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Andy preferred the bus and Peter only lived around the corner and Toni always left early in the van so, in the early hours of a Sunday morning, it was only Melanie and Georgie walking by the Thames. Georgie had given up on her heels hours ago and was picking her way through the debris littering the streets in just her fishnets, brandishing a shoe in each hand. They were silver and sharp, and seemed to Melanie that they’d be better fitting as weapons than footwear. She’d opted for the far more sensible bright blue Doc Martens, but even they were starting to rub her toes slightly. She was mulling over the pros and cons of joining Georgie and going shoeless when Georgie stopped walking and hissed in pain.
“What?”
“Bit of glass, I- ow! In my foot.” Georgie hopped over to the nearest bench and threw herself onto it, swinging her foot up next to her. Melanie squatted to get a better look at it – it was only a small piece, but it didn’t look particularly clean.
“I’ve got a first aid kit somewhere, hold on.” Melanie said, scrabbling through her bag and eventually coming up with a battered black tin. Inside was a selection of wipes, plasters, and a paper thermometer, all of which was really too small to be of any use. She tried anyway, picking the glass out and wiping it down.
“Did you hear the latest What the Ghost? Made me do this ridiculous ad for Urban Survival Kits. Ironically would have been very handy to have.”
“Oh, the tinfoil blanket and crowbar one? Andy was talking about them last week; did they get you as well?”
“Unfortunately so. Still, rent money is rent money.”
Melanie stuck a plaster over her hard work: this one had a row of Pacman ghosts on it (Inky and Pinky and Blinky, but no Clyde).
“There you go. Try and avoid all other sharp objects if you don’t fancy tetanus.”
“Thank you, Nurse King,” Georgie said, grinning down at Melanie from her perch. “That’ll teach me, won’t it?”
“Could happen to anyone wandering the streets of London without any shoes on.”
Georgie frowned in mock-disapproval as Melanie straightened up to join her on the bench. Georgie shifted until her head was on Melanie’s shoulder, and Melanie tried very hard not to make it into A Thing. She looked down at Georgie, her hair unravelling from her careful buns, her heels discarded on the floor by her feet. Georgie lifted her hand and pointed at the sky; a proper werewolf full moon splashed across it like a Windows screensaver.
“Full moon – that means strange or insane behaviour.”
Melanie looked at Georgie’s hand, bangles clattering on her wrist: that sounds about right. She felt strange, slightly insane, just being here with Georgie. But she did constantly, the last few weeks. She didn’t quite know what happened between the slight dislike to grudging acceptance to friends to whatever mess this was. It didn’t matter though: Georgie was her friend and she was lucky to have that. She couldn’t expect more. She stared up at the moon, and it looked a bit like it was laughing at her.
Melanie could never get Georgie’s friend’s names right in her head, but that was their fault for being so boring and forgettable. She was fairly sure one was called Constance, and one was ginger. Maybe that was the same woman? Either way, they’d all refused a midnight picnic, so it was just her and Georgie in the park. It was Georgie’s idea and Melanie just couldn’t refuse her. She’d helped chop tomatoes and make up little sandwiches for far longer than necessary that evening and now here they were, sprawled on Georgie’s patchwork blanket looking up at the sky.
“I actually did an online course on constellations once,” Georgie commented, tracing a shape in the sky in front of her. “Look, Ursa major there.”
Melanie looked at where Georgie was pointing and tried to see a shape but couldn’t work it out.
"It's meant to be a bear," Georgie said, shifting to try and point it out over Melanie’s shoulder, "and look, that's an archer."
Melanie scrunched up her face, trying to see the bear and the plough and whatever else was supposed to be up there. She may not have been able to see whatever convoluted shape some guy in Greece had decided he saw thousands of years ago, but she could see the beauty in it, in a way. She'd never really bothered with astrology before she met Georgie – no scientific backing (even after Andy pointed out ghosts had no real proof) - and then after they'd started talking more, it had been Georgie’s sector and she’d never wanted to intrude. It was nice though, to be sitting here, to look up at the sky and choose her own shapes. And it was nice being with Georgie, but it always was. She was lucky, luckier than she would have dreamt.
"I almost got a star named after me at one point, you know?"
"A star named after you? How does that even work?"
