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Erin knew from previous experience that trying to get Abby's attention when they had a call was pointless. Still, she felt like she had to try.
"You're sick," she said, hands on her hips.
"Plenty of people have said that about me, Erin," Abby replied, and shifted sideways in her seat on the couch to pull her boots on over thick socks. "I never let it get to me."
"No, I mean you're actually sick," Erin said. She shook the thermometer again, even though it was a digital one that didn't need shaking. "Look at this."
Abby held up her hand. "I don't have time for details. We have a possible Class Four Semi-Anchored entity frightening hotel guests downtown, and I don't think I need to tell you how much we need more documentation. Holtzmann, make sure you pack the camera. Remember what happened last time."
Holtzmann paused in throwing items into her duffel bag, and cocked her head to one side. "Erin got sneezed on by a ghost? I know, it was pretty amazing, right?"
"That was not-" Erin began.
"Yes, that," Abby said impatiently. "But mostly I meant remember we didn't get film because someone forgot to pack the camera."
"Oh, that," said Holtzmann. "Don't panic, I'm on it." She threw Abby a salute, and started zipping up the bag.
Abby stood up abruptly, but then seemed to hesitate. Erin took a step toward her, but Abby waved her away and picked up her proton pack from where it sat on the couch beside her.
"At least let me help," Erin said, reaching out a hand. "The packs are really heavy."
"I'm working on reducing that," Holtzmann said, and shouldered her bag to head for the door. "Abby? We good?"
"We're good," Abby said, strapping her pack on her back more slowly than usual. "Let's go."
"You know I like to say that," Holtzmann grumbled, and held the door for her.
Erin and Patty remained in the lab, looking at each other.
"I wish she'd work a little faster on reducing the pack weight," Patty said, and helped Erin with her own pack. "A little more attention to workplace safety around here, that's all I ask."
"It did not sneeze on me," Erin muttered, watching Abby leave the room. "Ghosts don't even have working nasal systems. It was just regular ectoplasm. It was just - expelled very accurately."
Patty nodded.
"And it sprayed," Erin said, remembering and flinching.
"I know, baby," Patty said, and picked up her own pack.
"Erin's making a face," Holtzmann said.
They'd talked to the hotel manager already. She was trying to keep the guests calm during the electrical blackout. The ones who had seen the ghost had been sequestered in her office while they evacuated the building. They'd been pale and shaking and unwilling to talk much. Ghosts affected people like that sometimes; scared them right out of their everyday lives and into something different.
"It's my regular face," Erin said, a touch acidly.
"No, it's definitely a different face," Holtzmann said.
"It's twelve floors," Erin said. "Patty was just talking about workplace safety-"
"Oh, you can leave me right out of this," said Patty.
"-And we have all the equipment. Holtz, you and I will go. Patty and Abby, wait here and provide backup if it slips past us."
"No," said Abby.
Holtzmann raised her hand. "Wait, how would that make less for us to carry?"
"It wouldn't," said Abby. "Erin's being unreasonable."
"I'm being unreasonable?" Erin asked. "I'm being unreasonable?"
"Yes," said Abby, and looked at her steadily.
There was a long silence, and Erin was the first to look away. Holtzmann shuffled her feet and glared toward the stairs.
"I know," Patty muttered to her, under her breath.
"Fine," said Erin finally, and started walking.
"The ghosts never live on the first floor," Holtzmann said, adjusting her pack as they started their sixth floor staircase ascent. "Why don't they ever live on the first floor?"
"And this place does not smell good," said Patty. "I thought this was supposed to be a fancy hotel. I saw chandeliers! Hotels with chandeliers should not smell like pee."
"Just means you get a higher class of people peeing in the stairwell, I guess," Abby said. It was the first thing she'd said since they started the stairs.
Erin found it worrying. Abby was never silent for long. She'd lost her voice at summer camp once (Erin, on a regular therapy schedule, didn't get to go on many extracurricular activities), and they still managed to talk on the phone for six hours that night. Erin's dad had been pissed when he saw the reverse charges.
"Which floor was the apparition sighted on, again?" Erin asked.
"Twelfth," said Holtzmann.
Patty groaned. "You had to ask. I could have been climbing these stairs in ignorant bliss, thinking we were nearly there. But no."
"I always thought 'ignorant bliss' was a terrible phrase," Abby said, sounding short of breath. Erin could see sweat on her face. It didn't mean much - she could also feel trickles running down her own back - but she slowed her steps.
"I might need to take another break in a minute," she called ahead to Holtz.
Holtzmann and Patty both groaned.
"Erin, damn, you need to do some cardio."
"I will," Erin promised, and sighed with relief when Abby stopped.
They stared across the dimly lit room. It was wallpapered in a dark, gloomy pattern and the long tables and rows of chairs were heavy, antique-looking wood. The old-fashioned look was spoiled a little with whiteboards and pull-down screens for presentations, as though business meetings were about to be conducted in Count Dracula's castle. The apparition was floating slowly up and down one wall, small and silent.
"Definite Class Four," Patty said wisely.
"Look at the morphological definition on that sucker," Abby agreed, and coughed.
"Who puts a conference room on the twelfth floor?" asked Holtzmann, camera raised in one hand. "So impractical. Nicely decorated, but impractical."
"Holtz," said Abby. "You're recording, right?"
Holtzmann looked over at her and raised an eyebrow. "Was it the camera in my hand, pointed toward the ghost, that gave it away?"
"I'm just checking," Abby said.
"He seems non-malevolent," said Erin. "Anyone else want to try first contact, or is it me again?"
She looked at the others. They all looked back, blankly.
"Me again," she said. "Okay, sure."
"Be careful," Patty said. "I know he's little, but the friendly-looking guys can still be dangerous."
"What a metaphor for New York City," Holtzmann said, and when Erin looked at her, waved her on. "Go ahead, Doctor Gilbert. Do the thing."
Erin gripped her proton gun harder, and took a few steps toward the entity. It was a small boy, blond-haired and dressed in an old-fashioned sailor suit. He floated a few inches above the floor, giving off a soft light.
