Green Thumb

Thomas settled into bed as his girlfriend, Lily, furiously typed on a paper-thin, silver laptop beside him.

"I fixed that weird rumble in the bathroom tap. Loose filter", he announced with a long breath.

"Awesome", her answer came without her eyes leaving the screen.

Hiking the covers up, Thomas sighed and added, "I cleaned out the fridge. Nothing spoiled now."

"Awesome", she answered with the same tone.

Dropping his head against the pillow, he told her, "I met with the diplomatic liaison to the Murder Hornets. They agreed to let us live if we give them your Uncle Rufus."

"Take the deal. Mom would gladly hand him over herself. That's if they were actually a thing, which they aren't." Sighing, Lily saved and closed her laptop before saying, "Hey."

Thomas looked at her and replied with the same, "Hey."

Taking a deep breath and gently rubbing Thomas's fuzzy arm, Lily whispered, "I'm sorry things are like this, but I'm grateful you're holding down the fort."

With a long sigh, Thomas nodded and replied, "I know. I'm just frustrated I can't get out there and do more."

Lifting her laptop slightly, Lily gave a quick smirk and noted, "I'm frustrated too. I want you out there, passionately word-brawling not to change the names of literary awards to the hip trends of the moment. And those library books need you. Sitting all sad, lonely, and unread."

Thomas flicked his eyes at Lily in surprise, like he'd forgotten, over all these weeks and months, that he was supposed to be a librarian. With a lingering smirk, he noted, "It's good we got furloughed, if only for the fact Heidi was running through more than her weight in sanitary wipes an hour. Sliding doors open, scrub everything that comes inside. She even wiped down the stubby little pencils."

With a sigh and a friendly smile, Lily answered, "I know. But now she's free to forward cat photos around the Internet with badly-punctuated baby talk, as she was always meant to do."

Thomas laid his hands out in front of him and noted, "Yeah, like a pig in mud. I am glad I can still go on the site and help with electronic matters, but it feels so hollow."

Lily gestured to her laptop. "Believe me, if this was all my job became, I would honestly go snorting dirty restrooms. But the boss man's wife's boyfriends made him move out and he has a prestige project to complete. So long as I get paid in dead presidents."

Brushing his forehead, Thomas turned over a quick smile on his face, noting, "And whatever Hamilton and Ben Franklin were best known for."

She brushed her hair out of her mouth and remarked, "Being made into an overrated play and writing about farts."

He snickered and leaned towards her. "I miss our usual schedule. What does the rest of your week look like?"

Lily let go of a breath. "We have two scans that need to be done with actors in life casts."

Thomas scooted up in bed, asking, "Like we each did for those minor characters in the last game?"

She cracked her feet and replied, "Less shotgun to the face this time but same deal, yeah."

He wanted to reminisce about it and the race they had playing it later to be the first to blow the head off their in-game character, but Lily cradled her eyes and halted him, "Thom, I really need to finish the work they sent me, so I can sleep and not be the wrong kind of zombie tomorrow."

Though he had so many things left to say, especially echoes of words he'd left her in text messages she hadn't found time to read, he lay beside her and watched code and images flutter across her screen.

In the breezy night, the tree looming above the attic crawlspace scuffed across the roof like a toilet brush.

Between thoughts and typing, Lily murmured, "Can I make one, small request about the yard though?"

"Go at it with a scythe?"

"If you want, and that would be awesome, please film it if you do. But if you could murder a few things out there, it would mean a lot to me."

Silence punctuated by the squishing of soft laptop keys followed in the night, along with the distant scuff of the roof. Thomas fussed in place and turned a few ways before Lily grabbed his hand.

"Thank you, for all you've done and all you will do. Thank you for all the things you want to do. We'll make it. You told me that weeks ago, and now I'm returning the favor."

They held a quick kiss in the dark, after nearly sucking on each other's noses.

