Jo's heart was hammering in her chest. She couldn't believe it! After five years of living a life that wasn't really hers, of having to grow up all over again, but as a girl, she was almost free! Practically out of nowhere her real father and Grandpa had shown up and beaten her brother Mike at his own game! In the midst of her excitement Jo realized she was clapping her hands together and skipping from one foot to the other in a very girlish manner. She stopped and tried to force herself to stay calm.
Mikey was on the ground bawling with pain, "Waaaaaaah! Augh! Ow. Owwww! You hurt me!" Five years old again, younger than when this mess first started, tears were running from his eyes and snot from his nose.
"After what you did to Jon?!" Gary pointed to the thirteen year old girl that had once been his son and snarled down at the boy that still was, "After you forced her to kiss her own father?! You're sick, Mikey! You might have done something even more horrible if we hadn't stopped you!"
"Nobody stopped you!" Mikey screamed back at him, clutching his aching stomach, "You left Mom! You left me!"
Gary sighed and made a helpless gesture with his hands, "Mikey - -your mother and I... it's complicated."
"Yeah? Well, so are the wishes I made," Mikey laughed, coughed, and then kept laughing for a second. It was creepy to hear that much hate and rage in the voice of someone so young, "Good luck getting back the son you actually love!"
Mikey cranked around to look at Jo and his laughter assumed a maniacal pitch. Even now, knowing Mikey couldn't change her or intimidate her anymore, Jo felt a chill of fear run through her. Hugging herself to keep from shaking she slipped behind Gary to peer around his shoulder.
"I wish Mikey was not injured and deep asleep until I tell him to wake up," Jack said suddenly, his manner brisk. He nodded with satisfaction after the customary blink that accompanied a wish once he saw it had been effected as ordered. The sudden quiet was omnipresent and for a second no one said anything.
Deciding there was no time like the present Jo scurried up to her grandfather and plucked at the sleeve of his jacket. "Change me back, Grandpa! Change me back!"
"Easy, Jo - - I mean, Jon," Jack nodded sympathetically at the flash of irritation in his transformed grandson's eyes, "Let's just get the lay of the land first shall we? That wish was a calculated move, but I had to come up with it on the fly."
"I don't understand!" Jo said desperately. To be this close to a return to her normal life and not have it just happen was excruciating.
"You heard Mikey, he protected himself against magical attacks, just as I suspected. He had no fear of my little stored wishes harming him, also as I suspected," Jack was not so self effacing as to forbid himself a small smug smile, "Which meant I could only attack him through a retroactive change to his own timeline."
"Yeah, so?" Jo had no trouble grasping what her grandfather was saying. It angered her a little to be treated so like a child. She was really a twenty one year old man for God's sake! "Mikey wished he and I would trade ages. We did, but he never said he would always be older than me - - you said it yourself, I'm not even related to Dad anymore!"
"Exactly what protected you from the wish, Jon," Jack said thoughtfully, "But also part of the problem. Mikey had already so badly disrupted our family's timeline that I felt no compunction about making it a little worse just to get the stone away from him - - but we have to assess all the damage before we start any repairs."
"So I have to stay like this?!" Jo said in a choking voice. She almost wanted to cry, but had given that up after her first night in juvie.
"Hopefully just for a little while longer," Jack said kindly, not really at all sure how he would fix everything, but confident he would find a way, "I wish we were all back at my place."
Blink.
And so they were. Once everyone got refreshed and settled, including the still-sleeping Mikey who got locked away in a spare bedroom, Jack, Gary, and Jo all gathered in a small front room off the main hallway to discuss their next move.
"Everyone ready?" Jack eyed his son and the thirteen year old girl that was so much a stranger to him now, waited until they both nodded, "I wish we three understood the family history and general circumstances brought about by my wish to change Gary's age."
Blink.
"Well, turnabout is fair play, I guess?" Gary said, more than a little confused by the reality bending nature of his father's adventures in general and this latest wrinkle in particular.
Gary's age had changed and, as Gary's son, so had Mikey's, but his ex-wife Linda had not regressed with him. Hell, she wasn't really his ex-wife anymore. She was Damon Morgan's ex-wife and Gary had stolen her away from him! Gary found himself in the curious position of now being the "other man". Linda, a vivacious older woman with a daughter by a local two-cent hood, had met the younger up and coming lawyer Gary. He got her a job at the firm where he worked, helped her with some legal issues, supported her through her divorce. Mikey had shown up somewhere along the way and now she was expecting another baby, this one also his. No one was quite sure how Zoe fit into things. She might have been written out of the picture entirely if she weren't really outside the bubble of the stone's power. Maybe Linda was pregnant with a "new" Zoe. It was still a little confusing for him - - and tempting. Jo's jaw dropped when he actually admitted it out loud.
"What?!" Jo nearly screamed.
"Just hear me out, Jon, okay?" Gary held up a hand asking for calm, "Except for losing you, my son, this could be much, much worse. I have my youth back, I have a second chance with Linda, a new baby on the way. I'm just starting my career again, but I have all the knowledge of years of experience! But if I have to lose my son? I can't do it. We have to find a way to get you back - - but how?"
Gary and Jo both turned to Jack and waited to hear what the old man had to say.
