Hashing it all out

Walking down to the kitchen, Caleb rummages through the fridge and scraping together the remnants of the breakfast foods, decides to make an unholy breakfast hash with onions, eggs, potatoes, leftover chorizo and some cheese.

Preparing the meal, several new thoughts speed through him: ‘How much of Evan’s memories has Andrea changed? Andrea acted like she had been transitioning for more than a decade, but was that just an implanted memory or was that actually now the way the world was?’

He wouldn't put it past a mind and body altering VR program to change someone's memories, but reality…that was too much. Then, he remembered one of the settings ‘Global Normalization’ which had been set to 100% by default. So he guessed that basically Andrea and Evan had *always* been one person and the world had been changed to accommodate that. ‘Holy Fuck, that is absolutely fucking dangerous. Am I the only one who remembers the previous, uh, timeline, I guess? I wonder if there’s a rewind or undo option in the debug commands.’

Turning on the coffee maker and putting the hash in the oven to crisp, he decided he needed to do some interrogation over breakfast. After about 30 minutes the oven and coffee maker chime, and the upstairs bathroom door cracks open. “Is it ready?”

“Yeah, just setting the table, take your time!” Grabbing mugs, plates and silverware, Caleb sets the table and goes to grab the casserole dish from the oven, when he hears footsteps descending the stairs quickly, almost a mirror repeat from yesterday. This time, however, instead of rushing and ducking past Caleb, Andrea comes up behind him and reaches past for the coffee pot, pressing most of her firm body against his back.

“Oops, my… bad, Caleb.” Andrea turns with something of a smirk before pouring coffee into the two awaiting mugs. Dressed in a tank top and shorts with her hair wrapped in an old towel(‘I guess that trick is an implanted memory, Evan never had that much hair.') Andrea is a vision, albeit of a perfect lazy morning. Nevertheless, Caleb perseveres against the wake up call in his crotch while carrying the dish to the table.

“That definitely doesn't look like oatmeal, what'd you end up making? Smells like eggs, onions and more of that good chorizo.” Andrea licks her lips before taking a large sip of the coffee.

“Yeah, and some potatoes and cheese. Just threw everything together, like an unholy fusion of tortillas de papas and a quiche. Hope it came out okay.” Taking his own more sedate sip of coffee, Caleb then cuts into the crispy dish and scoops out a portion onto both plates.

Andrea takes a bite and a look of great contentment settles on her features. “Holy hell, Caleb. This is even better than yesterday, you are officially in charge of breakfast forever. Definitely gonna have to run this off later, but it’s absolutely wonderful.”

_“Whew, thanks. And I'll make breakfast any time as long as you do the cleaning up.”_As Caleb starts into his portion, he realizes Andrea is right, it turned out amazing, they’d definitely have to save some for the hangover tomorrow. Having already discussed the plans for the day, Caleb switches tack into figuring out how far down the rabbit hole Andrea had permeated Evan’s existence.

Caleb takes another bite and clears his throat. “Hey, I know this is gonna sound kinda weird, and I know you started transitioning in college, but when did you *know* you were Andrea?”

She looks up from the rapidly diminishing pile of breakfast with a confused yet thoughtful expression. “You know, nobody's ever asked me that(‘Oh, I know.’) ,but probably about 11 or 12 when I realized I wanted to be like the girls I started to *like* like. Since both of my early friends were girls, Cindy and Melissa, I had a lot of girly hobbies growing up and when puberty hit and they started changing and I didn't, I felt a profound sense of estrangement. When I was able to come out to you guys in college it was absolutely liberating, though its taken the better part of the decade to really get where I want to be.”

Taking a pull of coffee, Caleb processes this information. He KNEW one of Evan’s childhood friends was named Michael and that his only hobbies had been different kinds of games and later miniatures. The program was thorough, subtly tweaking Evan's old life to give logical steps to his new life as Andrea. It also raised the uncomfortable question that if he tried to reverse the process, it’d be akin to something like conversion therapy and probably fuck things up even more...

‘Fuck, well this is some shit.’ he thought as he devoured the rest of the plate. “Thanks for telling me that Andrea, sorry if it made you too uncomfortable.”

“No worries,Caleb. It wasn't exactly the happiest of times, but I got here and that's what matters most, yeah?” Andrea smiles and finishes her coffee.

“Oh yeah, I'm definitely glad you're here, just let me know if I fuck up anything. I'd hate to ruin our friendship over a mistake.” Caleb states as truthfully as he can, in light of these new facts.

Andrea stacks her dishes, stands up and walks over to Caleb and hugs him. “Caleb, you're my best friend, if you fuck anything up, I'll let you know before that happens, don't worry. You've been nothing but supportive up to this point.” Releasing him, she grabs the empty dishes and stacks them in the sink. “Now, I'm gonna finish getting cleaned up and yes, I'll do the dishes. Why don't you head upstairs to get started. That way we can head to the mall ASAP when you're done with work.”

“Sure thing, thanks again Andrea. Save the rest for tomorrow, I wanna sleep in, cooking these lavish breakfasts for you is hard work, you know.” Caleb puts on a mock-weary expression as he starts for the stairs.

She turns and gives him an equal mocking tone of compassion “Oh you poor baby, the trials and tribulations you suffer, living with the hottest and sweetest girl you know. Dearth, despair, and pain, that must be. Hopefully, our date tonight won't disturb your fragile constitution.”

Turning up his chin, Caleb puts on a pompous British RP accent as he ascends the stairs. “Oh, you vile Harridan, mock not my suffering, good day to thee!”