----

Thomas fell asleep first and woke after Lily. He rushed through his routine, so he could help her with breakfast and chat a bit before she took the car to work.

He busied himself around the kitchen and vacuumed before he went out the front door with a dinky, white paper mask compared with the dinky, ninja-black one Lily took in her purse. It had been days since he'd seen the yard.

Stalks tall enough to consume small children loomed and wrapped around the fence. Though he joked about a scythe, he could see the benefits of one. Near the tight part of the path, he could see where Lily had beaten and trampled weeds in a safe zone of passage, like a crude crop circle.

Tugging on a pair of reusable work gloves, Thomas worked his way around the side and the separate garage. Elbowing the door open with a shove, he marveled at the sea of dried leaves which had worked their way inside eons ago. He'd last retired and emptied out the fridge of things his family had forgotten were inside several decades ago.

When his parents flew south for retirement, he was left with his childhood home to turn into all the things he’d idly daydreamed about as a kid. But it also meant forty years of stuff left on the backburner.

He regretted using a wooden broom. It felt like the rats in their ancient nests were laughing at him and waiting for an excuse to grab it and smack him over the head with it. The tough, metal rake, despite creaking like a rusty gate, worked a lot better.

The war with the garage eventually ended with the return of the mower as part of the peace treaty.

Not that having a mower increased Thomas's odds of victory but it was absolutely better than the toy-like weed whacker which somehow conned its way into great reviews online but was effectively just spinning a plastic cord for the weeds to flagellate themselves on.

After exorcizing dozens of spiders from the underside, he gave it a try on the nearest stalk. In his head, he imagined the prickly plant melting under the blade like a wicked witch. Instead, it just got angry and started beating him in the face as the metal wrapped around it. Even the hedge trimmers had a tough time taking it down. Thomas took a breather before reconsidering his strategy. He needed bigger guns.

Not literal guns, not yet. Stopping off at the nearest home improvement store, he picked up a black machete, a usable weed-whacker, and a blade sharpener for the mower. Once feeling thoroughly prepared, he cleaved through the yard. He smacked the once bold army of stalks to the ground. And he used a ladder to slice down the branch Lily had mentioned last night.

Emboldened, he continued around the side of the house that the ferns and branches always scuffed over. Wincing at the paint stripped on the siding, he whipped his blade across the net of branches. Further and further, he delved into the narrow jungle of foliage. Past the flat-leafed bush. Past the spindly tree. Past the skeletal dead tree. Into a long series of vines. By a massive bush...

Pausing in his pursuit of plants to take down, Thomas turned around and puzzled for a minute. The way back was covered in branches he had missed his first time through. It was hard to see the front yard. It was also hard to see the neighbor's house. And it was especially hard to see the backyard. Considering the path couldn't have been longer than forty or fifty feet, he mulled over this incongruity.

Cutting his way back further, he just encountered more and more plants. After what had to be more than a hundred feet, he stopped again and looked back. The way was completely blocked by plants even though he'd cut a path for himself.

Pressing ahead, Thomas knew he would eventually come to the church behind the house even if he somehow weaved his way between the fences. The most unusual thing of all was that he hadn't heard the screaming, black dog who wagged her tail and flared her teeth. She'd busted through the fence more than once and would've gladly gotten right next to him if he found a hole.

Undeterred, he kept cutting in the same direction, spinning with a little flair. After several more minutes, he took a long breath, shook the plant bits from his shoes, and looked around again.

"Hello?" He called out and turned a few times. No dogs, no kids on the street. Marching deeper into the forested area, he tried to reconcile the fact that he should've either approached the nearest house or the street, no matter if he'd gotten turned around.

Hacking deeper and deeper, he kept going until he noticed a large, strange flower at least seven feet high in front of him. It had a large, pink cloak of feathery petals surrounding a salmon-toned opening. Several tiny stalks swelled out of his base with nascent blooms. As he approached it, hands out, he heard a reedy, strained voice call from his right, "Don't touch that."

