"And you're not going to, like, eat my mom or anything? I would not normally ask but just to be extra sure."

"I will refrain from eating any of your relatives unless you specifically point them out as people you would not mind eaten."

"Nah, they're all divided into the categories of 'I would strenuously object' and 'they were kind of meh and now I can't remember their names off the top of my head'. So, my full name is Campbell Mark Swan. I was born in Forks, Washington to a cop later promoted to chief of police, Charlie Swan, and to Renée Swan, née Higgenbotham, which she stopped using as soon as she had an alternative. They got divorced when I was a baby, Renée moved me to Phoenix and finished getting her education degree and started teaching kindergarten, and I grew up there except visiting my dad every summer, for longer periods of time as it got safer to leave me home alone. When I was seventeen Renée remarried, minor league baseball guy, I should have looked him up but I could not for the life of me produce his name without checking and couldn't check in the library and it didn't occur to me before now -" Cam takes out his computer, fiddles with it, finishes: "Phil Dwyer. And they moved to Jacksonville and I moved in with Charlie instead. Then I found books on summoning and parlor tricks in an abandoned mansion just outside Forks, which I gather my double, if present, has not done, at least not to comparable effect."

"I see. And of course small perturbations to this arrangement quickly become impractical to check - if your father exists and is chief of police somewhere other than Forks, he is potentially findable, but if he exists somewhere other than Forks and is not chief of police or comparably notable, he is a very small needle in a very large haystack. If your mother exists, does not happen to be Googleable with known information, and has never been to Forks or Phoenix, we are not going to find her except by accident."

"Yep. They were both born in Forks, in my world, but that might not be the same either."

"Yes. If the whole family lives in, I don't know, Canada, you're out of luck."

"Yeah, probably, at least until my doppelganger does something cool. Or notices me doing cool things and tracks me down."

"Is your doppelganger guaranteed to do cool things?"

"Well, sheesh, I'd hope so, or he's not much of a doppelganger, is he?"

Sherlock snorts.

"Like, if there is some guy named Campbell Mark Swan with the right parents who presently lives in Forks and works at the sporting goods store or something I'm not impressed!"

"Perhaps he works at the sporting goods store because he is saving money with which to later implement a plan to take over the world."

"That is not an impressive way to collect money, like, even if he is operating in ignorance of magic. If he's me he should be more than smart enough to have a scholarship and attend college, maybe med school, I'd take 'doing premed but nothing else yet', that would be okay."

"You have high standards for the accomplishments of your hypothetical alternate universe selves."

"I would also take 'calculated magical risk blew up in his face and he's dead or comatose', I mean, I lived to be 22, but I will not stand for deficient ambition."

"Similar ambition and a greater helping of obstacles could easily lead him to be working at the sporting goods store or similar while attempting to move forward with something more grandiose."

"I can come up with no excuse for the sporting goods store. Truck drivers make better money and have time to think and maybe narrate thoughts into a little voice recorder of whatever the technological standard for that is these days, off the top of my head, there are no advantages to retail."

He shrugs. "Truck driver could be ruled out by other circumstances dictating that he stay in one place. I'm sure I could come up with similar excuses to rule out any other career you could name, but I'm less sure I want to bother. If we run across a double of you who is pursuing an ignoble career due to circumstances outside his control, I will happily announce that I told you so. If we run into one who is just plain dull, you may freely taunt me in return."

Cam shrugs. "Anyway. Tomorrow morning I meet the Slayer and collect a phone, maybe under cover of darkness I make a bitty little spaceship and fly to Forks and see if Charlie's house is there."

"Have fun."

"You can come along if you want. I have some interest in keeping an eye on you."

"Oh, happily, then."

"Cool. Don't expire of boredom in the next like thirty hours, please."

"It's extremely unlikely."

"Excellent. I don't think anyone followed me back to your crypt but I am considering putting an alarm on the door anyway."