"Hey," Erin said. She bent her knees a little, remembering how scary it was to be approached by strange adults when she was a kid. They probably didn't have Stranger Danger in the 1800s or whenever this little guy was from (she really needed to start studying history more with Patty), but she was pretty sure the same principles would have applied.
"Who could do that to a child?" she heard Patty's voice from behind her.
"What?" said Abby. "Does he have a visible injury? Something revealing how he died, maybe? I can't see. Erin, turn him this way."
"I meant his outfit," Patty said. "Look at those ruffles."
Erin, who had worn a very similar shirt to work herself earlier that week, opened her mouth to reply, and then shut it again.
"The other kids on the playground would have given him hell," Patty went on.
Erin could sympathize with that, anyway.
She seemed to have the boy's attention. It was hard to tell with ghosts - they'd stare at you without responding to any stimuli, or sometimes they'd go into attack mode with no provocation. She and Abby had been theorizing that that was related to ionization levels, but at this point it was a completely untested theory.
"Can you talk?" she asked gently.
The ghost-boy floated closer, silver ecto-trails following him. Erin crouched down further as he approached, so she could stay even with his eye level.
"Erin," she heard Patty and Abby say simultaneously.
"It's fine, I think," she told them, not looking away from the ghost now extending an abnormally long arm out to her.
"These chains I forged in life," Holtzmann said, quietly.
"That's a big shift in his radial symmetry," Abby pointed out excitedly. "See how his other arm looks like it's getting shorter? Fascinating - we've observed specters appearing to gain or lose mass, but this indicates - Holtz, you're still-"
"Please don't ask me if I'm recording again, Abby."
"Sorry," said Abby. "I just got excited. This is exciting!" She coughed.
The ghost paused at the sound and stopped in place with his finger extended out, a few inches from Erin's face. Curious, she waited.
"Erin," she heard Patty say again, uneasily.
As Erin watched, one by one the ghost extended his now preternaturally long fingers until his hand was flat. Slowly, he moved his arm backward.
"Wait," she heard Holtzmann say, and then Erin felt it slam across her face, the force knocking her onto her side. She lost grip on her proton gun as she scrambled to get her feet back underneath her, and the others were already firing as she stood up.
Blindingly bright streams of red and purple light cut the room. A stray beam knocked over a row of chairs, and as Erin watched one of the framed prints on the wall flew up, then smashed down to the floor with a sound of breaking glass. She winced, slipped her fingers onto the trigger, and started firing too.
The ghost flew into a corner, his mouth opening into an obscenely oversized maw of pure blackness, his skin darkening to greenish-gray. He grew larger and larger until he didn't even slightly resemble a child anymore, but some kind of hellish demon.
"You see that?" Abby shouted, and Erin looked over at her, ready to reply, but Abby glanced from the ghost to Holtzmann, and back again. "Keep on him!" Abby said, and shutting her proton stream down, started circling around to attack from the side.
Holtzmann caught Erin's gaze. "Ugly little sucker, isn't he?" she said. "We good?"
"We're good," Erin confirmed, and looked over at Abby.
Abby was still circling the apparition, but as she approached it from the side, Erin saw her step sideways, stumble, and put a hand on the wall to steady herself.
"Abby," she said, a little louder, and then as she watched, Abby's proton stream died out.
There was a long, frozen moment where Erin and the ghost both looked at Abby, then looked at each other. The ghost's mouth opened wider and wider, and then the room was filled with a deafeningly high-pitched shrieking sound.
Erin felt rather than heard her own breath hiss through her teeth, and with effort of will stopped herself from covering her ears, keeping her gun trained on the ghost.
It feinted toward her, an impossibly large expanse of darkness haloed by an amorphous grayish shape, and Erin took a step backward. It darted sideways away from her, though, and flew back toward Abby, knocking her backward into the wall.
Erin waved down Holtz and Patty, and they followed her sign language to keep pushing the ghost along the wall, spreading out to cover as much area as they could.
"Holtz, the trap!" Erin yelled. She remembered too late that Holtzmann couldn't hear her, but Holtzmann was already unstrapping it one-handed as she held her proton stream on the ghost with the other. She dropped the trap, kicked it toward the ghost and stepped on the switch. It opened and light bathed the wall above it, adding to the lights from the proton streams.
Erin's eyes started watering as they brought their streams down, lowering the ghost to the trap. Holtzmann kicked the switch again, and there was a moment of sudden silence until the trap made its peculiar unraveling sound. The light went blinding, and then, as they turned off their streams, blinked out.
"Abby," Erin said, and was across the room before she realized she'd moved.
Abby sat slumped against the wall, and Erin crouched in front of her, reaching out a hesitant hand. Should she touch her? Was she hurt? What was the first response first aid; why couldn't she remember?
"'M fine," Abby said, and Erin heard her own breath rush out of her. "I got lightheaded," Abby went on, raising a hand to her forehead. "That's why I let go. Thought I was going to pass out."
"You thought-" Erin said, and then tried to straighten up and fell backward onto her ass.
Patty stepped toward them. "I gotcha, baby," she said to Erin, holding out her hand. "Abby, you sit still for a moment. We're worried about head injuries."
Holtzmann was digging through the duffel bag she'd dropped at the entrance to the room, and produced a flashlight. She knelt on the floor next to Abby. "Let's see those pupils dilate, shall we?"
"He didn't hit me," Abby said.
Erin took Patty's hand and stood up. "He could have," she said, but softer than she'd intended.
"Usually I'd take you to dinner before this stage," Holtzmann was saying conversationally. She switched off the light. "Doctor Holtzmann says take two ibuprofen and call her in the morning. You don't have a concussion."
"You're a PhD, Holtz," Erin reminded her. "Not a medical doctor."
Holtzmann cocked her head to the side. "You don't believe me? Come stare into her eyes with me."
"I'm not staring into her-" Erin started, then stopped herself. "I'm not looking into her eyes."
"She's not looking into my eyes," Abby agreed. "Stop being weird, you guys. I'm fine. Holtz, help me up."
Holtzmann put a hand under Abby's elbow and enthusiastically hauled her to her feet. Abby stood up, then wavered and took another step backwards toward the wall.