Straightening up and searching for the voice, Thomas noticed a thin, older man with silvery spectacles and a blunt nose standing there with his arms folded and a pale-blue paper mask on his face. Straightening his own mask, Thomas asked, "What? Who are you and what are you doing in my yard?"

Scoffing, the man countered, "What are you doing touching your face and not washing your hands?"

Narrowing his eyes, Thomas turned his head slightly and puzzled, "What? Who are you?"

Reaching into his pocket, the strange man pulled out a small bottle of hand sanitizer and urged, "Use this."

Looking down at his gloved hands, Thomas had to ask, "On what?"

"Just use it!"

Sighing loudly, Thomas accepted the sanitizer and dabbed a little on his gloves and touched his face near where he'd adjusted his mask. The strange man didn't appear pleased but also didn't call out Thomas on what he'd done wrong. Tucking the half-used bottle in his pocket, Thomas posed the same question he started with.

Adjusting his collar, the man noted, "This isn't your yard. It's a pocket dimension where I managed to quarantine myself from people like you with your lack of hand-washing, less than two metre distancing, and amateurish mask-wearing. Refer to me as Dr. Tapas."

Immediately after, the strange man made fists of his hands and wiggled them in place. "That will substitute for a handshake. Also, you are wandering within two metres. Correct this immediately or I'll be forced to complain about this in strongly-pointed language."

Thomas looked down. He hadn't stepped towards this "Dr. Tapas" but the doctor had taken a step towards him. When Thomas pointed this out, the weird fellow asserted, "You have no respect for my personal bubble."

Scrunching his eyes up even more, Thomas returned to the point, "I have no idea what's going on. How did I get into a pocket universe when I was just trimming my yard?"

"I assume you did so most rudely, as you are doing several things. Please leave. This pocket universe is only one point six billion kilometers square. I prefer my privacy."

Scratching the side of his mask, which brought more ire from the odd man, Thomas noted, "That sounds like a lot."

"It's more than three times the surface area of the Earth and it's clearly still not enough to get away from people like you."

Thomas raised his hands up. "I'm only trying to clear out my yard. I didn't intend to go to another universe. I'm leaving."

With a sigh, Thomas turned to leave but his eyes returned to the towering flower-thing off to the side. He approached it for a better look.

"Don't touch that", scolded Tapas.

Bristling, Thomas reacted, "Why? Is it yours?"

"No. I have no idea what it is. So, don't touch it."

Frustrated and annoyed, Thomas blocked out the weird doctor-guy and crouched by the side of the plant. Using the blunt side of his machete, he dug around the root and pulled out one of the smaller flowers with the roots intact.

"Put that back", the doctor said harshly but without raising his voice.

Thomas inspected the plant with a smile under his mask. "Come over and get it."

"You are being most rude. If you don't cease, I will find your social media accounts and file a complaint."

Retracing his steps, Thomas eventually made his way back to the area beside the fence. The sounds of children playing in the street filled his ears along with the yelping, screaming dog on the other side of the thin, metal fence. Peering back, he could see a lot of plants but the doctor hadn't followed him.

Taking the pink plant inside, Thomas mixed some spare potting soil on the back porch with a fat porcelain holder and set it over by the sink. After a few Google searches, the closest plant he could find to the one on his counter was between something nicknamed "Hooker's lips" and a Hydnora. Whatever it was, he thought it looked rather pretty and hoped Lily might enjoy it. At the very least, he could post about it online and win some fake points with random people he'd never meet.

He spent the rest of the day pruning away the dangerous plants against and on top of the house until he felt like he'd swallowed a lung full of tree despite his mask and he was walking on a pile of prickly branches. It would take several weeks before he could get rid of all the leftovers.

When Lily arrived home to the fish dinner he'd prepared and stories about pocket universes, her first question was, "Do you think we can charge this Tapas guy rent? Seems like he's renting the space right next to us.”

