The Universe's Mixer

Wash had never really wanted a twin. He'd had three older siblings so that had been enough. If Wash HAD wanted a twin the person sitting across the kitchen table from him staring at him with smiling eyes, tidy hair, and in a sweater vest (of all things) would not have been his ideal brother.

The thing that was bothering him in particular right now (because a lot of things about the "Wash" that The City had created bothered him) was the fact that notWash had two pieces of buttered toast on a plate in front of him that he hadn't eaten. He had a cup of coffee that he hadn't touched and The City daily paper was in his hand almost as if it were a prop.

Wash shovelled cereal in his mouth watching him from underneath his scruffy light red bangs.

It had been more than difficult sharing notWash's existence to Jo. Wash thought it was a good idea as any to leave the man-thing in the closet for the foreseeable future. But Jo needed something out of the closet. Wash was surprised (and slightly disappointed) the man was still alive.

He shovelled more cereal in his mouth.

"Should we get Maxine up? It's almost time for school!" notWash said, smiling.

"School's out today," Wash replied shortly. "Inservice."

Inservice was some sort of teacher cult, Wash decided when he couldn't get a straight answer on what it meant through Maxine.

"Oh. Well. Does she have homework? We should probably make sure she's up to--"

"Nope," Wash replied, shovelling more cereal.

"You know...I'm her father," notWash stated.

Wash glared. He clinched his fists and bared his teeth. He hated that he hated his own face so much right now.

Jo stood outside the building where Zoe apparently worked. Wayne Enterprises. She didn't know what to think about that one, but there it was. In a City that housed Marvel and DC characters-not characters, people indiscriminately. And Zoe worked for one. In fact, she worked for arguably the most well-known comic book character ever.

That, however, was beside the point. She hadn't called ahead to make an appointment, so she just hoped that there was time in the schedule of this woman whose job she knew next to nothing about. This woman whom she'd heard bits and pieces about. She didn't really know what she would have said if she'd called. That she was the person who was living and raising a child with the woman's ex-husband, only it was in a completely platonic way? And that she had news about said ex-husband? Not exactly the way to get her foot in the door. Granted, she didn't really know what she was going to say when she got there either. That was a big part of the reason that she'd put this off for as long as she did. But she'd put it off long enough.

She didn't know how Zoe was going to react to this visit and from the way Wash talked up his ex-wife's toughness, she was fully expecting to get decked. Yet, she thought that the woman should know that her ex had crashed his spaceship in an attempt to end his life. She wasn't sure what she expected Zoe to do with that information, but if Jo had been in her shoes, she would have wanted to know.

Which was why she checked in at reception and gave her name and tried to impress upon the (less than impressed) receptionist that she had important news for the apparent head of security.

Jo had a lot on her mind these days. Her house had gotten an awful lot more crowded. She didn't mind the crowd, but it was an adjustment to have a five year old and a guy whom she was still just getting to know living with her. It was like... from far away, they might seem like any family. But up close, it was more three people who had been brought together by chance trying to navigate those waters. And typical families didn't have to worry about the five year old turning human beings into animals, or about hunters who might have a problem with that.

To add to all of that, the Roadhouse was back. Jo wasn't sure what to feel about the fact that Purgatory had disappeared and the City had gone back to having separate vampire and hunter bars. She didn't know if the protection spells were still in place over the Roadhouse, and she didn't know why it felt a little sad but oddly fitting that this was happening now that Eric was gone. Yes, she'd wished for it, but it had been a wish made out of anger and frustration.

Her apartment-the one that had been above the bar-was back too. She didn't know if that was the City giving her what she'd wished for or if maybe it was a sign that it was a time to move out and let Wash and Maxine do their thing. The five year old wasn't nearly as fond of her as she was of Wash. Not that Jo could blame her because Wash had taken to parenting like he was born to do this. Jo cared a lot for the little girl but still felt like she deserved better than a hunter who'd actually sought a life of impermanence and risk.