Erin jumped toward her, hand out to catch her, but Abby raised her other arm.
"I'm good," Abby said. "Must have been the ionization. He was pretty stinky."
"Still is," Patty said, picking up the trap and wrinkling her nose.
"Ionization?" Erin repeated. "Ionization? Oh, obviously, of course. It wouldn't be the hundred and two degree fever, would it? It couldn't possibly be the fever I was talking to you about before we came out here, when I was saying you shouldn't be out in the field. Which you didn't listen to, apparently, obviously, no one listened to, because you don't listen to me, especially, apparently, when I'm right!"
There was silence for a long moment.
Then Holtzmann approached her, hand out as though she was dealing with a wild animal. "Okay, Erin," she said. "I'm just gonna check out your ghost-related injuries here, and then Patty and I can go and let our two moms do their thing in private."
"We aren't - we don't do a thing in private!"
"She means argue," Patty said. "Throw stuff, call each other motherfuckers. That thing."
"Oh," said Erin. "That thing."
"I would never call Erin a motherfucker," Abby said tiredly, still leaning against the wall.
Erin remained silent, and leaned down to let Holtzmann shine her flashlight in her face. She squinted against the brightness.
"It's going to bruise," Holtzmann said. "You should try ducking, next time. There's a cut beside your eye we should wash when we get back. It's little, but it's got ecto in it."
"What does that mean?" Patty leaned in to ask.
Holtzmann switched off the light and shrugged. "Hard to say, really. Could be an increased risk of infection from a dirty wound. Could be other side effects. Possible zombification. Complete body liquefaction."
Patty looked horrified.
"She's making that up, Patty," Erin said, straightening up.
"Of course I am," said Holtzmann, and winked. "Come get me when the liquefaction starts, though. I want to see."
Erin rolled her eyes. "Can you guys follow up with the manager? I'll call a cab for Abby."
Holtzmann and Patty made agreeing noises, and Erin waited for an objection from Abby. To her surprise, she didn't get one. She crossed to where Abby now sat cross-legged on the floor, her head resting against the wall. Abby's eyes were closed.
"Here," Erin said, holding out her hand.
Abby opened one eye, then the other, and examined her hand. "I'm good," she said, and pushed herself up from the floor. "Don't fuss."
"Uh huh," said Erin.
"I could maybe use a couple hours sleep," Abby said, after a pause.
"Yeah, good call," said Erin, with only a trace of sarcasm.
The electricity still hadn't come back on, so Abby managed the stairs again, slowly. Downhill was easier of course, but Erin still stopped her after a few flights; a hand on her shoulder. She slipped Abby's pack off her back, and although Abby looked for a moment as though she was going to vehemently object, she didn't.
"It's too heavy for you to carry two," she said finally, but quietly, as though the fight had run out of her.
"It's fine," Erin said, and shifted the straps of her own pack to her left shoulder so she could carry Abby's over her right. It was not comfortable, she had to admit, and her knees were still kind of hurting from the climb up. She was making a Point here, though, so she hefted the two packs and descended.
"God, it's so bright out here," Abby said, as Erin shoved her, kindly but firmly, into the cab, and gave the driver Erin's own address. "Was it this bright when we came in?"
"Pretty much, I think," Erin said.
"My place is closer," Abby said, pulling on her seat belt. She leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes. "Erin, did you hear me? I said my place is closer, drop me first."
"No," said Erin, sliding into the vinyl-covered seat, and wincing when she encountered stickiness. "You're coming to my apartment."
Abby opened her eyes. "Okay. Why?"
Erin closed the door, pulled on her safety belt, and then folded her hands in her lap. "So I can keep an eye on you."
"Keep an eye on me? What am I, twelve?"
"No," Erin said smoothly. "Acting like it, but no."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Erin sat back in her seat to look out of the window, and didn't reply.
"Come on, Erin," Abby said. "All those years in therapy and you never learned how unhealthy it is to bottle up your feelings?"
Erin bit her lip. "That's low, Abby."
"No, it's not," Abby said quickly. "It's not low. If anything, it's high, because you want to be mad at me but you don't want to talk to me about it. And I've got to say, I let you get away with that sometimes but it really doesn't work for me. At all."
Erin caught the cab driver's eye in the rearview mirror. She sighed. "Can we talk about this later?"
"Oh, okay, sure," Abby said, leaning forward. "I mean, if I'm remembering correctly, this is always how you've dealt with conflict, right? You tell me it's nothing, it's nothing, it's fine, you're fine, and nothing I say can get you to talk to me. And then when I'm counting on you, boom. You leave so fast I only-"
Erin laughed incredulously. "Oh, you are not laying all this on me. Abby, you're the queen of 'I'm fine' when it is so obviously, clearly, I mean you could see it from space, not fine. Look at today. You don't listen to me! You were not okay out there, and it put you in danger. Which puts the team in danger."
Abby sucked in a breath. "I would never put the others at risk, and you know that."
The cab pulled over, and for a stomach-churning moment Erin thought it was because they were being kicked out. She blinked, her brain cleared, and she recognized her own street.
Abby got out, slammed the door, and walked ahead to Erin's apartment building, muttering to herself.
"Here," Erin said, picking cash out of her purse without looking at it and handing it through to the driver. "Keep it."
"Wow," the driver said, dryly, and pointed to the meter. "Thanks, big spender."
"Sorry," said Erin, and handed him a twenty.
"Huh," he said. "Have a nice day."
"You too," Erin said, and dragged the proton packs out of the cab with her.
Erin caught up with Abby at the doorway to her apartment building. Abby was attempting to grumble under her breath, but she'd never been very good at that, and Erin could hear every word about how Abby could have been home by now, but no, Erin with her control freak tendencies had to drag her all the way across town.
It hurt a little to hear, Erin had to admit. She worked so hard at seeming casual and relaxed in social situations, at not trying to force a situation into something more comfortable for her, that it hurt when someone saw through her.
Abby had always seen through her, though. Erin had always thought that was a good thing. She'd seen the real Erin - probably more than anyone else in Erin's life. And she'd never turned away, never got the look Erin had seen on the faces of so many colleagues and lovers and friends. That faint distaste, that expression of this is too hard when they'd seen a piece of who she truly was.