Thomas shrugged and bit into his flounder. "I wouldn't want to deal with him. He got uppity just standing around me. So, you believe me?"

Lily mixed a piece of fish with rice. "I trust you. Rationally, I am concerned you might've had some sort of reaction to the heat or some poisonous plant randomly growing over there. Do I think other universes exist? Sure. Do I think you can wander into them like Narnia while doing yardwork and run across misanthropic weirdos? That's a bit higher of a fence for me to clear but I'm glad you cleaned up the yard."

As proof, Thomas gestured to the pink, strange plant sitting on the counter. Lily rocked her head and admitted, "It does look weird, but I've seen plenty of photos of weird plants from around the world. Maybe...you got turned around in like a delirium and you wandered into some dude's exotic garden and he just messed with you?”

Folding his arms, Thomas sighed. He raised his eyes at Lily. She tried on a faint smile and said, "Whatever happened, I think the plant is pretty. Weird, but pretty."

He moped but accepted a hug and a kiss from her as he dried his laundry and set the basket by the counter. As they discussed what movies to see on Netflix before bed and he vetoed the one with people lost in very tall grasses as being too close to home and not campy-sounding enough, they both heard a noise.

ACHOO!

Lily's immediate reaction was to say, "Bless you" but Thomas shook his head and muttered, "I didn't sneeze." Grabbing the largest steak knife and scissors he could find, they followed the direction of the sound. Lily had a magnum and a hunting rifle locked in the front rec room, but they agreed to one another that would be the last resort.

A quick scan of the room where the sound came from showed nothing amiss and no signs of intruders. Even the spare bedroom didn't have enough space for someone to hide. Still, Lily unpacked her magnum without ammo, and they scoured the entire house. She even poked the ceiling and banged on the walls, noting, "I saw a gross movie about a homeless guy living in some dude's apartment, and yet somehow the apartment owner was the bad guy."

Their minds were only put to rest when they both witnessed the plant on the counter audibly make a sneezing sound with pink pollen globs fluttering to the floor. Cracking her head, Lily muttered and smirked, "Weird-ass plants. Maybe it has an allergy to humans.”

Thomas cracked a smirk too, until he noticed that the goo from the "sneezes" had left a stain on the tile and had drifted as far as his warm basket of freshly-cleaned clothes. Stretching them out, he lamented that it appeared the pollen had stained his whites like red dye, leaving them tinted faintly pink. Even the stuff underneath had been fully-discolored.

With a sigh, Lily remarked, "While I appreciate you thinking of me when grabbing weird plants from pocket universes, I'm not really taking a lichen to this one. Sorry. I had it on my mind and I couldn't resist."

Thomas smiled and told her, "It's fine. You can make it square by helping me get some groceries soon. I haven't botany for a while."

She snorted and attempted, "I'm not very frond of grocery shopping but lettuce do our best."

After a few giggles, he admitted, "Actually yeah, I really should get some groceries by the weekend though. But what am I gonna do about my clothes?" He turned over the stained clothing and tried to brush off the plant goo.

"You can run it through again, maybe with some bleach. I mean, it doesn't look that bad. Pink compliments you and no one is going to see you but for some video chat and you can blame it on the video quality."

Running his fresh clothes through again, Thomas moved the plant over and tried to shift it so something would catch any further pollen but moving it around swiftly jostled more loose to get on the clothes he'd changed into after working outside all day. Fuming, he wet them with water from the tap and tried to scrub it off.

Lily rested her head on his shoulder and said, "The fish was very nice. Thank you again."

That night, Thomas found himself fussy and distracted despite a rather goofy movie they watched online. Lily fell asleep first from her long day and, despite some itches even after his shower, Thomas soon did too.

