthusiastically before running off to do so.

That night the six of them sat at the table in Robert's dining room and Anne learned everything about what Robert had gone through with the goose thus far. If she hadn't seen the talking animals for herself she never would have believed him, nobody would have, anybody would have thought, listening to him talking about guardians and pilgrimages, that he had gone insane, especially with his hair looking like what it had been looking like. There were things about Robert's story that she couldn't understand, like why the goose had chosen Robert in particular over literally every other person alive, and what exactly was this pilgrimage meant to accomplish. On the latter the goose refused to be drawn on specifics but was willing to do so on the former.