Waves will crash around, but you will be safe in my arms

“That’s such a sweet story…” Sylvia dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief and sniffled. “What a wonderful day…” After returning to the Garden Suite, Sylvia was informed of everything that had happened with Carly, Emmy, and Marley that day. She wasn’t present for the events, but it was still nice to hear them.

“It really was,” Carly said, beaming at Emmy with a smile. Emmy smiled shyly back at her and nodded. From the sidelines, Marley’s heart swelled with joy. Just seeing her sister smile like that… it made all the difficulties of today worth it.

It’s been so infuriating, dealing with her mood swings. But she’s still my sister. And seeing her like this… It’s everything I’ve always wanted for her. Marley just wanted to hug the both of them and never let them go. Her eyes slid over to Sylvia, and she felt a stir in her chest for her own parent. She pressed her lips together in a tight smile.

“I, uh, have a question,” Emmy said awkwardly, raising her hand. It was sort of an automatic gesture, even though she had never been in a classroom before. Just another thing in a long list of complicated actions that seemed to be instinctively programmed into her brain.

“Yes? Anything!” Carly’s eyes blazed with excitement as she gazed lovingly at her child. An awkward smile split Emmy’s face nearly in half.

She scratched her head. “It’s just, uh… well…” Emmy glanced furtively over at the bed.

“…There’s only one bed,” Emmy pointed out. “You guys don’t all sleep together in the same bed, do you? Where are the other beds? Is there a side room or something?” She looked around the Garden Suite curiously, missing the awkward expressions on the other women’s faces.

Carly and Marley shared a look. Sylvia went a little pale and **** a crooked, innocent smile onto her face.

“This place is so big,” Emmy continued, still ignorant to the awkward tension. Her voice was too filled with wonder at the awe-inspiring sight before her eyes. “At least it seems that way. I can’t tell where the fake sky wallpaper actually ends, and the real room begins!”

The Garden Suite really did do a phenomenal job of creating the optical illusion of an actual outdoor garden. So Emmy could be forgiven for assuming it was much larger than it actually was, and thinking that there was some hidden side room somewhere among the trees.

“There are so many plants, too,” she noted, walking towards a cluster of bushes. “I’ve never seen so many before! …I mean, obviously, given… you know. What are they all called?” She reached out to touch one of them.

Carly and Marley grabbed her at the same time and yanked her back.

“Ah!?” Emmy gasped, surprised and confused. “What? Did I do something wrong?”

“Just… don’t touch anything without asking first,” Carly said, unable to look her daughter in the eye. She had a sheepish expression on her face.

“Yeah, especially not that one,” Marley agreed, looking even more embarrassed than her sister. “Just trust us on that…”

Emmy just looked confused. But she had no reason to doubt her mother or her aunt. “Okay, if you say so… Now, about the bed…”

“Hey, now that you mention it, there are still a lot of plants we can get for the room!” Sylvia said, her eyes widening. “We can purchase up to five, and we’ve only gotten-”

“Yes, the bed!” Marley said loudly, interrupting her. “So about that. See, uh… there aren’t… any extra beds here.”

Emmy blinked. “…There aren’t? Then where do you guys all sleep?”

Carly turned and looked pointedly at the bed. Marley waved her arm vaguely at it.

A lightbulb went off above Emmy’s head and her eyes widened.

“Wait… no way, really?” She asked, stunned.

“…Yeah,” Marley said, nodding awkwardly. “All three of us. In one bed.”

“It’s really not so bad!” Carly said with a little chuckle. “It takes some getting used to, but I mean, I’ve slept in the same bed with way more- …Never mind. I can’t tell you that story.”

Emmy frowned. “Huh? Why not?”

“Maybe when you’re older.”

“I’m 18.”

“Still.”

Sylvia giggled and shook her head. She skipped over to Emmy and patted the other girl on the back. “Don’t worry, Emmy! Your mom’s just a little embarrassed. Besides, even if we did have another bed, it’s not like they could really sleep apart from one another!”

Emmy scrunched up her face in confusion. “Wait, they can’t sleep apart? What does that even mean? I’m totally confused.”

