Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Alison looked at her banking app with some sense of relief. It wasn't an enormous sum, certainly not enough to restore this house in the way it deserved, but it would go towards keeping them comfortable – them and their new arrival. She stroked her belly and whispered: “We'll work this out, little one; don't you worry.”

Just then, she heard steps coming up behind the sofa. Alison turned her head to greet Mike with a kiss.

“Hey”, he said, “everything alright?”

“Yeah”, she replied, getting up, “just looking at our finances.”

“And?”, he asked with his brows raised. “Better than they have been?”

She nodded. “Better than they have been!” She let Mike pull her in for a hug and another kiss.

“We'll work this out”, he murmured in her ear, making her laugh.

“I was just telling baby that!”

He grinned. “See? This is why I love my wife! She's so clever!”

Alison laughed and they kissed once again.

“So”, Mike asked when they finally parted, “ready for film night with the ghosts?” At Alison's nod, he went “Great!” and picked something up from a side table: “I made popcorn!”

She covered her mouth with one hand to contain her laughter at the gigantic bowl. “Mike!!”

“What?!” He laughed in return.

Alison took a moment to breathe. “You do know they can't eat it, right?”

“Yeah, but...” He shrugged. “I dunno, it feels rude knowing you'll be sitting in a room full of people and making a tiny bowl of popcorn for two! I can't just not think of them.” He rubbed his neck self-consciously.

“Aww, Mike!” Alison went to hug him – a little tricky without spilling any popcorn, but she managed it. “I'm sure they'll appreciate that!”

“You think?”

She huffed. “Well, they better!”

This, at least, made him laugh again.

Alison stepped back and let Mike put an arm around her as he carefully balanced the bowl on his other, and together they went up to the TV room.

~

The ghosts' chatter was spilling out into the hallway. Could anyone who did not know them hear it, they would likely assume they were arguing. Alison, however, had over the years grown used to their banter sounding like this: Loud, excited and all over each other.

“Hey, guys”, she greeted them as she entered the room and was met with a chorus of “Hey, Alison” or variations thereof in return.

The ghosts were scattered about, having left two seats on the sofa for her and Mike.

Alison guided him there while he uncertainly waved to his invisible housemates, then dutifully relayed their greetings to him: “They say hi.” She ended up sitting between him and Pat holding Humphrey's head. “So!”, she said once she'd gotten settled. “What are we watching?”

“It is Julian's turn to choose tonight”, answered the Captain, standing by one of the armchairs, back ramrod straight and swagger stick clasped behind it. Of course – he knew the entire rota by heart.

“Okay”, Alison replied, casting her gaze about the room. “Err- and where is Julian?”

It was as if someone had pressed a pause button. All the ghosts froze for a moment, silent, before looking around themselves. Apparently they hadn't even noticed the absence of their trouser-less politician yet. Each of them turned back to her shrugging.

“Perhaps he's sleeping?”, Kitty, sitting beside the Captain, finally ventured. “He does like to do that.”

“I go look”, Robin said and disappeared through the wall before anyone could say anything else.

Mike tapped on Alison's arm. Right – he'd only been able to catch a small part of this conversation. “He's not here?”, he asked.

“No”, she confirmed. “And it's his turn. Robin's looking for him now.”

“Huh”, Mike went, frowning. “That's not like him, is it? Julian, I mean. Missing it.”

“No”, Alison agreed with a shake of her head. “But he's probably just napping somewhere. He'll turn up!”

Mike nodded with an only half-convinced hum and started in on the popcorn.

Alison, meanwhile, used the delay to turn on the TV and pull up their streaming services. He'd be here any moment. He would, and the queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach was probably pregnancy-related and not worry, pff, no!

At first the ghosts attempted to pick their conversation back up, but it trickled off fairly quickly, after which the minutes dragged on in awkward silence, only interrupted here and there by a hum, a cough or Mike chewing.

There was almost a collective sigh of relief when Robin re-entered. The emotion didn't last long, though, for the caveman gave an exaggerated shrug: “I no find him. Not in his room, nor on any sofa or chair – searched whole wing.”

Well, that certainly explained what had taken so long. Pushing away the increasing sinking feeling in her stomach, Alison instead put her focus on problem-solving: “Okay. When was the last time anyone saw him?” She looked at everyone in turn.

They all took a moment to think about this. “We all saw him this morning”, Pat finally said. “We were playing charades and he came by to say hi.” This elicited nods from everyone but Robin.

“I saw him this morning, too”, Alison replied, fighting the urge to roll her eyes at how Julian had annoyed her. “Not since then, though, now that I think about it. Anyone?”

One by one, they all shook their heads, most of them looking at the ground as they did so.

She turned to her husband. “Mike?”

He had evidently picked up enough of what was going on, for he held up his hands apologetically and said: “Nope! No poltergeist activity today. Sorry.”

Alison suppressed a sigh. “Okay. Alright.” She turned back to her ghosts. “Well, what was he doing when you last saw him? Did he say anything about what his plans for the day were?”

They looked around at each other until the Captain cleared his throat. “Now...”, he began.

~

That morning…

Julian sauntered through the halls of Button House. It was somewhere past 10 AM and he had just gotten out of bed; no one had woken him to invite him to early-morning exercise, show him a butterfly, read him a poem or any such nonsense. Plus: It would be his pick for film night later. All in all it was looking to be a good day.

At the top of the main stairs Julian encountered Alison talking with a pair of people – a middle-aged man and a younger woman. The patches on their matching overalls declared them to be from “Smith & Smith's Antiques”. Alison and Mike were selling off a bunch of junk to make some money for when the baby arrived. Fanny had made quite a fuss about it, but Alison had promised they'd only give away things nobody would miss and after she'd gone through the whole long, long list with all the ghosts, Fanny had relented.

Two days ago, these two berks had shown up and begun loading stuff into their van and carting it away, from books, china and all kinds of knick-knacks all the way up to furniture. None of it was worth all that much on its own, though combined it apparently fetched a pretty penny. Julian was still of the opinion that Alison should take his advice and give betting on the horse races a chance. However, she staunchly refused. Hmph, her loss...

On the first day the ghosts had been quite interested in the proceedings, following Alison or Mike around as they showed the workers what they could take (and making sure it was nothing not previously agreed upon), but the novelty had worn off quickly. Julian had found something else to do pretty early yesterday, and today it seemed everyone was scattered about the house as usual.

Seeing as Alison was currently talking to some Sight- and clueless strangers and thus in no position to acknowledge him, Julian thought it pertinent not to greet her. Then again... A sly grin snuck onto his face. “Morning!”, he said loudly and as cheerily as he could, then enjoyed watching Alison bite her tongue not to say it back. Her effort not to give him an angry glare sure was something, too!

Julian snickered, gave her a wink and stuck his tongue out before phasing through the wall to go around her and the other two and then down the stairs.

He could hear the others even before he saw them: “A tree felled by a storm! No no, a lighthouse!”, called out Thomas and “Oh! A pogo stick!” Kitty.

Julian stuck his head around the corner. The two were sitting on one of the sofas, Fanny and Pat with Humphrey's head in his lap on another, while the Captain jumped around on one leg between them. Looked ridiculous, really.

“A flamingo?”, Julian asked, walking towards them.

The Captain put his other leg down and said “Yes! Thank you!” even as Thomas exclaimed: “Come now, I almost had it!”

“Would you like to join us?”, Pat asked, ignoring the poet's indignation. “We could use someone to round out our team! No offence, Humphrey.”

The head raised his brows. “Oh, none taken.”

Julian shook his head. “Nah, I'll pass. Have any of you seen Robin?”

“He's out in the grounds, I believe”, said the Captain, sitting back down with creaking knees.

“Probably stalking all kinds of vermin again”, Fanny added with an eye-roll.

“Well, I'll be off then”, Julian stated, paying her no mind. He gave them all one last wave – “See ya!” – and, forgoing living corridors, went straight through the wall towards the garden.

~

Once the Captain had finished recounting Julian's words, everyone (bar Mike) turned to Robin, still stood near the doorway.

“Well, what'd he say when you saw him, mate?”, Pat wanted to know.

It took a long moment before Robin shook his head, and Alison noted his distant, almost vacant gaze. “Doesn' matter.”

“What are you talking about?”, Pat laughed.“'course it does!” And the Captain added: “This could be pertinent information-”

“No!”, Robin cut him off. “You no understand! Was yesterday!” He held his empty hands out and went on more quietly: “No seen him all today.”

A shocked silence fell over the room at that.

“You mean... he did not find you?”, Thomas eventually prompted, voice very soft.

Robin again shook his head, quite furiously, lips pressed into a thin line.

The thought that he may be holding back tears crossed Alison's mind, but it seemed so unlike Robin that she dismissed it. She nearly jumped when someone tapped her arm. “God, Mike!”, she said, one hand over her heart.

“Sorry”, he replied. “Just, err... What's going on?”

Alison took a calming breath before explaining: “Julian said he'd find Robin this morning, except Robin hasn't seen him all day. And now we... we don't really have any idea where he is.” Her voice grew quieter as she said this, trailing off into a whisper.

The tense, helpless silence from before returned, stronger almost, as if her words had made it more oppressive.

It was Kitty who finally broke the spell: “Well, we have to go look for him, then!”, she said decisively.

The room sprang into action at that. “Quite right, Katherine!”, the Captain agreed and Robin was off with “Me go check grounds” before anyone could react. All the ghosts who had still been sitting were up within a moment. “Right”, the Captain said, looking at the spot where Robin had disappeared. “The grounds are too large for one person to search! Pat, go after him. I'll join you ASAP.”

