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Laura stood in the doorway of the chilly, barren room. The white wolf was tired: tired of the politics surrounding recent events; tired of the strained relations between her and Kael; tired of the media hoopla and incessant reporters; tired of crying when Jay couldn't stay at the house for the weekend; and last, but not least, tired of Matt being in the hospital, again. The thoughts whirled about her head like snow in the wind. Every time she thought she had a handle on the situation, someone would bring something up sending her brain back into manic overdrive.

Brushing her long white hair from her eyes, she stood up straight and padded into the room, her feet barely a whisper. Across the bed the ever-faithful moose sat. Laura's gaze rested on Chris for just a moment, but when he locked his vision on her, she had to look aside.

Chris had let himself go.

She wasn't sure if it was the stress of living by Matt's bedside for a month, or if it was the something else she could see lurking behind his brown eyes. The moose's once-proud musculature had begun to sag, just a little. His posture was slumped in defeat. And she was certain the hospital cafeteria food they brought him wasn't particularly healthy, despite the location. Yet he persisted in his vigil, watching over the husky every waking hour, and more than a few asleep.

She found after avoiding Chris, her eyes had settled on looking at the comatose husky's muzzle. Matt. She nearly choked on his name. If she had only kept up with him in that final battle, maybe she could have changed the outcome. But she realized it was stupid the second the thought crossed her mind. Even Matt had been outmatched if Chris' description of the fight was accurate - and she had no reason to doubt the moose.

The husky's fur used to be a blue-gray, but the magical storm had drained it of color, almost as if it represented his life force having fled his body. She rubbed the faux tiger stripes on her arm absently as she mentally compared her pelt to his. They weren't identical, even without the white wolf's artificial dye job. When the light hit the husky at the right angle, Laura swore it was as if Matt's coat still had ice clinging to it, just like it had after the battle.

She shivered. They almost lost Matt too.

Soft sobbing had slowly brought Laura out of her thoughts, and she looked on in surprise as the massive moose showed an emotion stronger than apathy for the first time in days. After walking around the bed, she took Chris into her arms and rocked him gently. It was comical, given Chris was nearly three times heavier than she was, but at the same time she felt like she could help carry Chris' weight, if only for a little while.

"It's my fault," he whispered, his voice rough and raw.

"Shhh, it's not anybody's fault." Laura continued to hold Chris close. "There was nothing we could've done."

"If Jay... if he was alive, then Matt wouldn't have tried to sacrifice himself." Chris said, getting louder with each word. "And I brought Jay there. It was my fault! My fault Jay died; my fault Matt is dying now. I..."

Laura's muzzle hung open, her mind scrambling for words as Chris' body shuddered in her arms. "That's not true, Chris. Matt would have died without you! You were there for him in the end. Jay... he would have gotten there on his own. He was a stubborn cat, and nobody got in his way. You did nothing wrong." She let her paw rub his back with long, slow strokes, trying to soothe his fears, his worries.

"He'd have been stuck outside with you if I hadn't taken him with me."

Guilt, Laura realized. The emotion hiding, lingering behind his eyes. She had no logic to placate him with, no platitudes to spout. She just knew that he was wrong, but unless Matt survived and told Chris that himself, there was nothing she could do to help him. The moose had to wrestle with his inner demons alone.

Taking one of the husky's icy-looking paws into his meaty mitts, Chris put his forehead on Matt's stomach. "Just... I'm sorry... Laura, can you... can you leave me alone again? It's selfish, but I can't..."

The white wolf squeezed Chris' shoulder lightly and stepped back. "Yeah, I know."

A few moments later she was seated in the sterile sitting area. Most of the furs had gone home, and normal visitation hours were going to end soon. But the nursing staff had taken pity on the little band of friends and let them stay well past closing. Reporters weren't allowed in the recovery ward, and so the group had used it as a shelter from the chaos of the outside world, keeping an eye on Matt and each other.

Kael sat in the waiting room, his thick tail hanging between the seat and the wall, reading his physics text even though classes for the semester were cancelled and refunded. It was apparently a little difficult to run a university when an entirely different school suddenly appeared on the same campus. The engineering department had been examining the Easthaven Academy building that intersected their own structure when the two worlds collided -- they needed to ensure both buildings were structurally sound. The school president and the headmaster of the Academy were in talks about curriculums and security issues, and trying to broker an exchange program of sorts.