Sylvia turned to the twins with a surprised expression on her face. “Wait… you didn’t tell her?”

Carly gave her an awkward, half-hearted shrug. “I mean… what do you expect me to say?” She asked, scratching her cheek sheepishly. “It’s kinda… private.”

She glanced at her sister, who looked even more embarrassed.

Sylvia sighed. “And let me guess, you didn’t experiment with your watch today, either. You know you only have that for a few more days, right?”

“Watch?” Emmy asked, glancing at the fancy watch on her mom’s wrist.

“…Whelp, that answers that question!” Sylvia couldn’t help but giggle. She shook her head and turned to Emmy. “Okay, Emmy, so your mom and your aunt- Well, mainly your aunt-”

“I’ll tell her,” Marley interjected quickly. She pulled Emmy aside. “Look, so… Emmy… remember how your mom and I told you that being on this show meant we got some transformations and stuff, so now we’re not exactly normal people?”

“I’m not a kid,” Emmy said, sounding just the tiniest bit indignant. “Yes, I remember. That’s why mom can change her hair color and how long it is.” She glanced at Carly’s hair, which was still the soft auburn color it had been this morning.

“And it’s also why I change into different costume every day,” Carly added. “But you’ll see more of that tomorrow. As for the others, well… again, you don’t need to worry about that.”

She really wanted to keep that side of herself from Emmy as long as possible. Which was easier said than done on a show where sex was the main point.

Emmy stared curiously at her.

Marley sighed. “Well… I’m not exactly normal either… I mean… technically, I’ve never been what you might call a ‘normal’ person, I guess.”

“She’s saying that because she really likes plants and doesn’t dress up or put on very much makeup,” Carly whispered to her daughter, in that loud kind of whisper that really wasn’t a whisper at all.

Marley gave her sister the stink-eye.

“…Well, see… I have transformations too, even though I’m not part of Nick’s… even though I’m not a contestant on the show anymore,” she said, choosing her words carefully to dance around the sexual stuff. She stepped back. “If I get too far away from my sister…”

She took a deep breath and braced herself. Then she crossed the threshold, and collapsed into a puddle of slime.

Emmy gasped in shock. “Aunt Marley!?”

“Yeah, your auntie can turn into slime,” Sylvia said. Carly took a couple steps closer to the puddle that her sister had become, and Marley quickly reformed.

“Whenever I’m more than 10 feet away from Carly, I turn into slime,” Marley explained sullenly. “It’s kind of a drag, to be honest, but I’ve gotten used to it. See, I used to me this creature called a Mimic Jelly… well, I was a plant, technically, and then I copied Carly and turned human, then I got eliminated with a transformation and turned into her sister, and, well… ugh, it’s a long story…”

“Wait, wait, wait, so, like, you have to be with my mom at all times?!” Emmy’s brain was collapsing as she tried to process this. “That… that’s crazy! Isn’t that crazy!? How can you even…? You’re going to have to live like that for the rest of your life, then?!”

Emmy had very little experience being alive up until this point, but the idea of spending her entire life tethered to another person just sounded crazy. “If you two ever get more than 10 feet apart, Aunt Marley, you’re going to turn into…?”

She felt a little queasy.

Carly shrugged awkwardly. “Yeah, it sucks, but we’re making the best of it.”

Marley glanced at her sister. “It would suck less if you didn’t have to constantly be forgetting about it and passing the threshold without thinking,” she snidely pointed out.

Carly smiled sheepishly and looked down. “Sorry,” she apologized awkwardly, scratching her head. “…I didn’t mean to?”

As apologies went, Marley had heard better. She sighed and shook her head in exasperation.

Meanwhile, Emmy was just stunned.

“That’s… awful,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “I’m so sorry… so even when you two get old… or get married… you’re still going to be linked together, that’s…”

The looks on their faces said it all. But Sylvia still tried to ease the tension with smile. “It’s not so bad!” The former host said, shaking her head. “It’s only for as long as they’re on the show! Once the show ends and everyone returns back home, then that part of the transformation will wear off.”