Speaking of said life, Jo caught on to something that seemed right up her alley. She still wasn't sure what was responsible, but there was a rash of mysterious disappearances that someone needed to look into. And really, what better way to get her mind off the heavy emotional things than going on an old-fashioned hunt?

Eventually, the trail of the missing women led her to a house in one of the older-looking neighborhoods in the City. On the outside, the house looked like it hadn't been touched in years. Jo picked the lock on the back door and took out her gun before entering the house. She stopped short as she saw the strands of what looked like a gigantic spider web inside.

"Shit," she muttered.

She was pretty sure that she knew what these were, and they were really damn rare. If she was right, she didn't know what she had in her arsenal that was going to kill it, but she knew that she was going to pump the creature full of a whole lot of bullets.

There was a hissing sound from somewhere inside and Jo knew that it was too late to turn around and try to go research this. In for a penny, in for a pound. A gigantic spider/man hybrid stepped out of the shadows and lunged for her. She didn't scream, but she did let out a whole torrent of swear words as she unloaded her gun in the direction of the advancing arachne.

By now, The City had watched many of its denizens celebrate this thing called 'Christmas' and it was beginning to understand it better. It was a time for fir decoration. A time for singing songs. A time for creamy or apple flavored beverages. There were also presents.

The presents were the most interesting things to The City. It understood that the presents were designed to be special. To be meaningful. To express care. And The City did care about its people. Very much.

This year, it decided that it would participate in this 'Christmas.' And it wanted to participate in a big way.

A Douglas Fir sprung up overnight, positioned in the heart of The City. It was huge, dwarfing most multi-level buildings, bedecked in oversized copies of the decorations that previous and current citizens had used on their own trees. The Christmas star dwarfed the moon in its brightness.

But what to do for presents? The City had seen that presents were supposed to be personal. They were supposed to be something that made sense for one to give to the other. But The City did not know how to give presents in this way. It tried to calculate what would be right for every citizen - and failed. At last, it decided that it would grant one wish to each citizen. Just one. And it would do its best to fulfill it in a personal way.

Wash was in Jo's living room with his cast leg propped on a pillow and his cast arm resting in his lap. He was out of the hospital. This was great. Watching Jo stoically mope was...well...not so great. Not that he could blame her.

Every once and a while he would take a sip of one of Maxine's boxed juice drinks. Grape. His slurping seemed to permeate the thick air of the otherwise quiet mid morning.

He stared at Jo, watching. Jo had nothing on Zoe's moping abilities, but she was definitely in the running.

"So..." he said, finally breaking the solace. "Wanna talk about it?"

slurrrrp

Jo had suspected for days that Ted was missing. His number had disappeared from her phone and when she tried to dial from memory, she had gotten a 'number not in service' error message. When she stopped by his work, nobody had seen him for days. She needed to call Charlie to confirm, but she was a little afraid of putting that last nail in the coffin. She would rather hang on to the hope that Ted was still here and avoiding her for some reason.

The tipping point came when she saw the news report. Ted's name wasn't among the list, but there were a few other familiar names.

It was then that she realized that she wasn't the only one who'd lost Ted. She'd been selfish in avoiding Charlie perhaps. And now it seems that he'd lost Jen too.

She didn't bother with calling. If it was her, she probably wouldn't be answering her phone even if she did need the company. She didn't know Charlie well enough to know what he would or wouldn't need but she thought that the best thing she could do was try. She thought that it was what Ted would want her to do.

She actually made arrangements for a sitter for Maxine and then she took off. She picked up a pizza and a bottle of wine-she thought that Charlie was more of a wine than a beer guy. Then she stopped by the house and rang the doorbell. She just hoped that he was home.

Unlike Dean, Sam didn't have a car in the City. Or at least not one that he could find anyway. It didn't bother him all that much usually, though he did miss the Impala from time to time since it wasn't like back home when the two brothers had practically lived in that car. Had, in fact, spent nights in the car when they hadn't had anywhere else to stay. Then again, he was still adjusting to just how different things were in the City. Still adjusting to caring about the differences now that his soul was back.

