The Way Home

By the time Monday finally came to an end, Roy Robinson felt better than he had in weeks.

The day had been a disaster in several respects. His attempt to take control of the wish's relationship transfers had gone wrong twice, first leaving him with a young woman he'd never met before, and then somehow landing him with the mother of his girlfriend Michelle. Neither development had been remotely what he'd intended. The wish was still doing whatever it pleased, and Roy remained as powerless to control it as he'd been when Varoonth first explained what he could about the wish's magic.

Those concerns were still there, simmering away in the back of his mind. They hadn't disappeared, and he wasn't foolish enough to believe they'd somehow sort themselves out overnight. But for once, they weren't the most important thing on his mind.

Helena Roberts was.

Roy sat behind the wheel of his car in the company parking lot, watching the late-afternoon sunlight gleam off the windshields of the vehicles around him. The office building stood behind him, its windows reflecting the pale sky. People were leaving in twos and threes, heading towards their cars with the tired expressions of employees who'd survived a Monday that had been determined to make their lives difficult.

Roy should have felt the same exhaustion. Instead, there was a lightness to him that had been missing for days.

Helena had listened. More than that, she'd believed him.

Roy had always known she was brilliant. In all the years he'd worked at the company, the vice president had impressed him with her ability to see the big picture without losing sight of the people responsible for making it happen. She was sharp, decisive, and experienced enough to know when to push and when to give someone room to work. She'd been a mentor to him, someone whose professional judgment he respected and whose opinion mattered.

Now she was in his corner.

Tom Burgess had spent weeks making Roy feel as though his career was balanced on a trapdoor, with Tom holding the lever. The threat had followed him home, invaded his thoughts, and made it difficult to enjoy even the parts of his life that should have been wonderful. Every possible response had seemed to carry its own risks. Tell someone, and Tom might release his fabricated evidence. Stay quiet, and Roy would be left to deal with the consequences alone. Try to expose Tom, and he might find himself accused of precisely the misconduct he'd been trying to avoid.

But Helena had listened to the whole story and started thinking about solutions.

With her involved, how could he lose?

The confidence was probably premature. Roy knew that. Two weeks wasn't much time, and Helena couldn't conjure evidence out of thin air. She'd been clear about that. Still, there was a world of difference between facing a problem alone and facing it with someone who understood the company, knew how its systems worked, and had the authority to do something about it.

For the first time in a while, Roy felt supported, a feeling that surprised him.

It wasn't as if he had been alone for the last couple weeks. In fact, he was far less alone than he'd been his entire life. He had women who loved him, women who wanted to spend time with him, women who checked on him and made room for him in their lives. His coworkers weren't a collection of strangers who'd abandon him the moment things became difficult, either. He'd worked with many of them for years. If he'd needed help with an ordinary workplace problem, he had people he could have approached.

Yet he'd tried to solve this particular problem on his own.

Why?

Roy rubbed a hand across his face, considering the question. Perhaps he'd been embarrassed. Tom's blackmail was personal, an attack on a career that he truly cared about but didn't know how to protect. Perhaps he hadn't wanted to admit how vulnerable he'd become, or how frightened he was of losing the life he'd worked so hard to build. Asking for help meant acknowledging that he couldn't control the situation, and Roy had never been particularly comfortable with that.

Whatever the reason, he'd made things harder for himself.

"Brilliant work, Robinson," he muttered. "You get handed an impossible situation, and your first instinct is to keep it secret until it becomes an even bigger problem."

The words were harsh, but not entirely undeserved. Roy had spent weeks trying to think his way out of something that required more than thought. He'd needed someone with experience and authority, someone who could look at the situation from outside his own anxiety. Helena hadn't promised to save him, but she'd given him something he'd been missing: a reason to believe he might have options.

He needed to remember that next time. Being independent didn't mean refusing help. Being responsible didn't mean carrying every burden himself. Lessons he'd passed on to his team many times, but somehow had failed to internalize.

A small smile tugged at his mouth. Perhaps he was finally learning something useful from this whole insane experience.

Roy slid the key into the ignition and turned it. The dashboard lit up, the engine started, and the familiar sounds of the car settled around him. Time to go home.