"You pay NASA or something, and they name a star whatever you want"
"And why were you going to get that done?"
"Me and Jon thought it would be cute," Georgie shrugged, pushing herself up so she could better eat her pieces of apple.
"You and Jon!?" Melanie asked incredulously
"Yeah, we were going to call it... BarkerSims? I think that's what we decided on at least."
"You could name a star anything you wanted, and you just went for your names smashed together?" Melanie stole an apple slice from the tub in Georgie’s hand, considered it for a second, and started eating it.
“Well it’s not official, they just write it in a book. Thought it was nice though, a good present.”
Melanie considered that for a second.
"Well, why bother paying? Why not just pick one and call it your star?"
"They give you certificate, it all looks very professional."
"We could do that easily though. Do it right now. Which is your favourite?" Melanie adjusted so her head was in Georgie’s lap, trying to pick out the best star, the nicest or brightest or biggest.
"What about one of those?" Georgie asked after a short pause, pointing. "That really bright one is Sirius and then that one is Betelgeuse, and then they make the winter triangle with Procyon. "
Melanie traced the triangle before grinning.
“Ok then Miss Barker, I propose myself as Betelgeuse.”
“Why do you get to be Betelgeuse?” Georgie said, faking indignance very poorly.
“Channelling the renowned Beetlejuice, obviously. I’m spooky and fun, and I look stunning in stripes. Anyway, you get to be Sirius. That’s objectively the coolest.”
“And why am I Sirius?”
Melanie smirked at the sickening sweetness of what she was about to say. “Because you’re my brightest star.”
Georgie flicked her on the side of the head and stuck her tongue out at her, but seemed genuinely pleased.
“Then Procyon can be our joint star, by virtue of being the only one left. Thoughts?"
"I think that would be lovely"
"Although no BarkerSims," Melanie added, grinning.
"I’m sure Jon will be devastated"
They lapsed into a comfortable silence, as Melanie stared at the sky with completely new eyes. The winter triangle.
Melanie had expected nightmares. She'd blinded herself so a fear-god could no longer control her and she could leave her weird and frankly underpaid job at what was essentially the Spooky Centre For Scary Occurrences. Obviously, she was going to be haunted (the irony of becoming the ghost she would have hunted before was not lost on her). She didn’t expect nightmares of this calibre though, waking up winded and sweating and sometimes screaming. She was sure it wasn’t great for Georgie either, having to put up with all of it. Melanie had no idea how they'd lasted as long as they had: she was, in general, a reasonably bad person, and Georgie still looked at her like she’d hung the moon. Or at least she used to. Now Melanie didn’t know what she how she looked at her. Probably with sadness or pity or anger. It was tragic really: she was dating the most beautiful girl in the world and couldn’t even see her. Just one more twist of terrible bad luck in the saga of Melanie King, girl of far too many nightmares and an eddying insurmountable rage. The nightmares weren’t even logical. Nightmares about eyes or awls or the institute in general would all be understandable. But she wasn’t scared of the institute anymore. She was scared of asbestos and India and great burning fires and bullets and knives and that deep anger that had never really left her. Sometimes Melanie felt a stabbing in her chest and just knew it was pleurisy, and sometimes Sarah Baldwin was there with her staple gun (“quiet now Melanie or I’ll have to shut you up myself!”), and sometimes the Admiral was missing and there was no way for Melanie to save him, and sometimes her father was dying all alone and Melanie couldn’t get to him, and sometimes Georgie was missing or gone or dead and Melanie was left all alone again. That night, she was shackled onto an operating table and she couldn’t feel her leg and she watched someone approach. It looked like Jon, but a Jon with too many eyes and teeth and scalpels. He dug into her leg with one of the blades and Melanie screamed, trying desperately to fight. She flung her head back on the table and saw Basira and Georgie watching, almost looking bored. A scream ripped from her, tearing her throat up with its anger.
“GET OFF ME!” she shrieked, fighting to wrestle her hands free from their restraints. For a brief moment, she was free and she lashed out with her fists at Jon and Basira and Georgie, who all kept watching her with a look of bored indifference, out of reach.
“Mel! It’s just me, wake up!”
Melanie gasped as Georgie shook her awake, clawing desperately in an attempt to feel something that wasn’t the cold hard stone of the operating table.