He didn't mind walking places, or depending on public transportation. Walking could certainly clear his mind at times. That was a plus. For the moment, he was looking into a potential case. Maybe it was nothing. Truthfully, he'd been coming up empty quite a bit in the last few weeks. He needed something to hunt, someone to help, something to do. He was retreating inside his head again and that was never a good place to be.

For the moment, he'd just hit a dead end and the potential werewolf turned out to be just a tomcat who liked ravaging dumpsters. Not nearly enough to inspire the rumors that a wolf was stalking the streets of the City.

Sam took a seat on a bench and sighed heavily as he pulled out his notebook to put a big, angry scratch mark through the last lead in this non-case. He didn't notice right away that there were a few students standing near the bench, presumably waiting for a bus. He was too wrapped up in his frustration at being idle.

The sun began its ascent without his authorization and continued quietly on until it reached above the crest of his dashboard and flooded his eyelids. The red light was angry and roused him from drunken slumber that had progressed into a hangover also without his authorization. If only he had the power to negate those two events he would have. It was too late.

"Turn out the lights," he muttered to no one aside from his perceived bedmate. The CTS sedan sat silently. The onslaught of UV light remained and he eventually opened them and shielded his face with a hand. "Ugh, mojitos and whiskey don't mix."

That was when it became apparent he was stiffly restricted to the modest mid-size sport sedan interior. He sat up, glancing around the cashmere leather and his bleary eyes settled on the sign that declared 'CARITAS'. His first thought was a hospital, as he'd been admitted to one bearing the name before, but this looked pleasant enough.

It was a bar. The perfect place to nurse a hangover and mull over yesterday's decisions.

Sam squinted, and patted himself down for his phone. It was in the front shirt pocket of his rumpled Hawaiian shirt. This particular item was a rusty red with glamorized Mai Tai cocktails crookedly splayed over it. Luckily his tan chino-style slacks didn't attract so much attention.

He became aware how stifling the car had become during a night of encapsulation. He opened the center console and found some Acqua de Gio and splashed it on. It wasn't a substitute for a shower but it was a good start to appearing like a civilized person. Sam eyed his gold Rolex. Ten-thirty in the morning. So much for appearing civilized.

"If it wasn't still morning, it just wouldn't be you, Sammy boy," he said to himself while combing back some gray hair in his rear view mirror's reflection. He coughed, clearing out the congestion of sleep and slid out.

A few minutes later, he was at the corner of the bar nursing a mojito. His phone was bordering on battery failure and that must have been what was affecting his signal to get in touch with Michael. As a last resort, he tried Maddie. As a last last resort, he tried Fiona.

He couldn't remember the last time calls didn't connect. With a perplexed expression, he stuck the straw from his mojito in his mouth and set the phone down and slid it a few inches away to stare at it confrontationally.

The call from the City's hospital had been a surprise. Maxine had been with Jo for the last few days but Jo certainly hadn't expected anything to happen to Wash during that time. Her heart almost stopped as the nurse gave out as many details as she was allowed to. Maxine was in school and Jo didn't think it appropriate to pull her out of school until she got the chance to see how bad Wash really was. She didn't take her foot off the gas pedal for the entire trip to the hospital, running one red light on the way. She didn't care much. And besides, the City's streets were so screwy that she was sure there were worse hazards on the road than a driver ignoring a stoplight.

Jo didn't know when it had happened, but she and Wash and Maxine were a sort of family. Ted too, really. It wasn't traditional or normal, but she'd never been the traditional type anyway. Family was more than just flesh and blood. The hunters at the Roadhouse had proven that more times than she could count. And she and Wash were in the trenches of foster parenthood together. That counted for something.

Checking in was pretty much a blur, but apparently someone had given consent for Jo to visit even though she wasn't immediate family. That was important. She went to the room indicated and knocked on the half-open door before letting herself in.

"Wash?" she asked quietly as she looked down at the redhead in the hospital bed.

