From Within and Without
Chapter Two: Warnings

Lillian didn’t quite understand why Trinity was so annoyed at her after that disaster of an outing.  She insisted that they needed to do it again sometime, but Trinity was not going to be ignored when she made the effort to go out for her friends’ sake.  No, she was perfectly comfortable staying in from now on, doing what she wanted to do so that she wasn’t ignored.

And if Lillian wasn’t there, all the better, so she could have time to herself for once.  Although, given the fact that Lillian pretty much lived in Gabriel’s apartment right now was just sort of cake.  The only reason Lillian didn’t officially move out was because her parents had a rule that she had to spend two years in a dorm before she even thought about an apartment.  Besides which, they would flip out if they knew her roommate was her bisexual boyfriend.

So it was sort of nice for Trinity, who would get the dorm room to herself most evenings, and she could do her homework in relative peace.  There was a guy down the hall who liked to blare his stereo at two in the morning, until the RA would go pounding on his door to shut the damn thing off.  And there was constant running up and down the halls some days, but Trinity had learned to tune most of that out.  It was the price to pay for deciding to go to college clear across the city, and deciding to live close than try to transport herself to class everyday.

Her Thursday classes were a little more bearable than her Wednesday ones, mostly because she only had the two, and they were relative easy and interesting for her.  She had a longer period of time between classes that day, although it wasn’t as much fun since Gabriel had classes inbetween, and Lillian didn’t, so Trinity had to deal with her during her break.  Lillian liked to pretend they had been girlfriends forever rather than the few months they had known each other, and would babble about some nonsense her friends back home would get into.

And Trinity would listen, because she really had no other choice.  She wasn’t about to head to the library when her own home was currently on campus, and she couldn’t very well tell Lillian to shut up.  Occasionally, Lillian would have some project she needed to research, and she would disappear to the library, and Trinity would be glad.  It was nice to have a break from Lillian sometimes.

Lillian, who was trying to load herself down with classes so she would graduate early with Gabriel, mostly had afternoon classes on Thursday, allowing Trinity peace and quiet for an hour or so after she was finished with her last class.  She would relax during that period, catching up on shows that she missed.  Then she would use doing homework for an excuse why she didn’t want to talk to Lillian while she prepared for dinner with Gabriel, or an evening out with friends. 

Of course, with all her luck, her phone went off again just as she was throwing her bag beside her desk again, and she was mentally preparing herself for a show she taped the previous night.  She frowned at it, since it was the landline, and only one person called her using their landline, and who happened to know the exact moment she walked in the door.

Trinity let out a sigh before picking up the phone.  “Hi, Mom,” she said dryly.  “Why can’t you call my cell like a normal person?”

“Because, sweetheart, you have this line for a reason, so you might as well use it.  I mean, were paying for it, aren’t we?”

“You’re also paying for my cell,” Trinity pointed out.

“Yeah, but you use that all the time, with you texting and whatnot.  You got to get some use out of this line.”

Trinity sighed again.  “So, what’s up?” she asked, trying to sound cheerful.

“What makes you think something’s ‘up’?” her mother asked.  “I can’t talk to my baby from time to time?  I don’t hear from you unless I call you first.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Please, Mom, I know you.  You keep up with me through Twitter and Facebook.  And through Instant Messaging.  You wouldn’t call unless something was up.”

She could see her mother chewing on her lip, a nervous habit she had when delivering bad news to someone.  “Well,” she started slowly.  “I just got word that your sister’s considering a weekend visit.  This weekend.”

 
“Grandpa’s got to learn to stop eavesdropping,” Trinity said dryly.  “And besides, she’s considered coming countless times, only to fall through.  I’m not going all the way down there for the weekend unless I have a good reason.”

“Your father just called as well, and confirmed,” her mother stated.  “She called him at work and told him she’s thinking about coming for the weekend.”

Trinity was silent for a moment, her thoughts flying around in her head.  On the one hand, her sister hadn’t confirmed that she was coming, merely considering it.  But she had never called before about it, and she had to know that even a consideration was pretty much conformation in their parent’s minds.

“Matt’s said he was going to come,” her mother added, like it was a deal breaker.

“You called Matt before you called me about it?” Trinity asked, feeling a little hurt.

“Well, sure, you were in class.  Matt wasn’t busy, she we chatted a bit.  He’s bringing Natalie, sure, but you’re brother’s going to be staying with us.”

“Damn it all,” she muttered under her breath.  She didn’t get to see her brother muse since he had graduated from high school some seven years ago, and any opportunity to do so was usually taken by Trinity. 

“Language,” her mother said.

