Reentry

Re-entry

A persistent chirp woke me from sleep. After a minute I worked out that it was my phone, and further that it was a phone call and not my alarm. It was not quite early enough that I could complain about how early it was, but I'd been up late working the night before and didn't feel like being charitable, either, especially when I didn't recognize the number.

"Robin, this is awkward, but I need a favor."

It took me a minute to recognize my own voice on the line. "…Norton?"

"No one calls me that but you, you know."

"How did you even get this number?"

I could almost hear my doppelganger roll his eyes. "Don't worry about it. How soon can you get to Yaanga?"

"Today? I guess I could catch the high speed train. What's that, four hours? Five? I haven't done it in years. Why? Is something wrong with my parents?"

"No, they're fine. It's my daughter."

I opened my mouth once, twice, but no sarcastic comment came. There was too much honesty in his tone.

"Can you bring someone trained? Daiyu, maybe? I need a consultation. Something's… something's wrong."

Hearing that much fear in my own voice was unnerving. "I'll be on the morning train. I'll see who I can round up."

"Tell her I'll pay - anything. Tell her."

"I'll see you this afternoon," I said, cutting him off. "Meet us at the station downtown." Before he could say anything else, I hung up. I felt like an ass for doing it, but he'd rattled me more than I liked to admit.

I reached down and shook Jian's shoulder. "You busy today?"

"Nothing important enough to be up this early," he said into the pillow.

"Norton needs help. I'm going to see him. Will you come?"

That got his attention. "He tried to kill you!"

"I'm pretty sure that was actually an accident, at least the last time."

"He took your life, Robin!"

I shrugged. "I didn't want it much anyway. My life is a country that no longer exists; I can't regret that I gave up my citizenship. And I'm happy with where I ended up. Besides that, I can't leave a child in danger."

"A child?" he sniffed. "Are you sure it isn't a trap?"

"Pretty sure." I finished dialing Daiyu and put the phone up to my ear. "And if I'm wrong, that's why I want to have you there."

He huffed and pouted, but he began dressing while I repeated my phone call for Daiyu. She agreed to come as well, and we agreed to meet at the station in time for the mid-morning train.

"Thank you," I told him as I hung up the phone.

"You're thanking me for…?"

"Worrying about me." I pulled my trousers off the dressing chair. "I appreciate it."

"Well, someone has to," he said, mollified and fighting off a smile. "You certainly don't."

There was a young woman with a sign waiting for us when we arrived in Yangaa.

"Why does it say 'Norton'?" Daiyu asked. She knew about my doppelganger, but I'd never explained the nickname.

I hesitated before answering. "It's an old joke."

The woman was scanning the crowd and spotted us almost immediately - I registered the surprise on her face for just a moment before she controlled herself. A real professional, then. Probably someone who worked for him.

Before I could say anything, she folded the sign away and bowed tersely. "You must be my contact. I'm Zhang Mayu, Mr. Blaser's personal assistant. He didn't mention you'd be bringing two people with you." She glanced at Daiyu and Jian in turn.

"They're both here to help. I'm pretty sure Mr. Blaser," I tried not to say it like an insult, "will not complain." Though… it was Jian. He might.

Ms Zhang was not interested in filling us in on any details during the brief ride. I'd expected him to have a nice home in one of the upscale neighborhoods of Yangaa, but we kept going and soon I realized we were heading out to the house in Gangkoutan where I'd last seen my parents.

I could think of a good half-dozen ways this would be awkward, but it seemed safe to assume Norton had taken care of the most obvious ones. Nobody would be there to see me or ask awkward questions.

When we arrived, Ms Zhang took us through the servants' door at the side of he house. I kicked my shoes off onto the mat automatically, and only after realized how the habit had stuck. The paint and decor had changed, but the outlines of the kitchen were familiar. The private family room was almost exactly the same, though everything looked a little more faded, while the formal sitting room at the front of the house was almost unrecognizable. Mother had always kept it up to date with the latest fashionable decor from the mainland, so I was not surprised to see it looking different. Ms Zhang told us to sit and disappeared toward my father's old office.