They were lucky that the first place to truly merge was a place of learning. Where the military had the entire campus on lockdown for two weeks, the scientists and professors were far too interested in these new topics and avenues of study, and had pressured the government to allow them access to the citizens of Ameranth. Economists were looking into their trade and barter systems, geographers had new maps to pour over, anthropologists and socialists were digging into their culture, and to top it all off, the physicist who laughed Kael out of his office a few months earlier had been following up on magic and the interactions and effects on the laws of thermodynamics. The studies weren't a one-way street, however. Technology fascinated the magi, and their own politicians and scientists had a lot of ground to cover if they were ever going to survive in a combined world.

"I hope the dude realizes Matt's going to be a complete and utter mess when he finally wakes up," Kael said, not looking up from his text. "If he was moping for a week when Jay gave us up to CSIS, imagine what'll happen when he remembers that his boyfriend is dead."

"Have some fucking sympathy!" Laura said, baring her fangs at the rotund kangaroo and growling. He glanced up, his eyes wide with surprise. "He blames himself for Matt's death. I think Matt being a little out of sorts isn't high on his list of things he's worried about."

Shifting his gaze nervously, Kael saw other furs in the room shaking their heads disapprovingly at him. He thumped his tail against the wall. "Sorry, dudette. It's stupid. It's not his fault. Jay was going to do what Jay wanted to do, consequences be damned."

"I know, that's what I told him." Laura shook her head and brushed the hair from her muzzle. "I don't think he believed me though."

The pair sat in silence. After a few minutes Laura figured that Kael wasn't actually reading his text. His emerald eyes kept roving over the same sentence again and again, and the page never turned. The unspoken tension continued to mount until Laura felt it would break her under its weight. A weight that was both lightened and intensified by a large, gray paw on her shoulder.

"It's colder than freaking Antarctica ouside. Seriously, I looked it up online." Eric's gruff voice washed over Laura, a warm front in a cold spell. The rhino jock had removed his gloves, and pulled off his scarf and ski jacket.

Kael snorted. "October here is winter, but in the southern hemisphere, it's summer."

"Why're you such a jerk, Kael?" Laura asked, snarling again. Her ears were beginning to lay dangerously flat.

Kael shrugged, as much of an apology as she'd ever get out of him. "Anyways, the dude's crazy spell lowered the ambient temperature in the city by a significant degree, to the point that it brought a frigid winter to this part of the country a full month earlier than expected. Not even Kazar or Rhisanth are quite sure what to make of it. According to them, some spells can alter climate a small amount if you're not careful, but they've never heard of something of this scale before. Hence the freaking cold."

"Worked out pretty well, though," Eric said, moving to sit beside Laura. Kael glared at him as he wrapped a beefy arm around the white wolf and pulled her closer. "All those reptile creatures just up and disappeared when the crazy storm came in. Like something out of a science fiction movie."

"Sent back to Under Eden, man. They are reptiles; still cold-blooded. Perhaps it was the dude's way of protecting us. Too cold for the demons to invade for a few months yet. Well, until the merged area grows to encompass a more temperate area." Kael shut his physics text, no longer pretending to read, and shook his head, his tall ears flopping about above his mop of black hair.

"Well, it seems to be working. You guys haven't had to fight at all since I first met you." Eric pressed his muzzle against Laura's hair, carefully keeping his horn parallel to her head. Kael stood up, heaved a sigh, and marched out of the waiting room. "What's his problem, anyhow?"

"He's had a crush on me for a while, I think," Laura said, leaning on the rhino's bulk. "He's never really followed through on it, though, so I don't worry. We've been friends for well over a decade, and he's a good guy, if a bit melodramatic."

"I see. Should I be jealous?"

The white wolf looked up to the rhino smirking. "Only if you want to be," she said with a wink.

"What's up with Kael?" Axel's deep voice interrupted the conversation. The officer stood behind the pair in his uniform parka - a black coat with his rank sewn on the shoulder and the police crest on the chest. He took a look at Laura and Eric snuggled together and shook his head. "Never mind, I think I've got a good idea. How's Matt?"

"He's still comatose. Doctors say he's not dying, but no changes in vitals either."

"That's somethin' at least," the german shepherd said as he sat across from the couple. "I wish Matt could've been awake for Jay's funeral. Would've helped him a lot."

