figuring it out

His mom - no, Jackie? - surged forward, throwing herself against him, her arms locking tight. “Oh God, what are we going to do?” she sobbed into his chest.

The warmth of her pressed against him, the weight of her, the soft swell of breasts that didn’t belong to Jackie at all. His mother’s body, his mother’s scent, clung to him as he held her. A shiver ran up his spine, disorientation so sharp it made him dizzy. He looked helplessly over her shoulder.

And there—Jackie’s face, his fiancée’s face—watched with steady brown eyes, sympathy written in every line. She didn’t speak, only gave a small, deliberate shake of her head, as if to say: hold her. Listen. Trust.

Gerry swallowed hard, clinging to the sobbing woman in his arms. For long minutes there was only her trembling and his uneasy heartbeat. At last she drew back, tear-streaked but calmer, leaning into him for support.

“Better?” Jackie’s body—his mother’s voice—asked gently.

The woman in his arms—his mother’s body, but Jackie’s soul—gave a small nod. “Yes. It’s strange. I don’t feel… wrong. I don’t feel like I’ve lost myself. If anything, I feel at home in this skin, like it’s mine. But—” she broke off, eyes shimmering with panic again. “But our wedding, Gerry. Today was supposed to be our day. How can we get married like this?”

Katherine—Jackie’s body, Jackie’s voice—tilted her head thoughtfully. “That explains why I’ve been so calm. I thought I should be panicking too, but I’m not. I think… whatever happened, it settled us into these roles. Maybe it’s meant to keep us from breaking down completely.” She frowned at her borrowed reflection. “But what could have caused it?”

A sudden thought flashed through Gerry’s mind, sharp as lightning. “The orb,” he blurted. “That gift. It has to be.”

Both women looked at him. Jackie’s body nodded in recognition; Katherine’s face crinkled in confusion.

“The gift we found,” Gerry explained quickly, “with that strange note. The glass orb that glowed when you touched it. You remember.”

Jackie—wearing Katherine—lowered her eyes. “It shattered, Gerry. I don’t know if it was magic, or alien, or what—but it’s gone. How do we undo something when the thing that did it doesn’t even exist anymore?”

Panic was rising again, but Katherine—always Katherine—slipped into command. Even in Jackie’s body, with Jackie’s voice, she carried herself with that same unshakable authority.

“Stop,” she said firmly. “We don’t have answers now, but we will. If something had the power to do this once, then something else must have the power to undo it. That’s the truth we’ll hold onto. Until then, we manage.”

Her calm steadiness worked on Gerry instantly, the way it always had. His chest loosened, breath smoothing out. More than the words, it was the tone, the confidence—this was his mother, no matter what skin she wore.

She pressed on, matter-of-fact. “We cannot cancel the wedding. No one would believe the truth. They’d think we’d lost our minds—or worse. So we pretend. We keep our secret. I’ll step in for Jackie. I know the ceremony, I can play the role. Jackie, you will help me. No one will question a mother helping her daughter-in-law. Gerry, you and I will be careful together.

For a moment, silence hung. Then Gerry locked eyes with the woman in his mother’s body. His fiancée, trapped, frightened but still her. She met his gaze, nodded faintly.

“Yes,” he said. “That’s the best plan.”

Katherine straightened her borrowed shoulders. “Then we don’t waste time. We prepare. We act. That’s how we get through today.”

But Gerry’s throat tightened as another thought struck him. His voice cracked as he said it.

“What about the honeymoon?”

The word hung there like a weight, the air suddenly colder. They were supposed to leave in the morning. Two weeks. Two weeks alone. Two weeks as husband and wife.

And nothing about that would ever, ever be simple again.