Pat gave a salute with one hand, still holding Humphrey with the other. “Got it, Cap!” And he, too, disappeared through the closed door.

The Captain nodded, turning to his remaining troops. “Katherine: Comb the attic! Fanny: the upper floor, including this wing – only in case Robin missed anything. And Thomas-”

“I shall turn the ground floor upside down!”, Thomas asserted. “Leave no stone unturned! Well, figuratively speaking.”

“Splendid! We will reconvene here at- um...” The Captain turned to Alison, brows raised.

She hastily fished her phone out of her pocket. “It's, err... about half past eight now.”

He nodded gratefully. “-reconvene here at 2200 hours to share preliminary results. If one of you finds him, bring him here and wait. Alright, everyone, move out!”

“Wait!”, Alison stopped them. “What do I do?”

The Captain cleared his throat awkwardly, rocking on his heels. “Now, Alison... It... It is perhaps not prudent for a lady in your condition...”

Alison let out an incredulous laugh at that and got up. “What?! You don't seriously think that just because I'm pregnant, I'll be sitting around here waiting for you? I would drive myself crazy!” She directed a glare at Fanny when it looked like she was about to agree with the Captain, shutting her up.

“She can come with me!”, Kitty piped up. “I'll take good care of her!”

“You are also free to accompany me, of course”, Thomas added with a small bow. “I should make sure no harm befalls you or the wee bairn.”

Alison took a deep breath. “I think I'll go with Kitty.”

“Go where?!”, Mike asked. “Ali, what's going on?”

She turned to him.

He looked like this had not been his first time asking this in the last few minutes.

“Sorry”, she apologised. “Um- Captain's organised a search for Julian. Kitty and I'll look in the attic.”

“Oh”, Mike said. “Yeah, okay. Anything I can do to help?” At the look Alison gave him at that, he went on: “I, I know I can't see him, but- Julian's the one who's interacted with me the most. And, and I know that's just because you guys can't!”, he said in vaguely the direction his wife had been speaking, shrugging apologetically. “But, I mean... He's my mate. I wanna do something.”

Alison's heart melted at the earnest look in his eyes. She chewed her lip thoughtfully. Her gaze happened to wander out of the window... “Oh!”, she exclaimed. “I know! You can go through the house and turn all the lights on! It'll be dark out soon and that'd really help the ghosts.”

“Oh, yes! How clever”, Kitty exclaimed and clapped her hands. “Good thinking, Alison!”, the Captain praised her. “The brightest of minds shines through once again”, Thomas lauded and Fanny sniffed: “Well, of course! She's a Button, after all.”

Alison could not help rolling her eyes at her ghosts – good-naturedly, though. “Thanks, guys. Oh! And-”– she turned back to Mike – “-find a torch and go outside once you're done, yeah? Some of them are searching out there.”

“That would be a tremendous help, Michael”, the Captain said despite Mike being unable to hear him.

Alison nodded at him, then turned back to her husband. “Captain's gonna accompany you. Pat and Robin are out there, too; you might encounter them.”

“Okay.” Mike took her hands and lightly squeezed them. “Think Robin can do the morse code thing on the torch?”

Alison exchanged a look with the Captain. “Cap's gonna ask if you come across him. Keep your phone unlocked, yeah? Open the notes app or something; give Julian a way to let you know if you find him.”

Mike nodded. “Will do. Take care, yeah?”

“You, too.” Alison gave him a quick kiss, then turned to the ghosts. “Come on! Let's go.”

~

Earlier that day…

Julian took a deep breath he didn't need walking through grass he didn't touch. There were times when the lack of foot prints he left behind still bothered him, but today he paid it no mind. Instead he concentrated on the world around him: It was a beautiful day, really, sunny with a bright blue sky and occasional fleecy clouds. The wind swayed the trees in the distance.

Julian could not feel that either, of course, but watching the leaves move about he could almost pretend. And when he held out his hand and focused hard enough...

He sighed at the sensation of air against his skin. Sometimes, deep down, he pitied the others, unable to experience even something as small as this. Then his arm began to cramp up and he shook it out, forgetting all about pity.

Now, where would Robin be... Probably in the woods somewhere, if he was truly “stalking vermin”, as Fanny had put it. His caveman friend did like to keep tabs on the estate's woodland creatures, and Julian enjoyed hearing about them, if he was honest. At times the tales Robin had to tell were better than any soap. Julian would look in the woods, then.

No sooner had he taken a step towards the trees, however, than he was yanked backwards by a tremendous force, pulling him clear across the grounds. Julian found himself thinking that this had to be what the upswing after a bungee-jump felt like. The world flew by so fast it became a blur until he was swallowed by darkness and made impact against something hard. After this “flight”, he thought he should have skidded across the ground; instead he came to an immediate standstill. The lack of inertia was so shocking, it took Julian a second to scream.

Not that it helped him when he did: His surroundings remained quiet and dark. The only thing Julian could hear were his own unnecessary and much too fast breaths.

What had that been?!? Where was he? He felt around himself, but there seemed to be no confines except for the floor – only emptiness. Julian's heart sped up uselessly, beating with almost painful ferocity. Not for the first time since his death he wondered if it was possible for a ghost to suffer a heart attack.

Oh-! Oh no! What if that was what getting sucked off felt like?! No, no, there'd been no bright light, the others said there always was. He'd seen it happen to Mary. But what if-? What if there was more than one afterlife? After-afterlife. What if not everyone got to go towards heaven? Oh god, what if this was hell??? Eternal lightless silence and loneliness? Julian felt himself begin to shake. Surely, surely one of the others would have seen someone go the other way, then? Robin, at the least. Robin would have told him. But what if he never had seen it!? What if Julian was so uniquely awful he was the first one this happened to on the Button House grounds? He wouldn't even be surprised.

With a whimper, Julian put his head on the floor and his arms over it. He wanted to not be here, to wake up from this as he would from a nightmare.

Over time, Julian's breathing and heart slowed back down, out of exhaustion more than calm. He let himself fall onto his side, too tired to even tremble anymore, too tired to think.

Lying there motionless, he noticed his environment wasn't as silent and still as he had first assumed. There was a low rumbling, rushing sound that felt awfully familiar, but that he couldn't quite place. And the floor under him seemed to be... vibrating? What was up with that?

After a few more minutes of rest, Julian sat up. He swiped his hand across the ground below him. He could tell it was hard, solid, but it lacked any definition. It felt just how floors felt when you were a ghost. Julian remembered how it had agitated him in the first days after his death that they didn't all simply fall through to Button House's basement. He'd spent a lot of time touching the floors then.

That gave him an idea. Puffing up his cheeks and gritting his teeth, he concentrated on just one finger, willing it to be tangible. And really: Now the floor had texture, little ribbed bumps in an even sort of pattern, feeling cool, almost... metallic? Julian released his breath. Still a ghost, then, wherever he was. Oh...

Julian slapped a hand against his forehead. Duh! Of course he couldn't feel anything around him! He was bloody incorporeal! Ugh, thank goodness no one had seen him like this. That was so fucking stupid, it was embarrassing.

Concentrating on his finger once more, he slowly moved it about the space around him, trying to see if he could find anything that way. Oh, oh yes, there was something, and that was... wood? Wood, maybe. Not like a tree though, more polished, like... furniture. Julian carefully followed the contours of it. It had a flat surface, then... a straight drop, a horizontal sort of groove, and then... more metal? A small object, carved with... something too hard to recognise with just one finger, and round, knob-like. Then his power fizzled out and his hand went straight through the thing. Julian sighed in frustration. Bloody strange place...

Turning his head to the side, he spotted a sliver of light. Huh. Had that been there all along?

Julian got up, legs a little shaky, though that felt more like it came from the environment than his own muscles. He staggered towards the light – a vertical strip a little higher than he was tall. Slowly, cautiously, he extended his hand towards it and... it went through. Julian swallowed. He pulled his hand back, flexed it, took it in his other. Alright, still there, still whole and not in pain or anything. This should be safe, then. Probably.

Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, Julian stuck his head through. The world around him seemed brighter suddenly and the rushing sound got louder, but other than that nothing changed. Julian hesitantly opened his eyes, and what he saw was...

Oh. Oh! Was that a road? It looked just like one, black tarmac speeding by below him. So that'd mean he was in a-

Julian twisted around as far as he could without pulling his head back, and yes, he found himself facing the double doors of a van. Wait a minute...

Julian took a step back, then one to the side so he could stick his head through another of the vehicle's walls. And really, out there was a logo that said...

“Oh, of fucking course it does!”

With a disgruntled huff, Julian stalked to the front of the car, all the way into the driver's cabin. As expected, there, in the driver's and passenger's seats, sat the two berks from the antiques shop.

“Hey!”, he barked at them. “Stowaway here! Turn around!”

This, also as expected, got him no reaction.

Julian sighed. Well, knowing people like Alison existed, he'd at least had to try. It'd probably have been too easy, though – the universe had a sick sense of humour, in his experience.

So direct communication wasn't an option; how else could he get them to do what he wanted? Julian contemplated reaching for the steering wheel, but no, he wanted them to turn around, not crash and join him in death. He decided to go for something a little less disruptive: He turned the knob on the radio, changing the station.

“Jenny!”, the driver exclaimed. “I was list'nin' to that!”

“'t wasn't me!”, "Jenny" replied. “I didn' touch it! Bloody thing must be faulty.” She turned the knob back.

Julian snickered, waited a few moments and changed the station again.

Unfortunately this caused the driver to swerve to the side of the road and stop so suddenly that Julian fell forward and right through him. He retched.

