Josie and Jenny were watching the Keener-Black family. Not with the Chronivac, just across the short distance of the park. Kendall was playing with the twins on a blanket spread on the grass, and Connie was giggling at them, pulling out a set of textbooks from a large bag.
"They look so happy," Josie said, still with a strange tone of voice, halfway insulted and halfway bemused.
"They act it too. Did you hear? Connie's father apparently is doing pro-bono work lobbying for the Transgender Law Center. Apparently Connie and Kendall talked him into it."
Josie threw up her hands.
"But WHY?! Kendall seems happy as a pig in shit being a guy, and if Connie's still upset about being a woman she's got a weird ass way of showing it."
Jenny chuckled, patting Josie's hand.
"Apparently they both claim to have some deep sympathy for folks whose assigned and real genders don't match."
Josie grunted noncommittally as she watched Kendall shake a small stuffed toy for one of the twins, to their apparent delight.
"Yeah..." she said eventually, "Kendall started volunteering his after school time with the GLBTQ Alliance, too. He...came up to me about it, after last week's meeting."
Jenny's eyebrows raised. This was a story her girlfriend hadn't related at the time. Josie caught her look and grunted again.
"He remembers. Their old life, I mean. Obviously, we built it that way. But...anyway. He says he wants to make up for it."
Jenny nodded slowly.
"I didn't want to mention this, because I didn't think you'd like to hear it, but I've seen Connie mentoring some of the freshmen."
Josie dragged a hand over her face.
"Seriously?! Where did the old them go? They used to be such...such...evil, despicable people."
Jenny nodded, looked back at the family. They still hadn't noticed them; apparently this little playdate was doubling as a study session, with Kendall and Connie taking it in turns to quiz each other for the SATs, given the logos on the study guides. Jenny wondered who'd been more shocked to find out that Connie was still a high school student now, her or Josie.
Finally, apparently lost in thought, Jenny spoke.
"We said 'enemies must change.' They did."
Josie looked pensive. She'd had similar thoughts herself, but didn't much like the taste of the implications.
"So we just...let them go? They made us miserable, and now they have each other, a supportive family, a small fortune AND college prospects? And we just...accept that? I still don't even get how this happened, I only made Connie's family accept her again!"
Josie shrugged.
"And with financial support and added childcare, housing, and food security, better health care...their lives immediately improved. But I think there were other things, too. I checked the Chronivac logs; Mr. Black's lobbying clients have changed, and he's actually less wealthy now. In the previous timeline he mostly lobbied for energy companies, and then mostly fossil fuels. Now he's mostly a lobbyist for family welfare groups, a few unions, and the occasional environmental firm."
Jenny turned to look at her baffled girlfriend.
"And that's not all. Kendall and Connie remember how they used to behave, but no one's acting like their current behavior is strange. I think it's because it's not. In order to make the Blacks still accept Connie, you had to make the Blacks the kind of family that would raise a daughter to...well, to be like Connie. Who then had to fall for Kendall, meaning the Keeners are either at least a little better or easily cowed by the Blacks into behaving like decent people."
Josie took all that in and sighed.
"So what you're saying is, the Connie and Kendall in front of us really do deserve this happiness..."
"...and we should stop trying to punish them for the Connor and Kendall who are now long gone," Jenny finished with a smile.
Josie grunted again. However, after a moment, she smiled slightly.
"Alright, not what I had in mind for 'all enemies must change'...but...I feel good about it."
"Doing the right thing supposedly does that a lot."
"Yeah. Come on, let's go say hi. I could use a babysitting gig, maybe they'd like a nice night out."