Daiyu waited a moment, then pulled out a book and resumed reading. Jian looked around and raised an eyebrow at me.

"What?"

"You gave this up for me." It was a statement, not a question.

I blinked at him. "I didn't really have a choice in the matter."

"Looking at him, and at you, it seems that you could have had one or the other. You let him have this."

"I-"

Before I could respond, Ms Zheng returned with Norton.

Last time I'd seen Norton, he'd been wearing a suit, looking the dutiful son, on top of the world and sure of his place in it. Now he looked like he hadn't slept in days - I knew those dark eyes and mangled shaving attempts on myself well enough. He was wearing trousers and a pyjama top that had had something freshly spilled on it.

"Thank you for coming-" he said as he came in, smiling as he looked over me, Daiyu, and then stopped dead as his eyes landed on Jian. I watched him fight with himself and then there was a tiny shake of his head. "No, it's fine. Maybe you can help."

"What's going on?"

"See for yourself," he said, sounding on the verge of either collapse or hysterical laughter. "She's in your old room."

I climbed the stairs, trying not to think about how my feet left the same marks in the carpet or how the wallpaper had changed. I could hear Jian and Daiyu behind me as I walked down the hall.

The bedroom had been redone, thank the gods - I'd hated my boyhood furniture so much when I'd been stuck in there as I recovered - but seeing it decorated as a nursery was still a shock to my system. A woman was dozing in the nursing chair my mother had used when I was a baby. She was dark-haired and classically pretty.

The baby in the crib quickly drew all of our attention. She was asleep, breathing quietly. I guessed she was a few months old, but I had no real experience to draw on beyond recognizing that she was a baby.

A baby whose aura glowed so strongly that even I could see it.

"Oh, hells," Daiyu said beside me, and I found myself agreeing.

"Classic early manifestation," Daiyu murmured, folding her hands into a series of gestures over the baby's abdomen. The light in her hands flickered white once, twice, and then a red that matched the little girl's aura. "Got it. We'll need to figure out what triggered her. Corral your doppelganger when he comes back."

Jian was looking the little girl over as well, and then up at me with alarm on his face. "You don't have any siblings. Do you have cousins? Any other family on your mother's side?"

"Just my mom and my aunt, her sister. No cousins."

My husband nodded.

Daiyu looked up. "Are you suggesting it's the bloodline?"

"There's no one else to inherit her."

"-Robin, who are they?" An unfamiliar voice behind us. I turned around at my name, and only then realized it was the young woman in the nursing chair who'd spoken. I looked away quickly, but she was standing up now and had her hand on my shoulder.

"I'm not- I'm not your husband," I stammered.

She blinked at me and smiled. "Of course. You look so much…"

"I know," I smiled, hoping I looked sincere. Of course, as tired as she looked… "I'm his, um, cousin. Duncan Robert. You can call me Robert." I'd gotten quite used to giving that name in the last few years, but this time I stumbled. "Sorry we woke you. You must be his wife… was it Kumiko?" The look she gave me was distrustful, but exhaustion must have won out.

"Yes. Are you the ones he called about Chikako?"

I nodded. I introduced Jian as my husband and Daiyu as my colleague. She apologized for the staff being gone and asked if we needed tea or anything else she could fetch us. Yes, that was definitely the kind of woman my mother would have set me up with - exhausted, probably as scared as Norton was about her child, and still worried about the comfort of her guests.

"We're fine, and I know where the kitchen is if we need anything." I tried to smile reassuringly.

She sighed. "Our first… she was not like this. We were not prepared for this." I wondered if she meant that Norton hadn't told her anything? But given the way he depended on glamours, I didn't know how that could be.

"Is she here?"

"Bess? No, she's with her grandparents. We sent her with the nurse."

I nodded and walked Kumiko out of the room. "Why don't you lie down? You look as if you haven't slept."

"I shouldn't," she trailed off, but I saw her look longingly at the master bedroom. "Everyone's gone, Robin sent them all away. He doesn't trust anyone."

