Since Ash has refused to sell drugs anymore, as well as declined to convince somebody else to take his place, his dealer arrives with two associates to beat him up. During the beating, when knocked into a wall, Ash initiates an unexpected shift. When he later finds the Edwards, now quintuplets, they discover that Ash has unwittingly erased his three attackers from all realities—the men were never even born.

When Ash goes back to school, everyone assumes that his bruises are the result of a hate crime. The story balloons of control. At the locker room before his next game, Ash finds reporters waiting for him. He feels ambivalent about the attention he is receiving, uncertain in his ability or willingness to be a public figure of change. During the game, he is unable to shift.

After his game, Ash speaks to the reporters because he feels he has a responsibility now as an openly gay athlete. Leo and Paul both congratulate him on the game, and Leo asks what changed in this universe, since he assumes that a shift has taken place. While driving home afterward, Ash realizes that he cannot tell Paul about the shifts for fear of breaking his heart—that is, should Ash succeed, they’ll return to a world where they are not together.