Beauty never had called about getting trained in shooting a gun. Jo could only assume that the other woman had chosen other means for protecting herself. She hadn't heard anything from Ted about Beauty being in further danger, but after awhile she started to worry just a bit. She thought that it couldn't hurt to check in and see for herself that Beauty was alive and well.

She just needed to do it in such a way that didn't seem overly pushy. Stopping in at the bookstore and acting as though it was a coincidence seemed the best option for that. Jo found the shop easily enough and let herself in, the bells tingling as she did so. She didn't immediately spot Beauty behind the counter, so she started to browse the aisles in hopes that Beauty might turn up. And besides, she might just find something to take home. Jo liked reading when she got the downtime to do so and being in the City seemed to mean more downtime than back home, as much as she hated it. Of course, it also meant that when things got dicey, they got really dicey and there was nowhere to run, so there was that.

Mrs. Portello was screaming. It wasn't the reaction Maxine had been expecting and the little girl was shocked into a stupor by the grown up's hysterics. It took exactly three seconds for the kindergarten teacher's panic to infect the other small children, most of whom started crying. Many of them ran behind the trusted teacher for protection.

Maxine wasn't the only student in a daze, there were two others. Christi was also very quiet, staring back at Maxine in awe. Rex had his hands on his head, only vaguely aware that the head he was feeling was no longer a human one but that of a very large duck. His fingers were on the bill, reaching into his mouth, trying to find his real face underneath to no avail.

He'd called Christi stupid. He'd made her cry. When Maxine told him to stop he laughed. He said if Christi wasn't so stupid she would do something beside pick her nose and cry. Maxine had told him Christi hadn't picked her nose, but by then the rumor started to spread and the other children were laughing which made Christi cry even harder.

Then, instead of continuing to taunt Christi, he began to quack.

Maxine had given him a duck head.

And that'e when Mrs. Portello started screaming.

One of the teachers from next door rushed into the room, she was equally terrified of seeing a boy with a duck's head. It wasn't until a third teacher entered the room and asked what happened and fifteen tiny hands all pointed at Maxine, that the teacher faked enough calm to tell Maxine to go to the principal's office.

The teachers were terrified of her.

Maxine waited on an uncomfortable wood bench outside Principal Crisp's office. They'd tried calling the guardians listed on Maxine's file. Not even Principal Crisp wanted to handle the super powered child until another adult was present.

Ted managed to get himself untangled from everything that was going on in the mayor's office. He helped them find a suitable candidate to take the position of deputy mayor so that there would be somebody in the hot seat - that wasn't him - until a full mayor could be elected. After that, he stopped being so helpful. He just directed everybody toward the new deputy mayor. Though, once in a while, he did answer the deputy's questions. It was only fair.

It was easy enough to get Charlie to agree to the dinner for the four of them. Ted said that he'd have stuff brought in, so that nobody had to cook anything, and everybody could just relax and have a good time. It felt weird to throw a get together for four people that was essentially catered, but he figured that if he was going to be the custodian of all Charlie's money, some of it should at least be used.

The dinner wasn't anything formal. Ted just had on a pair of slacks and a polo shirt. He fully intended this to be a completely relaxing evening that got him back in touch with his friends, and his girlfriend. And perhaps ended in the pool.

He stood with the horse in the living room, waiting for Jo and Jen to arrive. The table in the dining room was set - he'd had to buy a table - with nice plates and glassware. The food was being readied in the kitchen. Ted thought that Charlie was still upstairs getting ready.

Ted felt bad that he hadn't been in touch with Jo in a while. He'd missed every call she'd placed to him, and hadn't been able to text more than single word replies to her. He had a feeling that she wasn't going to be very happy, but he could only hope that she understood once he had a chance to explain. He also hoped that she was willing to take his call, that she wasn't so pissed off that she completely refused to talk to him at all.


He'd shut his door and told the staff that he was in an important teleconference, instructing his secretary that nobody was to even knock on his door until he said otherwise. Hopefully he'd get some peace that way.