She'd worked so hard to hide herself over the years; to rebuild herself as someone who was fun and funny and open and definitely, completely, one hundred percent sane. Who didn't still have the nightmares or the anxiety or the coping mechanisms people had laughed at.
At her door, she leaned across Abby, who was probably deliberately standing in her way, and unlocked it. The alarm chimed as they crossed the threshold, and Abby, closest to the keypad, typed in Erin's pass code, 011235.
"This is way too obvious, you know. Anyone could guess this," Abby said.
"The start of the Fibonacci sequence? I think you're giving random burglars too much credit."
"Anyone," said Abby stubbornly. "Look at your art." She waved a hand at the pencil drawing of an ammonite hanging over Erin's hall table. "All these fractals, this golden spiral stuff? It's literally one step from that to the Fibonacci sequence."
"Not everyone thinks like you," Erin said, and dropped the packs on the floor, pushing them under the table.
"I guess that's true," Abby said. "Is What's-his-name going to show up?"
Erin shook her head. "I broke up with What's-his-name, like, six months ago? As you know? I don't know why you ask this every time."
"Any other What's-his-names gonna drop by?"
"No," said Erin shortly. "Since you and I spend fourteen hours a day together, it seems like you would know if there were any other What's-his-names in my life. And I'm not being a control freak, by the way. You're being unreasonable."
"I'm being unreasonable?" Abby shot back. "You're not even listening to me!"
"You're not listening to me!" Erin snapped.
They both stopped then, and Erin felt her face flush with heat. She took a deep breath, then another, and flexed her hands and felt some of the anger run out of her fingers. She took another slow breath, and was tired all of a sudden; very tired.
"We never used to argue like this," she said finally, and her voice was smaller than she'd expected. She looked up, to see Abby watching her curiously. "When we were younger," Erin explained. "Did we ever even argue about anything?”
“Scientific principles,” Abby said. “But never anything serious. Just working out our ideas. It was how we learned; how we figured out what we thought.”
“But not like this,” said Erin. “We didn't – snipe at each other. We weren't constantly frustrated. I mean, I'm frustrated. I don't know if you're frustrated. I don't want to put words in your mouth.”
“I'm frustrated,” Abby said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I'm definitely frustrated. But we were kids back then, Erin. People change.”
“I know,” said Erin. “I guess I know.”
“You've always sucked at arguing,” Abby pointed out. “You're too soft. Unless someone's dissing the laws of physics, and then you swoop in like Batman.”
“Well, quantum field theory, I get,” Erin said. “People, not so much.” She sighed. “You know, every adult relationship I've had, I've done what the other person wants. I go along with their ideas, I keep quiet, I try to be whatever they want me to be. And I still – every time, I end up alone.” She frowned, feeling the tempo of her heart rise, the way it always did when she talked about her feelings. Still, after all the therapy. She dropped her keys on the table, and waved Abby into the living room.
There was light striping through her window blinds; still heat in the day. Her afghan had fallen off the back of her couch. Erin picked it up and folded it, and then refolded it more carefully, grateful to have something to do with her hands.
“You always say person,” Abby said, following her. “The person I was in a relationship with. You never say, my boyfriend. Or the guy I dated. It's always person.”
Erin paused in lining up the blanket's edges. “Is that relevant?”
"Just an observation," Abby said. "But it's no way to live, you know. Trying so hard to please people. You're okay the way you are."
"Abby, you're literally the only person who's ever thought so."
"Fuck 'em," Abby said, and coughed. It turned into a series of coughs and she bent over, resting her hands on her knees.
Erin stepped closer to her and patted her back, awkwardly. "I was going to make tea. Or something. You're sick."
"You keep reminding me," Abby said, straightening up. "You brought me here for tea?"
"Or something," Erin said. "I was worried about you. And I know, okay? You think I'm overreacting, that I'm being too protective, that I'm treating you like you don't know how to take care of yourself-"
"Okay," said Abby.
"But I was worried and - Wait. Okay?"
"Okay," said Abby again. "Do your thing. Take my temperature. Medicate me. Bandage my limbs. Do whatever you feel you have to."
Erin blinked. "Oh. Okay. Um. Lie down on the couch?"
"I've had better propositions," Abby said. "But sure."
Abby sat on the couch, and pulled her boots off, standing them neatly together on the floor. She paused, glanced at Erin, and then - frowning slightly - lay down.
Erin watched her; waiting for Abby to say something. Waiting for a snappy comeback, a joke, a response. Instead, Abby pulled a cushion under her head and closed her eyes.
"I'll get you a blanket," Erin said finally.
"There's one on the back of the couch," Abby said, without moving.
Erin ignored her and walked out of the room, heading for her linen closet, but once she was in the hallway she stopped and took a breath.
Erin hated arguments. Hated arguments with Abby above just about everything else. Abby was her person; her one true thing.
And yet, said the tiny, niggling voice in the back of Erin's mind, all the years they'd been apart, Erin had never tried to get back in touch.
She'd been afraid: she could admit that to herself now. She remembered the time people close to her had looked at her strangely; had been disappointed in her awkwardness or her inability to relax into a moment. To be normal. She'd tried so hard, but she'd never been enough.
And she'd been unable to cope with the thought that Abby, the one person in her life who'd never thought she was weird or unsocial or a disappointment, would look at her that way.
It was easier never to see each other again than it was to face Abby after Erin had let her down so completely.
Breathing out, Erin took two strides to the closet and pulled out a blanket. Returning to the living room, she paused at the threshold.
"Abby?" she started. "We need to talk-" She paused. Abby's eyes were still closed, and as Erin watched, she could see her ribcage rise and fall rhythmically. "We can talk later," Erin said, barely above a whisper.
Abby sighed in her sleep, and Erin quietly covered her with the blanket before she left the room.
Abby woke disoriented, her brain taking a minute to catch up. She was on a couch, but it wasn't her couch - too soft and there was no leftover smell of cigarette smoke from the last owner (or possibly the owner before). It was dark except for light striping the floor; it didn't smell like laundry powder and faint neglect like Abby's apartment, but like furniture polish and some kind of flower, and-
-and Erin.