"That sounds exhausting," I said, truthfully. I remembered when my mother would decide to release all of the staff at the house in Shencheng and I would come home to find it empty.

"We're going to do all we can for her."

Norton came upstairs then and Kumiko looked back and forth between the two of us. "It really is uncanny," she murmured.

"Why don't you both take a nap while we see what can be done for Chikako?" I suggested.

She started to protest, but I glared at Norton and he swept in. "I trust them with her absolutely. And you're so tired, love."

"So are you," she laughed weakly, then looked back at me. "There's milk for her in the small fridge in the nursery. All the equipment is there; her nanny insisted before leaving."

"Thank you." I barely had the words out of my mouth before she was dragging Norton down toward my parents' old bedroom.

As I stepped back into the nursery, Daiyu greeted me. "Seeing you with him never stops being weird." She was flicking through the notes on her tablet, looking for helpful information. Jian was holding the baby in his arms, and I couldn't help noting that he looked completely comfortable like that.

"She's actually very sweet," he said, and I noticed she had his index finger wrapped tightly in her tiny hand.

"I have a solution," Daiyu said. "A short-term one. We'll have to discuss longer-term answers later, but for the moment, can you take me back to the kitchen? I need to see what I have here to work with."

–

"Am I interrupting?" Kumiko had been asleep for about six hours. "I left my husband to sleep."

"Oh! Of course, come in. I've managed to seal up the leak, for lack of a better description," Daiyu explained to Kumiko. The baby was crying now but no longer glowing, and Jian took her over to the changing table. Every flat surface in the room was covered with packets and bowls, mostly from food items in the kitchen Daiyu had disassembled to get ingredients. There was a "birthmark" on Chikako's back that hadn't been there before, a spot that could pass for a port-wine stain and vaguely resembled a keyhole.

"Thank you so much," Kumiko bowed to Daiyu. "I don't know what my husband promised you, but we'll pay that and more."

Daiyu held a hand up. "Don't thank me yet."

She froze. "Why? Is something else wrong?"

"No, not something else," Daiyu explained. "But the seals aren't permanent. They can't be, not when there's that much energy behind them. She'll have a few years, and then she'll burn through them."

Kumiko sighed. "And then what? We do it again?"

"That's an option," Daiyu answered, "but I'd recommend fostering her with someone who can train her so she doesn't need to be sealed."

Jian handed the changed and dried Chikako to her mother. Kumiko sat down in the nursing chair with the baby, shaking her head.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart," she said to the baby, and then looked up at Daiyu. "This is all my fault. I don't know how I'm going to explain it to Robin."

All three of us must have been staring at her, because she looked like a trapped animal suddenly. "Look, of course it's obvious now, but aside from a few tricks here and there my parents didn't like it when I used magic. Not respectable in their business circles, people wouldn't trust them, so we never talked about my great aunt the airship pirate…"

I busted up laughing, not able to stop even when Jian elbowed me in the side.

Now Kumiko just looked confused. "What is it?"

"Can I tell her?" I asked Daiyu.

"She should probably talk to her husband…"

"…It comes from your side too, cousin, doesn't it?" She looked relieved. "Go ahead and tell me. I'll ask my husband later, and I promise you I'm quite good at looking surprised when he tells me things I already know."

"I'm not sure how much of this is the case for him," I began, truthfully, "but there's a strong bloodline that comes down from our grandmother. Fire is an element we have a strong affinity for. That was my first thought when I saw her." There was so much I'd figured out after my path diverged with his, and I had to sort through it quickly in my head to rough out the shape. No reason to worry her with Xiu He or the more complicated things.

Kumiko smiled. "At least we're even, then."

"Yes," Daiyu agreed. "Don't feel guilty. These things happen."

She looked at me again, more carefully this time. "You- you aren't really a cousin, are you?"

I coughed, caught off guard.

"I'm exhausted but if you don't think I know my husband's face, you are gravely mistaken."

"It's a long story," I told her. "Ask him."

She nodded. "I should probably warn you, then, that I spoke to my in-laws before coming in here. They're on their way over with Bess."