In the morning, he lamented that not even bleach had gotten the stains out. After first trying the clothes and finding them irritating, he went to Lily for advice. Beyond dry-cleaning suggestions, she went into storage and pulled out some of her older, exercise clothes, noting, "They might be snug, but they should do for around the house. And you might want to put that noisy...num...ugh it's too early to come up with a plant pun but put it outside. My mom said she's stopping by tonight too. So be sure to get everything cleaned and put on something nice. Gotta run. Love you!"

Thomas didn't even get a breath in before Lily was in her car and silence had descended upon the house again. "Right. Clean. Get ready. Impress."

He did his best not to think about his girlfriend's clothes. They were just clothes. Just some stuff to wear before he got this weird plant stuff figured out. Slipping them on wasn't the most comfortable thing. They were snug around his waist and loose at the chest. The U-neck curve also made him feel self-conscious even though no one was around to see him.

The material was smooth, but he still felt itchy. Even the fuzzy pants made him shift and contort. He considered sleeping in with his blanket but needed to make the house presentable for later. That meant taking the trash out to the curb, clearing out the recyclables, clearing a space on the drainboard, making the dining area nice, and other things he would probably forget but hopefully Lily would remember.

Cracking his neck as the house stretched a few old tiles in the heat of the rising sun, Thomas noticed that his skin felt thicker than normal. He hoped that wasn't because he was putting on hidden, stay-at-home weight. It felt soft in a nice way and he told himself that it was just an aloe vera-like side-effect to the pollen goo.

This theory lingered but dwindled as he wiped up around the house and felt like he had a tightness in his throat. Trying not to get too alarmed, he breathed and swallowed quietly, resolving that nothing was more difficult than usual. Naturally, he worried about it being symptoms and whether he had passed it to Lily, and she was going to pass it to her coworkers or even her mom this evening.

A quick check of his forehead told him that he not only didn't have a fever, but his temp was running low, closer to Lily's norm. Puzzling over that, he considered a hot cup of tea as he adjusted the waistband of the loaner pants. Tugging them up, he shivered when his balls slipped inside uncomfortably.

At first, it felt like a firm kick and he made a strained whimper, but the pain soon eased to an awkward emptiness. Reaching around nervously to fix himself, Thomas struggled with the fact that his body didn't want to cooperate. Stretching and shaking his legs, in the hope that something might dislodge itself, he didn't notice that each shake of his leg was also pulling it in to better fit with the cropped cut of the pants.

Staggering on mismatched legs, he reached for some rational explanation as the mirror loomed higher and higher. Working over to the toilet with a loud pop of his hip, Thomas pulled the pants down as he felt a rumbling in his stomach. Bending back and feeling his legs position themselves differently than his usual knock-knee with the height of the toilet, Thomas shut his eyes and tried to think of something other than his current situation.

The library. Oh, he missed it. On the cozy side of a hill with a view to ruminate by, he tried to sit himself back in his usual chair as kids and old folks alike wandered in and hunted the winding shelves for just the right reading material.

Clearing himself out, he went to finish and gawked at neon-pink, almost-cartoony shapes at the bottom of the bowl. The smell was more of a sharp wintergreen, like he'd been blowing bubbles down there.

Hurriedly hiking the clothes off, he hopped in the shower and fervently scrubbed himself like a first-time user of fake fat potato chips. Scrubbing hard, it didn't occur to him that a dark mass of his hair was collecting around the drain. His legs felt cleared away, comfortably denuded, and that ease was a relief after all the itchy tingles. Freeing his entire body of the forest of his skin, Thomas soon stepped out of the shower with shimmering, cool flesh.

Shivering, he quickly dried and considered just slipping on Lily's clothes again since he'd only had them on for a short time. But they had been so itchy. Walking to the box of old clothes she'd left behind for him, his teeth chattered as he grabbed whatever looked warmest. Whereas the last pants had been a snug fit, these were even tighter. But the pain only lasted for a moment. Like dough before a rolling pin, his shortened legs caved before the force of the clothes.

