The wand was forgotten in the back of a drawer. It would, quite likely, never wave again. And yet, the world it had created was chugging along just fine.



And then the waveform collapsed. The World that Was and the World that it had Become became one and the same.



And a surprisingly civil and deeply confused jumble of chaos ensued.



-o-



"How's your head doing?" Grace leaned over Sarah, beaming. Sarah grumbled something under her breath, then nodded once. She sat down next to her (Girlfriend? Boyfriend? Best friend?) on the couch. Sarah was lying down, legs dangling over the armrest, back in a female body. Grace could only imagine how she was feeling - really, they were all coping. Everyone in the world had two sets of memories that they had to reconcile now. One world was unaware of the existence of aliens and magic; the other took it for granted. Some people now had two sets of skills that branched in wildly different directions, or differing faiths. One notable megachurch pastor had been a major face for Buddhist outreach in the other world. People were, in short, dealing with a whole lot of perspective at once.



Grace was lucky in that way.



"You have no idea the conversations I've had with my parents in the last twenty-four hours."



"Awkward 'it's cool if you're trans and/or gay and we still support you but if you aren't then it's fine too' conversations?" Grace suggested hopefully.



"Um. Well, yeah, in short. Mom's still pretty freaked about magic being real."



"And me being an alien?" Grace hid it well in one world, and in the other just didn't have to hide it.



"That... that one she's more okay with, I think?" Sarah squinted up at Grace. "And I still don't know why." She scooted down until her head was in Grace's lap. Grace stroked her forehead gently, and Sarah closed her eyes.



"Maybe she just watched Star Trek a lot when she was younger."



"If she did, she never admitted it." Sarah sighed deeply. "...I don't know."



"Don't know what?"



"Anything. I don't know why my mom's okay with me potentially dating you, what my gender identity is anymore - I don't know how we're going to just - just COPE with all this, and..." She opened her eyes again, staring up at Grace's fuzziness. "I don't know how Tedd's going to get through the next week, and that really freaks me out."



"...ah. Yeah." Tedd's mother was back. She'd never split up from Edward in the other world. It was, to be blunt, awkward as hell. "Last I heard they were just giving each other some space, but they're going to family counseling. There's gonna be a lot of that going on."



"Yeah. Yeah." Sarah slowly sat upright again. She stared at Grace. Grace stared back. Sarah swallowed hard. "We're still a couple, aren't we?"



"As long as you want that, yeah."



"And you and Tedd?"



"As long as he wants that. I'm good with dating two people at once. If Archie can make it work, so can I."



"So Tedd's your Veronica?" Sarah couldn't help but smirk at that mental image.



"I guess. I mean his dad does kind of have the Mister Lodge mustache. The big question is 'will my Betty and Veronica be totally doing it on the side', because you KNOW those two were doing it in the comics."



"Seriously?"



"There is no way all that innuendo was accidental." Grace nodded sagely, and Sarah found herself pausing. Thinking.



"Maybe. Eventually. I mean, if we're going to dip into this... you know Tedd and Elliot have to get their footing too."



"Yeah. Yeah, they got stuff to figure out. But meantime... no matter how this happened... I'm kinda copacetic. I have an awesome boyfriend that's sometimes my girlfriend, an equally awesome girlfriend, and I finally get to be myself in public. I mean life isn't exactly perfect but that's all the broad strokes of what I've wanted for ages." Sarah leaned against Grace. Grace scruffed her hair - and then Grace levitated over the remote and turned the TV on. Sarah nudged her.



"...you really want to put on the news at a time like this?"



"I gotta! I have to see if they're letting the Citystate of New York stay independent!"



-o-



"So how are you coping?"



"Pretty good, all things considered?" Ellen shrugged. "I mean, I've done the whole 'more than one set of memories' thing before." Tedd glanced down at his feet.



"Good. Good, I was, uh. I was kinda worried. I mean, two is hard enough to deal with."



"Yeah." She conceded the point easily, taking a swig from a water bottle. "Elliot's not here if you were hoping to hash things out with him."



"I was... I..." Tedd stammered a little, finally clearing his throat. Of course she'd cut through the crap. That was how Ellen did things. "Yeah. Is he going to be home soon?"



"Soon `nuff. Come on in." Nothing looked too amiss in the Dunkel house. Then again, there weren't many differences in their house between the two worlds, aside from the big one. Tedd paused to look at a picture of two kids dressed as pumpkins, each thrusting a trick-or-treat bag towards the camera. Elliot and Ellen. Or, as it was when the picture was taken, Elliot and Elijah. "You want some brownies?"



"Is that question rhetorical?"



"Kinda. Who doesn't love brownies?" Ellen grinned, heading towards the kitchen. "So you'll be happy to know that everything's hunky-dory with me and Nase."



"No bitter recriminations over Catalina?"



"Nah. We weren't together in that world, and it wasn't more than a fling." She came back with a slab of chocolate pastry goodness for herself and Tedd. "Figured things would be weirder for you."