“Mom,” Trinity said sharply and accusingly.  “Fine, I’ll come home for the weekend.  If Dani doesn’t show up, then at least I get to spend some time with Matt.”

She could almost see her mother grinning.  Trinity knew it was her secret dream to have them all under one roof again, and have two out of the three kids was pretty good.  “Excellent,” her mother said.  “I’ll tell your father.  This is going to be a great weekend, you’ll see.”

Trinity was of a different opinion, but didn’t voice at as she just muttered her agreement before hanging up on her mother before she could start planning the weekend with her.

***

“Hey there,” Sergey said as Amy trudged in the door, fresh off an eight-hour shift at work. The smell of whatever he was cooking permeated the apartment, and she had to admit, it was nice. Dinner, on the whole, would have been nice.

“Hi Serge,” she said, stretching and slipping off her shoes, “How was class today?”

“It was class,” he said with a shrug; he added something to the saucepan that sizzled loudly, “How was work?”

“It was work,” Amy said dryly, heading over to the kitchen. Sergey appeared to be making some sort of fried rice to the best of his ability; bits of vegetables were clumping together with the rice. “No better or worse than usual.”

“Were the spirits still celebrating?”

“No,” Amy said, “I saw one this morning on the way there, but I saw her yesterday too. She just doesn’t know she’s dead. That’s it. The party must be over.”

“Oh, Mrs. Wiebe came down here just after my last class. Wanted you to get a hold of her.”

“What for?”

“To see what her husband wants, I think,” he said, tentatively adding more soy sauce. “I heard some clattering up there this morning.”

“Well, I’ll pop up there if dinner will take a little bit,” she sighed. It would have been nice to rest for a little bit, but if Mrs. Wiebe wanted something, she was going to eventually come down and ask her herself.

“No, no,” Sergey said, “She can wait. I haven’t heard anything since she talked to me.”

“No, no,” Amy repeated, the protest feeling futile, “She’ll come down here anyway. It can’t hurt.”

“I want you to relax, solnyshko,” Sergey said, adding, “If you were getting paid for it, now...”

“Ha ha,” Amy drawled, “It shouldn’t be more than a minute, Serge.”

She made it a policy not to charge for her ability; she only did it for friends anyway. She’d seen far too many cases of a medium starting to charge a modest fee, and then slowly upping the price as their services became more ‘in demand’, eventually settling on a price so astronomical that it should have been a crime. Of course, knowing she did it for free made all the more people want her around, which was why she tried not to let people know, especially the more...specialized aspect of it.

But Mrs. Wiebe knew. Mrs. Wiebe claimed to have been a medium herself in her youth, but them claimed her powers had left her as she aged. As she trudged up the stairs, she wondered if that would ever happen to her – if the elderly woman were telling the truth. She liked her, but she half suspected the woman had been a fraud, and stopped only because the stresses of aging made some of the tricks difficult or painful to carry out. But she would never tell her that.

“Hello Amy,” Mrs. Wiebe said, looking relieved to see her, “I think Arthur’s been around. Lucy’s been hissing at the wall all afternoon.”

Sure enough, a frightened tabby cat at the edge of the living room was cornering Arthur Wiebe. When Amy made him materialize with a wave of her hand, the cat let out a loud yowl and ran off while he shook off imaginary dust from his jacket lapels. The conversation was nothing especially alarming – “Your sister passed yesterday,” he said, “I was trying to let you know.”

When Amy came back down to her apartment, it was just as dinner was ready.

They followed their usual routine the next morning – Sergey made eggs again – and Amy gave him a kiss, promising to see him after her first class. The subway was crowded. She didn’t see any spirits, but she noticed – and why, she asked herself, had she noticed – the Hispanic girl who vaguely looked like Roxanne step on board the train. That day she was wearing a sundress and heels so thin you could probably stab someone with them.

All she did was stare resolutely at the ads lining the top of the car, determined not to glance in the girl’s direction. She was the first one off when the stop reached the school, hurrying to campus for no reason other than it gave her something to do. Perhaps there was time for a coffee in the meantime.

It was as she was heading to the appropriate building her class was held in did she sense a spirit. All right, she thought, there was an unusually high number to begin with, so of course there would be some...stragglers. The spirit was a few people ahead of her, but all she could see of the girl it was around was a mass of chocolate brown hair. She was going to shrug it off when she felt something else in her mind.

The mental image was brief but vivid, and the distortion, in her mind, seemed to reform itself so she could see how things really were. He was an average sized man, leaning a bit on the tall side, with brown-and-gray hair cut close to his head.  His eyes were a piercing blue, almost white in the bright light of the hallway.  Usually most passing spirits didn’t bother with this unless they specifically wanted to be contacted.