Except...

His hand paused on the gearshift.

Where, exactly, was home?

The question was ridiculous at first. He had an apartment. He paid rent on it every month, kept his clothes there, and had a perfectly serviceable collection of furniture arranged in a layout he'd grown accustomed to. His mail went there. His name was on the lease. If someone asked him where he lived, he could give them the address without hesitation.

But was that home anymore?

Roy pictured the apartment: the quiet living room, the kitchen where he ate most of his meals, the bedroom where he'd spent so many nights alone. It wasn't a bad place. It was comfortable enough, and there was something reassuring about having a space of his own.

Jessica's house, on the other hand...

The image arrived with surprising warmth. Jessica, with her intelligence and confidence, her ability to challenge him without making him feel small. Elaine, whose warmth and maturity made being around her feel effortless. Michelle, with her affection, determination, and the bright energy she brought into a room. Zara, whose enthusiasm could turn an ordinary conversation into a journey through six different subjects, three of them involving fictional monsters.

The women he loved.

The women who loved him.

Roy leaned back against the headrest and looked through the windshield. There was his answer, wasn't there? Home wasn't a set of walls or an address on a utility bill. It was the place where the people he cared about were waiting for him. It was the kitchen where someone might ask about his day, the living room where he could sit among people who wanted him there, the bedroom where he could fall asleep knowing he wasn't alone.

Home was Jessica's house. The decision brought a rush of relief, as though he'd finally stopped arguing with himself about something that should have been obvious.

Of course, the practicalities were going to be a nuisance. He'd have to pack his clothes, books, and everything else he'd accumulated over the years. There were kitchen supplies, paperwork, and the various odds and ends that seemed to multiply in an apartment regardless of how often he cleaned. He'd need to review his lease, find out whether he could cancel it early, and perhaps look into subletting if that wasn't an option. Moving was a pain even under ordinary circumstances.

But it was manageable. A little work now would be worth it.

He wasn't simply moving into Jessica's house because it offered more opportunities for sex. The thought made him grimace. If someone heard about his situation and assumed he was trying to turn the place into some sort of private sex-den, complete with nightly orgies and a revolving door of girlfriends, Roy wouldn't know whether to laugh or feel insulted. His life was complicated enough without reducing it to some adolescent fantasy of having several women at his beck and call.

That wasn't what he wanted, even if it resembled what he was being given.

He wanted a family.

Not necessarily a conventional one, and certainly not one that would fit neatly into the boxes people expected relationships to occupy. But a family nonetheless. People who cared about one another, who shared their lives, who made room for each other's needs and supported one another when things went wrong. He wanted to be there when Jessica had a difficult day, when Elaine needed someone to listen, when Michelle wanted to celebrate an achievement, or when Zara was so excited about something that she could barely get the words out in the right order.

He wanted the ordinary moments as much as the extraordinary ones. Breakfast together. A movie on the sofa. Someone stealing the last piece of toast and being teased about it. Conversations that wandered nowhere in particular because nobody had somewhere else they needed to be. A home where he could be useful, where he could offer something beyond his paycheque and his ability to fix a computer problem.

Roy loved these women. The thought settled into him with a quiet certainty, a universal constant that was as reliable as gravity or inertia. Nothing could change that fact.

Jessica made him realize that his life could be something more than work, worry, and the empty hours in his apartment. She was strong and capable, a woman with her own history and her own opinions, and he admired her more than he could easily explain. Being with her made him want to be a better man, not because she demanded it, but because he wanted to be worthy of the trust she'd placed in him.

Elaine brought a different kind of comfort. There was a steadiness to her, an ease that came from having lived a full life and weathered its share of pain. Roy loved her warmth, her humour, and the way she could make him feel welcome without fussing over him. Being with Elaine felt like being allowed to put down a weight he hadn't realized he'd been carrying.

Michelle was different again. Her affection could be disarmingly direct, and her determination impressed him. She'd faced difficult things and kept moving forward, working hard for the future she wanted. Roy wanted to support her, to help her feel secure, and to give her the kind of love that didn't come with conditions or demands.

And Zara...