“What's wrong with this knob?”, the driver asked, fiddling with it and slapping the dashboard.

“What's wrong with you, knob!”, Julian replied, getting back up and needlessly dusting himself off. “Seriously, some people...”

He went back to the rear. Clearly there was no assistance to be found with these two. He'd have to find the way back to Button House on his own, then.

But by the time Julian stuck his head out of the van once more, they were already on the road again, and some of his courage left him. Dead or not, jumping out of a moving car was not an especially appealing prospect.

“Keep cool, Fawcett”, Julian told himself, “you're a ghost! Nothing can hurt you!” He swallowed. “Or, well, nothing can do you lasting harm, at any rate.” Taking one last unnecessary deep breath, he stepped out of the van.

Before his foot could touch the ground, though, an invisible force turned him around, making him go back in the direction he had come from, effectively taking a step into the van. Julian blinked. That had not been an unfamiliar sensation. Quite the opposite, actually: He'd felt it literally a hundred times on the night of his death.

“Oh no.”

Chapter Text

Julian screwed his eyes shut. It was dark in the back of the van, but somehow not dark enough. Or maybe it was the hard floor he was lying on that prevented him from sleeping. He could still feel the rumble from the motor.

Julian sighed. He didn't know exactly how long they'd been on the road by now. A few hours, surely. He'd given up trying to get out of the van pretty early into their journey. Having learned since the night he died, he only gave it two more attempts straight after the first one – nothing changed, of course. He'd tried one more time, just to be sure, while the van was stopped at a light. To his amazement he had actually managed to put both feet on the asphalt then. He'd gotten two steps away when the light changed, the van moved and he'd been dragged back in. So much for that, then.

He'd contented himself with sticking his head out through the wall after, watching the countryside go by and feeling uncomfortably like a dog. He knew they'd gone into London, probably towards wherever they were selling these "antiques" (junk), and he'd grown bored with the outside world around then.

It was strange, he knew – he'd been stuck at the same house for three decades, any new sights should be exciting. And maybe five years ago they would have been, Julian reckoned. But then Mike and Alison had moved in and brought with them TV and the internet and Goggle Street View, and everything felt less as if he hadn't been here in thirty years. It was also so loud and bright and busy, high-rises looming as if they were about to fall down and crush him. It hadn't been like this when he was alive! Had it? Surely not. The world had just gotten worse since he'd lived in it, of course it had.

Julian also still did not understand what had happened to him, and he could not help turning it over in his head. By dying at Button House his... soul...? ...he'd gotten tethered to the place somehow, and alright, that made sense. Well, at least after a few years, it had begun to. There was not a chance of leaving, and Julian had hated it, but he'd also grown used to it. Made his peace with it.

And now he was out here, in this car?? Why?! Why, why, why!?! None of it made any sense! No matter how Julian wracked his brain, he could come up with no satisfactory explanation for what was going on. His place of death hadn't changed suddenly, certainly not to a dirty white delivery van, and he'd done nothing special or unusual! It had been a perfectly ordinary day, and then... out of the blue...
And now he was here, being dragged away from what he'd been led to believe would be his eternal resting place, and the more he thought about it the faster and more achingly his stupid, spectral heart beat. He was angry, that had to be it. Thoroughly furious. At the others for lying to him, at the two berks in the driver's cabin who didn't even realise they were taking him away, at himself for getting so ridiculously worked up about it! Julian released a long breath. So he'd tried to push it from his mind. So he'd stopped looking out, where everything reminded him something wasn't right.

At least in here, he could forget. At least in here, he could pretend: Pretend he was in his own room, in his own bed, the house quiet and dark and familiar around him. A serene summer night, like hundreds he'd had before. Maybe Moonah would be shining in through his window. Maybe Robin would drag him out onto the lawn, ignoring his protests, so they could hunt fireflies that were completely unaware of their presence, anyway. Maybe they'd collapse into the grass with laughter, and they'd share that look, and-

A loud SLAM startled Julian awake. Sitting bolt upright, he blinked into a blinding light. After a few seconds of adjustment, the interior of the van swam back into view. The back doors were open now, both his "kidnappers" standing beyond them.

The man climbed in and Julian had just enough time to roll out of the way before he literally walked into him. He huffed as the berk began pushing a dresser towards his colleague. Unloading? That had to mean they'd reached their destination. Huh. Might as well have a look around, then!

Julian got out of the van through the wall – being a ghost had its perks, after all – and ended up standing on a dirt floor. He bounced on his feet a few times, took a step here, a step there. Nothing stopped him. Alright, so that worked! At least until they started driving again, but that'd probably be a while with all the stuff they had to get out. Julian looked up.

The sight that greeted him would have well deserved the name ‘car cemetery’: There were vehicles of all kinds of makes and in various states of assembly – some propped up on breeze blocks missing their wheels, others lacking the engine or with stripped-bare interiors. A few must have been made after his death, others he recognised from his lifetime and a handful would have been considered vintage even then; now they basically screamed ‘should have been sent to the scrap heap years ago’.

Julian pulled a face. This was how these people made their money? Boy, did he ever not want to be here.

He wandered towards the back of the van. A set of garden furniture was arranged a bit behind it – if it could even be called a set, it was clearly not matching, nor new. But that was to be expected from an antiques shop, Julian supposed.

He rounded the van to get a better view of the building behind it. A storehouse, apparently, stretching from near the front of the lot all the way to the back, two storeys high, with some sort of balcony facing the street, perhaps? He'd have to go closer to be certain.

The wall right opposite Julian was taken up by a gigantic version of the “Smith & Smith's Antiques” logo. It was the same as the one on the overalls and van, except this one had evidently been spray-painted on. God, they hadn't paid someone for this graffiti, had they?

Julian's attention was so taken up by this eyesore of a company sign that it took him a moment to notice the small figure standing in front of it: A petite young woman in a long blue dress, jet black hair gently curled, a round pair of glasses adorning an Asian-looking face.

The two of them locked eyes and with a squeak she disappeared through the wall.

“Oh, great! Company.”

Julian shook his head. He was in no mood to meet the locals, especially not if the mere sight of him sent them running. Instead of chasing after her, he wandered over to the fence marking the edge of the lot: Regular chain link, not too sturdy, though with a length of barbed wire curled on top. Did people actually try to break into this place? Why would they climb the fence then; it looked almost as if you could walk right through (even if you weren't dead). Maybe the people running this dump were just stupid. (Not an unlikely theory, in Julian's opinion.)

The van had entered through a gate – also chain link, except movable. A thick metal chain was wound around one side of it, with a heavy padlock on it. Julian was a bit curious if there was truly anything worth this level of protection here or if (as he suspected) it was all sentimental junk. He gave the storehouse a glance. However...

The gate was open. The street lay beyond it, right there. And he may have learned since his death, but he had not grown completely hopeless. Maybe... he could go...

Admittedly, Julian felt surprised once he actually stood on the pavement. Then, though, he grinned. Vindication! He took a further step into the street. No force grabbed him and turned him around. Maybe... maybe he could walk back from here. Maybe something had severed his ties-

“Don't bother”, said a gruff voice behind him. “We can only go as far as the fence extends.”

~

The next morning, at Button House...

Alison yawned, trudging towards the kitchen. She hadn't slept much. They'd stayed up past midnight searching for Julian, all of them out in the grounds once it became clear he was nowhere in the house. Thomas had even gotten the plague ghosts to help, but... not a sign of their Tory.

In the end everyone except for Robin, who they couldn't convince to come inside, had gathered in the kitchen and they'd agreed to go to bed and check if Julian had turned up in the morning.

Alison had gone past his room not five minutes ago. Her hand had hovered over the handle for long moments, but she'd ultimately turned away without looking inside. If he was in there, it could only have been for a few hours and she'd let him get his sleep. And if he wasn't... She swallowed. If he wasn't there, she didn't want to know – not before breakfast, at least.

She opened the door to the kitchen and slipped inside. “Oh”, she said after turning on the light, “morning, Humphrey.”

The head on the table let out a startled snore. “Huh? Oh. Morning, Alison.” He yawned. “It's morning?”

“Might as well be”, Alison replied, grabbing a bowl and a box of cereal. “The little one woke me up and, well, what's the use of going back to bed when you can't sleep anyway?”

“Ah.” Humphrey raised his brows in lieu of shrugging. “Makes enough sense.”

“Yup!” Alison poured the milk, got a spoon from the drawer and then sat down where Humphrey could see her. “Have you been here all night?”

“Have indeed!”, he replied. “Kind of got forgotten when you lot went off to bed.”

“Oh, Humphrey! I'm sorry!”

“Eh, it's no big deal. I've had worse. At least it's not the floor!”

“Still.” Alison shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I wish I could help more. If I could pick you up...”

“Probably better that you can't, seeing as that would mean that you're dead!” He laughed after saying this, but trailed off seeing her facial expression and cleared his throat. “Sorry.”

Alison merely nodded and began eating her breakfast. Or she tried to. The spoonful of milk and cereal didn't seem at all appetising, so she mostly ended up stirring the contents of her bowl around.

Eventually Humphrey quietly asked: “Has he turned up?”

Alison looked at him, then away again. She did not need him to elaborate. She took a deep breath and shrugged. “Don't know!”, she said, trying to disguise how thick her voice sounded around the lump in her throat. “Couldn't... couldn't bring myself to check.” She heard Humphrey hum in response.

“That's not a problem I have, at least”, he said earnestly.