And, as they yanked his waist in and spread his hips out, he felt one more breath-stealing crush at his crotch. The wintergreen sensation rushed through his body like an icy river. His head screaming to stop, he grabbed the nearest top, a light-colored affair that held the phantom contours of Lily's shape. He squeezed his shoulders into it and felt the shape of his body molded like clay down and in. The path of least-resistance lay at his chest, where soft, pliable flesh came to rest.

Stumbling deliriously, he knew something was wrong with how well these clothes fit him. He felt like a human cookie pressed into a new shape. Swinging his wide hips over to the nearest bathroom, he stretched, strained, and turned to check the damages. His face, trimmed faintly by the neck of Lily's top as he yanked it down, still resembled a version of himself, only pressed sleek. His shoulders had her tapered contours and his torso lingered several weeks behind how she was now. Her breasts were abundantly expressed at his chest. Below, his legs matched hers before a rigorous trial of YouTube exercise playlists.

Feeling around, he marveled at the new textures he'd been forced into. He consciously knew he should've been screaming and calling for the hospital, but they were kinda busy with other stuff lately. And it wasn't as though he felt bad. Rather, it was a rush of pleasurable sensations he couldn't resist indulging a little. His mind reeled with possibilities.

Still, he didn't want to spend the rest of his days as an awkward, pressed almost-twin of his girlfriend. Pulling some of his clothes out of the washer to try was not only a nipple-raising source of discomfort but left him in the same Lily-like state. Returning to Lily's clothes, he folded his arms and glared at the pink, alien plant resting innocently on his counter with a little puff of pink against the nearest wall.

With a muffled, androgynous tone, he told it, "I blame you.”

Flopping down on the couch, he weathered the ricochet of his altered shape. A quick hand down Lily's pants told him that he was anatomically like his girlfriend and another hand told him the same at his chest. Worn out and curious with plenty of morning left on his hands, Thomas did his best to enjoy the moment without getting too wrapped up.

Time passed as he learned a few spots that he reminded himself to see if they matched on Lily when a pleasant crest was interrupted by a sudden call on the landline. As Thomas had conditioned himself to let it go to voicemail, he heard Lily's mother leave a message, "Hi, sweetie! I was just thinking of stopping by early so I can spend some time with Thom. Oh! Or if this is Thom, I'm just stopping over before I said I would to Lily. Don't tell her. I want it to be a surprise....now how do I end..."

Bolting, Thomas flailed for the phone but Lily's mom had hung up by the time he got to it. Frantically, he considered a call to Lily to wave her mom off, but she was here to spend some time with him. But he couldn't open up the door to her like this. He needed...

Suddenly, the answer came to him. The life casts. Lily's face had a perfect mold. Opening up the closet, he scooted his mold to the back and carefully opened Lily's. Cringing, he felt a flash of claustrophobia as he sealed the mold around his face. Tightening it with the strap in the back, he tried not to breathe, same as they had told him when they first made his.

He expected a feeling like tightening his head with a vice, but a few small pinpricks were all the pain that accompanied it. Releasing himself from the mold, he staggered for a second as Lily's fair hair spilled across his changed neck.

"Hi, I'm Lily Fitzgerald", he tested her tone with his voice and found it uncanny from the first sound. "Oh man, Thomas is gonna frea...I mean Lily is."

Shaking his head at that sudden slip, he felt stray thoughts colliding with his normal ones. It was like feeling a stamp on his brain which carried a shadow of Lily's traits. Thom knew he should've been alarmed by this, but he tensed up with the idea of having to deal with her mom when she really wanted to get work done. With Lily's mom.

Sifting through her clothes, she came up with some Lily underwear to look decent for...Lily's mother. The time she had to spend idly-waiting threatened to drive her insane without the comfort of her laptop or the ability to scold the pathetic boss man with a jagged smile.