"It's just a dream, it's ok! You're safe I promise, you're with me and I've got you, I promise I'll protect you, just wake up!"
Melanie finally pulled herself out of the dream fully, and immediately collapsed into Georgie’s arms. Georgie held her tightly, smoothing her hair and whispering into the top of her head.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"It was the bullet and, and Jon-" Melanie broke off to sniff and burrow further into Georgie’s shoulder "-and, you- you and Basira watching and-"
She broke off again, this time to furiously paw the tears away from her eyes. Georgie pulled her hands away, but gently, ever so gently, and encased them in her own.
“It’s ok. It’s not real. I promise I’m still here, I’m not going anywhere.”
Melanie trusted Georgie more than anyone else she knew, but she couldn’t quite believe her. It was hard (understatement of the century) without the anger and she sometimes just wanted to vanish. Vanish into herself or vanish into a crowd or vanish full stop and stop burdening Georgie – god, she was such a burden on Georgie. She'd never admit it, but Melanie just brought her down. Any day now she would realise and leave her.
“Hey. I’m not going to desert you.” Sometimes it was as if Georgie could crack her open and see exactly what she was thinking. “Do you want a drink? Or shall I try and summon the Admiral? I think we’ve still got some digestives left but I’ll have to have a bit of a dig.”
“No, no – I’m fine. What’s the nightlife looking like?” Melanie said, grinning slightly through tears. It was the cue for their new little routine, ever since she got out of the hospital.
“Unfortunately, very boring from what I can see. May have to be a one woman show.” The smile in Georgie’s voice was audible as she flipped Melanie’s pillow and pulled the duvet around her. She settled into her normal position, propped up at the head of the bed, hand lightly resting on Melanie’s shoulder.
“What do you want?” The options were story or song. A story could be an anecdote from Uni (the first time she’d shaved her head or the ongoing tale of the creative writing teacher’s quirky comments), a plotline that had been simmering in Georgie’s mind for a few days (the really good ones got written down), a plan for the future (picnics and theatre dates and the best Hungarian restaurants in London). A song could be anything, although they were usually slow and calm and happy. Melanie hadn’t known Georgie could sing – and probably wouldn’t have known to this day – if she hadn’t have walked in on her singing ABBA whilst making goulash. Since then, she’d constantly try to coax a song out of Georgie, who always obliged (albeit through feeble protests).
“A song I think.” Melanie pulled the duvet up to her face, wiping away the last few remaining tears. Georgie cleared her throat and sunk slightly further into the pillows. Her voice was quiet but perfectly clear, not faltering on the high notes at all.
“There, out in the darkness. A fugitive running, fallen from God. Fallen from grace…”
Melanie shut her eyes and tried hard to think of nothing at all, and, for a moment, succeeded.
Melanie slept through Armageddon. It was late afternoon, sunny but with a biting wind, and she’d seen no reason to bother to stay awake when she could be napping. Georgie was feeding the Admiral when she first heard it, a rumbling in the distance, like thunder but louder. It crescendoed to an almighty crash, shaking the flat ever so slightly. Georgie thought it seemed romantic almost, a horrific storm whilst she and Melanie and the Admiral were all safe indoors. She watched the Admiral run off to attempt to worm his way under the duvet as he always did during a storm and began to search the cupboards for hot chocolate powder. There was Melanie’s special jar (a Christmas present, white chocolate and raspberries), the instant sort from Tesco, and three Cadburys sachets in various places around the kitchen. Georgie was just deciding if this was a bad enough storm for a Cadbury sachet when it came again. This time it was louder, buzzing slightly and giving Georgie a slight headache. And, now she thought about it, she couldn’t hear the rain. She put the hot chocolate down and walked into the bedroom (the boxy flat didn’t have a kitchen window), dimly lit by the bedside lamp. The curtains weren’t shut though, and even though the sun would probably have gone down by now, the moonlight should be coming in through the window. Georgie approached the window slightly apprehensively and looked out, expecting the row of flats opposite and the cars parked on the street below, maybe a cyclist. Maybe she’d be able to see the winter triangle and tell Melanie about it later. Not what she actually saw: everything gone so horribly, horribly wrong.
