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Chapter Text

She's talking to the ghost-finally-when she hears the crash resounding from the front of the alley. When the ghost hears the sounds they disappear, and she groans in frustration, turning around. A group of four men stand there, logos emblazoned on their shoulders-"Ghostbusters. Dammit," She whispers, but apparently it's loud enough for one of them to hear. She names him 'Not Worthy of My Attention' at his first words. "Someone's full of admiration for our humble organization." She glares at him. "That's right. Now get out of my face." He smiles. "I think not, feral cat." "Great. So you're mean and just plain dense. A truly winning combination," She snaps at him, and shoves the offending man back. Another one comes forward with his face wrinkled in confusion. "Why are you here?" She asks, attention darting between the two. "That's on a need to know basis. What's your business here?" It's 'Not Worthy of My Attention' again. "How about you answer first?" She watches the one with glasses, who came forward a second ago, survey her form. 

"She's definitely feral." He points at her slight form, signaling her imperfections. "Just look at her hair," he says in a flat tone, and she strides up to him, anger rising from where it was contained under the volcano's surface. "Did you not hear me? Go. Away!" She yells at them, and 'Not Worthy of My Attention' smirks. He reaches an arm toward her, and she bats it away, chin lifted in defiance. "Touch me, and I'll do something that only one of us will regret," she says in a low tone, intimidating enough that he backs away. "Just wanted to know why you were talking to the ghost. Lay off me, man," He says as an excuse as he backs away slowly, as if from a grizzly bear.  The other three take small steps forward, until they are in front of her. Glasses seems concerned, and the other two look curious. "Didn't I tell you to leave? You're Ghostbusters, Have some respect," she manages, desperate to get out of this situation. 

Glasses holds out his hand instead. "My name is Egon Spengler. This is-" "Winston Zeddemore and Ray Stantz," another one pipes up, his calm voice working to diffuse the situation. Her breaths slow, as she tries to calm herself. She deliberates for a second, knowing that they expect her name. But she doesn't want to give them that piece of information. Maybe they'd figure it out. "Jane Oswald. Now please, I just want to be left alone." It's hot, and she's tired. She has to find some source of food, a fact making itself increasingly apparent. That ghost was her in, and now it's looking more like an out. Her stomach emits a noise that must be concerning, because Glasses-Egon, it's Egon raises one eyebrow. "I'd like to ask you about your encounter with the Ghost. Perhaps-we could make a deal? We get answers, and you get... something you need," he offers, and she's about to refuse when her stomach growls again. 

"F-fine," she says finally, knowing that her chances of survival are better with food and water. Ray claps his hands together. "Great! I know just the place!" 

A couple hours later, she and Egon sit in a cracked booth covered with faded fabric in a restaurant that must only be a couple years old. The neon sign reads 'Melody's Diner', and all of the wait staff have pins shaped like musical notes. She finds it a bit aggravating, the theme. "Ma'am, you must know that your ability to form connections with ghosts is strange. I was wondering-" "Why I talk to dead people I have been continuously warned are dangerous?" "My thought exactly," Egon answers, adjusting his glasses and readying a the pen, poising it at the top of the yellow legal pad. "Sometimes, if I can convince them of my... precarious situation, they can charm and/or scare people into leaving the necessary materials in a place I can get them." 

"Fascinating," he murmurs, moving his pen at a speed she didn't think possible. "And-they never act violent?" "They didn't." He catches her meaning. "They don't take nicely to Ghostbusters," he remarks, and she nods. "Do pests take nicely to exterminators?" he seems impressed, but still only half listening, so she leans in, ready to take her shot. "Can I ask you a question? About you work, I mean." he nods halfheartedly, still recording via the time honored tradition of legal pads. He takes a sip of the unsweetened iced tea he ordered, readying himself. "Go on," he says, and she smirks. 

 "How come you don't use different metal in the cyclotrons? It could improve, even change, what they do. Plain iron surely won't get the job done against anything you could go up against." Egon perks up, his attention regained. "How do you know that?" he asks, concerned yet still intrigued. "Who needs school when you have the New York public library? Patience and Fortitude make good reading partners, turns out." He pauses. "You don't attend school?" "Nope. Too many people might know the name of Jane Oswald. The librarians love me, though. I might get a job there when I turn 16." Egon look stricken, and a little impressed. "How close?" "Huh?" "How close are you to 16?" She's confused. Why does he want to know how close she is to 16? She answers anyway, though. "Three months," she says, a little wary. "Then congratulations. You've got an assisting job with the Ghostbusters." 