It suddenly hit Alison how dependent he was on all of them not just for moving around, but for information. “Oh, Humphrey, I'm so sorry! I should have-”

“No, no!”, he interrupted her. “No need to go out of your way for ol' me!” He sounded like he meant it. “Honestly... I'm just glad I'm not only finding out after the "funeral" this time.”

“Mary. Right!” A fresh wave of guilt washed over Alison, and she dropped her spoon and pushed the bowl away.

She didn't know how long she spent sitting in silence with Humphrey while the sun slowly rose outside. At some point the familiar scream that had woken her on every morning in this house sounded.

A few minutes later Fanny joined them. She sat in one of the chairs Alison and Mike had pulled out from the table last night and not bothered putting back.

They exchanged no words beyond quiet greetings – not even Alison's poor enunciation elicited a comment from Fanny, something along the lines of: “A lady doesn't mumble!”

Alison wasn't sure if she should be glad or if she missed it.

One by one, some of the others showed up: Pat, Thomas, Kitty, all of them similarly subdued. None of them could break the silence for good.

When she couldn't stand it anymore, Alison cleared her throat. The lump she felt remained. Hoarsely, she asked: “Has anyone looked in Julian's-?”

Heads were shaken around the table before she could finish her question – none of them had. They must have felt just as trepidatious as her. Alison could not blame them.

When the Captain entered the kitchen, all eyes were on him. Surely he would have checked if his lost soldier had returned.

The Captain halted at everyone's gazes. He cleared his throat, looking away, and bounced on his heels.

“Is he-?”, Pat gently asked.

The Captain cleared his throat once more, slowly taking a seat before he shook his head. “Still MIA.”

All around the table, faces fell. The same thought seemed to be going through everyone's heads: If he wasn't here now, then...

The worry had been there last night, the obvious explanation, unspoken. Button House's grounds were big, certainly big enough to hide even from 20 people searching, but that wasn't like Julian – not with nothing in it for him. Not when it meant missing something he liked so much he constantly tried wheedling it out of the others. That had been easy enough to ignore in the dark, to push away. Now, in the morning light, it was looming over them ever stronger, suffocating. If he wasn't here, he wouldn't be coming back, would he?

Alison found herself stifling a sob.

Next to her, Kitty failed to do the same.

Thomas patted her back, pulling a handkerchief out from somewhere and handing it to her.

Alison looked away. Seeing Kitty cry did nothing to help her hold back her own tears. She didn't know if it was the pregnancy hormones or if she was honestly crying over Julian Fawcett. Julian, of all people! Lying, cheating Tory bastard whose favorite activity often seemed to be annoying the whole house to no end. In her first year of living here she would have been glad to be rid of him. That was true for all of them to some extent, but none more than Julian. Raunchy, with no filter, always out for his own gain with no consideration for others. Why did the idea of never seeing him again hurt so much?

Because that wasn't all there was to him, was it? He cared about all of them, in his own way, even if he was loathe to admit it. He pretended to be cold and selfish, but he'd told her things she could do for the others when they were refusing to come to her a number of times, not asking for so much as a “thank you”. He messed around with Mike while he worked, but he was also the reason they had the good introductory video on their website, and he'd even netted him a promotion (albeit inadvertently). He made a big fuss every time one of the ghosts asked him to use his power, but he still flipped pages, turned on the TV or pressed play on a song, and more often than not lately said nothing when he spent another evening massaging his hand.

Alison leaned her head back, closing her eyes and quietly letting the tears roll down her cheeks. She didn't want yesterday to have been the last time she ever saw Julian. She wanted someone to take morally dubious advice from, she wanted a ghost who knew better to address her in living company just to annoy her, she wanted someone to gossip about Barclay Beg-Chetwynde and company with, she wanted to find Mike in front of the laptop sometimes, talking animatedly while keys, to him, moved on their own. She wanted her baby to meet their Uncle Julian. He couldn't be gone.

~

Julian turned around.

A stout, balding man in some sort of dress with a leather belt stood at the entrance to the lot, the Asian girl a bit behind and another woman beside him. She was pretty sexy, with long brown curls and a burgundy trouser suit, holding a half smoked cigarette. She looked distinctly bored, though.

“And you are...?”, Julian asked, unable to keep a hint of disdain out of his voice.

The man remained unperturbed. “My name's Hugh”, he said. “And these are Susan” – Asian – “and Marjorie.” – trouser suit.

Asian Girl waved shyly while Trouser Suit merely raised one eyebrow at him.

“Welcome-”, Hugh continued, “-to Smith & Smith's Antiques!” He held both arms out.

Julian was not impressed. “Uh-huh.” He did not bother introducing himself.

This, too, did not seem to faze Hugh. “It's alright”, he said. “It's perfectly normal to be a bit disoriented.” He threw a look at the berks still unloading the van. “Did these two part you from your family?”

This made Julian frown. “I didn't die at home.”

“Your ghost family, silly!”, Asian Girl said, then immediately gasped and clamped a hand over her mouth.

Carrying on as if nothing about that were at all unusual, Hugh nodded in agreement. “Most people grow quite attached to the ghosts in their place of death. Or is this not your first move?”

Julian gaped at him. Attach-? Move?!? He raised his hands to gesture. “Look, I'll level with ya, I have no idea how I got here but as soon as I find out, I'll be out of here, so there's really no use in me telling you things about myself!” Half under his breath, he muttered: “Or hearing about you...”

Hugh and Asian Girl exchanged a significant glance at that, whispering something to each other.

Trouser Suit exhaled a great plume of smoke, having taken a drag from her cig. “Oh, wonderful!”, she sighed. “An ignoramus!”

“Excuse me?!” Julian bristled.

She took another drag and flicked some ash at the ground. “You're here because you were sold, dipstick!”

Julian opened and closed his mouth several times, stuttering incoherently. How dare she insult him like this?!

Before he managed a proper reply, Hugh intervened: “Not you specifically! The object you're bound to.”

That made Julian stop. “The what I'm what?”

“You know”, Hugh said, “what you got entangled with at death? The thing your spectral form is tied to? Wherever it is, you are?”

Julian stared for a moment, dumbfounded. Then he began to laugh, holding his hands out. “No, no! You can't fool me! Ghosts are bound to places, not things!”

Trouser Suit rolled her eyes so hard they nearly disappeared into the back of her head while Hugh conceded: “Some are! I am. Others, though, such as these ladies and you-” – he indicated his companions, then Julian – “-are, in fact, bound to objects. You're a bit more free to move about.”

Julian scrutinised him, searching for any sign of a lie and coming up empty. He shook his head. “Why-”, he asked, laughing with a twinge of desperation this time, “-why have I never left the place where I died at any point in the last 30 years then, huh?! You explain that! 'cause believe you me, it was not for lack of trying!”

Hugh shrugged. “That's nothing too unusual, actually. Where did you die?”

Julian deflated a bit at his calm. “A country house in Hertfordshire.”

“Let me guess”, asked Trouser Suit waspishly. “It changed owners recently?”

“A few years ago”, Julian admitted, subdued.

“And they've been selling some stuff?”, she went on, gesturing to the van.

Julian looked from her to it, to Asian Girl, to Hugh and back to the van. It made sense, much as he hated that. His chest hurt. “What-” – he shook his head, trying to regain some composure – “-what object would I even be bound to?”

“I'm afraid you'll have to tell us that, lad”, Hugh replied. “It's quite individual, there isn't always sense to it. It could be something you had on you, something that happened to be near you... Some unfortunate souls end up bound to their own remains, but I'm rather certain that is not the case for you.” He glanced at the van.

Julian cleared his throat. “Yeah, no, I- I was cremated years ago.” And oh, what a strange sentence that was to speak out loud. “So, what, it could be literally anything?”

Hugh shrugged, holding his hands out. “There's a wide range of options, yes. Though for many ghosts it is what killed them, I'm sad to say. Quite upsetting.”

Asian Girl nodded vigorously at that. “How did you die?”, she asked excitedly, then gasped and hid behind Hugh – a somewhat fruitless endeavour, seeing as she was taller than him.

Julian pulled at his collar – this was not a question he particularly wished to discuss with three strangers.

Before he could come up with any sort of answer, whether true or not, Trouser Suit snickered evilly. “Come on, Su, can't you guess? Take one look at him!” She eyed him top to bottom, gaze lingering on his legs.

Julian felt uncomfortably, acutely aware that he was half-naked suddenly. At Button House he often forgot – everybody knew, it was rarely made mention of. It hadn't occurred to him to be embarrassed about meeting new people in his improper state of dress. Now, though, with this bitch openly staring and laughing, his face flushed hot.

“Go on, guess!”, Trouser Suit went on, elbowing her friend who at least had the decency to look away. “What activity would a man need to lose his trousers for? And considering the rest of his attire...” She looked Julian straight in the eye, smile cloyingly sweet. “I would wager you were right in the middle of it, too, huh?”

“It was a heart attack, if you must know!”, Julian finally exploded, infuriatingly sending her into a laughing fit. “Though I don't see how it's any of your business! That's a very personal matter!” He turned away, adjusting his tie.

“You're right, it is”, Hugh agreed and leveled a glare at the woman doubled over next to him. “And I would like to apologise for the behaviour of my friend here.”

“Oh, come off it!”, she chided him. “You don't get to apologise for me! I'm not sorry.”

“Marj, stop antagonising the newcomer!”

“You stop coddling him! Come on, he's clearly a prick! Won't even introduce himself.”

Before Julian could comment on his prickishness (or lack thereof) Hugh turned back to him.

“Ignore her”, he said with a dismissive wave. “She doesn't like... anyone.”