Her throat was killing her, and when she opened her mouth to clear it, she regretted even doing that. She took a long moment to breathe, to take stock of what hurt and how right Erin had been and how much it was going to suck when Erin gloated over said rightness.
If Erin gloated. She would have, once upon a time. She would have sassed, because they could do that to each other then without getting caught up in old hurt and old betrayal and old, dusty regrets.
It sucked getting older, Abby thought, and as she stood up, her knees agreed.
She found Erin in the dimly lit kitchen, reading a tablet computer at her woodblock table while something simmered on the stove. Abby stood in the doorway for a moment, taking in the scene. Erin's kitchen was expensive-looking and fashionably appointed and contained every appliance you could imagine.
Erin didn't even like to cook. Abby wondered, as she had before, what the story was there. Old boyfriend, probably. Trying to impress work colleagues, even more probably. It made Abby sad to think about just how hard Erin had worked to keep up her mask. Had anyone else ever noticed how hard she was working? Had What's-his-name, or any of the other awful and still confusingly gender-neutral What's-his-names that Erin had referenced with her in conversation before? Had any of them ever seen the real Erin?
Abby had, she knew. She remembered the quiet, sad-eyed girl she'd met in high school. She remembered, too, how Erin had flinched away when Abby introduced herself, and how she'd braced herself for Abby to make fun of her.
And that's what Abby had done, she realized with a start. Years later, when Erin had come looking for her. Abby had been bitter and furious to see Erin in her dry-cleaned suit and ridiculous heels, somehow hotly annoyed to see Erin look older and thinner in the face, new lines around her mouth and her eyes, and still her Erin. It didn't seem fair.
Erin was supposed to freeze into place without her. Erin was supposed to fall apart, to move to the moon, to change her look until she was unrecognizable. Erin wasn't supposed to walk back into her life looking the same and filling the same space and pulling at Abby's heart the same old way.
So Abby had made fun of her, like the kids at school used to do, although (or maybe because) she knew how clearly Erin would feel it. Another old shock to the heart; another confirmation that people didn't like her and would never like her.
Erin must have heard her in the doorway, then, because she looked around. She'd loosened her hair from her regular work ponytail; it hung, with a slight wave from being tied back, around her face. She'd changed out of her work coveralls into jeans and thick socks and a hoodie. She looked calm and tired and Abby had wanted to kiss that mouth for more than twenty years.
She crossed the floor and pushed Erin's hair back from her face.
"That ghost really smacked you a good one. It's going to bruise," Abby said, studying the darkening patch over Erin's cheekbone. Her voice was raspy to her own ears.
Erin raised her face toward the light. "It feels like it."
"You definitely couldn't have ducked?"
"I didn't see it coming!" Erin protested. "He was so little, and then he was - not so little."
"I noticed that," Abby said. "What do you think it means?"
Erin regarded her. "They have mass," she said, after a pause. "They're not just a light show. But they can manipulate their own morphology. I don't think they change their mass when they do weird shit like that. I think they can just - spread themselves thinner."
Abby considered. "We need more studies. We really need a live containment system where we can observe them instead of storing them in stasis. Holtzmann-"
"-Is already working on ten different projects at once and spreading herself thinner. You've got to give people a break, Abby."
Abby bristled. "Well, excuse me for not wanting my team to get punched in the face by ghosts."
"We're at the forefront of scientific discovery," Erin said. "There's risks. Marie Curie-"
"Oh my God, do not Marie Curie me right now, Erin."
"Why not?" Erin asked. "I don't know why you're trying to make this about me, anyway." She spoke a little too fast and a little too loud for it to be casual conversation, and although never in her life had Abby had trouble working up a head of steam, this time, this time, she was the one to pull back.
"What are you cooking?" she asked instead, and walked over to the cooktop.
There was a long pause before Abby heard Erin push her chair back and walk over to join her.
"Soup," she said, and picked up a spoon and stirred.
"For sick people," Abby said.
"It helps," Erin said stiffly. "With that temperature, you probably have the flu. It'll help. I thought it would help." Her voice trailed off as she spoke; the last few words were barely audible.
"Hey," said Abby, moving closer. It was a step too close, and she ended up at Erin's elbow. To hide the moment of awkwardness and not knowing where to put her hands, she threaded a hand into the crook of Erin's arm. "Uh," she said. "I appreciate it. You looking out for me, I mean. I know it doesn't seem like it. I know I didn't say it."
Erin nodded, and leaned forward to taste the soup. She looked thoughtful for a moment, then offered the spoon to Abby.
Abby tasted carrot and onion and not a lot else, but it wasn't unpleasant. "Needs salt," she said.
Erin nodded again. "I'm always going to worry, you know. I always did."
"I know," Abby said, and carefully extricated her arm.
Erin stepped backward, more quickly than Abby thought was necessary, and opened cabinets and started filling bowls.
"Sit," she said, over her shoulder.
Abby sat opposite Erin's place. She opened her mouth - did you worry about me after you left were the words on the tip of her tongue, so she bit it, and asked: "What's-his-name like it when you cook for him?"
Erin dropped the bowl onto the table in front of Abby. Soup spilled over the sides.
"God, you can never-"
"Never what?" Abby snapped back. Never forget the What's-his-names and the deans and professors and the chance at legitimacy and all, all of the things and people that had been more important to her than Abby?
She wanted to say it. She didn't. Erin really had no idea how much she chose to hold back, Abby thought bitterly.
Erin drew a breath so hard Abby heard it whistle against her teeth. "Never let go of things," she said. "I don't know how you can be jealous of someone who's been out of my life for six months. Who never lived here, by the way, so the snippy comments about finding his socks lying around, or - or whatever today's hilarity was going to be - are way out of line. Abby, you think about him more than I do. I have a life, and it's with you and Patty and Holtzmann and the work and all these new discoveries we're making. We've got a new book. We've got articles; we've got work and we can show the scientific community that it's real. This is what I think about."
Abby thought about what she wanted to say, and what she was probably going to say.
