[Alternate Universe #44,233]

Two weeks later, Shay was still visiting the same universe in his dream, over and over again. And oh, there were occasional variations, a night here and there when he visited other worlds, but mostly, he kept coming back to that one universe.

The one where Shay was a lawyer, and Hope was going to be executed soon.

It wasn't a terrible world, especially since Shay hadn't had to go back to that prison since his first uncomfortable confrontation with Hope. In this world, he was a decent man, a successful lawyer that still managed to devote a decent chunk of his time to pro bono work. Like Hope's case.

And what a case it was.

Shay had done his research, because something about Hope in that prison unnerved him (of course, something about it also made him feel extremely satisfied because she'd experimented on him for ten years, in another world). Her eyes… something about her eyes had gotten through to Shay. And he'd done his homework.

She'd been a surgeon in this world. Highly skilled, motivated, at the top of her field. Superficially, she had been a thoroughly decent person. Except that at night, she'd gone around kidnapping people, experimenting on their bodies, testing the absolute limits of what the human body could withstand, until days or weeks later, they died. Eventually she'd been caught, and when the police managed to get a confession out of her, Hope said she was trying to help people. She'd called it important medical research.

The police had called her a serial killer, and the jury at her trial had called her guilty of all charges, and… well, and then she had been sentenced to death.

"Why am I defending this woman?" Shay asked one day. It was half past nine at night, and he was alone in the office, Hope's entire file spread out across the table in front of him. The last thing he expected was an answer, but one came anyway.

"Because everyone deserves a fair trial."

"Ar- Dorian." Shay nodded at Arno where he stood in the doorway. He was a junior partner at the firm in this world, recently graduated from law school and ready to prove himself. The Shay of this world had started to take Arno under his wing a little, but they weren't exactly close yet. Not even on first name terms, which Shay thought was funny.

"Sir?" Arno asked, and Shay waved him into the room.

"Sit down," he said, reaching for the box of takeout on the table next to him. "Have some… whatever this is. You look hungry."

"Starved," Arno admitted. "I haven't had time to eat today."

Shay let him have silence for a few minutes while he wolfed the food down, as quickly as he could without being obviously rude. Then he broke the silence. "What did you mean about a fair trial?" he asked. "She's a mass murderer."

"Well then, a fair trial would find her guilty, I guess," Arno admitted. "But she still deserves to have it."

"And she did," Shay pointed out. "Fifteen years ago. Why am I still working on appeals for her?"

"Why are you asking me?" Arno asked.

"Um- pop quiz."

"Well I guess…" He put down the takeout and fiddled with the plastic fork. "Dying is a harsh punishment. It's better to be absolutely sure she's guilty before it's too late."

"I guess," Shay said quietly, and Arno followed his gaze down to the papers all over the desk.

"Oh," he said. "The Jensen case."

"Yea. Do you know it?"

"Not really," Arno said. "But I get stuck in the mailroom a lot, because… well, you know. New guy." He grinned awkwardly. "And you've been getting a lot of letters from a Jensen. All mailed from the womens' prison. Do you… check your mailbox, or…?"

"Show me," Shay said, and it took them less than five minutes to get down to the mailroom, pick up the letters Arno was talking about, and get back to the office.

"Okay," Arno said. "I'm starting to get really confused now. It's one thing to defend this woman, it's another thing to obsess over her."

"I'm not obsessed," Shay said, opening the first envelope. "I just want to know why she's writing to me."

"She's going to be executed in May," Arno pointed out. "And everyone on the planet that's ever heard of her knows she's a scumbag. You're her lawyer, you're pretty much the only person in the world that might even possibly fight for her. It's just self-preservation, it's not that difficult."

Shay shrugged and started opening the letters Hope had sent him. Most of them were short, a few resorted to outright begging, and every single one of them asked him to please come back.

"She says she has something to tell me," Shay said.

"I bet you anything it's something like 'I'm innocent, please don't kill me.'" Arno grinned, but Shay didn't smile back. After about thirty seconds, Arno's smile dropped and he shook his head. "You're not actually going to talk to her, are you? You've done what you can, she's running out of options for appeals, and honestly- I mean, yay justice system and all that, but she doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. She admitted to killing those people. She was proud of it."

"I'm going," Shay insisted.

"Fine," Arno sighed. "You're the boss."

-/-

With Hope suing to get Shay's humanity revoked, there was no question of anyone going back to the homestead. And so maybe it wasn't the best circumstances, but Desmond couldn't help feeling ecstatic at the idea of finally getting his brother back full time.