Emmy brightened. “Oh, it will? Oh! That’s a relief then!” She sighed and held her hand over her heart. “You guys had me worried there.”

Carly and Marley stared at Sylvia with their mouths wide open.

“…WHAT?!”

The two women were a harmonized duet of shock and outrage.

Sylvia blinked, surprised. “Did I… never tell you guys that part?” She asked, scratching her cheek innocently.

“NO!” The two women exclaimed at the same time.

“…Whoops. Sorry.”

“Eh?” Emmy looked at the three of them in sequence, flustered and confused. “Um…”

“So all this time, that part of the elimination transformation was temporary!?” Marley screeched. “And you forgot to tell us!?”

“I don’t believe this!” Carly exclaimed. “How could you be so clumsy!?” She wanted to throttle Sylvia in spite of the good news.

“Hey, sor-ry!” Sylvia held up her hands and took a step back. “I was going through a lot that day, I’d just lost Mimi for good! Can you blame me for forgetting that little detail!?”

“YES!” Marley stated without hesitation. “Mom, this is kinda serious you know! Isn’t the elimination transformation supposed to be, like, a punishment? I know you were trying to be nice to me, but come on, that’s not exactly how it’s supposed to work, is it?”

“Are you complaining?” Sylvia asked.

Marley couldn’t exactly keep arguing after that. So she settled for giving her mother a disapproving look instead.

“I think what Marley is trying to say is that a little heads-up would have been nice,” Carly said, being the voice of reason for once. “I mean, given the context, it seems pretty clear that we were supposed to assume it was a permanent thing. All the other transformations are.”

Marley nodded rapidly in agreement.

Emmy watched from the sidelines, stunned and also curious. For the first time today, everyone had completely forgotten about her; she was eager to see what she could learn when she wasn’t the focus of everyone’s attention.

Sylvia continued to justify herself. “Look, it’s simple,” she stated. “The whole reason for the ‘can’t be more than 10 feet away’ thing was because it would give Carly an unfair advantage in challenges if she could just send Marley out to do whatever while she was doing completely different stuff. I know I explained that part!”

The twins did vaguely remember something like that when Sylvia was explaining the elimination transformation.

“Like in the last challenge,” Sylvia continued, using her extensive knowledge of Marley’s transformations to make her case. “Imagine if Marley didn’t have to stay within 10 feet of her sister. Carly could have hid safely while her sister went and shot everybody as the invincible girl she is. It just throws off the whole balance! But there’s no reason to keep doing that once the show is over. Right?”

Marley seethed with frustration at how reasonable Sylvia’s argument sounded now that she was hearing it for herself. She wanted to strangle somebody!

Carly sighed and scratched her head. “I guess that makes sense,” she begrudgingly admitted. “I suppose not even Harem Hotel would be so flagrantly cruel as to tie one contestant to another like that, to the point they were completely inseparable, even as a punishment transformation or an elimination transformation…”

Sylvia stared at her with a blank expression on her face. “…Right, yeah, no way!” She said, pinching her lips into a tight smile and jerking her head side to side. “They would neeever do that. Definitely not, nope.”

The twins just stared at her.

“So wait, so… that part of my transformation, it’s just temporary?” Marley felt a wave of relief like nothing she’d ever felt before. Now that her initial outrage was wearing off, she was fully unpacking what her mother was saying, and it brought her a feeling of joy.

Sylvia nodded. “Yup. Once the season officially ends and you guys all return back to earth, the only part of your transformation that should remain is the part where you’re tied to Carly as her twin. You won’t melt into a puddle just because you’re 10 feet away from her, probably.”

“PROBABLY?!”

“Almost definitely, I mean!” Sylvia clarified, waving her hands. “Sure, there’s, like, a 0.001% chance that the producers would shift that part of your transformation to Daddy so you have to stay within 10 feet of him or else you turn into slime, but I bet they wouldn’t do something like that!”

Marley loved her mother, she really did. But right now, she wanted to strangle her.

