Molly and I glanced to Leona and could see the frustration on her face. We could see the battles she had waged with both those who wanted to become animal-people and with her own instincts. Her eyes seemed almost pained, like these battles were truly weighing her down. Things had indeed changed for her, and it was not merely the laws in which she had to operate. She was reaching the end of her rope and likely wouldn't remain sane for too much longer.
"I'll try to have us ready as quickly as possible," Harry spoke up.
"Before the wedding?" Molly asked.
"What?" Leona gasped.
"Do the change before the wedding," Molly commented, "if you do it after the wedding, you'll need to go through all the marriage license forms again to document that the new Leon and Jacki are in fact the same people as Leona and Jackson and are married to each other. If you do the transformation first, all the appropriate forms will be in order..."
"And all you'll have to deal with are likely the people who will call you a hypocrite for opposing the sale of the Animatrix Serum and then using it again on yourself and giving a potentially doubled dose to a human male who wasn't a victim," I added, "even if he's presently going through the official regulations, tabloid newspapers won't care if it's his idea and most opinion pages will still consider it hypocrisy."
Leona gave a blinking sigh and then turned to Harry.
"If you schedule this for the rehearsal time, it'll take a lot," Harry told her, "a lot of stuff that will need to be done rapidly."
"Can it be done?" Leona sighed, her frustration showing.
"If all goes according to theory, yes," Harry responded, "unorthodox, but yes."
"We'd best get to work then," Leona sighed and then turned back to Molly and I, "thank you again for not flipping out or anything."
"You have to be under a lot of stress," Molly said slowly, "and you have been a big help to George and I. What kind of "friends" would we be if we flipped out on you? Besides, technically I transformed George against his will through sex. I have no real room to complain."
I nodded beside her. She'd oversimplified the details of my transformation, but Molly had been there and knew the truth. She was only making a point.
"Though what will you do in regards to bridesmaids?" Molly then wondered, "Neither George nor I really know Officer Jackson all that well beyond what his father has told us."
"We may simply have the first wedding with groom's women rather then groomsmen," Leona sighed, "Jackson and I will have to talk it over before settling anything... but Harry and I will have some work to do to make sure we'e ready if it is something we can work out. I thank you for visiting and letting me know you'v arrived, and I doubly thank you for understanding... but it would probably best that you go for now."
"Of course," I nodded, "we'll go the way we came. Thank you for seeing us."
And with that, Molly and I quietly left Leona's lab. The amount of stress that she showed at the end was surprising, but as we made our way out we knew it was understandable.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The trip back to my parents home went fairly quietly. It went by a slightly different route, and as we went we ran into another former classmate from our high school.
"It is you!" a young man cheered and ran out from the garage of a mechanic's shop as we walked toward my parents home.
He smelled of grease and both Molly and I could see it coating his overalls and his face.
"I saw you two coming up the street!" the guy gave a smile, "I can't believe it's you!"
"Mack?" I gasped in surprise.
His real name was Mark Wainthrop, but everyone had known him as "Mack" in high school. He seemed to be excited to see Molly and I. He came right up and shook both our hands, managing to get grease in our fur, but neither of us had much room to complain about a person being friendly.
"Man, I've seen all the stuff on the news but this is something else!" Mack said excitedly, "what are you to up to now?"
"We've married and moved out to Columbia Falls, Montana," I answered, "what have you been up to?"
"Runnin' my dad's mechanic's shop," Mack gestured back to the garage behind him, "he's gettin' a bit old now. He mostly runs the books. I get to do all the fun stuff."
"And you aren't offended by the fact that we're tigers now?" Molly wondered, looking at the grease stain on the bottom of her paw.
"Are you kiddin'?" Mack replied, "what I would give to be as buff a you two are. Had to lift up an engine the other day... took all I had with pulleys. I bet you could just lift the dead weight."
"It would depend on the weight of the engine," I told him, "we might be able to manage anything up to a ton in weight."
"Hm... still your strength should come in handy, I bet," Mack smirked, "you guys happy?"
"Happy together," Molly replied, "Yes."
"Don't think I'd want to actually get the fur coat though," Mack then shrugged, "I collect enough grease as it is."
"We found that out already," I chuckled as I looked at the grease in my own fur.
"Oh... sorry," Mack spoke, "guess I missed that..."
"It's alright," I replied, "we'll manage... and having receive such a friendly meeting is probably worth a little grease."
"People haven't been friendly?" Mack gasped.
"None of my old friends have called me since I changed," Molly told him, "and we ran into one of them earlier today... she thought me a freak."
"You're actually the first of my high school friends that we've run into," I added, "I doubt the others even know I'm a tiger now... shoot a good many of my college friends may not realize that I am a tiger now... Molly and I haven't been all that "loud" about announcing what we are now."
"Oh you can never doubt the news," Mack commented, "they had the story on your transformation, Molly and then they had all these updates on the animal people serum and how it worked and about a male tiger doing well... I figured it had to be you two."
"Pretty good deducting," I quipped.
"May I ask why you've been so friendly to us?" Molly wondered curiously.
"The guy who got me through Algebra can't be bad, no matter how furry he is," Mack answered, "besides... all that hatin' ain't gonna make the anything better. Better that we all got along."
"Thank you," I said slowly.