 The first few days are tense. Winston and her get along well, since he seems a bit more normal than the other 'scientists.' This is in quotation marks since she has yet to witness Venkman do any science. Normally, he just wanders around and fends off the banking agents who stop by to complain about Ray's unfortunate financial choices. Ray, for his part, does a wonderful job hiding in a corner whenever he shows up. His nervous chatter often gets directed at her, and so she and him talk. Venkman, however? He just moodily walks around and shoots looks at her. She does discover however, that Lab Work is incredibly boring. Ghostbusting science is largely underfunded, so the equipment they have is... rough, at best, and at worst, stolen. 

 The whole operation is largely illegal, and it's mainly a miracle that the banking industry has yet to utterly destroy them, so she counts herself lucky. She is getting...well, not paid, but 'experience that could be used in later life'. Yeah, that's it. 

 On the third day however, the miracle gives out. Ray announces what he calls 'an inspection' at the mandatory pizza dinner that night, and she asks who is coming. Ray just shrugs. "I think he said his name was Peck?" and turns back to 'more important matters', like their first customer. She sneaks out without hearing when the personnel from the bank is coming, back to her temporary apartment. She is staying with Venkman's younger sister, Callie Spengler, and her family. When she knocks on the door, Trevor, her son, smiles. "We got dinner from Melody's," he begins as she pushes her way in. "Want in?" "No thanks, I got dinner at the 'bad news party' tonight." He groans. "The bank still attacking them? 'Cause seriously, those other two mortgages are almost done. Only 20 more years to go!" She rolls her eyes and sets the pack down on a hook marked with 'Jane,' and smiles faintly. They cleared out a whole half a room and a hook for her, and it's the most room she's ever had. Well. The most room that never felt suffocating. 

 In the middle of the night, she makes a plan. Wake up early, warn them. They've never seen what he can do. How cruel he is. And how his position in Wall Street gives him the leverage he needs to carry out his cruelty. She opens her eyes before the light streams through the Spengler's apartment and pads quietly out into the murkiness that is New York in the early morning. She walks across the street, into the doors of the Firehouse, and closes it quietly. Janine isn't there yet, and the phones are silent. 

 Egon is there, however. And he's already working, the lights illuminating the innards of a proton pack. His hair is messy, the shirt buttons undone, and she shakes her head as she strides over to him, tunnel vision closing in on the target. "Egon," she calls, trying to get his attention. "Egon!" she yells, voice tinged with a hint of dread. "Jane," he says, a feeble attempt at a greeting. 

 "We need to talk. I can't be here for the inspection-" the wood doors that so far have stood strong against Peck's taunts fly open, and she freezes, ignoring the urge to make fun of the banker's flair for the dramatic. The voice. It rattles her to the bone, and its condescending tone haunts her memories. "Egon! My-my, it's great to see you." She dives behind a table covered in machine parts, but it is too late. He has made it to the front of the long room, a tell-tale click from his shoes behind him. He sees her, and her heart plummets. "Egon," he says, dragging out the 'E'. "Who in the world is this? I feel like I recognize her from somewhere." Egon responds quietly, almost like Peck's intimidation is working. "Jane Oswald. My lab assistant," he whispers. 

 "Is that really the name she told you? And you believed her? Jane? Is that really the best you could do? Tut-tut-tut," he says, this time directed at her, the clicking of his tongue ringing in the vault of her memories. "Phoebe. How did you, in all of your stupidity, manage to claw your way up here!" Her soul is crushed in the sharp and unnerving teeth of this nutcracker. "I-I.." she can't say anything. And what would you say to that? What do you say, when your-when he says something like that to you? He approaches, and she holds a trembling arm in a desperate attempt to stop him. "Peck-l-listen," she chokes out, and he seems to stop to consider for a moment. 

 "Ah-no. I don't think so." He continues his approach, and corners her. "D-don't-" his arm reaches out and, almost in slow motion, attaches itself to the pale skin of her neck. "Please unhand my lab assistant, or I will be forced to remove you from the premises. Have you or any of your loved ones been possessed in the near past? You seem to be acting a bit strange." Egon. He drags Peck away bodily, shoving him into the corner of a table. Still, he runs forward, reaching once again for an effective strangling position. "YOU HAVE TO COME BACK!" he yells. "YOU DIDN'T TRY HARD ENOUGH!" There is nowhere she could run, so instead, she cowers. "I know," she whimpers. 