"Oh. Oh! We need to go!" I grabbed at Jian's arm. "We have to go before they get here!"

Kumiko winced. "I'm sorry. I take it they don't know either."

"That's one way to put it."

"They're going to want to meet the ones who cured their granddaughter's mysterious illness."

"Well, that's not me anyway." I sighed. "I could go hide in the basement! That's… depressingly familiar."

"Whatever you're going to do, do it quickly," Kumiko pointed out. "I assume you know where to find it?"

"Unless you've moved the basement…" I muttered, and she smiled at the joke as I left.

Jian called my name after me, and I almost forgot to turn. "Wait, Robin. Is this really necessary?"

"He's got a good thing going here. I don't want to ruin that for him." I started for the stairs again, and he followed me.

"Is that really what you're worried about? His well-being?"

I stopped and looked back at him. "What?"

"I think maybe this is more about you and your parents, Robin."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." I tried to continue, but he grabbed my arm.

"When I first met you, you spent a lot of time and effort avoiding your parents, and there was just the one of you at that point."

I shrugged out of his grip and turned away. "It doesn't matter." I continued down the stairs and was about to turn toward the basement when I heard a door open. I froze.

"Daddy!"

Before I could react, a small child was throwing herself at me, wrapping her arms around my leg. My first instinct was to shake her off, but I knew that was the wrong answer.

"… Bess?" I guessed with a groan. Jian was laughing silently on the stairs.

"Missed you, Daddy!" She held out her arms and I realized she wanted me to pick her up.

"I'm sure your father is tired," my mom's voice was saying as she came up behind me. I took a shallow breath and tried to fight off the impending panic attack.

"Robin? Is everything taken care of with your younger one?" my father asked. Bess ran upstairs, calling for her mother. Jian made eye contact with me before following her, so I wouldn't think he'd just disappeared.

"What's wrong?" my mother asked. Of course she noticed first.

I turned around slowly, not sure what to expect.

They were both older. I mean, that's how time works, right? But it was still jarring to take in my mom's graying hair, the way the wrinkles gathered on my father's face.

"Robin?" my mother asked, confused. She stepped in close and reached for my face. "You're not- are you? Honey?"

My dad stepped up beside her. "No, you're seeing correctly, Mal."

"I'm not sure if that's a relief or not," she shook her head. "What's going on?"

"Do you remember, at the end of my first year in college, I had some trouble and you told me to come home and stop being ridiculous?"

My father scoffed. "That's one way to put it."

It was strangely nice to hear the condescension there - both familiar and a good reminder why I'd made my choices. "I'm the one who didn't come home."

"The one who didn't…" my mother trailed off.

"This isn't making any sense at all," my father jumped in, anger seeping into his voice.

"Oh, crap," came down from the top of the stairs. I looked up and Norton was standing there, more scared than I thought I'd ever seen him.

"Do you want to explain?" I asked him.

He came down the stairs slowly and stepped onto the carpet beside me. We were the same height in our stocking feet, of course, and looking at him was still like looking in a funhouse mirror. We'd been in too much of a hurry before for me to appreciate it. Here was me without my scars - some hidden, some never earned. His face was a little softer. His eyes matched. I went down the list in my head the same way I always did. He was still wearing the pyjama top and trousers he'd gone to bed in, and somehow he managed to look better-groomed than me anyway.

We turned together to face our parents.

"Robbie-" My mother walked up first to him, and then to me. I let Norton do the explaining, and he was… well, honest enough that I didn't feel the need to correct him.

"And you never missed us?" she asked me when he was done.

I didn't have a good answer for that. "He seemed happy. And like the kind of son you always wanted me to be. I didn't want to mess that up."

"I didn't think he appreciated you. What he had. A family, a place in the world," Norton was saying. "I wanted him to see what you were worth."

"But that never happened." My mother put one hand on my shoulder and one on his. "I- I need a minute."

"I should go," I told her. But she put her arms around me, and hugged me tightly, and I stayed.