Roy smiled despite himself. Zara was a delightful whirlwind, a woman who could leap from a discussion of her work to a fantasy novel, then to a passionate explanation of some game he'd never played, all without noticing that she'd changed subjects three times. Her excitement was infectious. She made him laugh, made him think, and made him feel that the world still contained plenty of things worth getting excited about. He loved her enthusiasm as much as he loved her tenderness.

Four women, four different relationships, four people who mattered to him in ways he couldn't neatly compare.

He wanted them. He needed them. Not as trophies or proof that his wish had given him some impossible dream, but as people whose happiness had become part of his own. Their presence made his life feel fuller. Their affection mattered to him. The thought of building a shared home with them filled him with a hope that was almost startling after the past few weeks.

Of course, the wish wasn't done with him yet. There was still Michelle's mother.

The smile faded a little. She was a complication he wasn't sure he knew how to handle. Their first encounter had hardly been a promising foundation for a relationship. She'd been furious with him, convinced that he was taking advantage of her daughter, and had made her opinion very clear. Now the wish had intervened, rewriting her feelings and turning her into yet another woman who believed she belonged with Roy.

Now he had to think about what that meant for Michelle, too.

Would Michelle's mother expect to move into Jessica's house like the rest of them? Was that even something Michelle wanted? The idea of having mother and daughter under the same roof, both involved with him, made Roy's head hurt. It was one thing to accept that the wish had made the older woman his girlfriend. It was quite another to imagine navigating the emotional complications of that arrangement every day.

Perhaps he could put off dealing with it for a while.

The thought wasn't noble, but it was tempting. There was already so much to manage. He could focus on moving into Jessica's house and settling into a routine with the women he already knew and loved. He could give Michelle some time to work out how she felt about her mother being part of the picture. There was no need to solve every problem in one evening.

And, perhaps most importantly, he could enjoy a little peace.

Besides, the idea of becoming intimate with a woman who had treated Michelle so poorly wasn't the most appealing concept.

The wish had been transferring from woman to woman with a maddening lack of predictability. Roy never knew who might become his next girlfriend, or when the next shift would happen. Every time he'd thought he understood the rules, something had changed. First the young skateboarding woman had appeared out of nowhere, and then Michelle's mother had arrived with all the subtlety of a wrecking ball. The emotional whiplash was exhausting.

Living with the women he loved might at least give him a stable centre. Whatever the wish did next, he would have people around him who knew him, cared about him, and could help him work through the consequences. He wouldn't have to return to an empty apartment and sit alone with his thoughts, trying to figure out what had just happened.

For now, that was enough.

Roy put the car into gear, then paused once more before pulling out of the parking space. Helena was looking into Tom's blackmail, and for the first time, Roy felt he had a genuine ally in that fight. His living situation was about to change, and the thought filled him with more anticipation than dread. The wish was still beyond his control, but perhaps he didn't need to control everything to have a good life. Maybe things were finally going to get better.

It was a dangerously optimistic thought, considering the way the last few weeks had gone. Roy knew better than to assume that the universe had suddenly decided to be kind to him. Still, he couldn't help feeling that the ground beneath his feet had become a little more solid.

With a plan forming in his mind, Roy headed towards his apartment. He'd pack a few things tonight and take them to Jessica's house. Tomorrow, he'd bring more. There was no reason to turn the move into a single exhausting ordeal when he could handle it a little at a time. He'd check the lease, sort out the details, and get everything organized. He was committed to this. To the move, to the women, and to the life he wanted to build with them.

No reason to delay.

The familiar route stretched ahead, streets he'd driven so many times that he barely needed to think about the turns. Roy passed the shops and intersections he knew by heart, watching the late-afternoon light slide across the pavement. His apartment was waiting for him at the end of the drive, but it no longer felt like the place where his life began and ended.

It was just somewhere he kept his things.

Jessica's house was where he wanted to be.

Roy turned the wheel at the next intersection, heading towards the place he'd called home for years, and felt an unexpected sense of peace. This might be one of the last times he made this drive with the intention of returning to an empty apartment for the night.

The thought didn't upset him.

For once, Roy was looking forward to going home.