Brad decided to test the program, but without getting anyone else involved. The memory of Phil freaking out a few moments ago still too fresh in his mind. If Phil and Connor needed a new father, why not have it be him? So, clicking on his profile picture, he dragged it over to where "Sperm Donor" was listed as Phil and Connor's father. A pop up appeared the instant he dropped his picture in the spot.
Do you want user's previous relationships to remain? Questioned the pop up, and Brad clicked Yes, followed by yet another Alter Reality to fit new parameters question that he also confirmed. And then a new pop up appeared asking him to define his mental changes, Brad choosing to remember both realities before clicking okay. And in that instant a white light emanated from the computer, and when it was all over Brad clicked on the family tree view to see the changes, and he saw that connecting both his old family and new was his profile pic. Phil and Connor looked a tad bit different from previously, resembling him in small slight ways that struck him as both odd and proud to see his boys. Memories were flooding him now of how his wife and Rachel had always been close friends, and when Rachel had despaired of ever finding someone to have children with, his wife had, for the friendship she bore Rachel, offered him to father Rachel's children. They were all friends and neighbors, and whatever anyone else thought, the three of them were the only ones whose opinion of the arrangement mattered. Brad for himself had felt a little weird at being "put out to stud" as his wife had jokingly referred to it at the time, but she remarked that it was about the same as Brad donating a cup of sperm to a sperm bank and fathering more children that way. And besides, this was like what happened in "The Big Chill", so it wasn't completely unheard of.
Rachel had moved next door to allow for ease of the two families growing up to know one another and for the half-brothers and half-sisters to know each other growing up--though Phil and Connor were still too young to be told who their father really was, it was obvious that Connor was getting suspicious. The girls all knew, they'd been told when they'd hit thirteen, and while they had had a hard time processing how their mother could be okay with it at first, they'd come to love their cute little half-brothers as they'd grown older.
Personally, Brad liked that he had the experience of being father to both sons and daughters now. He had girl time with his old family, but now memories of playing with his boys, and being the one to take them on camping trips and other activities--even if it was through the thinly disguised fig leaf of "neighbor" rather than father--were memories that now he had he wouldn't give up for all the world. He was realizing he was a different kind of father to his sons than his daughters, and it was making him a more complete father having the experience of parenting both sons and daughters.
As for the friendship between his wife (wives? Yes, wives), it had been tested through the years, no doubt, but if anything it was now stronger than before as the two often seemed to gang up on him whenever they felt he was in the wrong, and they had more excuses to come over and talk with one another at all hours of the day.
The new reality settling in for Brad, he began to wonder what else he could change.