Eventually we all ended up in the family room, and I got to compound the awkwardness by introducing Jian as my husband. He and my mother, of course, got along famously.

"Have you thought about children?" she asked Jian as he bounced Bess on his knee. "You're so good with them!"

"We hadn't," Jian said, looking sideways at me, "though there was some discussion about Chikako needing to be fostered…"

I must have made that choking noise out loud because Jian and my mother both smiled at me.

"We can discuss that later," Jian quickly said as I recovered. I sank back into the cushions as he explained to her what I'd been up to for the last fifteen years. Daiyu and Kumiko were happily discussing her great aunt's magical heritage. In the far corner, Norton and my dad were arguing in angry whispers.

Overwhelmed, I closed my eyes and tipped my head back against the wall.

"Rob- Robbie? Are you okay? Hells, I don't even know what to call you now," my mom said to me.

"I'm fine, really. This is just a little more than I was expecting when we came down here."

In the far corner, Norton and Dad's argument was getting harder to ignore. I heard "liar." I heard "pretender."

We all heard "not my son."

Norton stormed out of the room, muttering under his breath. Kumiko hurried after him, and I was sitting rod-straight now.

"What are you doing?" my mother demanded of him. Jian said something to me about taking Bess upstairs and being right back, and he and Daiyu both disappeared.

"I'm not going to have some pretender taking my name-"

I was on my feet before I realized I was doing it, stalking across the room toward my father. "I don't know what you think you're going to accomplish, but he is me. He is your son, at least as much as I am. He's the one who's interested in your business, and out of the two of us, he's the only one who's going to put up with your bullshit."

He stared at me. "How dare you disrespect me like that!"

"I haven't worried about what you thought since I was nineteen, and before that you spent a lot of time reminding me how unfilial I was."

"You're still my son," he said, a break in his voice.

I shook my head. "I have a life up north that I'm going back to. There's only one of us who's still going to be here listening to you in the morning - or you can throw him out and have no son at all."

My mother was standing beside him - I hadn't even seen her move. "You'll always be our son, Robin, whether you never speak to us again or not."

"It doesn't matter, though! He's still me. He's me in every way that matters! And he's better than me in the rest of them!"

"You keep saying that," my mother said. "Doing what your parents want doesn't make you more or less our son, Robin. You're our son regardless. Even when we didn't know, you were still my son and I loved you."

There was a hand on the small of my back, and I knew it was Jian. I drew strength from it. "I appreciate everything you both taught me, and the opportunities I had. I know things were complicated." I was picking my words carefully. I understood my mother's illness now in a way I couldn't have as a child, but it had still shaped a lot of my childhood. "I appreciate that you love me regardless, but you don't know me. You know him. You saw him married, you have grandchildren, you've taught him the business. I'm just- some scruffy guy from up north who works in robotics and comes home to too many cats."

"If your concern is the bloodline, you needn't worry," Jian volunteered. "What Chikako manifested is something I've seen in Robin. There's no difference in parentage there."

"Wait, what?" I started to ask him. I noticed that my father's face had relaxed a little, but my mother didn't even let me turn away. She pulled me toward her, away from Jian. My father stepped over to talk to him.

"I tried to know you, Robin. I always did. You were just… so secretive."

"I knew pretty early I wasn't going to make you guys proud. Maybe it became kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. And when I asked, you didn't listen."

"We tried."

"I know, Mom. I know." I swallowed hard. "I love you, Mom. And I-" I turned to my dad. He was still talking to Jian, but now his face was ashen.

"Go apologize to your son," Jian said, and my dad started toward the stairs.

"What did you tell him?" my mother asked.

"I explained how doppelgangers are created out of the pieces of yourself you wish you had, out of alternate timelines and warnings from the future." He looked at my mom. "Knowing everything he could possibly know about the future, about his options, about all the possible ways life could turn out, he wanted nothing more than to come back here and be your son."

My mom shook her head. "He's done everything we asked… I didn't know what had happened when he came home from the hospital in Vinland. Your father thought you'd had some sense knocked into you."