Keeping one eye on the girl and the other on her watch, she tried to make contact. Hello? she said, What is your name?

Richard, he responded.  Richard Davis.

Hello, Richard, she said cautiously. The hallway to her classroom was approaching, but ignoring her usual route, she pressed herself closer to the wall to keep up the pace. Is there something you want?

Yes, he told her.  My granddaughter, the girl I’m beside?  Could you do me a favor, and tell her to...just be careful.

The warning wasn’t that an uncommon one for spirits, as strange as it sounded, and she nodded, unsure if Richard could see. Yes, she said, trying to be cooperative, Of course.

And...you be careful as well, he added, almost as an afterthought.

Now that was an uncommon warning, and Amy frowned, trying to keep up with the crowd - and the girl. Who knew if she would even see her again? It was just easier to deliver the message now when they were both in the same place. Within a moment the mental connection seemed to splutter and die, but Amy pressed forward with only a brief glance at her watch. There was, if she caught up now, just enough time. Muttering several ‘excuse me’s and trying to squeeze her way through the gaps (not an easy feat), she saw the girl’s brown hair more clearly. She tried to get as close as she could, not wanting to startle her or freak her out. That had happened more than once.

“Excuse me,” she called, hoping the girl at least turned so she could catch her attention more fully, “Excuse me, do you have a moment?”

She paused for a moment before turning with a surprised look on her face.  “Um, yes?” she responded.

Feeling relieved, she tried to put on her most reassuring smile. People generally didn’t like random strangers coming up to them claiming to talk to their dead loved ones. It was then she noticed the differently colored eyes; one light and the other dark. How unique.

“Hi,” she said, “I know this sounds weird, please don’t be freaked out, but...” the distortion was still around the girl, and she tried to keep focused, “...I’m a medium, okay, and I just got a message from your grandfather that he insisted I tell you -- a Richard Davis?”

It was always important to give out the name. It tended to occasionally cut down on accusations of ‘you’re making this up’, or ‘leave me alone’. Amy then paused for a moment to gauge the girl’s reaction.

She blinked at her for a moment, before narrowing her eyes to the right.  “Oh, did he now?” she asked.  “I suppose he’s here now, isn’t he?”

Amy wasn’t quite sure how to interpret the narrow eyes, but the girl hadn’t been aggressive, so she tentatively decided to press forward. “He is,” she confirmed, glancing at the distortion nearby, “I don’t know what to make of this myself, but he wanted you to ‘just be careful’. Perhaps you can make sense of it.”

“What?  Oh, um, I have no idea,” she said, frowning.  “He’s usually not that cryptic.”

Her words alone suggested that this Richard probably frequented many mediums, and she didn’t feel quite as awkward. She gave one last glance at her watch. “That’s all he said,” she admitted, not mentioning the warning to her as well, “I’m sorry, you probably have to get to class, don’t you? I just wanted to tell you while I could see you. You have a nice day, and...well, try and do what he says.”

“Um, yeah.  Thanks.  I’m sorry he was bugging you.  He doesn’t normally talk to random mediums.” 

“No, no,” she said, “It’s okay. It must have been urgent, who knows? But I have to get to class, and you probably do too, so...have a nice day,” she said lamely. There wasn’t much time to spare, and with an awkward sort of nod, she and the girl drifted apart in the crowd, while she made her way around the corner for her next class.     

***

Roxanne frowned at herself in the mirror.

She looked the same as she always did; the same squarish face, the same hourglass build, and the same black hair rolled up in curlers. (She thought she saw brown at the scalp. Time for a touch-up, she told herself). She was holding measuring tape in her hands, the blood red fingernails a stark contrast against the yellow. Had her hips somehow gotten bigger? Those jeans had fit just fine a month ago.

The frown deepened.

“Goddamn,” she muttered, trying to pull the two pieces together. The fly did up just fine, but the damned button wasn’t closing. She swore again.

“What’s the matter, babe?” James said, deciding to enter the room proper. She could see him through the mirror, a cup of coffee in his hands; steam rose from the mug.

“Damn jeans won’t fit and I bought them only a month ago,” she groused, “Might as well have tossed my money away.”

James offered his usual wisdom for times like these: “Muscle weighs more than fat, babe.”

“This ain’t muscle,” Roxanne said, prodding the fleshy bits of her hips, “This is fat. It’s only been a month.”

She thought she saw James smile, the wrinkles at the corners of his mouth and eyes becoming exaggerated with the movement. “Why do you get like this, babe?”

“I get like this, Jim, because I’m happy with my weight,” she said, moving the tape upwards to measure her waist, “I don’t need to bloat up like my grandmother. I’ll have thunder thighs before my next birthday at this rate.”