There was silence, except for Erin breathing out, and even the ever-present sounds of the city seemed to still. Abby stood up, and looked at the floor.
"I thought about you," she said, and it was like a piece of ice breaking off her heart and floating downstream. "Every night after you left." Another crack, another piece.
It hurt. She kept going.
"Every person I've had more than a ten minute conversation with in the last twenty years has heard your name. I remember the exact color of that sweater you always used to wear in junior year. I remember the smell of chlorine when you came back in after swim practice. I remember watching you put on makeup to go out with some What's-his-name while I stayed back and worked on the book. I remember-"
She stopped.
She remembered other things - Erin stripping off her shirt in an overheated lab in summer, her undershirt not quite meeting the waistband of her jeans . The way Erin's voice was softer in the mornings. The way Erin's laugh sounded from another room. The way Erin tapped her fingers against her own thigh when she was worried or thinking. The way Abby would know her anywhere, anytime, blindfolded, deaf. Abby saw her in colors, in the smell of freshly washed laundry, in songs, in stupid romantic songs on the radio, and Abby had always hated romantic songs. In flowers, because Erin had always felt sorry for the wilted bunches in grocery stores and gas stations, and bought them out of sympathy. When they roomed together in college, their dorm always smelled like too-sweet flowers about to rot.
She remembered Erin in everything around her. She thought about Erin every day. And it was stupid. It was so stupid.
She couldn't say any more. She'd said far too much already.
She looked up.
Erin's hand was across her mouth; her blue eyes in stark relief against her face.
Horrified, Abby thought, and the thought was a grief and a release.
"I should go," Abby said. When she took a step away from the table, she heard her own footstep as though from a long way away, and she walked almost blindly out of the room. She was suddenly cold and numb, and somehow, weirdly, free.
So, she thought. This is it. You let go of all of this, and Erin stops defining your life. You go home. You go get groceries without thinking about her. You pay your rent without thinking about her. You go to work, you write your book, you make your own name and you change the world, and she's not going to be the center of your everything anymore. You can let it go. You can let her go.
She walked through Erin's living room and looked at it; really looked at it. At Erin's furniture and art and the books stacked on her side tables, the proliferation of soft fuzzy blankets as though heating did not exist, the overabundance of cushions and the very uneconomical choice of television. At all the little things that Erin lived around and touched and used every day. Abby's head started to swim, so she sat down on the couch to put her boots back on.
It's a relief, Abby told herself firmly, and hated herself for hesitating just a little before she let herself out. She waited and listened and heard nothing, and after a minute, she opened the door and left.
It was the flu, or something equally life-draining. Abby spent three solid days in bed, sweating and headachy, too tired to read or work. She caught a Twilight Zone marathon on cable and the stories bled into her hot fevered dreams, infecting them with lost spacemen and blurred text and Chinese restaurant hells.
Her phone buzzed on and off. She replied to texts from Holtzmann and Patty with chatty, reassuring words and the occasional coda that they needed to take care of the lab.
There were fifteen missed calls from Erin. Erin was the only person Abby knew who didn't text. Abby had put her phone on silent and watched it skitter across her bedside table, wondering if this time Erin would send her words.
It didn't matter, she told herself. Erin probably just wanted to smooth things over, to make them comfortable together again. Erin had never understood their relationship, not really. Abby had never really been that comfortable.
On the fourth day, she woke up neurasthenic and fragile, but her fever was gone and so was the stabbing pain in her head. Abby celebrated by getting up to take a shower, and then ended up sitting on the crooked-tiled floor of her bathroom afterward, too tired to dry herself off. Eventually she heaved herself up and went back to bed, her hair still wet, and watched the sunlight through the five empty water glasses on her windowsill she hadn't had the energy to take back to the kitchen. She spent some time thinking about the planets and solar system and the infinite possibilities of the multiverse theory, and how in a hundred years time none of this would matter or be remembered. That was something Abby thought about whenever she was hurt or upset, and usually she found it comforting. This time, though, it made her sad. She'd loved a woman for more than half her life, and there was nothing to show her feelings had ever existed. She should have carved something into stone, she found herself thinking, before she drifted back to sleep.
Abby woke at a sound; she reoriented herself in a moment, and realized it came from another room. She had no pets, no roommates, and no manifesting ghosts. She didn't ever leave windows open and, since she was used to working with expensive and (courtesy of Holtzmann) frequently volatile scientific equipment, it was pretty rare that she left anything on the edge of a table, inviting it to fall.
Only two other people had keys to her apartment, and she felt she could be pretty certain her chronically shy, six foot four Polish landlord hasn't just dropped by. There was still a possibility of a break and enter, Abby supposed. She could still be that lucky.
It wasn't going to be a break and enter. She knew that. Anyone looking for valuables in Abby's apartment was going to have a pretty disappointing day anyway.
She palmed her hands along the wall in her hallway and was grateful, for once, for New York property values meaning she could walk from bedroom to front room in roughly three steps.
It was worse than she expected, though. Erin had opened the curtains - Abby never opened the curtains; antique books on ghost lore did not get along with direct sunlight - and Abby was reminded of how small and dusty and old everything she owned was. There was a split second where she thought I should update this place a little, even though she liked small and dusty and old, and then that split second was over and she was looking at Erin.
Erin's back was turned, and her hair looked red in the moted light. She still hadn't found a box dye that matched her natural shade, Abby thought dully. It was always half a shade off; nothing that anyone else would even notice.
Abby noticed. Abby always noticed everything.
Erin was in tweed battle armor and heels - a far cry from her more regular recent uniform of easily de-slimed jeans and shirts. Abby's heart twinged.
"Erin," she said eventually, when she realized the silence was getting weird.
Erin turned. The bruise below her eye was still visible, although she'd obviously tried covering it with makeup. She looked hesitant and closed-off. Abby had always hated that look.
"Hey," said Erin, bringing her back to the present. Even now, even in all of this, Erin always brought her back.
"Hey," said Abby, not elegantly. "I'm gonna sit down," she added, and sat down heavily on the couch.
Erin was beside her in an instant, her knees together, hands on her knees. "You're still sick? You need to go to a doctor."