 "You're diseased. And all I wanted-" here, his voice is almost gentle, except for the fact that he just called her diseased, "And all I wanted was to fix you! To cure you! And you wouldn't even try, Phoebe!" "I know," she repeats. She curls into the fetal position, trying to protect herself from the physical and verbal blows. "I'm not coming with you." her tone carries the weight of finality. She can feel his smirk melt it though, the same smirk she has offered so many people before. "I can make you do anything. I'm your-" 

 "What the hell is happening here?" It's Winston. She looks up, Peck having been shocked into silence. Ray hauls him out the door just as Ray slides down the pole, rubbing his eyes. The door slams shut with much more drama than when he walked in, and Egon stares at it for a moment, a blank look on his face. Winston pulls her to her feet and raises an eyebrow, giving his usual look of sympathy. "Who was that?" He asks Egon as he strides over, look unreadable. "Walter Peck," is all he answers, and stares at her. "Who are you?" he asks simply, but she doesn't answer. Diseases. Her own-he thinks that she is diseased. He never said it before. People are saying something, but she doesn't hear. Why? What did  I do? I know I'm-she thinks, shaking her head in  an attempt to clear the fog that comes with shock. 

 Then she finally does hear something. The wet 'Thump' as her body hits the floor.

 Egon is there, somewhere. Sound has returned, finally, but so far, nothing worth hearing has passed her ears. He keeps asking questions, strange taped-together sentences she doesn't bother answering. In all the years-"He said your name was Phoebe. What does that mean?" Finally, a question worth answering. "My name is Phoebe. Phoebe Oswald Peck. Walter Peck is-please, don't make me say it." "He's your father," Winston breathes. 

Chapter Text

 Moonlight streaks through the window to her left, and it is the first thing she sees when her eyes slowly open. A sleepy groan exits her mouth when her body realizes that it should not be awake right now. She tries to sit up to see where they are going, to look for clues, anything, when her shoulder meets resistance. A petite white lady sits next to her, instead of the passenger seat where she normally makes her throne. Her mother. The makeup caked on her face makes itself into something that might have been a smile, if it had reached her eyes, pale blue flecked with green. Even her eyes are cold. "Sweetie, don't worry. We're just on a trip, a road trip. Isn't this fun?" She says in almost a monotone. Her plump lips stretch further. "W-where are w-we going?" She asks, the dread setting in. "Don't worry," her mother repeats. Why is she being so vague? Where are they going? The car drives over a bumpy patch, enough so that Phoebe bounces, hitting her head on the ceiling. 

 Her mother just seems unconcerned. Jean Peck was always ruthless, Walter's own Lady Macbeth. She loved to remind her daughter that she was a mistake, of why her father was always apologizing. "Just one night," he'd called it. But Janine knew. She always, always knew. She was the one to catch her in the act, the one to discover the 'unnatural tendencies', the one to teach her what happened to 'monsters like you'. She'd thought that Phoebe should leave, and got damn close to kicking her out, too. Through the spinning in her head from the collision, Phoebe tries to piece together any kind of information. In the foot-well of the car, she finds it. Brochures litter the ground, blue block-lettering printed across the top. Her glasses flew off when she hit the ceiling, so the picture is blurry, but she thinks she can make out a cross. 

 Oh, shit. Phoebe has heard of places like this, where only the worst parents send their children. She had hoped her parents weren't some of them, hoped that they wouldn't be so cruel. Much like her father's own sin, this had only been 'one time'. The car sputters and slows as they turn into a parking lot, and her mother's smile fades. She takes her by the arm and drags her out of the car, retrieving her now dirty glasses. She put them on and squinted through the murky surface, reading the title of the building. 'New Jersey Faith Catholic Church', the sign reads. What? It's a church? Inside, a kindly old man smiles at them, his pale skin wrinkled and marked with liver spots. "Who are you?" She chokes out, hackles rising. "My name is Father David. I'm here to talk to you about your homosexuality." 

 Her parents leave them, saying something unintelligible to Phoebe about staying in the car. Father David smiles, and leads her to his office, shutting the door gently. "First things first," he begins, lowering himself into a chair. "Your parents wanted to send you to one of those conversion camps, but I convinced them not to. Sometimes, they make the problem worse. So instead, I'm to talk to you about recognizing what you were truly meant to be. I know that you are a good person, Phoebe," he says, smiling gently. Really? she thinks. You think that I'm a good person? "Who made a bad decision. I hope that we can guide you back on your way." he sets a book down on the table, hardcover and embedded with rainbows. "This is a Bible, edited by yours truly. From now on, once a week, you will be talking to me about your findings. Think of yourself as a scholar, hoping to uncover the secrets of this book. If you do, you will be back on the path to godliness. If you don't..." he points to a news article about something called 'AIDS'. "This will be your doom. So tell me, Phoebe. Which will you choose?" 

 A sinking feeling envelops her like the robes that this man wears, and she knows that this will never work. She knows, from the whispers coming from Greenwich Village, that it has never worked. So she knows already what her fate will be. But she also knows that her parents will never stop trying. So she grabs the Bible from the table, and resolves to try, at least. She can control what her parents call an 'unnatural' way of life, until the day that she is free. "I can do it, Father," she says confidently, her head cocked in fake arrogance. It is a good performance, and he believes it. "I certainly hope you can. I will see you next week, Ms. Spengler." Inside, her soul forms a crack down the middle, as thin as a hair but existent anyway. She strides out of the room with a smile on her face and a crushed heart. 