“You will not,” James chuckled, setting the coffee down and sauntering over to her. She watched as the reflection of James pressed his hands firmly against her reflection’s hips, the fingers squeezing the plumpest bits. She let him explore for a bit, his wrinkled hands creeping southward, wriggling themselves beneath the waistband of her jeans. Finally, she expertly plucked them away. He wasn’t done yet; she watched as he leaned over and brushed his lips around the patch of skin between her cheek and her ear, careful to avoid her earrings. She smirked a little, leaning backwards into him, even as his hands slid the measuring tape out from between her fingers. It fell to the floor with barely a sound.

“I wouldn’t have you any different,” he purred into her ear between kisses, “You’re too damn gorgeous to turn into some stick.”

“With my luck I’d be the only anorexic in the world to still have hips,” she snorted. “I’d wind up looking like a twig with balloons taped to my chest.”

James’ words turned into a chuckle; the grin made his face wrinkle up even more. A lock of whitish hair brushed her cheek, and she brushed it aside, running her fingers through his hair. It felt coarse.

“You should dye your hair,” she noted, “Get one of those dyes that leaves some grey so you don’t look like you’re wearing a wig. It’d make you look younger. Make me look like less of a gold-digger.”

James snorted. “It’d make me look like Reagan is what it’d do. Can you imagine what people would report? ‘Ronald Reagan back from the dead; rumors of R.E.V.E.R.A. starting a ‘Just Say No’ campaign’.”

“Oh, and what the reports will say about me is any better? ‘Female suspect spotted; her hips set off the security system’. They’ll put an APB out for a Caucasian female, five-foot-six, with dark hair and thunder thighs.”

James was laughing now, and he managed to spit out: “They will not. They’ll put out an APB for a smoking hot babe with looks so deadly she should be considered armed and dangerous.”

“Not just my looks that could kill,” Roxanne snorted. “I’m more than that.”

“Any man who thinks otherwise gets what’s coming to him.”

He emphasized this remark with a kiss, and she twisted her head so her lips could meet his. After a long moment, James pulled away, glancing at the clock.

“Don’t you have a surgery today?”

“Mm-hm,” he said, “Replacing a shunt. It shouldn’t take too long.”

James was a neurosurgeon. Roxanne didn’t keep up too much with the medical community; the most she did was skim the medical journals on the coffee table, and look for his name amongst the authors. He’d published a few things; the most recent was a huge criticism of some other doctor’s thesis in The New England Journal of Neurology. It had something to do with a link between mediumship and undergoing neurosurgery, and how ‘routine’ surgery could induce it. She’d read that from beginning to end, and how he’d raked the man over the coals for it.  

‘Group A, after sufficient recovery from surgery, showed no more skill at mediumship beyond what can be attributed to chance,’ he’d written, ‘Group B, for that matter, showed no more skill than Group A.’

That had been a good article.

“What you consider ‘not taking too long’ and what I consider ‘not taking too long’ are two different things,” she said, “I’ll make dinner, but I won’t wait past six.”

“You want to invite Kim over while you’re at it?” he said, throwing on a shirt; Roxanne moved aside to let him have the mirror. “Dan says she’s always complaining about being left alone.”

Dan was James’ son, though she doubted he went into medical school to follow in his old man’s footsteps. He seemed the sort of man who went in it for the money first and the enjoyment second. Even if he didn’t like his work, he probably still would have went into that field just because it paid so well.

“Let me guess, Dan’ll be with you?” The jeans weren’t shutting. Might as well go to the old standby. She moved for the closet, opening it and skimming the rows. She’d bought a new sundress around the same time as the jeans. That had better still fit, she vowed, or else she was going to start wearing long corsets, the ones that covered hips and impeded movement.

“When is he not?” James said, moving back to his abandoned coffee and taking a long swig of it, “I wouldn’t have anyone else.”

“You’d jump at the chance to work with Harry again,” Roxanne said, a sour note creeping into her voice even as she hopped out of the jeans, “I bet you would.”

“Harry was never an anesthesiologist,” Jim grunted, taking another long swig of coffee and draining the cup.

Harold “Harry” Enfield, for that matter, was no longer a doctor of any variety. He’d retired precisely five years ago, on his sixtieth birthday. Roxanne had been relieved beyond words at that. That meant he wouldn’t be working alongside James at the teaching hospital. That meant there wouldn’t be any surprise visits from him after they finished their shift.

As luck would have it, he went straight from being James’ best friend, the one who’d inspired him to go into surgery, and a persistent thorn in her side; to being her unappeasable boss, and an even bigger thorn in her side. Now that he held some meager authority over her, he’d somehow become even more intolerable overnight. James didn’t like it, but, as Harry pointed out...