“Maybe not”, the bitch said, looking back towards the van. “But at least I have a pretty good idea what Mr I-died-fucking over there-” – this drew two gasps, one indignant from Julian, one scandalised from Asian Girl – “-is bound to.”

Curiosity beat out anger and Julian followed her gaze to where the two berks were pulling something out of the van, namely- oh. Oh no. Internally, he had to laugh, desperately. No! There was no way, no fucking way this was happening to him, no!! It wasn't funny, it wasn't fair, it was utterly revolting! How, after 30 years, did he deserve this?!

He'd known Alison sold it, of course, he'd been there with everyone else when she asked about it. The more perceptive ones among the others had given him significant looks, but he'd kept his mouth shut. He'd been privately glad to be rid of it. And now he was being told he was tied to this forever, linked intrinsically, unable to ever get away from it?!

Julian screamed.

It was a bed.

~

“He back yet?”

Alison startled. She hadn't heard Robin come in.

He stood in front of one of the outer walls, looking utterly exhausted. God, had he been out all night?!

No one answered his question for a few long moments, as if no one wanted to be the one to say it.

It was the Captain who eventually replied: “Afraid not, Robin.” More quietly, he added: “I'm sorry.”

Robin simply grunted. “Gotta keep looking, then.”

The discomfort that enveloped the room was nearly palpable. Alison could not bring herself to look Robin in the eye, and from what she could see the others felt much the same.

“Robin”, Fanny finally spoke, still not looking at him, “I... I am sorry to say this, but I'm afraid that would do no good.”

Robin stared at her. “What you mean?”

Fanny sighed. “It... It might be time to accept that... Julian, he... He- Oh, he isn't going to return, now is he?”

Robin staggered back a step. “No, he will! Got to be somewhere.” He scanned the room. “You... all agree with her, do you?”

Cautiously, Alison nodded, just like everyone around her.

“It's got to have happened before, don't it?”, Pat asked. “Someone getting sucked off without any witnesses? I reckon we were lucky most of us were there for Mary's.”

Robin shook his head, almost whispering: “No. Not he. Got to be somewhere. Gotta look.” The light above the table flickered.

It was the Captain's turn to sigh. “Robin, you... won't be able to find him where he is now.”

Robin was shaking his head incessantly, mumbling: “No, no, no, no. Got to look, can't give up...”

Pat got up and walked over to him. “Rob, mate...” He tried to put a hand on his arm, an act that Robin answered with a yell of “NO!” and a slap to Pat's face, drawing shocked gasps from the room. The scoutmaster was thrown to the side, and when he turned back to them, hissing and gingerly touching his face, there were four bleeding streaks on his cheek.

“Good god, man!”, the Captain exclaimed, also getting up and putting a hand protectively on Pat's shoulder. “What's gotten into you?!”

“What got into YOU!”, Robin retorted. “Know you no like him, but that no reason to give him up!” The light was flickering wildly now.

“Give him up?!”, the Captain repeated, gripping his swagger stick so tightly his knuckles were going white. “What, you don't think I'd rather he were here, too?!”

Robin glared. “Not so sure right now!”

“Well, I would! Of course I would!”

“Then why you no look?!”

“Because I recognise a futile mission when I see one!”

That set Robin off. With an animalistic growl, he lunged at the Captain, tackling him to the ground.

Everyone else jumped. Pat immediately tried to pull Robin off of Cap, with little success. Fanny grabbed Humphrey's head from the table and retreated to the other side of the room. Thomas stepped in front of Alison, making shooing motions at her, before trying to also get a hold of Robin. Alison stumbled back, joining Fanny, and Kitty positioned herself in front of her, doing her best to shield her from the fight.

Captain and Robin were both yelling, not all of it intelligible, rolling through the furniture across the floor. Thomas and Pat were trying in vain to get between them to pry them apart. Eventually they resorted to hanging on to Robin simply to hold him still, since they couldn't free Cap from his grasp. The caveman was bucking like anything, nearly succeeding in throwing them off.

“WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”, the Captain demanded, pushing and kicking at him.

“NOT HE!”, Robin replied, or shouted since it didn't seem to be much of a reply at all. “Can't be! Why it have to be him?! Why now!?! Why ALONE??? It no FAIR!!!” On the last word, the kitchen lamp exploded.

“WELL, LIFE'S NOT FAIR, IS IT!?”, Thomas retorted at a volume that made Robin finally freeze. “Death!”, Thomas immediately corrected himself. All eyes were on him now. He hardly seemed to notice. “People leave you!”, he continued, “whether of their own volition or not, and there's NOTHING either of you can do to stop it! So you simply must keep going, because getting hung up on them won't help anyone!” His eyes shone with tears, if of grief or passion Alison didn't know. “And how DARE you suggest we do not care about him?! HOW DARE YOU, when there are ladies present literally crying?” He gestured at her and Kitty. “We miss him also, you hear me? We do! I do!” He took a hiccuping breath and addressed the room at large: “Yes, you heard that right! I miss him! It has been but one day and I miss him. And it's foolish, for he was crass and vulgar and a wanton dog, yet this house will feel emptier without him!” Thomas blinked and some of his tears spilled over. “I know he meant a great deal to you”, he said to Robin, “and you to him. And I am sorry for your loss, truly I am! But you at least got to be with him for a while. You at least have happy memories to look back on, which is more than many of us can say!” He sat back, evidently worn out by his speech.

For a moment, nobody said anything. Nobody moved either. One could have heard a pin drop.

Then Robin threw his head back and released a guttural sound not unlike a howl. Alison feared he might return to fighting the Captain, but no; instead Robin hid his face in the man's chest, gasping and shaking. He was sobbing. It broke Alison's heart.

The Captain appeared distinctly uncomfortable, casting his gaze about the room wide-eyed as if asking for help. He attempted once more to push Robin off of him, to no avail. Eventually he gave up and awkwardly put an arm around Robin's shoulder.

Pat joined him, rubbing the caveman's back, bloody cheek long reset and forgiven. “That's it, buddy, just let it all out, there you go...”

Beside Alison, Kitty began to weep once more. Thomas, too, was rubbing at his eyes.

Just then, the door opened and a yawning Mike walked in. “Mornin'”, he mumbled, then stopped short. “Woah!” He stared at the glass littering the kitchen table and floor – the remains of the light bulb. “What happened in here?! Ali?” His voice softened as he looked at his wife. “Hey, have you been crying?”

Alison looked at the scene around her: Glass shards all over, half her friends on the floor, all of them grappling with a grief whose cause Mike didn't even know yet. She'd have to tell him. She took a gasping breath – he would miss him, too. She'd have to organise a service, and comfort the others, get Robin to stop making that awful keening noise somehow, and, and... Oh, how was she ever going to fix this?!

Mike cautiously stepped up to her, putting a hand on her arm. “Ali?”

The dam she'd built up inside herself crumbled and Alison could no longer hold back the tears: She buried her head in her husband's chest and sobbed freely.

Mike wrapped his arms around her, stroking her back, mumbling: “Whoa, hey, it's alright! It's gonna be alright...”

“Nothing's alright!”, Alison thought, but she didn't have the energy to explain it yet. “Nothing's alright at all.”

Chapter Text

When the two berks carried the(/his) bed in through the storehouse doors, Julian decided he was done yelling at them. It wasn't particularly satisfying anyway, producing no reaction at all. He felt a strong itch to push something over.

“Feel better?”

Julian glared at Hugh.

He and the women had followed him, Hugh looking ever unfazed, Trouser Suit amused and Asian Girl intimidated. Had they nothing better to do?! Probably not, they were ghosts, after all.

“No, I do not!”, Julian snapped.

Hugh merely nodded. “You will in time”, he said. “Yell as much as you need to until then.”

That sentence alone was enough to immediately quell any urges Julian might have had of the sort. “Yell?” He laughed. “Who needs to yell? Not me, that's for certain! I'm calm! The picture of calm, even! Calmness personified!”

The other three exchanged significant glances. Trouser Suit indicated her forehead with a ‘he's a bit cuckoo’ gesture that made Julian seriously consider going back on what he'd just said, but before he could Hugh asked: “So, would you like the tour now?”

Julian shook his head. “I told you, I'm not staying long.”

“I'm afraid that's not in your hands, lad.”

Julian twisted his mouth. “Maybe not, but as soon as the others notice I'm gone, they'll send someone to pick me up!”

Trouser Suit laughed, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “How long have you been dead again? I'm not sure you've gotten the hang of how ghosts work yet.”

Julian resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at her. “I know perfectly well how ghosts work, thank you very much!” At least if you ignored the fact that he was still learning new things about being one even after all these years. Or that plenty of what he already knew still made no sense to him... At times the mere act of sitting in a chair gave him a strange, dizzy, sinking feeling. Or his power – he put it down to force of will, but he'd seen some of the others try just as hard and fail to touch anything, let alone move stuff. In truth, Julian didn't know what it was that let him do it. That thought was discomfiting, so he usually avoided it.

There was something he knew, though, that these three apparently didn't, going by the smug smirk on Trouser Suit's face. Well, he had a trump card to play that would wipe it right off of her. Julian put on his best smile. “I have living friends!”

Asian Girl let out a delighted little “Oh!” at that.

Trouser Suit merely chuckled. “Sure you do.”

“I do!”, Julian asserted, miffed that she didn't believe him. “The couple that owns the house we all died in.”

Trouser Suit took a drag from her cig, unimpressed. “Sounds like a very one-sided relationship.”

“Ah, you'd think so, wouldn't you?” Julian raised his hands to gesture the way he did when he had someone just where he wanted them in a debate. “But no! It isn't so. And do you know why?”