"I am a doctor," Abby said.
Erin briefly closed her eyes. "Abby, I'm pretty sure last time you made that joke I told you I couldn't handle it even one more time."
"And yet here we are." Abby leaned her head back against the couch. "I'm okay." She caught Erin's worried expression. "I am. Just been horizontal too much. It's been one hell of a bug."
"I told you-" Erin started, but in her defense, Abby thought, she stopped herself. "You're really okay?"
Abby was tempted to snap at her, but Erin was trying. She figured she probably should, too.
"Yes," she said simply.
"Um," said Erin, and examined her cuticles. "Well, good. I tried to call."
"I haven't really been up to much communication, you know how it is," Abby said. "A lot of sleeping. Moderate puking. Some Twilight Zone."
Erin looked up. "You managed to talk to Patty and Holtzmann."
Those sellouts.
"Work stuff," Abby said smoothly. "Holtz needed me to consult on some of her projects. I can still troubleshoot while I'm flat on my back."
"They told me they'd talked to you because I was worried," Erin said. "You didn't answer when I called."
"I said I'm fine."
"Not because you're sick," Erin said. "Although obviously that, too. Because of what we - talked about. The other night."
Abby sighed. "Because of what I talked about, you mean. When I made us both ridiculously uncomfortable to the point you're probably not going to want to work with me any more. Which I get, believe me. I really wish I'd never said anything. It's just-"
"I'm not uncomfortable," Erin said, looking uncomfortable.
Abby raised an eyebrow.
"Okay, I am, but not how you think. Your couch smells like it smokes three packs a day, by the way."
"Nice sidestep," Abby said. "I tried Febreze."
"I don't believe you."
"Okay, I didn't. None of my other guests have complained. You're not even a guest. You broke in."
"You gave me a key," Erin reminded her.
"I know that! You think I don't know that?"
Erin opened her mouth to respond, then paused. "We got off topic," she said.
"Yeah," said Abby. "It was fun, right? Let's talk about fabric freshener some more."
The room was silent for a moment, and then: "No," said Erin, softly but firmly.
Abby recognized her tone. She was doing the thing. It was the thing that had driven Abby absolutely crazy. For as long as Abby had known her, on most subjects Erin was kind of a pushover. She went along with what other people wanted, because she wanted people to like her. She'd almost always gone along with Abby's wild-ass schemes, even when they'd involved breaking and entering into abandoned houses with reported spectral activity, lying to their parents, or using her savings to rent them an office above a Chinese restaurant and open their own business catching ghosts.
But sometimes Erin did the thing. She didn't raise her voice, she didn't get mad. But when Erin said no like that, it was like she'd developed a core of pure steel and was completely unshakable. If Erin said we were talking about this, you'd better believe you were going to be talking about it.
"We're talking about this," Erin said.
Abby was silent for a long time, and then she said, childishly: "It's your turn to go first."
"I thought it seemed like you had more to say."
Abby sighed. "Well, sure," she said. "It's not like this could get weirder or more awkward, is it? Remember in college, when we talked one night? About me being gay."
"We - used to talk about it. Rarely. It's not something that comes up in conversation much with you, Abby. You're very private. I always thought - well, you know, you shared what you shared with me. You'd let me into your life some; this far, but no further. But I was never as important to you as you were to me."
"God," said Abby. "No. What? What the hell?"
Erin stood up. There was a second where Abby thought she was going to leave, and as Erin took a step away from the couch she reached out a hand. Erin just went to the window, though, and Abby let her hand hang in space for a moment before dropping it back down to the couch.
"That's insane, Erin."
"I just mean - you're the first person who believed in me, you know? How could I ever be even half of what you were to me? You were everything."
"You were everything."
Abby heard Erin's breath catch, and held up a hand. "I was saying, we talked about me being gay. One time we kind of talked about how much I liked you."
"We were kind of drunk," Erin said immediately.
"You knew which night I meant," Abby said. "You knew what I meant, right away."
Abby remembered the night, like she always did, with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach and another in her mouth, the product of a night of too-sweet Sprite and bourbon. Her stomach warm and fluttering, her brain loose in its foundation. Abby wasn't much of a drinker in those days, and the first few drinks had hit her hard. She still wasn't much of a drinker, possibly related to the fact that when she drank, things came out of her mouth that she later regretted.
"Yeah, I did," Erin said. "We went through one of the dorm windows, and crawled up on the roof. And sat up there drinking."
"I'm amazed we didn't fall off and break our legs," Abby said. "Kids are idiots."
"We weren't exactly kids," Erin said, looking away. "I knew what you meant. I know."
"Ah," said Abby. "I figured you didn't like girls. Or didn't like me - like that. I guess the details there weren't really important. The effect was the same."
"I did," said Erin, slowly.
Abby felt a rush of dizziness that had nothing to do with illness. "Wait," she said.
"I do," said Erin. "I was scared. Back then. Still scared, if I'm honest."
Finally; quietly, Abby said: "You did?"
"I do," said Erin, and took a few steps back toward the couch. She was trembling like frightened woodland creature, Abby noted. Like she was worried Abby would yell at her or kick her out or reject her.
Abby could never. Would never. She reached out her hand again, instead, and this time Erin saw it, and took it in her own. Abby savored the touch of their skin for a moment - the familiarity and strangeness that she'd always felt touching Erin. She took a breath, stroked a thumb across the top of Erin's hand, and then pulled her down to the couch.
"Oh!" said Erin, stumbling a little. "Okay. We're sitting down."
"We are," Abby agreed, and pulled a little more.
Erin kind of folded into her lap then, and it was awkward for a second and then the smoothest thing in the world, as though they'd done this a thousand times before. Abby felt the weight of Erin across her legs; the faint warmth of her through their clothes. She reached her other hand up and touched Erin's cheek gently.
"I'm kind of taking a risk with all of this," Abby said, and noticed her own hand was shaking too.
"Oh," said Erin. "Um."
"What I mean is, if you want me to let go, speak up."
"Oh," said Erin again. "Oh, no."
