'Blaine. Blaine. Blaine what the fuck is happening what the fuck what the fu-'

'I- I don't know, I don't know any more than you do- oh my god.'

'Where are we? I can't be stuck here – what about home? We need to go home.'

The smiley boss comes up to them again. She expects him to get annoyed with her, but his smile hasn't faded at all. 'Did you forget where table four is? Over there, silly Simon!'

When she looks in the direction he's pointing, she notices the people sitting at the table. She nudges Blaine and nods over to them. 'Don't they go to our school? Isn't that the gay club kid?'

'Kurt, yeah, that's him. Tana, they're just staring at you. Maybe you should take them their food.'

'Unbelievable. We fall through a wormhole and I'm still the only one with a job.' She huffs and makes her way to the table, dumping the tray and coming back to Blaine. He sees the customers looking confused and upset.

'Um, please don't bite my head off, but you might want to try smiling. Look around; I think that's the only option here.'

'Smile? Ew. And… here? Where is here?' She leans in close, because even though she's spiralling, shouting in here would just feel too out of place. 'Why the fuck are we in black and white?'

'I – maybe if we-' he pulls her back into the cupboard, closes the door, and opens it again. No change. He tries again, waiting a few seconds longer. Nothing. Santana groans and walks out.

'Okay, that was super fun, but maybe now we should try something else.'

'What a helpful attitude! Thanks! I'm sure turning on each other will make this so much easier! Do you have a better idea?'

She closes her eyes for a moment and takes a slow breath. 'Fine. Right. Well, apparently, these people need milkshakes, so I'll do that for now, I guess? Hey,' she grabs the man she assumes is the boss, 'hey guy. What time do I finish today?'

He laughs. 'Well, aren't we a forgetful Freddie? Six o'clock, same as every Wednesday!' He laughs again and walks away to take another order. She's pretty sure everybody here already has a full glass and full plate, but she doesn't have time to care right now. She looks at the clock.

'That's two hours. You go and take a look around and see if you can figure out… anything. Literally anything. But especially how to get home.'

'Right. Good idea.' He checks his wrist and there's a watch which wasn't there before. Handy. 'I'll come back here at four. Are you going to be okay here?'

She shrugs. 'Looks like I don't have a choice.'

He smirks.

'Just don't forget that big ol' smile!'

She smiles at him, and he wishes he hadn't said anything. She looks like she's about to murder him and really enjoy it. 'Where's your phone, B?'

He frowns. He checks his pockets. Empty. 'Oh.'

'Yeah. Looks like your extra-curriculars are on hold.' He would give a limb for a good comeback, but he comes up empty. He nods sheepishly and heads for the door. 'I hope you have a super day!' she calls gleefully after him.

Some of this is laid out like Lima, but it couldn't feel more different. It's clean. There are trees planted on the sidewalks. There are no vape shops or phone shops and not a Starbucks in sight. He looks into the window of one store full of televisions, all black and white of course, and there's a weatherman beaming as brightly as the cartoon sun next to him. 'Looks like it's going to be another beautiful day in Lima – warm sunshine, just like yesterday, and the day before, and… every other day!'

He keeps walking, passing a soda shop, an ice cream shop, a florist, a drug store, and every single person who walks past him is smiling. The clothes are all so dignified – those beautiful dresses, the hats, the waistcoats – the past may have sucked, but the aesthetics really were to die for. He sees two men in three-piece suits bump into each other, and rather than getting aggressive or even muttering under their breath, they both stop and apologise, even shaking hands afterwards.

He's definitely not in his Lima any more.

The school is spotless. No trash. No graffiti. No groups smoking weed by the bike rack. The huge noticeboard at the front advertises the 'Big Game' coming up soon.

He gets to the end of Main Street – he makes a mental note so he can get back to the diner easily – and turns the corner onto Elm Street. This one is residential: white picket fences, manicured lawns, flowerbeds bursting with life, even if every flower is just another shade of grey. Every person who sees him gives a big smile and wave and a 'Hi there, Blaine! Lovely weather we're having!', and he can't help smiling and waving back. He's a cynical little shit, but he's largely just blending into his surroundings, and his surroundings usually contain Santana. It's easier to be polite back so nobody suspects anything unusual.