Three pairs of eyes were on him, one bored, two curious.

“Because” – Julian paused for a moment, letting the tension build – “the woman can see us.” He grinned triumphantly. Then, remembering marriage didn't have to be heterosexual these days, he added “The man can't, but, ya know, fine chap anyway, considering” for some clarification.

Irritatingly, Trouser Suit once again only laughed – a rough, grating sound, betraying the effect years of cigarette smoke had had on her vocal chords. Julian hated it.

“No, she can't!”, she stated. “That's impossible.” Still chuckling, she went to take another drag, but then her gaze fell on one of her companions. “Hugh?”, she asked, suddenly unsure, which Julian noted with satisfaction.

Hugh was looking off into the middle distance with a thoughtful expression. “Not impossible”, he finally said. “I've known someone who could – once.”

“You have?”, asked Asian Girl excitedly at the same time as Trouser Suit exclaimed: “WHAT?!?”

Hugh nodded. “Yes – when I wasn't very long dead yet.”

“Why did you never mention that?!”, Trouser Suit demanded to know.

“It's been more than 600 years!”, Hugh replied. “It just never came up!” At the incredulous glare Trouser Suit shot him, he added: “And- I've found it can make people focus too much on the living for something that seemed quite unlikely to repeat itself.”

Asian Girl shrugged and nodded as if that made sense to her, while Trouser Suit (literally) fumed.

Hugh turned his attention back to Julian. “Was she born with it?”, he asked.

“Huh??”

“The Sight. Did she always have it?”

“Oh!” Julian laughed. “Oh, no! When she first came to the house she was just as oblivious to us as anyone else. But then I-” He halted, looking at the three expectant faces before him. Perhaps revealing himself to them as a murderer – an almost murderer, really, his would-be victim was doing perfectly fine now, but nonetheless – would not be the best course of action. “I- erm...” Julian considered his words. “...saw... her... take a fall from a window.” He cleared his throat. “Yes. Nasty affair, that, nearly did her in. But a few weeks later she was back at the house, fit as a butcher's dog! Well, ya know, except for the neck brace, but eh, she got to take that off in time.” He shrugged.

“And she could see you then?”, Hugh asked.

“Sure could! See and hear. It was actually my humble self who first noticed.” Julian polished his fingernails on his jacket pretend-casually, revelling in their fascinated attention.

“What was it like?”, Asian Girl whispered. “Living with the living?”

“Eh, you know, it was rough at first”, Julian explained. “We didn't want them there, they didn't want us there, neither of us could leave – they'd taken out some loans, see, and if they'd left the house they'd have been on the streets. Teeerrible with money – cretins. Anyway!” He nodded. “Turns out having someone like Alison around is really not so bad! Someone who can, ya know, move things around for you, bring you news of the outside world, put a film on or buy you stuff you could only ever dream of before!” He snickered. “And we've reeeally grown on her by now – she even gets us Christmas presents!” He flashed his new acquaintances a smile.

“Whoa!”, breathed Asian Girl. “And she's going to come take you home?”

“Of course she is! Pff! As soon as they notice they got rid of me by accident, she'll turn up on these berks' doorstep and demand me back!”

“Oooh, lucky you.”

“Yeah!”, Trouser Suit agreed with her friend, though her tone was decidedly less sincere. She was glaring at Julian with a ferocity nearly as scorching as the cig she was holding. “Lucky. You!!!” She took a long drag, burning away the tobacco down to the filter, then exhaled a huge plume of smoke before she turned on her heel and stomped away through the wall.

Julian waved his arm through the air to clear it, coughing miserably.

The two next to him were no better off. Hugh even doubled over, his hands on his knees, gasping and retching. Finally he coughed up a small cloud of white powder.

Julian stared at him wide-eyed. Looking closer, he noticed that the same white powder was all over his clothes.

At that point, the smoke thankfully disappeared – presumably reset. Hugh straightened up, gulping down a deep breath. “God, I do wish she'd stop doing that!” Then, noticing Julian's expression, he smiled wryly. “Ah. Who'd've thought a bit of flour could kill you, eh?” He chuckled.

Julian nodded, still a tad intimidated. “Aha!”

Hugh wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Anyway... Would you like the tour now?”

Julian stared at him a moment more, then relaxed. “Eh. Why not? It's not like I've got anything better to do!”

~

The following day, at Button House…

Robin stared at the chessboard before him. “Horsey to- to...” Oh, it was no use! He'd lost track of the game again. When he blinked, everything went blurry. When he blinked once more, the pieces were back in their starting positions – unmoved as always.

He groaned in frustration. He was usually so good at picturing where everything was! He played chess in his head more effortlessly than many living played it in the physical world; why was he having such trouble?!

His vision blurred again. Robin blinked away the tears. He knew why, of course. He sighed.

After William got sucked off, he'd told himself he wouldn't get attached to anyone else ever again. Their inevitable passing hurt too much. Of course, at the next opportunity he'd imprinted so hard on Sophie Bone that her eventual departure felt nearly as awful. He hadn't dropped her husband's head somewhere to be forgotten after he'd explained, either. So, yeah. Robin had never been too good at following that particular rule, even though it was his own. Perhaps he missed his tribe too fiercely still.

He hadn't even intended to grow close to Julian, who had been nothing but disbelieving and rude after death. He'd watched each of the man's one hundred attempts to leave the grounds because that was genuinely hilarious! Had Robin still needed air to breathe, he might have collapsed from laughing so much. But after... When Julian stopped trying, when it had clearly begun to sink in that he was dead and stuck here, he had looked so lost. Of course Robin had locked arms with him and led him back to the house.

And when Julian had looked for a chess partner, Robin had volunteered. He knew first-hand that boredom could be one of the worst things about death, that it could drive one insane. He'd almost expected there would be a ghost someday who couldn't get much out of Pat's clubs and social pastimes. He'd known plenty in the past who would rather have hidden on the furthest edges of the estate than socialise in a group.

What he didn't know were the rules of the game. He'd seen it played before, of course – that board hadn't always been purely decorative. He'd just never bothered to learn it intimately. But he could! He could learn.

When he'd told Julian that, Robin had been prepared for a debate. A point had come long ago when new ghosts started expecting him to be simple – he looked and sounded so different from them, so unfamiliar and primitive, he couldn't possibly be just as clever as they were. The point when Robin stopped being insulted by this had also long passed. He only bothered actively correcting people when it mattered.

So Robin had been ready to convince Julian of his intellectual merits – to show him he could read and count and the multitude of languages he could speak; he could learn the little game with the funny wooden figures! But Julian had merely looked into his eyes for a long moment and then begun to teach him with no further argument.

Robin had been doing it to accommodate Julian and give him at least one familiar thing he wouldn't have to lose by dying here at Button House. He certainly hadn't foreseen how big a part of his own afterlife the game would become, to the point where he considered it his favourite sport. If his tribe had had a concept of organised sports, they'd have laughed at the fact that moving fancy little sticks across an 8x8 board was considered one, let alone Rogh's favourite.

So the start had been rough – Julian had beaten him nearly every time. But soon they'd begun matching each other, suffering losses and claiming victory in equal amounts, until Robin surpassed Julian and began winning most games. He'd taken unexpected joy in the activity, often being the one to propose it, even. Nowadays, with Alison around and Goggle at their disposal, he'd become something of an expert on the subject, knowing about chess tournaments, masters, variants and the entire history of the game. His interest went so far that Robin regularly played it by himself when no one else was interested, and he'd gotten rather good at it. He could picture the whole board and keep two completely separate strategies in mind.

Except today.

He just could not concentrate on a match because every time he tried to play, he thought of Julian. It was not really surprising. There were plenty of things past ghosts had introduced him to that still reminded Robin of them even all these years later, and he wouldn't have it any other way. He did not want to forget. He knew he'd eventually be able to play chess again without this ache in his ribcage and stinging at his eyes – but for now, it hurt. It hurt and it probably would for decades, if not centuries. Robin sighed and leaned his head back. What a pain that the thing that was best at distracting him was also such a profound reminder of what he was trying to distract himself from! Maybe he should stop trying. Maybe he should just... sit here and be dead.

He didn't get to do that for very long, though.

“Robin?”

He cracked open an eye to look at Alison and grunted in response.

She returned the look as if she expected more to come. But when he stayed silent, she finally said: “So, um... I've been working on Julian's memorial service – and, and I know that's not your thing! I know you've got your own rituals, I just- still wanted to ask you if you have an idea for something we could remember Julian by. An object I could put with the others.” She cleared her throat and folded her hands nervously.

Robin's gaze wandered from her down to the chessboard. It was obvious, wasn't it? At least to him it was. Of course Julian would be best symbolised by a chess piece. Robin considered telling Alison to take a pawn with her – one of them being missing would disrupt the game the least. But no. Julian would be insulted to be represented by something so lowly and commonplace! No, a chess piece on his memorial needed to befit him! Which one did, though?

Robin considered them: A rook, tall, broad-shouldered and straightforward, barely deterred by obstacles in its path? Or perhaps a knight, fickle and requiring a lot of thought to predict. A bishop, unconventional, yet always sticking to its colour. Or a queen, maybe. It would suit him – the most powerful piece on the board, able to do whatever she wants! Julian had a way with words that amazed Robin time and time again. He seemed to walk away from every deal a winner, even when the other party did not know a deal had occurred at all. And his power! Robin had known the odd ghost that retained some touch, such as Jenny, who'd frighten her widower's new wife by making her old spinning wheel turn, or Gaht, whose footprints would appear in snow and confuse passers-by for many, many years after his death.