Chapter Text

 The glow from the windows is short-circuiting her brain, she thinks. Rain blots out the moon, and the only light is the cheerful neon lights that Phoebe, under normal circumstances, would hate. The '60s theme typically alienates her, due to the truth of the decade. But tonight, she's smiling nervously and laughing at Ray's stupid jokes, trying to get everyone to forget that situation. Venkman seems determined to remind them. "Jane-or should I say Phoebe-you seem a bit...off tonight," he jokes, and she whips off the facade for a second to glare at him. "I'm perfectly fine," she responds an octave off, and he notices, smiling evilly. They're sitting at the bar, sipping milkshakes and waging war against each other, and she can't take it any more. "I'm just gonna go get some...air," she says, and walks off without any acknowledgement. She exits through the Christmas light-ringed door and leans against the cool brick of the wall, staring out into the tempest above. 

 "Boo," a voice somewhere to the side of her says, and a girl about her age steps out of the diner. Phoebe blushes for a second at the sight of her. She's pale, and her eyes twinkle with some sort of subdued mischief. Her blonde hair is tied up, and an apron covers the t-shirt and shorts combo underneath. She's pretty, and Phoebe stammers, grasping for a witty response. "Here often?" Is what she comes up with, and groans as she realizes how cliche what she just said was. "Well, yeah. I do work here," she says, one eyebrow raised, as if questioning her skills of observance. "Ah-obviously, I just-I don't know, actually," she stammers, and Melody laughs. "I don't believe we've met. I'm Melody." Phoebe smiles softly, savoring the name in her imagination before realizing that Melody is still expecting a response. "Oh-I'm Jane-er-Phoebe," she says, and then the girl in front of her frowns. "Which one is it?" her tone is joking, but her eyes are questioning. "It's-it's Phoebe," she breathes, and Melody nods. 

  She joins Phoebe at the wall, staring at the ruckus of the street. "How you liking Manhattan?" she asks, and Phoebe chuckles.

  "I've lived here my whole life, but this-I'm new here. And I love it."

  "Even with Venkman?"

  "Eh. He brings the experience down, but even he can't stand up to where I was before."

  "Good or bad?"

  She considers. "Bad. Some of it-" she thinks back, to where a couple minutes ago she was pretending didn't exist. Her friends, even the ones who couldn't accept her in the end. The feeling of waking up warm under her covers. Sunday dinner. "-Some of it was good. But the parts of it which were tolerable, I have here." She has three quarters of the Ghostbusters, a foster family greater than anyone she's ever known, and-she's starting to realize-this place. She doesn't hate it as much as before. It's growing on her. Melody nods sagely. "When I was a kid, I used to wish I could remember everything. And then, when I got older, I realized that maybe the past doesn't hold as much as I want."

  They stay in that position for a couple minutes, making fun of the tourists who freak out at the slightest hint of rats, until the rain picks up. Melody pushes herself off of the wall and wipes her forehead clear of rain. She offers a hand to Phoebe, and she takes it, stepping in time with her back into the diner, back through the neon-colored entrance, into the light. 

  Slightly soaked and entirely exhilarated, she reclaims her seat at the bar and only smiles when Egon looks her over. "You look better," he says, a little bewildered, and she nods toward Melody, who is washing dishes at the other end of the bar, humming quietly to the song playing from the jukebox. It's 'Like a Virgin,' and Phoebe is now finding a new appreciation for Madonna. "I met a friend," she offers, and Egon nods. "I was wondering when you would claw yourself out of the state of denial you found yourself in." "You noticed?" "Seriously?" Winston chimes in. "You were buried in denial to the tips of your hair. Which is now looking a bit sad, by the way." She shrugs. 

 "I think we might be stuck here for an indeterminate amount of time," Ray calls from his seat by the door. "Oh, come on, Ray! We're not witches, we're Ghostbusters! We're not afraid of Ghosts, so why would we be scared of a little rain?" Venkman counters, and the other Ghostbuster rolls his eyes. 

  While she refuses to speak about her father, his existence, or that he will inevitably be back, she does stop hiding in dark corners and resumes talking to the members of the Ghostbusters who will talk to her. With Egon's help, they successfully make a prototype for a Proton Blaster that may be as twice as powerful. They test it, in the tradition of everything that came before, in an abandoned aquarium that Winston keeps talking about buying. It's useful because as it turns out, it's incredibly haunted. The moment they step inside, the wails of the dead is the only noise that they can hear. 