"The Richardsons needed closure, and after hearing about how Jay died they didn't seem to be very happy with Matt. Or the rest of us," Laura lamented.

"True. I think Mr. Richardson was ready to shred poor Chris into ribbons when he was explainin' what happened."

The white wolf put a finger on her nose. "Maybe that's part of why Chris blames himself."

"Probably." The german shepherd shrugged off his coat and rubbed the back of his neck with a free paw. "Good to see the University and Academy settin' aside some space for a monument, though."

Eric gave the cop a thumb's up. "Yup. Right where all those crazy chunks of ice are. When it all melts, they were thinking of making glass replicas of them, and a stone epitaph with the names of all of the furs who died from both Earth and Ameranth."

"Good, at least we all can agree on one thing." Axel nodded at Laura. "Speakin' of agreein', you're gonna have to come to the next Council meeting, Laura. With Chris stuck here at Matt's side, I can't be the only one representin' Earth."

The white wolf nodded. "Yeah. How're the meetings with Rhisanth, Kazar, and Tarnak going?"

"I honestly have no idea how Matt kept all this stuff straight in his brain. Their crash course on Ameranthan politics gives me a headache every time. Doesn't help that Kazar and Tarnak are gonna eat each other if Rhisanth turns his back for even a second."

Axel sighed and continued. "But things are gettin' heated and I could use some backup, you know? With Jason still missin' because of CSIS, a few Council members are callin' for action. The police and military on Earth are scared of more demons croppin' up, especially after the Cubi. We've no idea how many additional magi could be imposters. The entire thing is gonna be a shit show soon if we don't calm them all down."

"Anything I can do to help out?" Eric said, leaning forward.

"Unless you suddenly can use magic, not a thing."

"Damn." The rhino stood up and began to pace, his feet heavy on the linoleum.

Laura pulled on the jock's arm. "Sit down, rhino-boy. Jay couldn't use magic either."

"Actually," Axel started. The couple turned to watch the cop. "Now I think about it, I don't think Knowles used any magic in our fight. Maybe he can't, too."

"There has to be a pattern to it," Eric said, pacing again. "Some reason some furs can use magic, and others can't."

"One more mystery to solve." Axel's tail dropped between his legs as he stood and stretched. "I'm going to go check on Chris and Matt for a moment, then I have to get back to work."

Laura snagged Eric's large paw and pulled him to his seat before leaning on him again, closing her eyes. That mystery was the least of their worries. Life had changed for them all. No more school for the semester, and Laura figured the lot of them would likely enroll in the Easthaven Academy rather than University once things had returned to, well, not normal, but operational. Being a part of the Council was a huge responsibility, and it made sense that they should know more about magic to be effective leaders.

It didn't help that increasingly furs on Earth were discovering magic. Some by happenstance, and others by following instructions as sites popped up on the internet. Of course, nobody could get any videos or images of magic, so pics or it didn't happen was still pretty prevalent, but Laura knew that wouldn't slow things down too much. The chaos it would bring to the world was terrifying. Governments, religions, and businesses would be radically altered, and there'd be no going back.

The population of Ameranth was a major concern. She had no idea about the other world's geography, but as more of the worlds collided, each country would deal with the new populace differently. North America was the first to feel this effect, but what would happen in Europe? Asia? South America? The culture shock for both sides could very well be devastating. In war torn parts of Earth, magic and Ameranthan furs could sway the balance of power in unforeseen ways. The scope of change was overwhelming.

And then there was the imminent demonic invasion, which was put on hiatus, but only for so long, and only in their city. When the attack began anew, they had to be ready.

The white wolf sighed, a tear rolling down her cheek, sliding across her fur before the rhino lightly wiped it away with a thick finger. 'And if Matt wakes up -- No, when Matt wakes up -- the world will be a different place. It already is.'

---

And so Merge comes to a close, 98794 words and 25.5 chapters later! Thanks so much for reading my novel, and if you enjoyed the read, it would mean the world to me if you favorited this chapter :)

Next for me, as my journal mentioned, are some one-offs which may include some "prequel" short stories of characters if folks would like. The next novel in the series, Merge Conflict, is currently being planned, but won't be started for a few months yet because of the aforementioned one-offs. Just more practice, throwing some ideas around, etc. I look forward to plenty more writing!

Thanks, Monion