“You’re the one involved with her,” he’d said on more than one occasion, “I’m under no compulsion to like her.”

Roxanne stood in her underwear, slipping on the sundress. James watched her for a moment, before loping over again, his strong hands tugging the material finally into place. Thank every higher power there was, it still fit. He kissed her cheek again.

“See you tonight, babe,” he said, “Don’t work too hard. That’s for me to do.”

Roxanne grinned. “Just come back in one piece. I don’t want to hear you lost patience and found creative uses for a scalpel.”

“Dan’ll do his best,” he said with a grin, “But I can’t promise anything.”

Roxanne stepped out the door looking as perfect as she could manage. Even in her work clothes, she somehow managed to turn heads. She took the usual route eastward, and the morning rush meant that there was no place to sit. She was left grabbing onto one of the ceiling rings, swaying in time with the train’s movement. She just knew, as a given, that something was going to happen. Someone had once suggested that this was – of all things – vain of her to say. She’d laughed it off. Vain? No.

Sure enough, when the car stopped at the next station, she thought she felt something graze her behind, in a place that might as well have Property of James Hughes tattooed on it for all the times his hands had wandered there. The thing was, his hands were allowed there, and only his.

She whipped around so fast the man didn’t even have time to properly pull his hand away. This worked out great for her, as she seized the offending hand, digging her fingernails into the soft skin of his wrist, and in one fluid movement, twisted his arm away. She thought she heard something pop in the wrist, but it wasn’t broken. She smirked at the stammering man, his face red.

“Don’t,” she said smoothly, “try that again. I might not be so kind next time.”

And for emphasis, she jerked at his wrist even more. He winced visibly, even after she released his wrist, and she got no more trouble the rest of the ride.

R.E.V.E.R.A’s East Coast branch was situated in Manhattan, in a prime piece of real estate not far from the water. It was a skyscraper, all smooth glass windows that caught the sunlight. Roxanne stepped inside, bypassing the gorgeous lobby to head straight for the elevators. She boarded one with a bunch of grey-haired suits that made James look youthful in comparison. Though James was quite the looker for a man of his age. When it stopped, she made a beeline for her workstation. Hopefully Harry wouldn’t give her too much trouble that day.

***

He woke up with a start, and it took him a few more seconds than necessary to realize the sound was coming from his alarm clock.  He let out a groan before fumbling for the offending box, hitting it several times before he found the right button to shut it off for the time being.  Beside him, the petite blonde stirred slightly, sighed softly and pressing herself into his side.

As much as he wanted to stay in bed, having a girl that he didn’t even know the name of lying with him made the idea repulsive.  His head was pounding from whatever was slipped into his drink the night before, but he couldn’t be bothered with that now.  He had more important things to deal with.

“That was an amazing night,” the girl beside him said, unaffected by the early hour.  She let out a strange sort of purr, and Irvine Wilson knew he had to get out of there fast, before she got any ideas.

He rolled to the other side of the bed, shoving the blankets toward his bed partner.  He didn’t say anything to her as he shoved his boxers back on, unsure how they ended up so far away from his bed, and slipped out of the room.  As he predicted, the girl followed him, using the blanket to cover herself up.

“Mmm, are you making breakfast?” she asked as she pressed her body against his back as he was checking his messages.  Most of them were from his mother, telling him to call her, but he knew what that conversation would be like.

“Yes, I am,” he said stiffly.  “I have an early class, and you need to leave.  Now.”

She looked shocked for a moment before she laughed, an annoyingly high sound that didn’t help at all with his headache.  He abandoned his phone for a moment to dig through one of the kitchen cabinets, what was deemed the ‘medicine cabinet’, looking for some aspirin.  Today was not a good day to head into class with his head splitting.

“Oh, you’re so funny,” she said, with a slight smile.

He turned to her, narrowing his eyes.  “Do I look like I’m joking around?” he asked her, causing her to blink at him.

She, as he expected her to, thrust out her chest as if to remind him exactly why he should let her stay.  Sure, she was pretty, but she did nothing to his emotions.  Other than annoy the crap out of him.  “You can’t be serious.  You’re throwing me out?  Me?”

“Um, yes, I believe I said that already,” Irvine said, turning his back to her again.  “Your dress is in my room, and please remember to take your undergarments as well.”  He paused for a moment, trying to remember if she had anything on under that dress.

“Well, I never,” the girl said, storming to his bedroom.  She could hear her stomping around, and he briefly wondered what he was going to have to purchase again, since she was probably going to trash something in there.  Whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be important.  He had been in this situation enough times that he had learned to keep his most precious items out of his bedroom.