  She thinks she can hear Ray whimper behind her, and she almost chuckles, before she realizes that she too, is scared silly. "Can we just test the Proton Blasters and get out of here?" he says weakly, and Egon makes his way to the back of the line to comfort him, one of the only times he has genuine emotion on his face. "No," he replies gently, and the other's shoulder's shake for a second before he steels himself. "Then lets do this, I guess." 

  They find their first ghost pretty quickly, turning their second corner. And it turns out to be one who they've battled before. A neatly dressed apparition appears before them, their head tilted in a lady-like way and curled in a corner, reading Oscar Wilde. When Phoebe and Venkman enter first, followed by Winston and capped off by the trembling Ray and Egon, the ghost's head whips to the side. All the way to the side. Their head is apparently not attached to their body, and Phoebe cringes before raising the prototype. As the rest of the Ghostbusters had their own Blasters, she was given the prototype, which shows just how much care they have for the fifteen-year old. 

 She clicks off the safety as the ghost stands up and turns a bespectacled eye up and down her form, sending chills down Phoebe's spine. Her frown deepens, and she sends away the copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray. "Do you know who I am?" the spirit questions, and her skirt sways from side to side. She could almost not be noticed in today's New York, except for the early 20th century clothing. "Uh-A harpy?" Ray says, stupidly, and the ghosts stony glare turns to him. "I remember you," the ghost whispers, and moves to-"Wait! Is that-are you reading Oscar Wilde?" They pause, and smile. "Yes. He's a brilliant writer. You?" "Oh, I've just spent a lot of time in the New York public library. But I recognize you. You-no one ever listened to your readings, but I thought they were pretty great," she finds herself saying, and the spirit smiles. 

 "Someone here has a listening ear. Look, I can sense that you are here to capture me. I'm not exactly stupid, you know." Phoebe's shoulders sag. "Yeah, that's true. But-look. We'll just move on, and you don't have to attack any of us." The ghost nods. "I suppose. But-" she transforms into the raging blaze she uses to slime people, and runs into Ray. "Sorry!" The faint voice of the apparition calls from far, far away. Venkman turns to her. "You made friends with the ghost? Really?" "...Yes." She isn't sure what Venkman's problem is with her befriending of the ghost, but she isn't going to offer an explanation. 

 In the end, they made friends with at least seven ghosts, but captured none of them. Venkman glared daggers at her, and she responded with an argument about whether it was ethical to bust ghosts that aren't disruptive. "But Madame Wilde here was, at one point." "There's a key word there, and it's was. Also, you really don't know anything about her." Ecto-1 pulls to a stop and she quickly disentangles herself from the car and enters the lab.  

 Venkman avoids her for the rest of the afternoon, and soon, she looks up to see Winston discussing something with Janine, and him and Venkman exit through the large doors. She wipes her forehead and then gets back to rewiring the electricity system. A few minutes (hours?) later, she pulls herself out of the giant copper crawlspace and sits on the edge of the entrance. Tilting her head to the side to try and get the crick out her neck, she pushes off of the floor, stretching out her aching muscles. "Egon?" She calls, listening for the response. "Here," a monotone voice calls out from the other crawlspace. She takes a quick look at the large clock hanging precariously from the wall and shakes her head. "It's Eleven!" She says, and the crash of what's probably the scientist head hitting the ceiling sounds back. Then a groan as Egon crawled out from the cramped space. 

  "Is there any frozen pizza?" is his first words, and Phoebe nods quietly. She strides toward the fridge in their offices (Janine's Kingdom), and pulls out a not-so frozen box from a couple nights ago. She sets the box balanced atop a cyclotron and grabs a slice. "It's lukewarm," she announces, and Egon shrugs. "Oh, well," he says, and commences chewing on his own slice. "All nighter?" she asks, mouth full. "We might be able to get the whole first floor with AC and heating if we work through the night." The scientist concurs. "Is Ray still here?" he asks a couple minutes later, and Phoebe shrugs. "Think so." He finishes his slice and grabs a paper plate, along with a napkin. 

 "I'll go bring him some dinner. Feel free to have the last slice," he says as he walks to the elevator they just got working. She nods, and leans her head back to stare at the ceiling as she does just as he'd suggested. The lights are flickering, and she's dreading the day when she and Egon have to climb up there to replace the bulbs. And as she stares at the gorgeous vaulted ceiling, one of the lights shuts off. "Damn it," she mutters, and grabs a wrench. She might not be able to fix that problem, but she can finish her bit of the rewiring. 