He keeps walking, but when he looks up it says 'Main Street' again. That can't be right. He looks back. Wait – how is he back at the diner? He walks to the end of Main Street again, turns onto Elm, and the other end, there's Main again.

Well, he figures, at least he'll be able to find Santana again easily enough.

On his third lap, a woman calls to him from her doorstep.

'Blaine, darling, how was school? Come inside and have a cookie, fresh out of the oven!'

Her light dress (at least it's a lighter shade of grey than some of the others he's seen) pulls in at the waist and flares out, down to just below the knee, not unlike the outfits he's seen on every other woman in town. She's wearing shiny heels and pearls, even though as far as he can tell she's not going anywhere special. She's tall, with dark curls and a soft smile.

'Um, sure. That would be lovely.'

He follows her into the house, and tries to take in as much as he can, but what stands out is the picture over the fireplace: this woman, with a man and two teenagers. Not just any teenagers. Him and Santana. He decides to risk it. 'Mom?'

'Yes, sweetie?' They sit at the table together and she pushes the plate of cookies towards him. He takes one and bites into it somewhat warily, but it's delicious. Perfect. Like everything else in this house.

'Oh just, um. How was your day?'

She smiles, caught off guard by the question. She clearly doesn't get asked often.

'It was just lovely. I baked you these cookies, and there's a roast in the oven for dinner. And obviously, I made the beds and dusted and cleaned. Nothing unusual.'

'Okay,' he nods, taking a sip of the milk she's poured him. 'Is dad… at work?'

'Until six, same as always.' Blaine nods again.

'How was school?'

She's staring at him, right into his eyes, with none of the worry he's seen in his own mother's face. She just smiles at him easily and waits for his answer.

'Fine. Just, you know, school. Classes and stuff.'

'And basketball practice?'

He almost chokes on another bite of cookie. 'Basketball?'

She nods, waiting for an answer.

'Oh, great. I love basketball. I'm, uh, good at it, I guess.'

'Well, I knew that, Blaine! That's why you're on the team!'

He gestures towards himself, his mouth hanging open. 'Me- I? Yes. Yes I am. On the basketball team. That's normal.'

She smiles and sips her tea, replacing the cup on the saucer and breathing a deep, contented sigh. Blaine is convinced she would sit frozen like that for hours if nobody else was here. There's a clock on a shelf by the window, and it says 5:45.

'Oh, Santana finishes soon. I said I'd go and meet her at the end of her shift. Oh, uh – is that strange?'

She chuckles. 'Of course not, dear. That's what good brothers do.'

Blaine watches her for another moment, nodding uncertainly. 'Mm-hmm.'

He arrives at the diner to see Santana talking to the boss. He takes a seat at a free table and busies himself with the menu. She puts a coke in front of him and sits down.

'I am in so much pain.'

He frowns. 'It's been two hours. Is that the most you've ever smiled?'

'Do you have any idea how much underwear I have on right now? Because I actually don't, I just know it's a lot because I can barely breathe. Drag queens should get medals for being cinched in like this.'

'But you look so good, it's worth it, right?' Blaine smirks.

'I will poke your eye out with one of my boobs. They're pointy enough in this. Don't test me. So, what did you find out?'

'Okay, I have some good news, I think, and some – I don't know, weird news?'

'Good first. I'm in no hurry to get more weird.'

'Right.' He sips his drink. 'So, I know where we live. Which means that however annoying it is that we're here, at least we're not homeless here. Honestly, I don't think the people here would be able to cope with a homeless person.'

'What do you mean?'

He shakes his head. 'I'll get to that. First – we're siblings. I was walking and this lady asked how my day was, and she's got a bunch of pictures of us with two white grownups and she didn't think it was weird when I tried calling her mom, so either she's an axe-murderer, or she's our mom and we're brother and sister.'

'They're white? Am I adopted?'