"Something like that," I nodded. "I was dealing with a lot right then. I figured it was easier to let him go home to you if he wanted it so badly, and then I didn't have to answer any more questions. You weren't there to tell me not to go back to Shenzhou and follow my… well, my stupid broken fucked up heart."

Her face fell. "You wanted to go that badly?"

"I told you I wanted to go."

"I didn't realize…" She sighed. "I'm sorry."

"Look at it this way. You would have lost me sooner or later. This way you sort of got to keep me, too."

Mom looked toward where my father had gone. "I'd better make sure he's not making a mess of his apology. You're not going to disappear on me, are you?"

"I'm not staying, but I'll say goodbye before I leave this time."

"I'll take that," she said and turned away.

I knew that I had to breathe to talk, but it still felt like I was letting my breath out when she was gone.

"How is this even happening?" I asked Jian. There was a particular chair in the corner that I'd loved curling up in as a child. I crossed to it and sat down. Curling up was hard, but I did my best.

"You look ridiculous," Jian smiled. "I'm glad you stuck it out."

I was talking to my knees. "I still want to run away and hide. I could still find the basement."

"It won't do you any good."

"I know."

"So why don't you show me this basement you keep talking about," Jian said while we waited.

I didn't look up. "Is my mood that obvious?"

"Yes," he stood next to me. "Angst really isn't your color."

I set one foot on the floor and threw my head back, looking up at him. "But I don't want to move. I used up all my caring already."

"Would you rather be here moping when your mother comes back down?"

"Well-played," I said, pushing myself to my feet. "Let's go see if any of my crap is still downstairs."

The basement door was, in fact, where I'd left it. Basements were unusual this close to the shore, but the house was build on a steep enough hill that the bottom floor was below the main entrance. Mom had claimed it for a workshop before I was born and I had eventually taken over her workspaces in both the house here and in Shenzhou.

"I had a lot of it brought upstairs when I was recovering," I told Jian as we went down the steep stairs. He walked ahead of me, just in case I stumbled, but I'd gotten a lot more comfortable with the prosthesis is the intervening years. "I really have no idea what's left down here. I never looked."

As it turned out, the space was cleaner than I had ever left it, with shiny new tables and equipment. "Of course. Norton's been here too."

"You really need to stop calling me that," he yelled ahead as he came down the stairs. "It's just going to confuse people. Besides, I'm no false Emperor."

"No, I suppose not," I shook my head. "What are we going to call each other?"

"Well, Robert seems to suit you," he pointed out. "Your mom called you Robbie, I noted; she stopped calling me that years ago."

I shrugged. "It's close enough."

"What are you looking for down here?"

"He talked about his basement several times. I wanted to see it," Jian stepped in. Norton - it was so hard to stop thinking of him that way - flinched a little every time Jian spoke. I hadn't noticed it before, but it was clearer now.

"There's a few old things in the storage closet down there," he said, pointing. "If any of it's yours and you want it, well, it's yours."

I didn't notice that Jian wasn't following me until I had the door open and realized he wasn't behind me.

"You spoke to my father on my behalf," Norton said to him. "I should thank you."

Jian assured him, "You don't need to." I didn't mean to listen, not really. I was digging around through old tools and obsolete motherboards, but everything was covered in years of dust and there wasn't much else for me to focus on.

"I won't," he answered, a little too fast. And then, "It doesn't seem fair."

"What doesn't?" I started setting a few things aside - mostly old projects I'd thought about over the years. Not everything was here, but there was my first go at a leg, and there was the half-monkey-half-pony I'd built before my mom let me use her equipment, and a few other things brought back memories.

"I've done all the right and proper things. I love Kumiko, and my children. I wouldn't trade them for all the magic in the world, not even for immortality. But there's still a part of me that…" his voice trailed off, and I wasn't sure if he'd stopped speaking or just dropped to a whisper I couldn't hear.

"I suspect that's human nature," Jian said, his voice so quiet I could barely hear him.

"He gets a second chance at what he gave up. Why can't I?"