"Yes. Yes and no. I don't know how weird it is for you and weird is hard to quantify. Not like there's some kind of standard measurement for 'weird' aside from probability, and I can't measure that neatly, I'm not Douglas Adams. Not that I'd want to be Douglas Adams, he's dead-"



"Tedd. Breathe." Ellen interrupted. He sucked in a lungful of air, paused, and let it out, nodding slowly.



"I'm good."



"You're sure?"



"Positive."



"`Kay then." She took a chomp of her brownie; Tedd did the same. "Can I butt in to ask what Grace said about the whole situation?"



"She, uh. She wants me to date Elliot." Tedd's cheeks burned. Ellen blinked.



"...she didn't break up with you, did she?"



"Nope."



"Score. Elliot owes me a Coke." Ellen thrust a fist skyward as Tedd goggled.



"You bet him that-"



"That Grace would take the obvious route out and suggest polyamory? Fuck yeah. Hell, Rhoda's doing the same thing."



"I've... er... noticed." Tedd's blush grew deeper. The quartet evidently had few compulsions against PDA. It was cute, sure, but also... er... made him think about baseball really, really hard.



"So enjoy it, yeah?" She slugged him in the shoulder. He rocked back, rubbing the spot she'd playfully punched.



"Well I'm going to try! Relationships are tricky. And I don't know if Elliot-"



"Be forward with your intentions and he'll reciprocate. You know he's always been into you." The words hit Tedd like a freight train. He froze up, staring, Ellen still nibbling her brownie. She glanced up at him, "...what? C'mon, like you couldn't tell?"



"Uhhh."



"Tedd."



"I... I should-"



"You should sit your ass down right there and wait for Elliot to get here. Neither of you get to chicken out of this talk just because of the dreaded Awkward."



"...I can't bribe you to let me out, can I?"



"You already perma-girlified me. You're stuck." He almost forgot that. In the altered timeline. After Tess had been marked, she'd decided to help Ellen through the transition as only she could.



And then she'd kissed him in a way that felt like more than gratitude, and...



...and Tedd was starting to wonder if there was more than one reason she was making him wait to get this conversation in.



-o-



"Noah called me 'sis' today." Diane leaned on one arm, staring at Susan. Susan nodded once, sipping her coffee.



"Mother asked if I would want to keep my guitar lessons going. Far less dramatic and more amusing. Have you told him?"



"Yeah. Didn't think it'd be right to keep that detail from him." Diane rubbed her arm. "I think everyone knows. I think Rhoda and Lucy are genuinely disappointed."



"Understandable. They've remained in their altered state, yes?"



"Lucy's still a small fry, yeah."



"Mm." Susan looked vaguely amused.



"And don't get any bright ideas about asking Tess for a zap. Tedd. Whichever." She'd gotten used to calling the purple haired seer "Tess" over the last few months, only for her to be defaulting to 'him' again after the two worlds had collapsed into one. "They seem to like how things are."



"For the best, then." Susan rolled the coffee about in her mug and finished it. "I'm just glad it's over now."



"If we'd hit a year of that I'd have gone nuts."



"Twelve months of paranoia and knowing that things aren't as they should be?" Susan nodded. "That would have driven anyone nuts. At least we know it's not just a shared delusion."



"Yeah. Yeah, that... that was the biggest thing. You know I nearly had myself believing that near the end? That you and I had gotten hit with some kind of mind-affecting something or another?"



"It would have been believable." Susan offered a shrug. A moment passed; Diane knew that look. Susan was trying to decide whether or not to say something. "Thank you."



"You're welcome? I mean, in general, but it'd be nice to know what that 'thank you' was for."



"Keeping me from believing that I had succumbed to acute schizophrenia." Instead of just being one of a very few people that the Split hadn't affected. Someday they'd figure out precisely why that was. That day was not today, but it was a deeply intriguing puzzle.



"...what's a friend for?" Diane smiled, as her phone started buzzing. Having three (THREE) girlfriends was going to be a very time consuming experience, she could tell.



Worth it, though.



-o-



The mustached gremlin stood on a rooftop, watching over the town of Moperville. Pandora stepped out of a direction that normally did not exist, pausing beside them.



"Excellent work." Pandora said.



"Mm." The gremlin nodded. "Mostly. The politics of the world are a mess, no one's sure what's going to happen to Texas, and there are thousands upon thousands of people that are deeply, deeply unsure of who they are right now."



"They'll introspect." Pandora rolled her eyes.



"Is that a verb?"



"It is now."



"Mm. I did as you asked. You know my price." The gremlin held out their hand. A second passed. Pandora handed over a bundle of Canadian $20 bills and a single toothbrush coupon. They took their time counting the money, and nodded once. "The transaction is complete. If you ever need anything else..."



"I know where to find you." Pandora nodded. Both disappeared.



The world was strange enough for now. But it could always use a little improvement.