'Tana, you know I'm-' she points at him, mouth open, ready to argue, 'No, we're not having the white-passing-privilege conversation now-'

'Not having the conversation is-'

'Is part of the privilege, I know, but genetically – it doesn't matter. Everybody's grey here anyway, so I guess it doesn't make a difference now. Either way, our mom is really nice and I didn't meet the dad yet but he'll probably be there when we get back.'

'And how do we get there? Is it far?'

'That's the weird part. Nothing's far.' She raises an eyebrow. 'I mean, there's only two streets. This one, and the one with our house on it. And they kind of…' he tried to demonstrate with his hands, turning his finger in little spirals, 'loop round.'

Instead of asking more questions, Santana gets up and goes outside. Blaine tries to follow her as she marches away from the diner, but he decides to stop and wait. It's not like they can lose each other here. He was waiting for her with a smile when she appeared again from the other direction.

'You should know before you get mad that your tone will be heavily undermined by your bobby socks.'

She glares at him, but breathes deeply to try and calm herself down. 'Fine. Let's go and… meet our parents, I guess.'

Blaine nods in the direction of home (although the opposite direction would work just the same), and they walk together in silence.

'Dad? Mom? We're home.' The word 'mom' feels almost alien on Santana's tongue. She never lets herself miss it, but she squirms a little saying it now.

'Hello, my darling girl.' Mom kisses her on the cheek and cups her face with one hand. 'How was work?'

'Long.'

Mom chuckles to herself. 'You girls these days, going out and getting jobs. I could never have done that when I was your age. Things change so fast.' Santana and Blaine look at her quietly for a moment. They can't tell if this change is good or bad. 'Anyway, time for dinner. Your father's already at the table.'

A full ten minutes go by before they even see their father's face. Hidden behind his newspaper, he replied with the occasional 'yes, good evening' and 'oh, all fine' when they tried to speak to him. It isn't until he lowers the paper to eat that they finally see him – bushy brows, ruddy complexion, a generally unimpressed expression.

They both feel a little insulted that this is supposed to be their heritage now.

They get through an entire conversation about his work and neither can say what he actually does for a living. They know it's in an office with lots of other men. They know he has important clients and reports and presentations but that's about it – oh, and that Peterson wore a bad hat today. Whoever Peterson is. He doesn't say a word to his wife.

'Dinner is delicious, mom. Thank you so much.' Santana feels the need to compensate for the lack of appreciation. Blaine smiles at her.

'Couldn't agree more.'

They manage some more polite conversation for their mother's sake, which isn't easy when neither of them actually remembers the school day she's asking them about, but soon enough they make their excuses so they can go upstairs and debrief.

'Okay, kids, just don't study too hard!'

Disturbed by the lace curtains, floral wallpaper, and more posed family portraits than Blaine's house (and at least his real parents like each other) they make their way upstairs and sit in one of the bedrooms. They realise it's probably Santana's as it's pink and the other one is blue.

'Okay, I need to change; I can't cope with this anymore. Look away.' She rummages through her closet and finds something pale yellow, floor-length, covered in frills and lace, but at least it looks loose-fitting and not pointy. Blaine tugs a little at his bowtie, relieved that this is the extent of his discomfort.

'We need to get out of here.'

'I know that. I need to get back to Luna. But until we figure out how to do that, we just need to figure out how to be here for a while. If I can figure out this fucking- ow!'

'All okay back there?'

'Yeah, it's just… complicated. I've got it.'

'Santana, we're two gay teenagers stuck in the 50s. I know how this ends, and it's not good for us. We'd have to keep everything a secret.'

'And that would be different from normal because…' He frowns. 'Sorry. But I haven't been harassed once today, unless you count being called sweetheart, and somehow that doesn't feel creepy here. I'm sure you can still find some dude with secret gay feelings to drag down an alley somewhere.'

Blaine blinks in disbelief that she's being so calm.

'There are no alleys. There are two very open streets full of boys and girls walking side by side – not even holding hands – and blushing just from talking to each other. Half of them are probably feeling out of place but denying it.'

'Well, at least here my dad has a job. I don't have to worry about-' They both know she hasn't stopped worrying about Luna since they climbed out of the store cupboard a few hours earlier. 'Anyway, since when do you care about other people's feelings? It doesn't suit you. These people aren't even real. Hey,' she taps his shoulder to show him her nightgown. 'What do you think? Enough to turn you?'