It wasn't like they were looking at him to take over the Mayor's duties, he just knew all the ins and outs of what had been going on prior to Jack Heart's disappearance from the City. He was the one capable of instructing the individuals who were taking up the puzzle pieces to make the whole.

He listened to the ringing, and held his breath, hoping.

Jo hadn't seen Ted in quite awhile. She was okay with that since they both had busy lives and she was still trying to sort out having Maxine in her life part-time. However, she missed the guy that she'd been seeing and decided it was time to drop in. Especially after reading that the mayor was now gone from the City. She could only imagine what Ted had to deal with at work. Which was why she thought that breakfast might be a nice surprise.

She hadn't really spent much time over at Ted's house-after all, she hadn't even met his roommate-but he hadn't done anything to make her think that she wasn't welcome there. Especially if it was just a quick drop-in. Maybe she should have called, but she wanted to surprise him.

Which was why she arrived at Ted's house with a bag of bagels and cream cheese in one hand and coffee in the other. She thought she arrived early enough to catch him before work, but even as she strolled up the walkway, she started to wonder if maybe she'd already missed him. All the same, she rang the doorbell and hoped for the best.

Maxine was now staying with Wash. Jo had mixed feelings about this. There was the blind relief because she wasn't anywhere near ready to be responsible for a five year old, but there was also an unexpected sadness. She missed the kid. Maxine would be back for weekends sometimes, but there was that. All the same, Jo found herself without plans for the night. No work, no kid, no Ted. She'd been curious about one of the other bars in town that seemed to cater to... unusual clientele. She'd heard things about Caritas and figured that now was as good a time as any to check out the club.

She wasn't dressed up-it was standard jeans and a black tank top. She wasn't here to meet and greet or attract attention. Just the opposite, in fact. She wanted to just blend in with the rest of the club. She was curious about the proprietor who supposedly could see bits and pieces of the future for people who sang karaoke. She'd also heard even stranger things about some of the denizens of the club. Potentially demons.

It seemed like the City had everything. Vampire bars, possibly demon bars. All of these creatures in one small, confined area. It was a wonder that anyone survived.

After the first day of total darkness, Maxine started to fret. She used the internet to look up when the sun was supposed to rise and set. Then there was the alarms. Maxine set every single alarm in the house, all for different times. Without the sun, the animals wouldn't know when it was their bedtime. Maxine had to fix that.

As obnoxious as it was, the owls and crickets were only heard during the nighttime hours. The rodents and other creatures only ventured out during the safety of the dark days. With or without the sun, the animals continued the best they could under Maxine's ernest direction. To the untrained eye, however, Maxine was a nightmare of a house guest -- waking up at all hours and going out into the yard, concentrating with all her five year old might.

It was a strange sight in the least.

Getting up at all hours of the night meant sleeping at all hours, too. Maxine had curled up in the living room with a blanket. When sleeping deeply, she didn't hear Jo coming or going. She did, however, hear the knock on the door. Her hair was comically disheveled. Maxine rubbed the sleep from her eyes when she looked up at the older man at the door.

"...Are you Jo's dad?" she yawned.

Without being to explain precisely how, Maxine knew that this world was not her world. No one needed to tell her, The Red of this place was different than The Red back home. Back home, The Red was much more complex, built up like a fragile House of Cards made of thousands upon thousands of ecosystems. This world’s Red was very small, like Maxine. And like Maxine, it seemed to be contained in one single spot, webbed through a single city.

The six year old wasn’t afraid though. She may not have been smiling but there were no tears. After all, Maxine Baker was the daughter of a superhero. It didn't matter if the five year old had no comprehension that Animal Man was a second stringer at best who didn’t make a big enough dent in even the regular criminal underworld to require a secret identity. She still assumed he’d be in the Justice League someday, on par with titans like Superman, Wonder Woman and Aquaman.

Aquaman was her favorite superhero besides her father, of course.

