Chapter Two

Correlation or Causation

The rest of the dark sides each sunk through the floor back to the dark domaine of the mind palace and the light sides were left to stare at each other suspiciously… or, at least, Logan and Roman were left to stare at each other suspiciously. Thomas had a big goofy grin on his face.

"Roman, Logan, we can't let Lucius tear us apart from each other, he's trying to make us fall into chaos-" Chaos began rising up from the floor and Virgil shook his head, "so he and the dark sides can replace us as Thomas's main functions. He'll say anything to make us fall into disarray." Virgil implored.

"Besides, I think we should have more trust in each other. We know that none of us would do this." Patton said gently.

"There must be some sort of outside power at work here." Logan mussed, rubbing his chin in thought. "Think back everyone. What happened lately that was out of the ordinary?"

"Joan didn't call us back since two days ago." Patton offered.

"That wouldn't be it." Logan dismissed it. "That would only make Virgil more anxious."

"We tried a new superfood to make us less tired." Roman said.

"That would improve our mood, but adding proteins and vitamins that we were missing would only make things run smoother." Logan replied.

"Virgil turned into a second Patton." Thomas said. Logan blinked with a disbelieving, flabbergasted look on his face.

"We're trying to figure out why that happened, Thomas." He said.

"See, I knew it was a dumb thing to say, but I didn't really care about being judged."

"Good for you Thomas." Patton and Virgil said together.

"No, not good for you Thomas!" Roman interjected. "Being confident is one thing, but having no filter or sense of shame will make us into a fool."

"And we could get into a lot of dangerous situations." Logan added.

"Really? It doesn't seem like such of a bad thing to me." Thomas said.

"Oh, kay, yeah of course it doesn't." Roman groaned.

"Oh!" virgil suddenly gasped. "I don't know if this helps, but do you guys remember that weird girl that came to our door and read us that poem about fear? She was talking about the removal of fear."

"That's got to be it!" Roman announced dramatically. "She was an ugly old hag in disguise of a fair young maiden."

"No." Logan dead panned. "She was not a witch."

"Sure she was." Roman argued.

"She might not have been a witch, but maybe we could ask her about what's happening. She wrote a poem about getting rid of fear, so maybe she'll know what to do." Patton suggested.

"Great idea, Popstar." Virgil agreed.

"Okay, that at least is a bit logical, but we don't even know who this woman is, so we can't really do that." Logan said.

"Darn, I thought I had that one." Patton said, still cheerful.

"I so did too." Virgil responded kindly.

"Aw, thanks Virge." Patton smiled.

"Hey, Klonopin, Serotonin! Pay attention." Logan said.

"Klonopin and Serotonin?" Roman repeated.

"What does that mean?" Thomas asked with a laugh.

"Klonopin is an antidepressant and Serotonin is a natural feel-good chemical." Logan explained as though that were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Yeah, good try." Patton beamed.

"It makes sense." Virgil said fairly.

"Can we just focus, please?" Logan began. "We need to- Thomas!" For Thomas had wandered off toward the stairs and Virgil had stepped aside to let him by.

"What?" Thomas asked. "Are we still making a video?" Virgil leaned toward the camera again.

"Yes." He replied.

"It's not even about the video anymore." Logan groaned.

"Come on, Thomas." Roman begged. "Come back down here and help us figure out what happened to Virgil."

"Yeah, we need to help him." Patton agreed.

"Oh, right." Thomas said, hopping down off the stairs.

"How are we supposed to solve a problem if we don't know what started it, Logan?" Roman asked.

"I'm not sure what to do either, Roman. Aren't you supposed to be the ideas guy?"

"Well, yes, but you just shot down my idea." He replied crossly.

"She is not a witch." Logan maintained.

"See? This is why I can't work with you." Roman growled.

"Guys, I don't think this is going anywhere." Thomas said, pursing his lips.

"Well, maybe we just need a new point of view." Virgil suggested.

"Yeah, Roman, isn't that you're department?" Logan countered.

"I'm trying, you're getting in my way!" Roman yelled crossly.

"Don't be yelling at each other please." Virgil begged.

"I'm not getting-" Logan began, getting cut off by Roman, who was shouting;

"I'm not yelling at him, I'm just trying-" He was then cut off by Virgil who, before he could say much was drowned out by a sudden, jumbled shouting match between Logan and Roman.

"Okay!" Patton called. "I think we need some quiet time everyone." He tossed a Disney coloring book to Roman and a rubix cube to Logan who both quieted. "A little bit of no talking time, okay?" He tossed a fidget cube to Virgil who caught it, then plopped down on the floor and began happily clicking away at the buttons on it. After a moment of the three of them quietly playing with the objects thrown to them, Logan had finished with his rubix cube and looked up.

"We can't just pretend we don't have a problem." He tossed the rubix cube behind him.

"He's right." Roman agreed, dropping the coloring book, on which he had sketched a gorgeous water lily(even though the picture had been of Cinderella originally). "Virgil won't just snap back to normal because of a fidget- oh my god!" Virgil was back to his normal self, his dark eye shadow, purple and black hoodie, and plain black headphones. He was completely immersed in his fidget cube, flicking a switch repeatedly and clicking a button ferociously.

"What is my hair right now?" Thomas demanded.

"I got you Thomas." Roman said, throwing him a hairbrush. Thomas ran it through his hair feverishly until it was decent.

"Thanks Roman." He tossed the brush back to him.

"Okay, Virgil, do you know what caused your sudden changes?" Logan asked urgently.

"Uh, what?" Virgil looked up from his toy, still impulsively clicking a button on it.

"Why were you acting kind of like, well kind of like me?" Patton asked.

"I wasn't acting like you." Virgil wrinkled his nose up. "When did I even get down here? If we're not doing a video, I'm going back up to my room."

"Oh, dang. The camera's still rolling. Thomas said, reaching to turn it off.

"Hold on, keep it rolling." Roman moved his hand in a circle motion.

"What? Why?" He asked.

"Well, we don't know what's going to happen yet." Logan replied.

"Okay," Thomas said slowly, "but I don't have much battery left."

"Virgil, can you remember anything about the last half hour or so?" Logan asked him.

"Yeah." He said slowly, making an expression of 'duh'.

"What were you doing?" Roman asked urgently.

"Listening to Evanescence." He shrugged. "And messing with this." He tossed the fidget cube up and caught it again.

"Is that what you normally do?" Thomas asked curiously.

"Yeah, why?" Virgil responded.

"Well, it's just that you were acting so… different earlier." Patton said.

"What do you mean? I wasn't even down here. I told you I was in my room. For the last couple hours."

"You can't have been." Logan shook his head.

"Well, my camera's going to run out of battery, so how about this? I plug in my camera and turn it off. We'll hang out down here, and if something does happen, we'll turn it on again." Thomas reasoned. "That way, it won't be dead when something does happen."

"Okay, fair enough." Logan conceded. Thomas turned off the camera, and took it upstairs to charge. "My question is how did a fidget cube fix him?" Logan puzzled, scowling and running a hand through his hair.

"What do you mean?" Virgil demanded as Thomas came back down the stairs.

"I mean just what I said." Logan replied.

"Maybe it's through an emotional connection to the fidget cube, he does always mess with it whenever he's particularly anxious." Patton suggested.

"I really don't think that a fidget cube could turn him back to normal." Logan said.

"Will somebody please tell me what is going on?" Virgil pressed.