 Egon doesn't see her for a while, and after his second break, he starts to get concerned. When he had returned from getting Ray to eat something, he didn't see her, and one of the lights was off. He can respect a scientist not wanting to leave their work, but this was unhealthy. The crawlspace was hot, and it dehydrated you rather quickly. So Egon finished off the rest of his water-bottle, and opened up the wire covering where she was working. When he does see her, he out-right chuckles. Phoebe is asleep, curled around a wrench. He shakes his head, disbelieving, and tries to shake her awake. She curls tighter into a ball, and doesn't awake, so instead he simply gathers her up and carries her out of the crawlspace. 

 After setting her down gently in on a couch in the inner offices, he finds a blanket and spreads it over the slight form of his assistant. From upstairs, he hears Ray slide down the pole, calling "Ray?", so he exits the office. "Over here," he responds in his usual monotone. "What do you need?" "Oh, I just got a call from a woman named Dana Barrett. Just wanted to tell you, since it's our first customer. Where's Phoebe?" He points toward the office. "Found her asleep in the crawlspace. She's in the offices now." Ray nods, and enters the room. Egon follows. 

  The girl is spread out over the narrow cushion, her arm dangling off of the couch. On the ground lies one of the hairbands she usually wears, in case she has to tie her curls up. Ray retrieves it and moves to set it on the desk, but pauses when he sees something. "What the-" he says, and Egon walks over. "What is it?" he asks as he too kneels down next to Ray. He points to her wrist and Egon inhales sharply. Etched into her skin, either by burn or...he doesn't want to think about it, is an 'F'. 

Chapter Text

  The moon was halfway through its journey by the time she tip-toed down the stairs, careful to avoid the creaky one. Clutching her wrapped wrist, she slipped through the side door, darting past the door of her Mother, who slept on the first floor. From there she ran down the alley-way to the side of their house and across the street from Peck's brownstone. The streets were busy, even at this time of night, and she followed the traffic towards Central Park. The trees looked almost peaceful compared to the harsh colors and terror of her parent's house. Funny, she thinks. I don't even think of it as my house anymore. 

  And indeed it hadn't been, for the last couple years. Or-it had never been, but she had realized it on a night quite different from this, two years ago. Her wounds seethed under their thin wrappings, barely healed. She winces and trips, falling flat on her face. Once down, it takes a couple moments to get back up as she wonders whether she should, or could, push herself up off the ground. How easy, how simple it would be. She recalls all the times in her life that taking the easy route was beneficial to her, saved her a lot of pain. But she dismisses those thoughts and grits her teeth. 

  She winds her way through the park, watching the stars twinkle and feeling the path beneath her change. In the middle of the park, she can almost make out a few constellations. She finds a bench overlooking a shallow pond and sits down, giving her sore muscles (walking's annoying), a chance to rest. From this vantage point, she tosses around ideas the way a tornado throws various objects. Quick and brutal, followed by a swift fall. She no longer has any friends, a lifeline her parents were sure to rid her of a year ago. Her grandparents...there's one who lives in Oklahoma, and another who's dead. So that's out. That completes the list of people she knows, aside from her cousins who are of the opinion that she's a cockroach that either needs to be violently ripped from her home and tossed out into the wild, or stomped on with a combat boot. 

  She worries her lip, eventually drawing blood, which she takes care of with a swift wipe of her sleeve. Running over thoughts like cars over little cute animals, she taps her fingers, shifting her eyes left and right. When she realizes, from a strange look from a stranger, that she looks a bit manic, she runs a hand through her hair and breathes a short breath in. She can do this. She isn't going back. She won't go back. 

 Phoebe makes it all of two days hiding out in the library until she runs out of ideas. Ms. Smith is starting to get suspicious, and she likes Ms. Smith. So she sheepishly treads over to the central desk of the New York Public Library on the third day and asks for help. Finding a book. I'm sorry, do you think that she would really ask for help? She's Phoebe fucking Peck, for God's sake. She finds this book, and it is then that Ms. Smith steps in. "Are you okay?" She asks just as Phoebe starts to get comfortable. "...Yes. I'm fine. Why do you ask?" Phoebe says carefully. "Because I haven't seen you enter this Library since a couple days ago. Is everything okay at home?" She tenses. "Yeah. I'm fine," she repeats.

  "I guess I just don't believe that, Pheebs. If you aren't okay, you have to tell us. But you have to ask for help." And she doesn't say anything. She shrugs, and goes back to her book. "I'm fine. It's all good." Ms. Smith sighs and gives her a pitying look. "When you're ready," she says quietly, and makes her way back to her desk. 

  And she isn't ready. Not yet. So she finds herself back on the staircase of her parent's brownstone, and they let her in, and pretend to be worried about her. She showers, and tries to tell herself all the good things. But a week later, she starts making a plan. A plan that will get her out of her house. She can do this. Right? 