“Mel! Wake up, oh my God, Melanie!” Georgie ran to the bed and touched Melanie with shaking hands, trying to wake her without scaring her. Melanie shifted slightly and reached up to catch Georgie’s hand.
“Georgie? What- what is it, are you ok?”
“I don’t, don’t know what’s happened. Outside, it’s… it’s awful. I don’t know what’s happened.” Georgie never cried, but she didn’t try to hide the shake in her voice.
“What is it? What’s happened?”
“I think… it’s something to do with the Institute. Or the eye at least.”
Melanie felt an ache in her stomach. This couldn’t be good. “What do you mean, the eye?”
“The sky Mel, it’s – it’s watching us.”
Melanie had decided she wasn’t a massive fan of the apocalypse so far. There was an awful lot of walking and worrying, and not much else. Georgie had described the new hellscape, and it sounded pretty awful, but it barely impacted her. It was dark, apparently. So dark that Georgie couldn’t see the winter triangle, even thought stars probably weren’t meant for the apocalypse. It would have been indistinguishable from when they first left if not for the screams. They were children, you could tell. They wanted to help them, but how could you save every child? Georgie had fretted about the children, theorised that this wasn’t just the dark, it was The Dark, and a million other theories about where everyone else was and why this was happening. Melanie wasn’t nearly as worried as she should be. She’d had heard Jon call it “The Forever Blind” once, and she didn’t fail to see the irony in that. But still, it was only dark, even if it capitalised itself. She’d never learnt all the fears off by heart, but she was slightly worried what would come next – there was much worse in the apocalypse.
Melanie knew Georgie had fallen before she heard her hit the floor. She dropped to her knees and reached for her, desperate to assess the damage.
“Georgie?” Melanie tried to choke back tears and failed. “Georgie, Georgie, are you ok? Can you- can you hear me?”
Georgie groaned in pain and Melanie’s stomach twisted. Georgie couldn’t be hurt; she just couldn’t be. Melanie wracked her brain for what could have led to this, what had happened prior to this, but all she could think about was the fact that Georgie could be dying, and she had no idea what to do. It was too much, too much blood, for her to just be fine.
“Georgie, please! Wake up, you- you can’t leave me here! I need you Georgie, please!”
Georgie groaned again and skimmed across Melanie’s cheek with the back of her hand.
“Mel? Is that- you this time?”
“What? Yes, it’s me? What happened Georgie, what do I do, how do I help?” Melanie was becoming frantic, her voice rising.
“I think, this place. It did something to you, you went- scary.”
“W-what?”
“It- took you over? You just stopped walking, and when I turned around, you were holding this knife, I don’t know where you got it from. And then, well.” Georgie made a sound that could have been a laugh or could have been a sob.
“Georgie?”
“You did this Mel.”
She screamed then, a deafening sob wracked with anger, red blossoming behind her eyelids.
“Georgie, Georgie, I’m sorry. I don’t- I can’t. What do I do? You- you can’t die.”
“Mel, it’s ok. I know it wasn’t really you. Just, promise me. You’ll find who started this, and kill them.”
“I promise. Whoever did this.”
Georgie coughed, a horrible hacking cough.
“I love you more- more than anything! More than you’ll ever know, and I promise I will never forget you. I promise.”
“I love you too. Just stay here.”
“I wouldn’t leave for anything.”
Melanie took Georgie’s hand in both of hers and pressed a kiss to them. She took a deep, shaking breath and started to sing. She’d never really sung before, it was Georgie’s thing, and she knew her voice wasn’t good by any standards. Still, she owed it to Georgie. She owed so much to Georgie, this woman who had taken a broken little girl and somehow put her back together, who had loved her and let herself be loved, who had driven her to therapy and sung her to sleep and held her hand when everything seemed wrong. And just look how she’d repaid her.
“There, out in the darkness, a fugitive running.” It was Georgie’s favourite, and it had grown on Melanie. She could barely get the words out and had to break off several times to swipe at her face. But she finished it. She got to the end of the song and let the grief wash her away, let the hole in her heart reopen and swallow all her organs back up. She didn’t know what she going to do. And maybe she would stop crying and maybe she would carry on and maybe the apocalypse would end and maybe the winter triangle still shone, behind the eye, watching and knowing and drinking it all in. But she didn’t think so.