Running through a rigorous reminder of who he was supposed to be, Thomas vigorously begged that this would wear off soon. He loved Thomas in ways he couldn't....Lily. He loved Lily. He was a bundle of confusion but at least, he hoped, that the stamp of Lily on him would be enough to convince mom.

Like usual when she came over unannounced, Thomas sat outside on the front porch and let the wind play through her hair. As her silver hatchback pulled alongside the drive, he had to wrestle with the politeness he'd used with her before along with Lily's casual sharpness.

Flipping off her sunglasses and securing her facemask, Mrs. Fitzgerald's eyes widened to see her daughter stretched out on the porch chair in her workout clothes.

"Lily? Honey? What are you doing here? I thought you went to work. Where's Thom?"

Rocking her head, she answered, "He's around. Not right now. Groceries. Yeah. What are you doing here, mom?”

"I was just checking up on you. Things are settling down and I never really got a chance to meet Thom properly when you two started dating. Everything alright with work?"

Getting up from the flimsy, mostly-broken lawn chair to the long, wooden one, Li--Thomas sat down next to Mrs. Fitzgerald. Instinctually, her mom scooted to the end of the bench, almost into the front bush but she waved her off with a leveled head and stern note, "Mom. Please."

Sighing through her facemask, Mrs. Fitzgerald scooted closer but kept her mask on securely, noting, "I just worry about you and I don't want you to get sick. And heaven knows what might happen then."

Fake Lily raised her hands. "Sure. I'm just in a weird headspace right now. Thom cleared out the yard lately and had a weird encounter with some guy and a strange plant and that's the reason I'm here."

Her mom looked at the yard and regarded the difference, although she lingered in confusion about what this had to do with her daughter being home from work. With a deep breath, Thom swallowed and said, "I'm Lily Fitzgerald. I mean...I am Lily. You're talking to Lily. It's hard to say. Just...arg. I can't say what I want to say, and I don't know why."

Setting her hand on the bench, her mom bent closer and asked, "Is it about Thom? Is something wrong?"

Pressing her hands to her face, Thomas as Lily struggled and sighed. "Thom. Thom. Thom is...it's not bad. It's like this. I am in love. I am so deeply totally in love. Every night it's this joy of being with the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. But it's also so casual. It's just sitting there and joking and smiling and wishing I knew what to say. Thom...I...Thom...he does so much, and I do so much. The times are so different because I don't feel like we're doing the things we really want to do. I want to scream I love...I love...I love...but what if that's just me? I want to be together forever. What should I do?"

Mrs. Fitzgerald's expression fussed a bit, as though confusion set in as she was listening. "I think I see. I mean we've talked about this but usually you say that Thom is the one who feels like this. Do you feel the same way?"

Pressing her hands to her face, Lily shrugged and admitted, "I don't know. How do I feel? I'm Lily Fitzgerald. And this is so difficult right now. What do you think your daughter would feel?”

Narrowing her eyes, her mom set her hands in her lap. "I...can't tell you that but I think you need to follow your heart. If you feel the same love Thom does then just put it to him. Maybe you two aren't as different in how you feel as you think?"

It wasn't long before Thom-as-Lily invited her temporary mother inside, made her tea, and sat listening to stories of friends and relatives and how they were doing lately through all sorts of challenges. Lily did her best to dodge questions around personal or intrusive subjects of Lily's life.

It got them through till the afternoon, when original Lily walked through the front door and locked eyes with her twin. For a moment, she turned around and headed back out the door and in again while rubbing her bleary eyes. Then, she did it again when she saw her befuddled mother.

"If this is a way of announcing I have a long-lost sister, I do not approve."

By this point, the mood-altering had waned on Thomas enough that he managed to get through Lily's lips about his true identity.

Real Lily's first question was, "How much of me are you right now?"

Thomas held her hands in front of her and admitted that it was fading but, "I had a lot of you. But I'm not sure what to make of all of it."