By the time he had to head off to class, his headache was clearing up, and he was looking forward to his day.  He rather enjoyed the classes he was able to take now, the ones that would actually challenge him, although he was still always able to complete his assignments long before they were due.  The subjects fascinated him, and he was actually able to use his expertise. 

No, the problem wasn’t his classes, which, sadly, were all extremely early in the day.  The problem was the class he had to sit in on for his Teaching Assistant duties, mostly because the class was filled with freshman and other underclassmen who did not understand the material at all, and the professor expected him to be able to explain it to them when he had already done so a thousand times before.

It would be bearable, he supposed, if it was just a normal class and the students would ask good, solid questions.  There were a few students in the class who would come to him only when they exhausted every other option, and had no other choice.  They he didn’t mind helping out, explaining the assignment in a different way so they could understand.

But then there was...them.  The freshman girls who were only taking this class because it could be taken as a required class.  The ones who would someday show up in the pages of Playboy magazine, or work at a gentleman’s club, because they had no class themselves.  The ones who would come up giggling, glancing back at their friends, and ask his asinine questions about the most simple things.

They were the ones who made him wonder if it had even been worth getting up in the morning.

Luckily for them, the class was just after lunch, so he was fairly well fed, and feeling good.  He spotted a group of them now, working on the assignment given to them in a cluster, occasionally glancing back at him and giggling.  One of them would come up soon, and ask about the first part of the assignment.  The busty one liked to rub her breasts against his arm as he attempted to get rid of her as fast as he could.

But it wasn’t any of them that addressed him.  “Um, excuse me,” a small, unsure voice said beside him.

He had been so focused on the other girls in the class that he hadn’t even noticed her approach.  Completely caught off guard, he stared at her for a moment.  She was...utterly gorgeous, in his opinion, although on more than one occasion, his roommate had laughed at him for this observation.  Girl-next-door was the description Daniel gave, which was fairly accurate.  The difference between this girl and the one he woke up with was startling, and he knew Daniel didn’t understand why he had an interest in Trinity Blanch.

She stared back at him, an annoyed looking crossing her features.  Her hair was up that day, her dark brown hair thick and hanging heavily down her back.  He couldn’t help but stare at her eyes, as unprepared as he was.  Her left eye was a warm, chocolate brown, welcoming and assuring, almost like a window into her own private world.

But her right eye was a piercing blue, so pale and focused that it felt like it could see into the vast depths of your soul.

He so loved those eyes, although he didn’t get much chance to look at them, since they seemed to be a sore spot with her.

As it was, now, she was glaring at him slightly, and he quickly diverted his attention elsewhere.  “Yes?” he asked innocently.

Trinity puffed up slightly, but he could see the blush on her cheeks.  It made her freckles stand out more, and he couldn’t help but find this even more adorable on her.  “I, um, I can’t seem to get this part to function properly,” she informed him.

She was one of the students he didn’t mind helping, because she would only come to him with questions about code that she couldn’t get to work.  And he knew from his observations from her that she probably had been fighting with it for a while.  He pulled himself from his seat and his own program, and followed her to her seat.  “Show me what you have,” he instructed her.

She pointed to the screen, and his eyes grazed over what she had written.  He hit a few keys, and had her run the program, secretly smiling at her delighted squeak she made when the program ran correctly.  “Oh, thank you.  What did you do?”

He showed her, since she had just been missing a few letters, and she grinned at him.  He wasn’t overly surprised to see that she was finished, and that she had done the work on her own.  While she probably wasn’t majoring in Computer Science, she was most likely taking the class because it interested her, not because she had heard he was the TA like those other girls were.

“Oh, Irvine,” one of them called to him, and he dropped his head, causing Trinity to laugh at him.  “We need your help over here!”

“He’s helping me,” Trinity called out, probably in an attempt to save him.  He, for some odd reason, appreciated the gesture. 

The girl glared at Trinity.  “Please,” she said.  “I bet you’re done with it.  Why would you need help when you’re done?  Why not let him help those who really need help?”

“Oh, you need help, all right,” Trinity muttered under her breath.

Irvine resisted the urge to laugh, since it would ruin his reputation.  “It’s okay.  The sooner I ‘help’ them, the sooner they might leave me alone.”

“Fat chance of that,” Trinity sighed, but he also noticed she was blushing considerably more than before.  After all, it seemed to be a rule of thumb that she didn’t talk to him this much.  He sort of liked it, actually, but he decided not to comment on either observation.

***

He liked the treadmill. He could just pop in some headphones, blare some loud music, and just run. Run away to God-knew-where, run away to a soothing place where the rock was loud and the mental static low. Of course, he didn’t mind the mental static, either; he just needed a small break from it every now and then. This was a wonderful escape; the burn in his legs didn’t mean he was possibly overexerting himself, it meant he was doing something right.