Julian was different. His ability to touch was all-encompassing in a way Robin had not seen in his whole afterlife, and it had been a long one. At first he'd believed Julian could only flip through newspapers. Then, alright, perhaps he could nudge chess pieces too. But the more Julian had demonstrated all the things he could do (and he had, to the great wonder and cheering of the other ghosts), the more awed Robin had been. In truth, of the whole plethora of special things he'd witnessed ghosts do over the years, he'd thought Julian's was the most marvelous. Not that he'd ever told him so – that would have gone straight to his head, and he did enough gloating of his own accord. Yes, though – a queen would be just right for him.

Not that Julian would agree, Robin knew as much. He had very funny ideas about men and women. Alison had called it ‘misogyny’ and it had taken Robin an entire afternoon to wrap his tongue around it. It meant that Julian had Thoughts about what each gender was supposed to do and be like, and that he balked at being compared to anything "feminine", even if it was in a positive sense. If he had his way, he'd probably choose a chess king to stand for him, no matter how little it fit. Barely able to get anything done, always reliant on others' protection... It just wasn't Julian at all.

Although...

Robin tilted his head at the little wooden figure. The king was the centrepiece of the game. Every other piece's actions revolved around him. As soon as he was irrevocably threatened, the game ended, so he was never captured. He was never supposed to leave the board at all. Chess became utterly unplayable without him. It felt a very painful sort of apt.

“Robin?”

Robin jumped – he'd nearly forgotten Alison was there.

She was looking at him with deep frown lines on her forehead, clearly worried.

Robin stood. He did not wish to talk about it. So he blinked away the fresh tears and left, not bothering to go around the furniture (as he usually would, for Alison's comfort) and instead walking right through it. He heard her sigh behind him just before he disappeared through the wall.

Chapter Text

“These folks really buy any junk they can get their hands on, eh?”, Julian asked.
So far he had been led past, among other things, a display of camping gear Pat might have used in his own days as a scout, a rack of military memorabilia the Captain would have lost his mind over and a tea set so mismatched it would have made Lady Button break out in hives.

Hugh shrugged in response. “It may be an unusual approach, but it's keeping them in business.”

“Really?” Julian scoffed. “I haven't seen any customers yet!”

“Oh, no!”, Hugh replied. “They rarely come in these days. Sales still happen, though.”

“We think they use catalogues”, Asian Girl half-whispered from the back.

“Catalogues?!” Julian turned around to her, but she shrank away from his gaze, so he shrugged and looked back to Hugh.

“They take-” He gestured. “Oh, those modern terms; what are they called?”

“Photographs”, Asian Girl helpfully supplied.

“Yes! Thank you. -photographs of new merchandise, with their shiny plates.”

“Shiny pl- you mean with their phones?!”, Julian said. What kind of backwards hell hole had he landed in?

“They really are phones?”, Asian Girl asked, sounding awed. “I've heard them call them that, but they're so different from what I knew as ‘phones’! I've never seen anyone make a call with them...”

“No no no, phones are smart nowadays! You can do all sorts of things with them! Verrry fun! ...I guess making calls is more of a secondary function... Or tertiary... Anyway, no one uses catalogues anymore! They probably sell their junk over the internet.”

He was met with two blank stares.

“Oh dear... Uhh... Well, ha – you see how it has ‘net‘ in the name?”

The two exchanged a glance, then slowly nodded.

“Well, it's like that! It's a net that connects every household. That's why it's also called ‘interweb’.”

“Uh-huh! ...Connects them through what?”, Hugh asked.

“Cables”, Julian replied without missing a beat. “Although wi-fi is a thing... So sometimes also through the air.”

“Air?” This was clearly puzzling Hugh.

“...Like radio waves...?”, Asian Girl mused.

Julian pounced on the convenient explanation. “Yes! Sure. Just like that.”

“Connecting every household... in the country?”

“Pff! Forget about the country!” Julian laughed. “It connects every household on the planet!”

“The planet?!” Asian Girl's eyes seemed to grow even bigger behind her glasses. “Woah...”

“And this interweb...”, Hugh said, “what does it do?”

“Do? Well... It's less about what it does and more about what you can do with it!”

They where still staring at him like they did not quite understand. “Which is...?”

Julian sighed internally. “Which is, which is...” “Everything!”

“Everything??”

“Yah! Ya know, play games, order stuff... Read, if you're interested in that.” He rolled his eyes – good thing these guys couldn't look him up with Vicky Pedia. “You can access it from the ‘shiny plates’”, he added as an afterthought.

“Fascinating!”, Hugh proclaimed. “Always fascinating, the technology people come up with...”

“Isn't it? There is so much I've seen where I come from that you've probably never heard of!” Julian preened.

“Oh, that sounds so wonderful!”, Asian Girl said almost dreamily.

“Perhaps you could tell us more about it once our tour is finished?”, Hugh suggested.

“Yes, yes, yes”, Julian replied pretend-modestly, waving a hand around. “Let's get on with it, then!”

Hugh nodded and led them around the next corner.

There were no walls inside the building – merely rows of shelves and furniture dividing the space. Upstairs there was only half a floor. The other half was open to the room below with nothing more than a narrow walkway which ran around the inner edge of the building connecting it to the balcony Julian had already seen from outside. There wouldn't be much privacy to be had here, which made him doubly glad he wouldn't be staying long.

Hugh stopped in front of one of the shelves. “And here we have-”

“Really?”, Julian interrupted him. “A bunch of toasters?”

The boards were filled with them top to bottom; he'd never seen so many in one place. And why should he have? There was hardly ever a need to have more than one! There were all kinds of models, too – rusted metal and yellowed plastic. Some Julian only recognised for what they were because of what surrounded them.

“Well, yes”, Hugh said.

Julian snort-laughed and asked: “Who in the world would buy a vintage toaster?!”

“Not a lot of people”, Asian Girl replied with a sigh, prompting Hugh to pat her on the back.

Julian kept looking over the display before him. “Thomas would hate this place...”, he muttered.

“Oh?”, went Asian Girl at that. “Was he also electrocuted?”

“Err...” Julian stared at her, digesting the meaning of that ‘also’.

She simply blinked at him with her big eyes as if she'd said something completely normal and not utterly insane.

“No, he- he got shot. In the back.” Julian subconsciously touched that spot on his own body. “Jumps at sudden noises.”

Asian Girl clapped her hands over her mouth. “Oh, poor him!! That must've been terrifying.”

Julian currently found the ghost lady standing next to a collection of the thing that had killed her and acting as though it were no big deal much more terrifying, so he nodded and said: “Yes, yes! Now, what else were you going to show me?” Then he kept walking down the corridor without waiting for a reply. “Well, come on! No time for dilly-dallying; I don't have all day!”

His tour guides exchanged a glance, shrugged and followed him.

~

The remainder of the tour went by much more smoothly. Hugh, with an anecdote to tell about most things here, showed him where and what everything was while Asian Girl added a quiet comment here and there. Julian may not have been fully listening, but it was all inoffensive enough for him to calm down again.

“Ah, this is where they put you!”, Hugh said at last.

“Huh? Oh.” Among an assortment of other beds, seats and couches, Julian's gaze fell on the object that had brought him here. His mood souring, he glared at it as if all of this were its fault – and it was, really!

“This is where we sleep, as it happens”, Hugh went on without acknowledging Julian's dark expression. “You're welcome to join us if your Alison doesn't show up before tomorrow...”

“She will!”, Julian quickly said, unable to bear the thought that she might not. “She'll be here by this evening and by tonight I'll be back in my own room.”

“You have your own room?”, asked Asian Girl with stars in her eyes.

“Um... Yeah? It's a big house; we all do.” It had never occurred to Julian that that might be special.

“Your own room...”, she repeated, spinning in place as if she were dancing.

Julian shrugged. “Just a small one. It does the job – but if I'd had my way-”

“Well, we can't all die with a silver spoon up our arse!”, a familiar, grating voice cut in.

“Excuse me?!” Julian turned to see Trouser Suit sitting in the ugliest floral-patterned armchair he had ever laid eyes on in his life or death.

She had her legs crossed, was, of course, still smoking her cig and giving him a look as if he'd spat in her morning coffee. “‘Just a small one’”, she aped him and got up, strutting towards him. “Oh, but that won't do, now will it? Need a royal suite for Prince Charming here!” She flicked ash at his legs and Julian stepped back.

“Hey-!”

“Marjorie...”, Hugh said in a low warning tone.

She ignored him, instead stepping closer to Julian until she was all up in his face. “Too good for us, are you? Can't sleep with the commoners for even one night!”

“Now, what I actually said was-”

“Has he introduced himself yet, Su?”, she asked, suddenly ignoring him.

‘Su’ had retreated to a nearby wall. At Trouser Suit's question, she shook her head, seemingly intimidated.

Trouser Suit scoffed. “Knew it.” She gave him a disparaging look and muttered: “Too good for that, too...”

Julian took another step away from her – she was nearly his height, he'd noticed. And making his blood boil, not in the fun way. “Julian!”, he snapped just to prove her wrong. “Fawcett.” He adjusted his lapels. “MP, actually-”

“OH, WHO GIVES A SHIT??!!”, she yelled at a volume that made him flinch.

He opened his mouth to reply, but she did not let him get a word in.

“You're DEAD! You could have been prime minister and it'd make you no better than us! Do you really think anybody still cares what you did in life, especially after you died like that?!” She thrust a hand at his bare legs.