But with Altair came Malik, and Desmond wasn't entirely sure he liked the kid. Still, he was Kadar's brother, and he seemed… responsible. That was the most positive thing Desmond could say about Malik, from what he knew so far.

But the one thing he knew for sure was that if Altair and Malik were both going to be moving in, they needed a bigger place. The apartment was big enough for Desmond and Kadar together, big enough even for temporary guests. They needed something bigger if this was going to be more permanent.

"How are we going to pay for this?" Malik complained. They were all four crammed into Desmond's small car, headed out for some showings. Desmond glanced in the rearview mirror, and saw that Malik's frown was focused specifically on him. "You're the only one with a job, and you tend bar. That's not exactly going to pay for a place big enough for the rest of us."

"I'm getting a job," Altair said suddenly, and both Desmond and Malik looked at him in absolute surprise. Desmond hadn't known anything about this, and Altair usually had a difficult time keeping secrets from him.

Malik seemed to be surprised for a different reason. "How are you getting a job?" he asked. "You've worked in the same place your entire life, you went straight to the research tower at the homestead after graduating, you don't know anything about applying or interviewing or- how can you possibly have a job already?"

"I…" Altair looked down at his hands. "Well, I've been talking to Connor, and met his father a few days ago. We started talking, and he… offered me a job."

"Oh," Malik said.

"What's wrong?" Desmond asked, mentally so the teenagers in the back wouldn't hear. "You don't sound happy."

"Malik's right," Altair answered. "I've been at the homestead my whole life. I feel like I'm betraying everyone there by going somewhere else."

"You're not," Desmond insisted. "Things are complicated. And maybe it's a good thing that you're leaving home. Trust me, I learned more my first month away from the homestead than I did my whole life before that point."

"I guess." And even inside Desmond's head, Altair's voice sounded a little happier now. "But you're wrong about leaving home."

"What?"

"Well, you're here. I'm home."

"Is this going to have to happen a lot?" Malik asked.

"What?" Altair glanced back at him.

"The whole talking about things in your heads so we can't hear it," Malik said.

"It's kind of weird when you're right next to each other," Kadar agreed.

"Is not," Desmond scoffed.

"Is too!"

Desmond grinned sideways at Altair and took one hand off the steering wheel to put a finger on his lips in a shh gesture.

After maybe fifteen seconds of this, Malik blurted, "You're doing it again!"

Altair started laughing first, and it had been so long since Desmond heard his brother just start laughing like that, he didn't even care that both teenagers were giving them death glares from the backseat.

"This is going to get old fast," Kadar complained. "Hey, Malik, think we can find something to annoy them with?"

"Hey look," Desmond said quickly, before they had time to start brainstorming. "This is the first place we're supposed to be looking at." He parked and started gesturing everyone out of the car.

-/-

Arno felt weirdly like a proud parent when he saw Shay at physical therapy. It had only been two weeks, but Shay was already making strides (pun fully intended) toward full recovery. He was walking under his own power, although not for long and not for far, but that was still a lot of progress. Especially compared to how helpless he had been at the beginning. The potions were helping too, but Arno was really happy with how the physical therapy was going.

"You know you don't have to sit out here and wait for me," Shay said one day at the end of his session. He was limping and shuffling, but his back was straight as he walked under his own power into the physical therapist's waiting room.

"How else am I going to drive you home?" Arno asked. He stood up as well, spinning the keys around on his finger. "You ready to go?"

"Sure," Shay said. "But how about we go somewhere else first?"

"Really?" He almost dropped the keys in surprise. "Are you sure?"

Shay shrugged. "Well, why not?"

"You haven't gone anywhere but here since we got you back," Arno said.

"Well, it's embarrassing to be carried around all the time," Shay said cheerfully. "But I'm feeling pretty good right now. I think I can manage."

"Sure!" Arno took Shay's elbow, less with the intent to help than with a sudden desire to move quickly. "Where do you want to go? I think we should still probably take it easy. Maybe a movie, or some food, or something? But if that's not what you had in mind, we can do something else, I don't care." He paused for breath. "What do you want to do, Shay- Shay! Don't laugh at me!"

"I'm laughing with you," Shay assured him.

"Sure," Arno scoffed. "Except that I'm not laughing."

"Then lighten up," Shay said. "We're going to have a good afternoon."