While he didn’t stand out that much, in an old t-shirt that he’d cut the sleeves off of and shorts that had seen better days, his eyes always wandered. There were always one or two girls in there; the ones that tried to seriously work out in nice clothes and make-up. The brunette on the treadmill beside him was wearing capri jeans and those flat shoes all the girls seemed to be wearing now. He didn’t know what they were called and didn’t care, only that he’d seen them on a girl one time and after that, started seeing them everywhere.

The treadmill let out several sharp beeps, loud enough to even pierce the music flowing through his ears, and then stopped. His time was up. It was time to move to the next station. If it was even free.

Eventually he’d wound his way through the limited array of equipment, a thin sheen of sweat covering him. He didn’t know if it was coincidence or something else, but it was just as the last song finished playing. It was time, he decided, for a shower.

Winding his way upstairs to his apartment, the earbuds still nestled in place even though they were silent, he could feel the mental static coming back. It was like a radio set to white noise, he’d described it once, so that when something important came through, he’d be able to distinguish it from the other, less important, signals.

After all, Kris Szabó was a medium, and that was his preferred method of communication. Every medium managed their ability in their own way.

He was greeted with two faces when he entered the apartment, shedding his battered shoes by the door. One could be seen – his roommate Takashi – and the other was only seen by him, with only a slight distortion to tell him he wasn’t quite on the same level as them. With a slightly pudgy face, greased-back hair in a sharp widow’s peak, and a pinstriped three-piece suit, he often reminded Kris of either a twenties mobster, Dracula, or Dracula if he had become a mobster. The lingering smell of cigarette smoke was always around him, even though Kris knew full well it was all in his mind. His name was Szilveszter Szabó, Kris’ great-grandfather, but Kris just westernized it to Sylvester and the man never said a word of complaint.

“Hey Takashi,” he said; to Sylvester, he said, Did the world implode while I was out?

Yeah, the Four Horsemen popped by while you were out, Sylvester snorted, They got lost on the way to Times Square. Does the world look like it’s imploded?

“Hey,” Takashi said without looking up from the book he was reading.  He shook his head, smiling slightly at the mental conversation.  “Got a visitor, huh?”

“It’s just Sylvester,” he said, popping the earbuds out of his ears, “If it were someone new you’d know. Reading anything good there?”

Takashi just shrugged.  “Nothing good.  Dad suggested it to me, and you know how much our interests differ.  But he’s going to quiz me on it, so I might as well read it.  What does he want?”

Kris snorted, wiping his brow. “If you don’t like it, stop reading it. What’s the point of reading it if you don’t enjoy it?”

He used the towel draped around his shoulders to pat at his brow too, moving towards the bathroom. “Don’t worry yourself about Sylvester. He’s just being my answering machine.”

Answering machine, Sylvester snorted, adding sarcastically, ‘Please leave your message at the tone’?

“Anyway, I’m gonna hit the shower,” he said.

He didn’t take long; he threw himself under the water, put just enough soap on to get the sweat off, and then stepped back out and threw himself into some clean clothes, while the other ones took their place in the laundry hamper.

Oh, by the way, Sylvester added; he seemed to be lounging on the couch, Three spirits dropped by. One of them seemed to be looking for you and the other two wouldn’t say what they were doing, just that they didn’t need to talk.

“Three?” he said aloud, correcting himself too late, What did the first one want?

Sylvester shrugged. Couldn’t say. She didn’t seem to know what she was doing. Tried to talk her through the whole thing but it didn’t go too well, and she got fed up and left.

Kris shook his head, going for the kitchen. Three spirits in the space of an hour – or thereabouts; he never kept too close tabs on how long he stayed – was unusual. Unless he was holding a séance, where spirits were expected to come in rapid order, but when had he done that? This wasn’t the first time it occurred, either; the past few days had seen a huge influx of spirits roaming the streets. He saw them on the way to work, he saw them at the grocery store, and he saw them even in the gym in his building. There couldn’t be that many people who’d died and hadn’t realized it. Something was wrong, and that fact troubled him.

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” Takashi called out to him.  “Dani’s not worried, and if she’s not worried, then you shouldn’t be, either.”

“Dani can’t see spirits,” Kris said, rummaging in the cupboard for something to eat, “It’s a little different when you can see them everywhere.”

“Yeah, but she can see the future.  I think she’d know more about something about to happen moreso than they would.  And, believe me, I would know if she saw something troublesome.  It’s probably just a spirit convention or something.”

