Before he could finish, Josh heard an ear-piercing scream come from upstairs...from his and Jerry's - or rather, Edward's - older sister Emma!
"That's gotta be where Jeremy is." Josh thought aloud.
Hastily grabbing a nearby used bath towel to cover himself up, Josh quickly proceeded up the stairs, holding the railing with one hand while using his other three to wrap the towel around his waist. He opened the door and saw Jerry and Emma by the bathroom door, with Jerry using his rear pair of hands to cover his privates while fending off Emma with his front pair.
"Answers, Edward, NOW!" Emma angrily demanded. "Why do you have four arms all of a sudden...and why are you naked?"
"I'm telling you, sis, I'm NOT Edward!" Jerry frantically replied. "Well...I was Edward, but not anymore! As for the extra arms and the nudity..."
"Stop lying to me!" Emma screamed.
"He's NOT lying to you, sis!" Josh blurted out, quickly covering his mouth after realizing what he had done.
Turning around, Emma spotted Josh in the basement doorway, the used towel still wrapped around his waist. Her eyes widening, she turned back to Jerry, then back to Josh, then to Jerry again, her thoughts spinning at the sight of seeing two Edwards, both sporting an extra pair of arms. Overwhelmed, she passed out on the floor in a heap.
"Is...is she..." Jerry asked nervously as Josh walked over to check on Emma.
"Nope...just unconscious." Josh replied, having checked Emma for a pulse. "Guess seeing the same person in two different places at once will do that to some people. Are you hurt?"
"I'm...I'm fine, bro." Jerry answered back, still somewhat visibly upset about being forcibly separated from his twin. "A little shaken up and a bit exposed, obviously, but other than..."
Before he could finish, Josh raced up to Jerry and wrapped his arms - all four of them - tight around his twin. All Jerry could do was quizzically ask "Josh...bro...what are you..."
"I'm sorry." Josh tearfully replied. "I didn't mean to have the Chronivac split us up."
"I know you didn't, bro." Jerry answered back, putting his own front pair of arms around Josh. "And maybe I pushed a little too hard to have our...'privates' enhanced."
"Maybe." said Josh as he and Jerry sat side by side against the hallway wall. "Or maybe...I just didn't want to admit to myself that I wanted the same thing."
"What brought all this about?" Jerry asked, still somewhat skeptical about his twin's sudden change of heart. "What happened to 'Edward ceased to exist the moment we became Jeremy and Joshua'?"
"Technically speaking, Edward IS physically no more." Josh replied. "Mentally, however...I realized that as much as I personally didn't want to admit it, we're like...two sides of Edward."
"You mean...a 'good' Edward and an 'evil' Edward?" Jerry asked quizzically, raising an eyebrow as if to hide the fact that he was struggling to see his twin's reasoning.
"Not necessarily." Josh replied. "In terms of morality, we're both identical...but in terms of personality, we're as different as night and day."
"I remember." Jerry answered back. "You're more like the original Edward, being somewhat risk-averse and methodical, while I'm apparently highly inquisitive and a bit of a risk-taker."
"It's more than that." Josh replied. "To put it another way, I realize that I represent the version of Edward people normally see in public...while you're the version most people, not even Mom and Dad, never actually see. The flesh-and-blood manifestation of all Edward's secret desires, his fantasies, his perceived..."
"Dial it back there, Freud." Jerry answered back, quickly realizing just how uncomfortably incisive his twin's analysis was becoming. "I get it: our shared sense of morality aside, I'm more or less the Edward Hyde to your Henry Jekyll."
"My point, bro," Josh interjected, "...is that while we may be physically complete and whole, mentally, we're two halves of the same person. And as a wise man once said..."
"'Can half a man live?'" Jerry replied.
"I still want us to be brothers, Jerry." said Josh back. "And even if you don't want us to be conjoined anymore, by all accounts, we should both be perfectly fine: according to the Chronivac, we should each be able to live healthy, productive lives - though not necessarily normal ones, given our unique anatomy."
"Yeah." Jerry interjected. "Having someone sporting an extra pair of arms would definitely raise quite a few eyebrows."
"Not just extra arms." Josh replied. "Extra kidneys, too."
"You're kidding!" a shocked Jerry answered back. "We've got extra kidneys?"
"Yep." Josh replied. "We've got two on each side, for a total of four."
"Wow!" a dumbfounded Jerry answered back. "If ever we decide to become organ donors, that could really come in handy."
"That's assuming they're all fully formed...and to be honest, the Chronivac's given us no reason to believe otherwise." Josh continued. "But I don't just want us to be connected by blood: I want us to be connected by flesh as well. I want us to be conjoined twins again, to share the same body, the same life, the same future...even if it would always be one of cooperation and compromise. Two brothers, one body...freakish though it might appear to the outside world."
"To be honest, bro," Jerry interjected, "...a part of me also wants us to be conjoined twins again. But considering what the separation was like, it'll involve a lot of soul-searching for both of us."
"Fair enough." Josh replied. "In the meantime, though...you might want to put some clothes on."
"Uh...good point," Jerry answered back, quickly realizing he was still naked. "...though I might want to wash up first. Who knew you could get so sweaty from altering reality in a localized area?"
"Hmmm..." Josh said quizzically. After smelling both his left armpits, he replied "No argument there: if anything, I think we both might want to clean ourselves up."
"On that note, bro...what should we do with Emma?" asked Jerry.