Cassidy pushed himself to his feet.

He expected to be unsteady, his body not quite sure of itself yet, but was surprised to discover he felt fine. He held his hand up in front of him. No tremor. Good. That was always a tell.

He walked over to the mirror.

The streak was more noticeable, and he ran over it with his finger. He could feel its texture, slightly hard but with some give. His finger left a trail through it that filled in immediately. When he looked at his fingertip, it was clean and dry.

"Hello?" he said.

It was odd, speaking to the air. Was that how Janeway and Picard felt when they were having conversations with their respective spaceships? They would tap the badge on their chests and speak. He had no badge, there currently being no United Federation of Planets, and where their responses would be spoken, his was written. Still, they could be beamed up. He'd appreciate that.

There was no answer. Why would there be? She spoke when she felt like it, not when he requested it.

"Amy, where are you?"

In the mirror was the obvious answer, unless it was a portal. Hey, maybe it was the spirit version of the teleporter! A teleportal!

He didn't smile at his internal joke. As much as humour was a well used defence tactic, he wasn't in a joking mood. The quips, mental or verbal, came unheeded.

"Answer me, for fuck's sake!"

The glass darkened momentarily, as if a shadow had swept over it or the sun had been obscured by a swiftly moving cloud. Then the lipstick ants returned.

Don't swear at me.

Please.

"Oh, so you are there. Well, answer me then."

I told you, I'm still growing.

It's not so easy.

Cass paused. He didn't want to be arguing with her. Frustration often made him quick to snap. He took a breath.

"Ok, sorry."

Are you OK? What happened?

I was worried.

She was concerned? Why would she be if she'd tried to kill him? She'd be pissed at him for not being on her side of the mortal veil. It gave credence to her story. She really had tried to save him.

"Don't worry about it. It's just something that happens occasionally when I'm really stressed."

I did worry. You're nice.

I don't want you to get hurt.

She thought he was nice, which was... nice. His personal opinion was that he was just that. Nice, a fairly nondescript word for a similarly nondescript level of... niceness. He was nothing amazing, nothing special. Just generally OK. The main thing was, she didn't think negatively of him. Why was he bothered about that? Why indeed? He couldn't say. It was just... nice to be thought of that way.

"Thank you. I'm not hurt."

Good.

"I'm not a fan of Valentine's Day," he said.

Me neither, considering I died.

Good point.

"How did it happen?"

Why don't you like it?

Well, that told him! She didn't want to talk about the manner of her death. He supposed he might be the same if the situation was reversed. Dying would, likely, be traumatic. As well as being nice, he was also tactful to a fault, clearly. If she refused to discuss her feelings on the day in question, then so could he. But did he want to? Amy's reason and his were wildly different. Yes, his partly involved death, but it was of a parent, not himself. It still hurt, true, it just wasn't as close to home as personally ceasing to live.

"My parents died on Valentine's Day. Both of them."

I'm sorry to hear that.

"It's OK. Death is a part of life."

It is.

Shit! What a completely insensitive thing to say when talking to a... an Amy! She was already dead, so would know explicitly about it. Should he apologise? He should apologise.

Cassidy apologised.

It's fine. It's done, so

No point in worrying about it.

Not like a bad hair day.

"A what?" What did hair have to do with dying?

It's a joke.

Lighten the mood.

Dying isn't like a bad hair day.

I can't just brush the knot away.

She had a sense of humour. Cass liked that. Even now, when she was no longer living, she could joke. What else could she do, though? Well, being dead, potentially quite a bit if she went full on poltergeist mode. Cass would keep that observation to himself.

"You really are dead, aren't you?"

It was a statement rather than a question.

I am.

"What's it like? Why haven't you... gone over?"

To where? The light? Heaven?

Hell?

He knew he was expecting things to be as the living described. Any thoughts of an afterlife were had by people who had yet to die. It meant there was nothing but belief or hope to base it on. There could be something entirely different or, as a friend of Cass's believed, there was only nothing, life, then nothing. The end.

He had the chance, now, to find out the truth, if Amy was willing to be forthcoming about it. He couldn't pass the knowledge on to anyone else, because he wouldn't be believed. How do you know? A ghost told me. Yeah, OK. On reflection, did he want to know? What if she said, apart from her being trapped here for some reason, his friend was correct? What if there was no Heaven but downstairs was ready to welcome all new visitors with any type of torture you could desire?

Maybe he didn't want to know, but would that stop him from asking? Probably not.

"I suppose, yes. I mean, I don't know the rules. How does it work?"

I can't tell you that.

"Oh, sorry. Is it a secret?"

No. I just can't tell you.

"You don't want to? That's fine."

Was it fine, though? Didn't he deserve some sort of explanation?

No, you're not listening.

I can't. I'm unable to.

No words.

No words. Something prevented Amy from writing about it? There were no words that could describe it? He'd leave it for now. Maybe, once they'd spoken for longer and had some kind of rapport, she would be more willing to impart some otherworldly wisdom. Whatever the reason for her reticence, he wasn't going to push the matter. How could she not know what it was like to be dead, unless she was still sitting in the waiting room next to Beetlejuice and had yet to learn anything worthwhile?

Hmmm... If he said her name three times, would she suddenly appear?

Stop it! Stop being a moron and start being Cassidy.

Yes, he needed to. While he could have a very dry sense of humour, one that made a work colleague compare him to the actor and comedian Ricky Gervais, he was also sympathetic. Empathic. Not a twat.

What's it like to be alive?

"What do you mean?"

Tell me.

What is it like to be alive?

He frowned. It was difficult to put life into words. It was great. It was shit. It was exciting. Sad. Exhilarating. Depressing. However, none of them really touched on what living was really like. It was something... ethereal. He could see the edge of the explanation, but couldn't grab onto it. She had a point.

"Like being dead, I suppose. They're two sides of the same coin."

They are.

And they're not.

"That's cleared that up, then!" Cassidy laughed.

He was surprised when the message changed. There were no words this time. Just a smiling face emoji, appearing as if drawn by an invisible finger, rather than morphing into place as the test usually did.

Cool.

Valentine's Day sucks, right?

"Oh, it does!"

It was good to have a literal kindred spirit. Someone who understood the pain he felt and didn't think him strange for disliking the day. It was just a pity she was dead. It would spoil any potential first date. Not that he was genuinely thinking of Amy in any romantic way. It was more a passing thought in the wake of the emerging connection.

What are you going to do now?

Now what? Now his house was haunted? Now the staircase was falling apart beneath him? Now he was feeling the grumbling onset of hunger? Cass wasn't sure of an answer for anything at that moment, apart from the last one. It was about time he cooked himself something decent to eat. The new cooker, or new to him and used to the Facebook Marketplace seller, needed breaking in. He had a tendency to put off things like that. He had no problems buying second-hand goods, if they were in decent condition, but he had to get into the right headspace to take the plunge and use them. They weren't dirty, but they were... tainted.

"You're an odd one," Elise had told him when she discovered his quirk. "But that's why I love you."

That was back near the beginning of their relationship, when the things she despised later were still cute or adorable. Towards the end, it was no longer a quirk. It was a nuisance. Idiotic instead of idiosyncratic.

"About what?" he asked.

With your day.

How do you relax?

Oh, she was making conversation! That was good. That was progress. It was also getting to know her and, perhaps, finding a way to be rid of her.

https://youtu.be/P6sMdysAYNk