Julian was momentarily at a loss for words, feeling as though she'd jabbed her finger into an open wound. Anger quickly replaced the shock, though. What had he ever done to her? How dared she-?! “Now, listen here, lady...!”

“Oh yeah? You wanna fight?!” She stepped towards him again.

This time he reciprocated instead of stepping away. Growling, he came closer – until he was stopped by a hand on his chest. Julian looked down to see Hugh standing between them.

“Enough!” He pushed them apart. “You are not starting a brawl right here!! Marjorie, step outside for a moment, would you? And Julian, leave her be!”

Julian didn't much fancy just letting this go.

Neither did Marjorie, apparently, for she made no move to leave. “But he-!”

“-wishes he weren't here! You're in agreement there. Please, fighting won't make it better!”

She made no reply, but still did not go.

Asian Girl – Su – cautiously came up behind her and took her cigarette-free hand.

The other woman jumped, but did not yell at her as Julian half-expected her to. Instead she gave him one last dark glare before she let herself be dragged off through the wall.

Hugh exhaled in relief, then wiped flour from his mouth again. “Sorry. She can be...” He shrugged.

“Ahh...” Julian waved him off. “Not your fault!” Looking at the spot the other two had disappeared, he scoffed: “Women...”

Hugh gave him a strange look, then very slowly nodded. “Well, I had better check on them... You'll be alright on your own?”

“Oh, yes, yes! Of course! Not a problem at all.” Julian waved him off with an extravagant gesture.

Hugh gave him one last nod before disappearing through the wall as well.

Julian stared after him, then leisurely turned, taking in his surroundings. He flattened his lips in contemplation – hopefully Alison would come soon.

~

Alison did not come soon. She did not show up all afternoon and evening. Julian had had a harder and harder time hiding his nerves. The others had started giving him looks, from confused over pitiful to gleeful. Whatevah! It wasn't as though he wanted to be around them, anyway. He'd gone outside and spent the rest of the day pacing up and down the street, in the process verifying Hugh's first words to him: He could go no farther than the fence in either direction before he was forcefully turned around again. He didn't try more than once.

But he kept on walking back and forth, back and forth, silently cursing Alison and the berks who had brought him here and the heavy sensation on his chest and definitely not fighting tears, past dark. Or as dark as it would ever get in London, with its streetlights and lit-up billboards. Eventually, Julian had felt a hand close around his wrist.

He'd turned around to see Hugh giving him a strange, sad smile.

“Come, lad”, the older ghost had said. “It won't be tonight, now will it?”

Julian had not agreed – but he hadn't contradicted him, either. He'd let himself be led back to the storehouse and tried not to think of how much it felt like Robin leading him back to Button House that first night, or how much it hurt.

The girls were thankfully already asleep when they'd joined them, Trouser Suit in her ugly armchair and Asian Girl in a shabby single bed. Hugh had lain down on a plush love seat and given Julian an encouraging nod, so he'd sat on "his own" bed. Then Hugh, apparently satisfied with that, had put his head down and closed his eyes.

Julian had waited a few minutes before he got up again. He hadn't slept in that bed a single night of his death, and he wasn't planning to start now!

He'd snuck upstairs and out to the balcony, where he was still standing at this moment, looking up and down the street. He didn't know which direction he had come from, so he didn't know from which side Alison would come. If she came. Why hadn't she come yet?! Surely his disappearance must have been noticed by now! If not at any point throughout the day, then in the evening. It was his pick for film night. They couldn't go on with business as usual without him then!

...So why had no one come to pick him up? Julian flexed his fingers, trying to keep his creeping anxieties at bay. What if they didn't want him back? He hadn't forgotten the words Pat had said under that builder's flood light: ‘Apart from Julian, who I didn't really trust’. What if that was how they all secretly felt? Or not so secretly, considering the Captain was perfectly comfortable calling him morally bankrupt to his face and expecting it not to hurt. Sure, Julian knew he wasn't exactly a paragon of all that was nice and good, but he wasn't that bad! ...Was he?

Trouser Suit disliked him from the moment she'd laid eyes on him... That was on her, though! Alright, perhaps he hadn't been the most polite, but they were the first new people he'd met in thirty years! (Barring Alison and Mike, who he hadn't had to introduce himself to in the usual way and so didn't count.) He should be forgiven for forgetting some manners!

Folks at Button House liked him. He got consistently invited to clubs, or asked for advice or to do things. They didn't avoid or scorn him! ...Openly, at least. What if they gossiped behind his back? What if they only pretended to want to spend time with him? What if they put up with him because they had no other choice and were glad now he was gone?

Julian tried to muster up anger at the thought, but he just felt empty and small. He wrapped his arms around himself.

Robin wouldn't. He cared too little about social conventions to pretend for that long and had lost too many people to simply let him go: Mary, Annie, William... Julian knew the whole long, long list by heart. Robin recited it to him regularly because he was terrified of forgetting one of these names. He talked about who they had been, too – their quirks and personalities. Julian learned them to take some of that fear from Robin. If he ever momentarily forgot an aspect of one of his old friends, Julian could remind him. Robin had loved them too dearly – loved him too dearly – to not try and get him back now. And he'd make everyone else's lives and afterlives hell until they'd agree to help!

Sure, the others didn't know the depth of Robin's affection – Julian had made certain of that. He mostly didn't let Robin touch him in public or use nicknames or stand too close for too long. But Robin understood that! Or accepted it, at least. He didn't push it, at any rate, just sometimes called Julian "modern" in a way that oscillated between endearing and insulting.

It was hard for Robin, Julian supposed, since he wore his heart on his sleeve by nature. He never quite seemed to fully grasp any of Julian's big explanations of why no one could Know. And no wonder, after he'd spent his entire life in that weirdo hippy community of his. It had never become so hard that Robin broke it off, though. He would miss him! He wouldn't just let him go now! Julian took an unneeded deep breath. He looked up at the moon, which shone down on him through thin cloud cover. “He wouldn't. No way.”

Julian didn't know how long he'd been standing there when a wheezing sound came up behind him.

“What are you doing out here, lad?”

“Watching Moonah.”

“Pardon?”

Julian felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise in shame. “The moon! The moon!!!” He whirled around to face Hugh, who had stuck his head through the door. “Did I say Moonah? Psh! Whaaaat? No! No, I didn't! You must have misheard that. Ahahahaha!” He trailed off into nervous laughter.

Hugh slowly blinked, then stepped out to stand beside him.

Julian cleared his throat and adjusted his tie, turning around again. He wasn't comfortable making eye contact.

“The moon, huh?”, Hugh asked. “Thinking of home?”

Julian scoffed. “It's not home!”

“If you say so.” Hugh looked up at Moonah himself. “Ebbert used to say the moon connects us all.”

“Ebbert?”

“Stayed here for a while – bound to his seaman's chest. He'd look at the moon whenever he missed his family or friends, whether at sea while alive or after his death – because they could all see the same one, he said, while the rest of the night sky was different everywhere. That helped him feel connected.”

“Hmm.” There was a comment on the tip of Julian's tongue about this Ebbert sounding like a sentimental sap, but he swallowed it down. He had just moongazed himself, after all, and Robin regularly did the same.

Hugh was not deterred by his taciturnity. “So you died at that country house you came from, huh?”

“Hmmm.” Julian was in no mood to talk, or indeed think, about it.

This, however, didn't stop Hugh. “Then you must miss the ghosts there. As I said, there's a certain attachment-”

“I am not attached!”, Julian finally snapped.

Hugh seemed remarkably unperturbed by this outburst, merely raising a brow and blinking at him.

Julian cleared his throat and adjusted his tie. “I'm just... used to them.”

Hugh shrugged. “Call it what you will. You're incredibly lucky that you'll return to them soon, at any rate.”

“Uh-huh.”

“...Have you not wondered why Marjorie is so hostile to you?”

“Because she's a bitch?”

Hugh gave him an unimpressed look and sighed. “I think she and you are rather alike, actually.”

“What?! Me and that stupid tart?” Julian snort-laughed. “How??”

Hugh pulled a face at the insult, but did not comment. Instead he said: “Her death occurred at a London townhouse which was not her home. It was sudden and unexpected, as I imagine yours was.” He nodded at Julian's legs, causing him to rub them together self-consciously. “In an instant she was cut off from everything she'd known with only the ghosts around her to help her cope. Now, it may be different for you, but Marjorie grew close to them – they became her family. She resided there for thirty years... and then she got sold.” His expression darkened as he said that. “Sold, with everyone aware of her fate unable to do a thing about it, unable to hold on to her no matter what they tried! She came here completely uprooted again. If you have an ounce of empathy, you can imagine how upset she was! It took her years to come to terms with the idea that she would never get back – never get back there, to them. She mourns their absence, always. Ghosts come and go here all the time and she always does her best to hold them at a distance because she doesn't want one more friend to miss! And then you show up bragging about how easy it'll be for you to get back to where you came from!” He sighed and shook his head. “You can see how that set her off?”

Julian gulped – he could see that indeed, yet he fancied answering this tirade nearly as little as the conversations he'd be forced into whenever Margot asked where he'd spent the night. He settled for a curt nod.

Hugh sighed and shook his head. “It's nothing personal, lad. Just... cut her some slack, would you? She's been through a lot.”

“So have I!”, Julian thought somewhat defiantly, but he knew at this moment he didn't quite compare. Instead of voicing the sentiment, he simply nodded again.

Hugh, barely even looking him in the face, clapped him on the back – “There's a good lad...” – and left him again.

Julian squinted at the door he'd gone through, then back up at the clouded moon. He had a lot to think about.