'Hmm. You look like my grandma. Only not dead. Hot.'

'Whatever, homo. You guys are supposed to appreciate fashion.' She sits next to him on the floor and they both lean against her bed. 'Blaine, I have no idea what to do. There's no logical way out of this.'

'Then should we try and think of dumb ways to get out of it?'

She laughs and after a pause, shrugs.

'Fuck it. Why not? Dumbest ideas. Go.'

'Oh, right now, okay – uh, we burn this whole place to the ground. If we die here, maybe we wake up back home and this was all a dream.' She pinches him. 'Ow, okay, it's happening, but we're just brainstorming.'

'Right. If we do die though, we might just, like. Die. So we'll call that Plan B for now. What else? Um… is there, like, a big event happening here soon?'

'What are you talking about?'

She sighs. 'I'm just thinking, if this was a movie, there would have to be some big, like. thing, where shit happens and we go home. Right?'

'Are you just describing… story structure?'

'Fuck you, I'm trying.'

Blaine tilts his head. 'The Big Game. The sign outside school said there's a big game on the – the 23rd?'

'When's that? Do we know the date? 23rd of what?'

'I don't know if they even have months here; apparently it's always sunny. But a Big Game, that could be a big event, right?'

'In this town, a sneeze would be a big event. So yeah. What game?'

'I guess basketball. According to Mom, I'm on the team.' Santana has to cover her mouth so her laughter doesn't echo down the stairs. 'What? It's not like it was my idea!'

'No, of course not. It was mother nature's plan for you all along. That's why she gave you this frame, the perfect build for a basketball team. In elementary school.' He holds his middle finger up to her. 'God, I hope we don't have to win the game or we're never going home.'

'Fuck you, it's not like I can magically grow a foot taller- wait. Growth.'

'I highly doubt they'll have steroids here, B-'

He grabs her hand. 'No, no. In any movies when something like this happens, the people have to, like, grow. They have to achieve something or help somebody or just, you know, be better.'

Santana's face falls and Blaine hears a muffled groan.

'Are you telling me we have to be nice? Is it too late to revisit the fire plan?'

'Come on, think about it. When weird shit happens to people in movies, they always learn something profound from it. Maybe it isn't as obvious as being nice; maybe it's something more specific.'

She groans even louder this time. 'So we have to narrow it down? That's even worse! I have like twenty different things I need to fix.'

Blaine's face suddenly turns serious. 'Hm.'

'Hm? What does "hm" mean? What are you thinking?'

'It's probably nothing, it's just – that guy I met up with last night. He said something about how people like him had worked for decades so people like us could live a better life. He was really intense. For someone that femme.'

He turns his head to see Santana glowering at him.

'Let me get this straight.' Her voice is almost a whisper now. He knows that's dangerous. 'You were slutting it up too much and you pissed off some magical old queen, and that means I have to: 1. Wear a fucking cage around my waist. 2. Leave my baby sister who needs me, and 3…' She narrows her eyes at him, 'Smile?'

Blaine audibly gulps.

'Maybe?'

'Ew. Ew, Blaine, I hate you. So do we have to stay here until you start the whole gay rights movement from scratch? What's the plan?'

He kneads his forehead with his knuckles. 'I don't know. Hey, we don't even know if that's it – that was the dumb idea brainstorm, remember? Look, we have no way of figuring this out for sure now anyway. We need to know more first. We'll go to school tomorrow and see… something. Just try and get through it until we have more information. And it couldn't hurt to be nice, too.'

'Fine,' she forces out through gritted teeth.

They hear Mom's voice calling up from the foot of the stairs.

'Okay, you two. Time for bed!' Blaine glances at his watch and shows it to Santana. 8:30. 'I'll be up to say goodnight in a minute!'

They can't even argue – today has been a lot longer than it was supposed to be, and with the various other stresses, they realise they're exhausted. The sibling thing hasn't really felt weird so far, but saying goodnight adds a level of oddness. Blaine's not sure if he should hug Santana. They don't normally, so why now? Okay, there are plenty of reasons, but he simply gives her shoulder a light squeeze.