At that I startled and dropped the toy robot I'd been playing with. It crashed to the floor, tin on slate, and I called out apologies as I gathered it back up again

When I came out of the storage room a few moments later, beat-up box of toys in hand, Jian and Norton were still speaking quietly.

"Your second chance is your children," Jian was saying. "That's what children are for, at the heart of it."

"That sounds like something my father would say," Norton said, making a face. Somehow it made me feel better that he didn't actually buy into my father's arguments.

Jian shook his head, though. "Not in the same way. It's not a matter of forcing them to fulfill your dreams for you, but the new dreams they carry give you a second chance to help fulfill them."

"What are we talking about?" I asked as I crossed the room. Hopefully they believed I hadn't been listening. Jian probably knew anyway; he's good at that.

Norton coughed and looked around awkwardly as I started pulling out things to show Jian. His gaze landed on my husband again eventually, though, and eventually I had to say something.

"What are you thinking about, Nor- Robin," I corrected myself.

He pretended not to hear the error. "It's weird."

"What is?" I asked, but he was clearly speaking to Jian.

"You look different. You're not supposed to look different."

Jian laughed. "That's what happens when you're mortal."

"So you went through with that," he said, and I wouldn't have noticed the disappointment if I hadn't known my own voice so well.

"I did." It didn't invite much commentary.

"Am- Is- Is he worth it?"

I refrained from pointing out that I was standing right there.

"He is, though there were other reasons as well. No decision that big is that simple."

"So!" I stepped between them. "I'm thinking it's time to head out! Don't want to overstay my welcome, you know how it is."

"You're not going to talk to your parents more?" Norton sounded surprised.

"I'm going to say goodbye. But tensions are just a little high right now, and I think it'll go better if I just talk to my mom later." I hefted the box again. "Jian, can you round up Daiyu and see if she's ready to go while I find my parents?"

"Of course." He put his hand on my shoulder and leaned in like he was going to kiss me, but slid back at the last minute. When I caught the look on Norton's face, I decided it had been the right move.

I let Jian go up the stairs first, and only turned back because Norton grabbed my shoulder.

"It's not that I don't want you to be happy," he told me. "It's just that I'm realizing we have very different definitions of happiness."

"Comes from living different lives," I told him. "Good luck with the kids."

"Thanks," he smiled, looking relieved. "I'll give you a call when Chikako's old enough to foster."

"Sure, that's- wait, what?"

"Well, who better to train her?" Norton asked. "Kumiko and I assumed when Jian suggested it…"

I must have been blinking stupidly, because he trailed off. I tried to recover. "No, no, it's- I'd need to discuss it. With Jian. I just hadn't thought about it. About kids. I mean. I don't know that I'm able to do that. I don't know anything about parenting."

He looked relieved. "Well, you know what everybody told me when Bess was born?"

"No, what?" I asked, starting toward the stairs.

He kept talking as he followed. "You're never really going to know what you're doing at parenting until you've done it. And even then, there's no guarantees."

"Well, that's completely unreassuring…"

"Jian?" I asked, poking my head into the nursery. He was cheerfully holding Chikako again, and now that I'd had it pointed out to me I couldn't stop noticing it.

"Robbie! Jian said you were getting ready to go. We're just chatting," Daiyu told me. She, on the other hand, had Bess awkwardly attached to her leg and looked like she wanted to peel the child off as soon as politely possible.

Fortunately for her, Bess wanted to inspect her false 'Daddy' again. She came over to me and tugged at my trousers until I knelt and looked her in the eyes. She studied me with all the intensity a young child can muster for a solid minute before stepping away.

"Real Daddy's prettier," she declared.

"You should go tell him, I'm sure he'd appreciate it," I told her. She must have taken me at my word, because she ran off.

"Thanks for the rescue," Daiyu watched her go. "When are we leaving?"

"I'm going to talk to my mom again but I wanted to make sure there wasn't anything you needed to do."

Daiyu nodded. "Nope, everything's sewn up on my end."

"How about you, Jian?"

He looked up from his conversation with Kumiko, apparently startled. "Oh, yes, just chatting."