Abby let go of her hand. "No, what? No, let me go? No, you don't understand? No, you're not going to speak-"
"No," said Erin, clearly. "Don't let go."
"Oh," said Abby, and although that definitely wasn't the smartest thing she'd ever said and she really wanted to say something else, she wasn't sure what that something else should be. So she didn't say anything. She stayed still.
It still smells like stale cigarette smoke, Erin thought. She'd go nuts if she lived in Abby's apartment. The disorder made her skin itch.
She never used to be like this. In high school and college, she'd loved Abby's bright, eclectic, always overflowing rooms. They were such a glorious change from the ordered, minimal spaces Erin created for herself. She'd loved the freedom Abby represented then. Now, it made her nervous.
"You know me and relationships," Erin said. It had been quiet for a long time by then, and her voice sounded strange in the air. She felt, rather than saw, Abby nodding, her chin in Erin's hair.
"I've seen, some," Abby said. "Some of the What's-his-names."
"I fuck it up, every time," Erin said, voice thick. "Every time, Abby. You know this. I try and - no one wants me. Not long term."
She felt Abby shift beneath her; felt breath on her skin through her hair.
"Erin," Abby said.
"I couldn't let it happen," Erin said. She'd expected her own voice to be quieter, but it rang out clearly in the room. "You were the only person who believed in me. The only person who stuck with me. I couldn't lose you."
There was a long moment. "You lost me anyway."
The words hung in the air.
"I know," Erin said. "I know."
Abby untangled her fingers from Erin's. "In your defense, you did find me again."
"Yeah," Erin said. "Lucky you filled out your author bio on Amazon, I guess."
"Yes," said Abby. "That was definitely all luck."
"I didn't-" Erin started, then stopped.
"Spit it out, Erin."
Erin's fingers were still laced into Abby's, and she didn't want to let go yet. Instead of moving her hand, she squeezed Abby's a little harder.
"I know I let you down," Erin said. "Is what I was going to say. I'm-" She stopped again, and, uncomfortable with Abby's gaze so close, started to pull away.
"Erin," Abby said.
"I'm afraid I always will," Erin said quickly.
"No. No, Erin, God. You're the person I always think of when I want to talk. Still, fucking still, since we were kids. You're my best friend. You're the person I want to see every day. It's history - we move on. And look how things have worked out. We saved New York together, right? That's got to count for something."
"We provided the first physical proof of the paranormal," Erin said, warming to the theme. "But - I know how mad you were when I found you again. And, you're avoiding that subject."
"You've spent way too much time in therapy."
"Yeah," said Erin. "I think we can both agree on that."
"I was mad," Abby admitted. "I am - I'm still frustrated sometimes, when I think about it. But I'm also glad you came back and glad you're here now, and I wouldn't trade that."
Erin looked at her doubtfully.
Abby sighed. "People hurt each other, Erin. You can't have a relationship without that happening. You just - you just have to keep coming back. The universe isn't static. Bad things happen, stupid things happen, and you make that choice and you keep coming back, even when you've screwed everything up, even when everything hurts, and you don't leave."
"Relationship," said Erin, feeling the word on her tongue.
"Friendship," Abby amended. "Whatever."
"No," said Erin. "We're more than that. We should have been, back then."
"Eh," said Abby. "You would have fucked it up somehow."
"One of us would have, yeah."
"Yeah, you would," Abby said, but her voice was soft. She pulled at Erin's arm again, and Erin slid sideways on her lap, the position getting more awkward. Erin went to put a hand behind herself to balance, to give herself more space, but then she saw the look on Abby's face, impossibly open and tender, and she leaned forward.
Abby's hand slid into the hair at the base of her neck, and it was a whisper-soft question before Erin leaned forward into the kiss. It was a quiet sort of kiss; pliant and undemanding. It was so not-very-Abby that it took Erin by surprise. The thought: is this her? Is this the real, true Abby beneath the surface of what she shows to the world?
Erin was the first to draw back, gently. "If we - if we're - uh, I'm going to need you to tell me the truth; tell me what you're feeling. I need - I can do the same. But I can't wait twenty years and a couple of near-death experiences for you to tell me what I mean to you again."
Abby looked skeptical. "This week was not near-death."
"We can table that for later," Erin said graciously. And, more seriously: "I didn't know how you felt back then. Not really. I always thought you'd tell me the things that mattered to you."
"I couldn't tell you everything," Abby said. "I would have made you uncomfortable. Battle Creek Central High's biggest lesbian, crushing on the straight girl. It was bad enough when I told you in college - told you a little, anyway - but at least we could both blame that on being drunk."
"It's not-" Erin said. "It wouldn't have been like that."
Abby raised an eyebrow. "Now who's not telling the truth?"
"I've loved you forever," Erin said, getting more fervent as she spoke. "I'll keep screwing things up. I just - don't give up on me? I'm still kind of a work in progress."
"I can do that," Abby said immediately.
That was the thing about Abby, Erin realized. You could beat her down, you could disappoint her, you could fail in every way to live up to what she deserved, and she'd still be in your corner. Still mad as hell, still calling you names, and still willing to sacrifice her own happiness so you'd be okay.
"When I said-" Erin started. "When I said I fucked up every relationship, I meant with you too. It was important to me. You were important to me. I just can't seem to hold on to anything."
"Well, good news." Abby took Erin's hand, and grazed her thumb over the palm. There was a hesitancy on her face that made Erin's heart hurt. It was still so delicate between them; such a dance. "Here's your chance to work on that."
There was a part of Erin that wanted to sit there indefinitely, in the quiet and their understanding, in the remembrance of the old and the beginning of something new and the weight of the moment in the air. There was a part of her that wanted to commit the moment to memory; freeze it in time and never let it change. To stay here, this far and no further, in this safer place than the untold discovery that stretched before them.
There was another part of Erin that wanted to straddle Abby's lap and kiss her senseless. She felt the pale gray sunlight of the day on her face through the window; she breathed stale smoke and clean laundry and Abby; she felt the warmth of Abby's body heat beneath her and beside her. Abby bit her lip, her expression hesitant, her clear green eyes on Erin. Erin took a breath, and leaned forward. Outside, the universe stretched out.