'Night.'

'Yeah. Hope it's not too empty for you.'

He snorts, but that's when he catches a glimpse of their parents' bedroom. It might be the strangest thing he's seen all day, despite that bar being set spectacularly high. He sprints back down the hall to Santana's bedroom.

'Tana tana tana you need to see this-' He grasps her elbow and pulls her along despite her protests.

'Get off me - what is it, you weirdo?'

He points into the master bedroom.

2 single beds.

'What, you think they're having marital problems or something? Cool, you're in a totally different life, and I'm back in my house when I was twelve. Love this journey for me.'

'Santana, they don't even have litter here. Do you seriously think bad marriages exist in this place?'

'Were we at the same dinner tonight?'

Blaine sighs in exasperation. 'No, you're not getting it. The couples I saw in town were all shy and not touching. Our parents sleep in two single beds. Tana, this place hasn't discovered sex yet.'

She looks at him and starts shaking her head. 'No, no, Blaine, don't say it.'

He grins. 'I think I just found my purpose.'

She gives a peculiar growl of frustration. 'Go to sleep, you horny minx.'

He smiles sweetly. 'Weirdest thing, I can't hear you all of a sudden. I guess you're a woman in the 50s, so your opinion isn't as important as mine.' She tries to thump his arm but he dodges it. 'Being related to you is delightful. Night, sis.'

He's just lying down when Mom comes in. She sits on his bed and leans down to kiss his forehead. 'Goodnight, my sweet boy. I love you.'

He can't even cringe – it's so earnest and warm. 'Love you too. Night, Mom.' She smiles and leaves to go to Santana's room. As he lies alone, in this room full of photographs of memories he doesn't have, he realises this is his first night without any kind of sexual encounter in… he's not sure how long. He doesn't wish there was a guy here. He wishes his real parents were here to say goodnight to him. This is the point when most nights he's frantic with his need to avoid this loneliness. All he can do now is lie with it and listen to his own breathing until he eventually falls asleep.

Mom gives a little knock before she comes in to see Santana. 'Everything okay, honey?'

Santana briefly looks up from the covers she's pulling off the bed. 'Yeah. Night, Mom.' Mom doesn't leave, and Santana realises this bed-time chat is obviously a thing here. She climbs into bed, and Mom sits on it, stroking Santana's hair back.

'You're such a wonderful young lady.'

'Oh.' Santana has never been called that in her life. 'Thanks.'

Mom frowns. 'That's why it's so worrying when I hear you shouting from all the way downstairs. That's not something nice young ladies do.'

The rage immediately jumps to a nine. Santana just about manages a slow breath in and out.

'Mm-hmm.'

'I just can't stand the thought of you and Blaine fighting. Your brother loves you very much, you know.'

Santana stifles a laugh.

'Right. You know, he was being loud, too.'

Mom chuckles. 'Oh, well, you know boys. They just have all that energy; they can't help it.'

Sirens blare in Santana's head, howling 'RED ALERT. RAGE LEVEL TEN.' She closes her eyes for a moment. 'It's not her fault. Different time. Not her fault.' She looks at Mom again.

'You're right. I'm sorry. I'll try to be… nicer.'

'Sometimes I wonder if that job is a good idea. Soon enough, you'll be graduating, then getting married and having children like I did. I worry you're learning all the wrong things.'

Santana had limits.

'It's okay. I should keep working. We don't have to have the exact same lives. It won't hurt me.'

Mom just gazes deep into her eyes.

'Goodness, I suppose you know best. I must be old-fashioned.' She takes Santana's hand. 'It's only because I love you. You know that, don't you? I want you to be happy.'

Sure, happy. With a husband who barely speaks to you and nothing to do all day but cook and clean.

'I know, Mom. I love you too.'

'Goodnight, my wonderful girl.'

Santana smiles. She doesn't even have to force it.

'Goodnight.'

Mom kisses her cheek and leaves, and Santana stares at the ceiling, her eyes stinging. Of course, she knows this isn't her real mother, but that closeness is something she never lets herself miss any more. She is already scared of having to lose it again.