Somewhere along the way, a well meaning adult made up of the simpler Red gave Maxine a brochure. She could read some of it, but didn’t bother trying to struggle through the more complicated words. Maxine just needed someone else willing to explain it to her. Someone that looked trustworthy. The first person she looked for was a uniformed police officer. After failing to find a patrol officer, Maxine settled for the first adult who wasn't obviously an evil mastermind of some sort. Walking toward the lucky individual with all the confidence of a five year old, she tugged on their hand.

“Excuse me. My name is Maxine Baker and my phone number is six one nine, three four four, three one two three. My dad is Animal Man, he isn’t here though. He’s in San Diego with my mom and my big brother Cliff. Do you know how to get there? My dad can come pick me up.”

Maxine handed them the brochure which read, New to The City?

Charlie kept talking about how Ted was seeing somebody. He didn't know much about her, just that her name was Jo and she ran a bar. It didn't sound like Ted was being evasive about answering questions, just that Charlie wasn't pressing for information too hard.

Jen, however, was curious.

Since Charlie was hers, and Ted was important to him, Jennifer wanted whomever Ted was dating to be on the up and up. Or at the very least, a good person. From what she knew of Ted, he needed good people in his life. He deserved good people in his life. Yes, he'd messed up and yes, he'd gone to prison. But so had Charlie. Where Charlie had been falsely accused, Ted had actually deserved his time. But that didn't mean he hadn't changed.

Jennifer decided to take it upon herself to look in on this Jo. Get to know her a bit. Find out if there was anything that she wasn't telling Ted. It was easy enough, since the woman worked in a bar. She could go and sit in a bar for hours and not get hounded about it. If there had been a convenience store involved, she would have had to spread it out over many, many days.

The bar itself was weird. She'd had some idea that it would be from the name, Purgatory. But when she got inside, it was all kinds of fucked up. She had to stand in the entrance for a minute just to get her bearings. Half of it looked like a place that she'd be comfortable in. The other half looked like a goth kid threw up all over it. There were very few people in the bar at this hour, nobody in the goth half. Jen wondered if that half got busier when the sun went down.

Eventually she eased herself in and went to the normal-looking half of the bar and sidled up.

The news report about Fred was extremely unwelcome. Jo instantly tried to call Dean and Sam and left messages for both. Then she tried again.

And again after she'd gotten into her truck and driven down to see what had become of Angel Investigations.

She also tried Fred's phone, trying not to panic when she got no answer. The news reporters had said that she was presumed to be dead. Not that they'd found a body. Not that they knew for sure.

The thought of losing someone that she'd worked with, that she'd considered a friend... it hurt. Jo didn't have many people that she trusted in this City and she couldn't stand to lose any of them.

She didn't realize right away that the sun didn't go down when it was supposed to. In fact, a few hours passed before she realized that it was 9pm and still as bright as if it was noon. She'd been running all over town trying to find what she could on what had happened to Fred's place and to Fred. Now she pulled her truck over and got out. She looked from the sky to her phone, as if doubting that the time on her phone was wrong somehow.

Jesse was nothing if not a man of his word. It might take him time, occasionally, to follow through with it, but he always did. He didn't like to be called a liar, and the best way to avoid that was to do what he said he was going to do. So once he decided that Zoe was well enough to last more than a few hours without him at her side, he went in search of Jo.

He had promised Jo that he would show her what he looked like on the inside.

Very few people had been witness to it, but Jo seemed like the sort who could truly appreciate it. He didn't need to look that way, he knew, but it was a piece of Genesis, so it was a piece of him now. And truth be told, it seemed like it might be a fun thing to show off occasionally. Just to see the reaction.

He made sure to find Jo when she was alone, and in an area where the public couldn't just wander upon them randomly. It turned out to be a little house with a white picket fence. Not exactly the sort of place that he'd imagined she would occupy. But the feeling he got from it was that it was her house. She lived there.

Jesse appeared in the living room and looked around. The inside seemed more Jo-ish, but still not completely. He wondered if she'd just moved in. He was glad that he'd put out his cigarette before appearing. He doubted she wanted smoke-stink all over her... was that a couch doily?