Chapter Text

She awakens to the noise of something on the brink of exploding. She sits up in a flash and immediately regrets it, groaning and rubbing her back. Ugh. Why do I have to be a ninety-year old in a fifteen year old’s body? She thinks as she creaks out of the office and finds Egon ignoring a kettle on a burner. She grabs a pot-holder and removes it from the heat source, yelling “Egon!” To get his attention. His eyes flick up, and he pales. “W-what?” he asks, and she points to the steaming kettle. 

 “Were you making tea?” He walks over and pours the water into a coffee maker and presses a button. “Coffee, actually. Thanks.” He’s still pale, and Phoebe turns a skeptical look toward him. “Scary ghost?” She asks, and he shakes his head. “No.” She glances around. “Then what?” Picking up a wrench, she moves toward the crawl space once again. “Nothing,” he murmurs. “Hey, thanks for making sure I didn’t die in that crawl space yesterday.” “No problem, Phoebe.” 

 The rest of the day is uneventful, but Egon keeps acting weird. Now that I think about it, so was Ray, she recalls as she lays down to go to sleep. The next day, she still hasn’t figured it out, and decides to ignore it as they seem better. Until she notices Ray glancing at her every now and then, as if to make sure that she’s still there.

And she finds it concerning, if she’s being honest. Why would they be acting so weird? They already know who her father is. She figures that she must have missed something. She tugs on the band around her wrist and thinks. And thinks and thinks and thinks. The next few weeks pass by without anything other than a surprise visit from Peck she wasn’t there for, and another meeting with the strange Melody. 

 “Hi…” she starts, and Melody looks up from the bar. “Hi,” she responds, and gets out two glasses, striding over to the milkshake machine. “Wanna talk?” she asks, and Phoebe nods eagerly. That’s how they end up in a booth with a jukebox that Melody has loaded up with Madonna songs, humming along to Material Girl and sipping her strawberry milkshake with dark chocolate fudge. Phoebe’s is simple vanilla loaded with a kind of chocolate candy and sour gummies. She’s peeling the paper from the red straw slowly, lecturing herself about Climate Change and the Theory of Transformation of Energy to keep from exploding. Or blushing. Or both. Unfortunately, everything Melody says is so damn cute, and smart, and it’s all going to her cheeks. Her companion politely pretends not to notice. 

 Phoebe knows, objectively, that this is wrong. That she shouldn’t be thinking about tucking the stray hair that fell from Melody’s bun while she was talking excitedly about the beauty of Madonna’s lyrics and how the music video for Material Girl references classics such as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and how they should get together and watch it. Phoebe replies with a mumbled remark about how her favorite ‘50s and ‘60s actresses are Marilyn Monroe and Kathryn Hepburn. That sparked a long conversation about Judy Garland, and Phoebe left Melody’s Diner feeling like she didn’t care if this meant she was doomed to hell.

When she gets back, she’s smiling, and Egon smiles back. The expression is strange on his face, like he’s never contorted his muscles this way. “What happened?” He asked, and Phoebe’s grin grew. “With Melody,” she answers, and an eyebrow quirks up. “Is that the blonde girl from Melody’s?” “Yeah.” Egon starts to say something, but then Ray waltzes into the Firehouse, and winks at the scientist, who blushes in return. And Phoebe wonders. The two of them have been friends for what Egon describes as “As long as it takes to start and keep alive a Ghostbusting business.” She suspects that it’s a lie. 

 Ray soon leaves, down to the basement to do whatever the hell they do to the Ghosts. She hasn’t asked, and tries to push that part of her deep, deep down. The part that feels guilty about some of the innocent Ghosts locked up down there. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, and grabs ahold of the piping, prepared to wrap it around the coil in the middle of the Proton pack. “About what?” Egon says, peaking around the cabinet he’s turning into a vault. “N-nothing,” she stammers, and the weird look that he’s worn for the past few weeks comes back. “I said nothing,” she retorts to his silent judgment. 

 He shakes his head, and her brow furrows. What the hell, Egon, she thinks, and goes back to her work. 

  A couple weeks later, she spends the better part of the afternoon in the closet. Literally. Peck storms into the Firehouse holding an eviction notice, and she dives into the now completed vault, listening to the conversation play out. But then, when she tries to turn the latch, the door doesn’t budge. “Fuck,” she whispers under her breath, and softly pushes the hatch with her shoulder. When that doesn’t work, she rams it. “Fuck,” she repeats louder. “Let me out!” She screams, wincing at the reverberation. 

 “Please,” she adds a minute later. And when no-one comes, she lays her head against the door. “You’re not giving up, Phoebe,” she tells herself, but well, Egon built this to be inescapable. She digs a screwdriver out of her denim overalls and tries to loosen the screws on the hinge, but finds that it’s a sliding door instead. No way out or in through the door. Fuck, indeed. She glances around and runs her fingers down every inch of the cramped space, looking for weaknesses. Combing through the shelves lined with expensive science equipment, she looks for a spare Proton pack or anything, anything that could help. 