Plopping down on the couch, Lily scratched her neck and said, "That makes two of us."

Lily listened as Lily-Thomas explained what happened since the morning from the clothes to the face mold to being Lily for her mom, who reeled from trying to figure out suddenly having two daughters.

When she'd heard enough, Lily explained for her mom, "It's like Clayface in Batman, only real and like by way of Poison Ivy."

Mrs. Fitzgerald scrunched her face and inquired, "Basil Karlo or Matt Hagan?"

Fussing with her hands, Lily admitted, "Mom, I just watched the cartoon as a kid. You're the one who collects comics. Thomas clipped a flower from...somewhere. And now...can you turn back into yourself?"

Thomas looked at his hands, the same hands as Lily. "I haven't tried."

Turning up her hands, Lily leaned forward. Thomas leaned back and noted, "I have some questions."

"...Really? In front of my mom?"

Thomas fanned his hands. "Not about physical stuff. About....how you feel."

Lily sighed and rubbed her eye. "Shoot."

"When I was immersed in you...I kinda had this naturally-cynical side. But I was also overwhelmed by love. I felt immense joy when thinking of you of me. We've been together through all this and I just want to know...do you want to be with me for more than just me making the house nice for when you come home and when all this craziness is a silly memory?"

Lily hid her head with her hands. Thomas looked to Lily's mom as though she were his own mom who might offer some support.

Fidgeting, Lily adjusted herself several times before admitting, "I dunno. I'm happy to just come home and quip in bed a bit and get my work done before I have to reset and jump through the next day and the one after it. But I..." She pressed her hand to her mouth and took a breath through her nose.

She tried again. "I don't know what to say...because I'm afraid. I'm afraid right at this moment that...a man who calms me might be hurt or I might hurt him with what I say. I need you. And I don't have any clever words for it. I just don't want you to be like this. I don't need another me who just agrees with what I say or knows me intimately. Especially not that. I need Thomas Hinch. Please..."

As they sat there, Thomas's presence of Lily faded away as he swelled in the loaner clothes to uncomfortably-snug degrees and returned to his familiar form.

Quietly, they embraced. Lily's mom wrestled with the whole thing, even after they showed her the freaky flower. Her first suggestion was, "Maybe you can sell this stuff online. Quite fascinating." Thomas eagerly considered that suggestion as his clothes finally finished drying.

Talking the rest of the night, Thomas waxed for a while about the library and filled Mrs. Fitzgerald in on quiet little slivers of his life that made Lily smile as she reflected on them. Once her mother had gone away, Lily cozied up to Thomas and admitted, "I'm thinking I might take some days off soon. We're not far from release on the newest bullshit....newest build."

Thomas pressed against her. "You don't have to."

"I want to. I need to stumble into a pocket universe more often. Heck, depending on how this plant goo works, maybe we can pull a Parent Trap where you go into work for me and I can go into work for you. Just have some fun.”

Through the open drape in the side window, Dr. Tapas tapped on the glass. After Thomas grumbled and explained who that was, Lily inquired, 'What do you think he wants?"

Approaching, Thomas asked just that. Clearing his throat, Dr. Tapas announced, "You're welcome."

Thomas responded, "For what?"

"For all I did for you. Thanks to me, your relationship has been fixed."

Lily frowned and announced, "You didn't do anything. We just had stuff we needed to talk about. A relationship is not just one day or one conversation. But I want...I want to have a lot more cool conversations with Thomas."

Repeating, Dr. Tapas said, "And you're welcome."

Leaping up, Lily retorted, "You didn't do anything!"

He flexed his bushy eyebrows. "Oh? Didn't I? Or did I?"

Thomas and Lily agreed, "You didn't."

"You two are too close together. Two metres. Scientific models. Also, I need a spare false vacuum to make another universe..."

After shutting the drape in Dr. Tapas’s face, Lily beckoned Thomas back to the couch with a smile.