“Spirit convention,” Kris snorted, regarding an apple he’d found, “I can only imagine what kind of con that would be. Where is Dani, anyway?”

Takashi grinned at the image before frowning.  “Hell if I know.  She said something about...going away for the weekend, but not much else.  And you know how well she’s learned to keep her thoughts to herself.  Only thing I got from her was that she was going to be back late Sunday.”

He took a bite of the apple, leaning against the counter. “Huh,” he said around a mouthful of apple, “The kids’ll be disappointed to hear that.”

Takashi shrugged, not looking up from his book.  “She’s probably disappointed she’s missing them, too.”

“There’s always next week,” he said with a shrug, “Can’t please everybody–”

A loud mental hum drowned out his thoughts, and he glanced away from the living room to a spot near the kitchen table. Sylvester followed his gaze. A woman had appeared, wringing her slender hands in an aggravated fashion.

There she is again, he said, Let me see if I can talk her through this...

She was a blonde of average height, and the style of her shoulder-length hair and clothes reminded him of the seventies. He had pictures of his mother wearing her hair in a similar way and wearing similar clothes. She looked him square in the eye, her green eyes uncertain. Her lips quivered as though she was on the brink of saying something. Kris tried to send out calm, soothing thoughts to counter her aggravation.

Hello, he said warmly, What’s your name?

He could hear Sylvester calmly trying to coach the woman through projecting her name, but the woman’s angular face was tense, her eyebrows knitted together. Man, he thought briefly, she had a really long face. Like a horse face. He hoped the woman hadn’t heard that.

Kris, you’re trying to help her here, Sylvester said flatly, Focus, would you?

A jumble of things drifted into his mind, none of them clear but all of them anxious. Nothing resembling a name was among any of them, though he tried to sift through them all. The woman never took her gaze off of him, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water’s before something like a wheeze entered his mind. That...wasn’t helpful at all, but he kept up the soothing thoughts, hoping to break past whatever mental barrier she had. She seemed to inhale, not realizing that was unnecessary, and then a wave of terror crashed over Kris.

He froze, unable to fight off the foreign feeling. She opened her mouth -- and a terrible, splitting noise crashed into Kris’ mind, as though the woman had decided to test the waters by screaming her lungs out instead of just talking. Sylvester was saying something that he couldn’t hear over the noise, and he dropped the apple. He didn’t even hear it land.

“Shit!” Kris exclaimed, before blurting out several other choice words.

Takashi dropped his book as well whipping around to stare at Kris with his hands on his temples.  “What the hell was that?” he shouted, a little frightened at what he had just witnessed.

“I don’t know, but goddamn--”

The sound died down, and then died off. Kris’ head still felt like it was being split in half, and Sylvester trying to comfort the woman wasn’t helping things.

Sorry! That was my fault!, he admitted, looking apologetic, I told her to try something and she overdid it a little--

“A little?!”

Her eyebrows knitted together in aggravation now, her nostrils flaring and her lips pursed. Wait, Kris tried to project to her, it was okay. Everyone made mistakes. But no sooner had he tried to shove aside his throbbing head than the woman had just faded out of sight, leaving Sylvester standing there alone.

“Aw,” Kris groaned, “Good God, man! A little warning might be nice next time!”

Sorry, Sylvester said again, motioning to Takashi, Is he okay?

“I don’t know,” Kris said, “You okay?”

Takashi shook his head slightly.  “Ow, geeze.  Yeah, I think so.  That wasn’t, you know, your grandfather, was it?”

“I don’t think he yells in soprano,” Kris said, rubbing his temples, “No, a spirit came by and was having trouble talking, Sylvester told her to try something,” he glared at the spirit, “but didn’t tell her she didn’t need to scream to be heard. I think you should mention that next time, Sylvester. God. Do we have any aspirin left?”

“We should.  You know Dani needs it around for her headaches.”

“I hope she didn’t take the bottle with her,” he said. It was a possibility, and it wasn’t quite so bad that he was willing to run down to the drugstore and grab a new bottle. Heading over to the medicine cabinet to look for it, he tried to shove the pain aside. It couldn’t really do anything, but it was a good way for his mind to focus or something. After all, it would be caught up enough with his kids tomorrow. Best to start getting in the habit now. The thought cheered him, even with his head still pounding.

Relief washed over him as he saw the bottle was still there, the large ‘econo-size’ bottle that still had a good supply left in it. Fishing out one pill, he swallowed it dry, before trudging back to the fallen apple. He didn’t have much appetite after that, and so, regarding the half-eaten apple, he simply threw it in the trash. After all, he thought, his children were coming tomorrow. The place needed to look tidy.

Kris just hoped the spirits would stay at bay for one weekend.