Ricky awakens and marries Danny

Ricky’s awakening and marriage to Danny Davis complete the reunion their long separation had made uncertain: she is not woken on a fixed date, but kept in the Riverside Sanctuary until Danny appears. Once awake, she recognizes him and Pete immediately, and the three leave together. Their journey through Brawley to a courthouse wedding in Yuma turns the promised reunion into a shared life, with Pete as best man and a secluded ranch near Tucson as their first home together.

The Reunion at Riverside

On Monday, April 30, Danny checks out and goes to Riverside, where he takes a room at the old Mission Inn. The practical inconveniences of travel have not disappeared in the future: the hotel objects to his cat, and its autobellhop cannot be persuaded by a bribe. The assistant manager proves more receptive. Danny sleeps badly, not from danger but excitement, and the next morning presents himself at ten o’clock to the director of the Riverside Sanctuary, Dr. Rumsey.

Danny asks whether a committed client named Frederica Heinicke is due to be withdrawn that day and whether he may be present when she is brought back to consciousness. To establish who he is, he shows Dr. Rumsey a 1970 Denver driver’s license and his withdrawal certificate from Forest Lawn Sanctuary. The documents confirm his identity, but the decisive fact is in Ricky’s instructions: she had not necessarily asked to wake on that date; she had asked not to wake at all until Danny showed up. The condition makes the reunion more than a coincidence of scheduling. Her return to consciousness has been expressly tied to his arrival.

Danny waits in the lobby, then takes Pete for a walk in a new travel bag fitted with a one-way window. At eleven-thirty he returns to the Sanctuary. Dr. Rumsey lets him see Ricky, whose body is covered so that Danny can see only her face. He recognizes her as his Ricky, now grown, and waits while the doctor explains that she is under posthypnotic instruction. Dr. Rumsey asks Danny to stand nearby and suggests putting the cat outside; Danny refuses, keeping Pete present for the moment of awakening.

Waking and Recognition

Dr. Rumsey gives Ricky the instruction to wake. Her eyelids flutter, her eyes open and wander briefly, then she sees Danny and Pete and smiles sleepily. Her first words identify them both: “Danny and Pete.” She raises her arms, revealing Danny’s Tech class ring on her left thumb. Recognition is immediate, and the ring supplies a quiet material link between their separated lives: even before she can resume the life they planned, she is wearing a token associated with him.

Pete answers the reunion physically, chirruping, jumping onto the bed, and making repeated shoulder dives against Ricky. The cat’s exuberant welcome joins Danny’s arrival to her awakening; he is not a companion waiting outside their relationship, but part of the scene she has chosen to return to. Dr. Rumsey would prefer Ricky to remain overnight, but she refuses. Danny arranges a cab, and they leave the Sanctuary together rather than extending her first waking day under institutional supervision.

Brawley, Yuma, and Marriage

They go first to Brawley, where Ricky’s grandmother had died in 1980 and the social ties of her former life have dwindled through attrition. Some of her possessions, mostly books, remain in storage. Danny arranges to have them shipped to Aladdin, care of John Sutton, converting the remnants of her old life into belongings that can accompany her into the new one. Ricky is dazzled by the changes in her hometown and holds Danny’s arm, but does not succumb to the intense homesickness Danny regards as a great hazard of the Sleep. Her response is not to stay and recover the past: she wants to leave Brawley as quickly as possible.

A second cab takes them to Yuma. There Danny signs the county clerk’s book using his full name, Daniel Boone Davis, making clear which D. B. Davis is signing the document. A few minutes later he and Ricky are married at the courthouse. The narrative gives the vows as Danny begins, “I, Daniel, take thee, Frederica - . . till death us do part.” Pete serves as best man; the witnesses are people the couple gather at the courthouse. The ceremony is brief and improvised, but it converts their long-delayed reunion into a legally and personally affirmed marriage.

A Shared Life After Sleep

Danny and Ricky leave Yuma at once for a guest ranch near Tucson. They choose a cabin away from the main lodge and equipped with their own Eager Beaver, allowing them to have things fetched and carried without needing to see anyone. Their privacy is a practical arrangement for a couple beginning life together after Ricky’s awakening, not a return to the Sanctuary’s enforced separation. The one domestic complication comes from Pete: he fights a monumental battle with the ranch’s tom, who had previously been boss, so Danny and Ricky must either keep Pete indoors or watch him.

Ricky takes to marriage as though she had invented it; Danny’s summation is that he has Ricky. That settled domestic happiness closes the episode’s movement from waiting, through recognition and travel, to a shared home. The closing details also show Danny arranging the life around them: he votes Ricky’s Hired Girl stock, still the largest single block, moves McBee into the honorary role of Research Engineer Emeritus, and makes Chuck chief engineer. John Sutton remains in charge of Aladdin, while Danny, John, and Jenny control the company through a structure designed to preserve control. Danny himself works through the Davis Engineering Company, a drafting room and small shop where he produces designs for licensing. The reunion therefore ends not with Danny resuming his old corporate position, but with the couple’s marriage and a working arrangement that leaves him free to pursue engineering independently.