Arno immediately set his face into a stubborn frown, and Shay whacked him gently around the back of the head. Arno jerked forward a little and laughed. "Hey!" But it was good to see Shay joking around like this. He'd seemed so worried ever since coming home, and Arno was still convinced Shay was lying about not having bad dreams. It was a relief to hear him suggest that they go do something fun. "So what exactly did you want to do?"

"Well," Shay said thoughtfully. "I want to know more about you still. I was thinking we could just drive around and talk. "

Arno shook his head and laughed. "I'm not interesting. You're interesting, why don't we talk about you?"

"I haven't done anything but lie around for ten years," Shay said. "I don't have anything to say."

"You could talk about what your life was like before we met," Arno said. "I know you were at Davenport when you were at school, and I know you were friends with Liam. But I don't really know that much about you. Or we could… that is- I mean, I've just been wondering what it was like."

"The other worlds?" Shay sighed. "Are you sure you want to hear about them?" When Arno nodded, more hesitantly than he'd planned, Shay sighed and started limping out of the building. "Let's get in the car, then," he said. "If we're going to talk about this, we should at least do it in private."

And they didn't say anything else until they had walked (together) to the car and gotten inside. Arno was still new enough to driving to be nervous, but Shay looked nervous too. Maybe he didn't want to talk, or maybe he just didn't know if Arno was any good at driving. Arno tried to hide his nerves in case that was it.

"So where am I going?" Arno asked.

"Anywhere you want," Shay said. "Pick a direction, and just drive. We both have phones, we can find our way home no matter how far we go. And hey, you're psychic."

"True," Arno said. He hit the brakes and came to a gentle stop in front of a stop sign at the mouth of a T-intersection. For a very long time, he hesitated, like it mattered at all, then went left.

"The first world I went to," Shay said after several more turns. "You were my son. Mine and Hope's."

"Oh." Arno was suddenly glad of the road in front of him as a distraction. He wasn't sure how to feel about that. "How does that work?" he asked. "I mean, genetics. If I had different parents, I wouldn't be me."

"But you were," Shay said. "I know it shouldn't have happened, but then there you were…" Arno risked a glance sideways, and saw Shay staring out the front window. His eyes were distant, his arms bent in front of his chest like he was cradling something. Or someone. "I liked that world."

"Even though it wasn't real?"

"It felt real," Shay said. "I had that universe's memories in my head. I couldn't remember anything else." He shifted slightly, letting his hands drop. "And it was real."

"No," Arno said. There was a funny, twisted up feeling in his gut. Like he was jealous of that other baby Arno. Some Arno that was actually Shay's son, that some part of Shay's mind still wanted to hold. "This is real."

"All the worlds I visited are real," Shay said.

"They're all in your head," Arno objected.

"That doesn't mean they're not real," Shay said. "They're just in a place they're not supposed to be."

"So… that other Arno is in a world, inside your head?"

"I guess that's one way of looking at it," Shay agreed. "Are you… you're not jealous, are you?"

"No," he mumbled.

"Pull over," Shay said.

"Why?"

"Just do it," Shay said, and his voice was so firm that Arno obeyed without even thinking. When the car was stopped, he sat and stared at where his hands sat on the wheel, ten and two, like he'd been taught at driver's ed. "Arno," Shay said. "Arno…"

"What? I'm fine. You're fine. Everything's fine, why'd you tell me to stop?"

"Because I want you to look at me, and if you were still driving, this conversation would end in a fiery car crash."

Arno looked over at Shay, not because he wanted to, but because he had to prove that he could.

"All those worlds are real," Shay said. "Some of them I liked, some of them I didn't. But I didn't like any of them as much as I like being home. This is the only one I really belong in. Every other world has a Shay that's supposed to be there. And I can… steal their bodies, and borrow their memories, but in the end this is the only world that's home. I want to be here."

"What about the world with the baby?" Arno asked.

"It was good," Shay said quietly. "But I wouldn't trade away this world or you for any other Arno."

"Good," Arno whispered. He smiled a little. "Maybe we could do that movie after all, now," he suggested. "I think we've done enough talking for today."

Shay nodded, and the atmosphere in the car was a lot lighter as Arno started driving again.

After five minutes or so, Shay asked, "Aren't you still grounded?"

And Arno laughed. "For even longer than before when I don't get home from picking you up on time."

"So maybe we should…"

"Should face that problem when we get home?" Arno interrupted. "I completely agree." And he thought, as he changed lanes to turn toward the theater, that maybe he'd been spending too much time with Kadar.

And then he thought, no, he just hadn't been spending enough time with Shay. And it was time to start fixing that.