“…Mainly it’s because it wouldn’t be fair to Carly,” Sylvia clarified, clearing her throat. “She didn’t get eliminated, so it would be unfair to penalize her by making her spend the rest of her life tied to you, Marley. I mean, that was what I argued to the producers, anyway. Personally, I don’t see being around you for the rest of her life as a bad thing at all, but…” Sylvia shrugged.

If Marley wasn’t so mad at her mom right now, she might have been moved by that.

Instead, she just sighed in exasperation and rubbed her forehead. “Mom… you’re too much sometimes, you know that?”

Sylvia offered her a dazzling smile.

“Look, the point is, this is a good thing!” Carly said, clapping her hands together. “Sure, it sucks for now, but come on, sis! Once we finish the season, we can get our lives back! Which is good, because I don’t think they’ll let you in on my lease.”

Right, Marley hadn’t thought of that. Even in the new reality brought to being by her presence as Carly’s sister, Carly still lived on her own in a single flat in the city while Marley still lived at home with their parents. It would cause some problems if that were to change.

“Yeah, but Emmy’s here now,” Marley pointed out. “So you’ll probably have to move regardless.”

Carly hadn’t thought of that. “Oh yeah…”

“Also, what about her social security number, birth certificate, all that legal stuff?” Marley continued, looking more at Sylvia for those questions than anyone. “We can’t just create a new person out of nowhere. At least when I turned into Marley you rewrote reality to do it, Dakota just plucked Emmy out of the afterlife and gave her a new body.”

Sylvia stared blankly at her daughter.

“…What’s a social security number?” She questioned.

Marley’s eye twitched.

“That’s right, Sylvia’s going to be a whole new problem too,” Carly said, holding back her amused laugh and shaking her head. “That’s sure gonna be something.”

Carly would pay good money to see Sylvia arguing with the government about her origins.

The confusing discussion was interrupted by the sudden laugh from Emmy. Everyone turned to look at the young woman, surprised.

“Sorry, sorry,” Emmy apologized, covering her mouth. “I couldn’t help myself. It’s just so funny, you know? I mean, whether it’s here, or back on earth, it seems like we still don’t know where I’m going to be sleeping.”

“Isn’t that obvious?” Carly asked, raising her eyebrow. “In the bed with me, of course.”

“Yeah, that’s gonna be so much fun!” Sylvia nodded excitedly.

“Whoa, hold on a second there.” Marley held up her hand. “Just because we can go back to living separately when we get back to earth, that doesn’t change the fact that we’re stuck together right now,” she reminded her sister. “You and I still have to share a bed. And Sylvia’s sleeping here too. The three of us make the bed cramped enough as it is, you aren’t seriously suggesting that we just get used to sleeping with a fourth person for the rest of our time here… you are suggesting that, aren’t you? Jesus, Carly…”

“You want me to put my daughter out into the cold?!” Carly threw her arms around Emmy and hugged her defensively. “Never! I won’t do it!”

“Thanks, mom,” Emmy said sincerely. “But if I’m being honest here, I don’t like that idea much better than Aunt Marley. It sounds really cramped, all of us sleeping in the same bed together.”

“Yeah, that’s a little much,” Sylvia agreed. “Three people sharing a bed? Super sexy. But throw in a fourth person? …Well, it’s still sexy, I guess, but maybe not when the fourth person is your child. …Okay, maybe sometimes, but not when it’s your former infant child who was magically aged up into an adult.”

She had pretty much lost the plot by that point. Marley just slowly shook her head.

“Mom… I beg of you… please stop talking,” she groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose.

For once, Sylvia considered that to be a good idea.

“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it tonight,” Carly said, looking around the room. “If there was, I’m sure Dakota would be popping in right now to tell us how to handle the issue. So I guess we’ll share the bed tonight, and then go confront her directly tomorrow.”

“Confront her and ask her what?” Marley continued to be the voice of reason. “You still want to share the bed with Emmy regardless, right?”

“Well… maybe she’ll make the bed bigger!” Carly said with a shaky grin. “It’s worth a shot, right?”

Marley sighed. Apparently, that was the best her sister could do. She looked sympathetically at Emmy, who just stared back at her and sighed.