  There’s plenty of oxygen in here, and she isn’t claustrophobic, but this still certainly isn’t the best situation she’s been in. “Think,” she mumbles to herself, but it’s no use. She eventually settles for settling on the floor. And waiting. She’s very good at waiting, biding her time until the moment when she could escape. Escape. This episode has taught her how b ad she is at that. She’s good, amazing even, at staying still, but not at fucking doing anything. 

While she’s sitting here, surrounded by metal, her mind drifts in the current made by her volatile emotions, going away to somewhere safer. A closet in her parent’s house, where she hid. Quite similar to the small space she now hides in, except that the threat was less ‘a couple more hours in this claustrophobic space’, and more ‘evil man who calls you his father will kill you’. She is tucked into the corner, watching beyond the garments dangling from the hook for signs of Peck or Jean looking for her. It’s a deranged game of hide-and-seek, and her heart is pounding less in excitement and more in adrenaline, from the anticipation of death. 

   She sets her head against the metal and sighs, running a hand through her hair. She knocks on the door to try something, and hears a grunt from someone outside, who bumps into the vault. “Help!” She tries, and there’s a shuffling of feet outside. “Who is it?” A muffled voice says. A voice that sounds like him. She goes silent. “Excuse me? Anyone in there?” the voice says again, and the lock turns. She shuffles up, ready to defend herself and- “Phoebe? What are you doing-” She rushes out and takes in a deep breath as a single tear makes its way down her face. 

  “Phoebe?” Egon tries, and she turns to face him. “The door was open, I went in to hide out fr-from him,” she stammers, voice breaking as she dances around his name. She hasn’t called him ‘Peck’ in a while, and ‘Father’ even longer. Nothing less formal was ever used. Egon drifts closer, reaching out an arm. “Are you okay?” Whipping her head around, she nods, tears now flowing from her face. “Fine, I’m fine,” she says, wiping away the water flowing freely down the planes of her cheeks, splashing on the collar of her baby blue shirt. 

 Egon says nothing, just crosses his arms. Ray however, does. He rounds the counter from where she hasn’t noticed he was standing, and stops in front of her. He gestures toward her arm, and raises an eyebrow. “If Egon won’t ask you, I will. Phoebe, what is that under your wristband?” She freezes, and averts her eyes toward the ceiling. Something really interesting must be happening up there. 

 “Nothing,” she answers by default, and Ray’s eyebrows furrow in desperation and worry as she lowers her head. “We know it isn’t ‘nothing’. Please. You don’t have to tell us now, but we can’t help you if you don’t tell us anything, Pheebs.” She shakes her head, and unwraps the band around her wrist, revealing a mangled ‘F’ carved into her skin. “I-when I was 14, my parents found me in the alleyway between a diner and a grocery store kissing-someone they didn’t approve of. My mother wanted me to go, but he brought me instead to-a sort of counselor, I guess. He was supposed to fix me, to heal my disease.

 “But it didn’t work, and three months later, they saw me again just-just talking to the person. And so he dragged me from the diner I was in and-and did this. I tried, I really did, to run from him. I hid in a closet, but he found me.” Even though she’s sure that this is what they were expecting, Ray still looks shocked. “It’s because I didn’t try hard enough, right.” He shakes his head, and approaches. Phoebe takes a step back. “Just admit it. I’m broken.” She curls in on herself and shakes, her eyes puffy from tears. “I’m a failure, just like he said. A stupid, fucking fa-” “Don’t finish that sentence.” Egon. “You are smart, and anyone who can’t see that is deluding themselves. You are not diseased. You are perfect, Phoebe,” he says reassuringly. 

  She shakes her head, retreating farther, toward the closet, where she is safe. “You don’t know what I did. If you did you wouldn’t be saying all that. They say that everything happening right now is a punishment. And what if it is?”

   The scientist looks stricken, but his eyes soften. “Phoebe. Listen to me. Loving who you want to is not a crime, it is not something to hate about yourself. Be logical, like the scientist you are. AIDS is not a punishment from some higher power.” Her eyes lift, her arms loosen. The tight coil in her stomach burning her insides and transforming itself into a living creature’s claws turn softer, the lacerations start healing. 

  “But-” her knees buckle. Everything inside her is broken, is telling her that this is wrong, clamoring for the safety, the comfort of self hatred. If she had lost what was left of her dignity, she would have wrapped her arms around her stomach in a desperate attempt to hold her world together. Instead, she simply sits on her knees shaking, and thinking.