"My, er, twin brother said something about us fostering Chikako when she's older. I told him I'd have to talk to you about it."

"Actually, I suggested it." Jian offered me the baby. I took her awkwardly, trying to remember the rules about supporting her head. She wriggled in my arms, but she felt like a wild bird between my fingers and I was irrationally afraid that if I held her too tightly, I'd break her.

"You don't look enthusiastic," Jian pointed out.

"Presumably I'd have more warning if we were fostering," I answered.

Chikako made an enthusiastic face - I was pretty sure it was a smile - and I smiled back at her. She even more enthusiastically spit warm milk all down my shirt, and smiled harder.

"Well, at least she likes you," Kumiko laughed as I held the baby at arm's length. She quickly swept up her daughter and left a rag in my hands instead.

"If you want to change, I imagine anything of my husband's will fit," she pointed out.

I wiped at the liquid on my chest, only succeeding in making the wet spot bigger. "How do you feel about fostering, Kumiko?"

"It's tradition," she said with an almost vocal shrug, "and it sounds like the safest option for her, to be with people who can protect her and train her. I'm sure I'll miss her terribly. It's still hard enough to send Bess away with her grandparents when they travel."

"I'm not making any promises, but if she's going to be in greater control of her bodily fluids I'll consider it." Jian smiled and I knew it was a foregone conclusion - I'd never manage to tell him no.

"I think I'll take you up on your offer to raid the closet." My shirt was only getting clammier. "If you see my mom, tell her I'm looking for her." I headed toward the master bedroom.

The closet was, of course, full of things I'd never wear. I settled on a gunmetal-grey silk shirt and fumbled with the buttons. I looked at myself in the mirror and thought maybe it was time to grow my hair, or cut it, or anything that made me look different.

"Robbie? Kumiko said you were- oh-" My mother was standing behind me. "Chiko got you, huh? She does that to everybody."

"You hesitated," I said, regretting it instantly.

She came up next to me and looked at the reflection of the two of us together. "I knew something was wrong when you- when he came home."

"Mom, you don't have to do this." She was shorter than me now, only by an inch or two, but I'd had that last growth spurt after Norton.

She didn't look at me, only at the reflection. "Your father said I was being ridiculous, and sent me to the doctor to get my medication adjusted, but I knew I wasn't just being sick."

Well, this was a special new hell just for me, wasn't it? "I'm sorry."

"That's the nature of doppelgangers, isn't it? They worm their way in. I'm the one who should be apologizing."

"Why?"

"I can't even blame your father, or the medication," she said to my reflection. "But he was so happy and so thankful and so filial and always interested in what I was doing or wanted. It wasn't that I really believed he was you; I just love him for the man he is."

I wasn't sure if I should talk back to her reflection as well or if I should turn to face her even if she didn't do the same. "You don't have to apologize for that, Mom. Seriously, it's been like… what, fifteen years you've spent with him being your son? Of course you love him."

"A good mother would have kept looking."

"You had no reason to look, honestly, Mom." I gave in and turned to look at her. "It's my fault, completely mine, I didn't fight, I didn't reach out to you. I just let him have you." Maybe I should have just snuck out, fallout be damned.

She shook her head and put on a smile. "Well, now I have two sons! So it's really a nice surprise. And a son-in-law! I remembered you insisting you wouldn't marry. He seems like a nice young man." She looked conspiratorial. "He's not… too young for you, is he?"

This whole day was an exercise in emotional whiplash but this was a new level. I reassured myself I'd be leaving soon. "Jian's older than he looks."

"And I remember Daiyu! You told me about her when you got expelled from that boarding school."

"Yep, that's her."

"I should come up and visit you! How does that sound?"

"I- sure. I'm working, but you could spend some time with Jian or visit aunt Macy."

And there went the smile. "Right, Macy. To think every time I've visited her…"

I swooped in to hug her, hoping to pre-empt whatever train of thought was leaving the station. "I missed you, Mom."

"I- I-" After a minute, she relaxed into the hug. "I missed you too." Neither one of us said anything about the tears.