Disclaimer: Silent Hill 4 and all related indicia belong to Konami. This plot, these words and jokes and dreams, are mine.

Author's Note: Written so long ago, I wonder why I haven't uploaded it until now. Alas, here it is, in all its overemotional glory (which I will defend because Eileen DOES seem emotional, yeah?). Enjoy.

Summary: On the staircase between the Water Prison – 2nd Time, and Apartment World – 2nd Time… this. Eileen/Richard friendship, foremost.

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Denial

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Another staircase looming in the grandeur of creepy nothingness…

"YAY." Eileen closed the door behind them. "I just can't WAIT to see what's at the bottom of THESE stairs."

She and Henry started down this staircase, the fourth of who-knew-how-many-to-come. Henry was only a few steps in front of her, walking much more slowly than he had done in the beginning of their companionship. For instance, on the first set of insane stairs they'd met, he had been almost halfway down the nasty metal grating of the steps while Eileen was something like fifteen steps away from the damn entrance. Eventually, though, he had taken heed of her short and sad reminders to him that she had "just come out of the hospital, for heaven's sake!"

Now here they were, almost side-by-side.

…And ridiculously slow, but whatever.

"Ahaha, yea. Wow, well, I don't need to wait to know what's at the bottom… I've already been all these places, you know?"

"I didn't, actually... ow." She hated these fricking bruises! Seriously, growing, growing… now even extending into unmentionable areas, which were perhaps most sensitive to the pain when she walked. At first it had just been her shins and thighs, but now everything below her waist seemed to react angrily to the slightest bit of movement.

"Oh. Yeah, so, there was that subway world. That was the first part of this nightmare I ever saw… and I knew that ghost, too."

"Really."

"Yeah. I guess I was just so surprised, I didn't say anything…"

"Oh, well. It's not like it was important at the time." Eileen shrugged, ignoring the pain in her shoulder and neck as she did so. She was used to the whole of the unpleasant experience by now, body screams included. "Out of curiosity though, who was it? I didn't recognize her…"

"Her name was… Cynthia…" Henry helped Eileen over a particularly uneven set of three steps. "I only knew her from the first time I went to that subway world. She wasn't a ghost then, though."

"That's weird." Eileen looked over the stair railing's edge. God, so many more to go! WHY!!! "Why was she a ghost the second time?"

Henry didn't say anything for a moment. "Well, she was killed."

"Huh." Eileen pretended not to see the unmistakable flash of anger over Henry's face. Slight as it may have been, Eileen really didn't want to get into even a small argument.

"… 'Huh'?"

"Ugh, I didn't mean to offend you, Henry! I just know what a ghost is, that's all: someone who died..." …Duh. Seriously, this guy was kind of slow sometimes.

"I'm not offended, it's just… don't you realize, she was a person, too! She's not just some ghost, she's Cynthia! And not only that, but it didn't have to be her? That it could've been me?"

"But it wasn't you, Henry, and that's what matters."

They were about halfway down the staircase now, but they were both too agitated to notice.

"I don't know, Eileen. I don't know if it does matter, see, because she had numbers on her… 16121. Sixteen out of Twenty-One, right? It could just be a body count. If I wasn't meant to be Sixteen, I was probably dumped there to be Seventeen. So it doesn't matter, not really."

"Then why aren't you Seventeen? If I recall, that was that… really… fiery guy." Yeah, he was a creepy one, alright. But not as creepy as… "That fat guy, too. Ugh!"

"Jasper Gein was Seventeen, Andrew de Salvo, the 'fat guy,' was… wait a second…"

"Eighteen, right? Thank God he's over. Nothing can be worse than him. Hell, maybe he's the last one. Eighteen seems like a magical enough number… Here's hoping, right?"

"Eileen! I said, wait!!"

Well, that was a role-reversal. Wasn't she usually the one to call for a break?

"Sorry… I guess I didn't notice I'd passed you." Eileen looked sheepishly up at Henry across the pillar of air around which the unholy stairs twisted. He smiled back reassuringly, but something else less comforting also was encrypted in his smile that Eileen didn't like. "…Henry?"

He reached her at last, and up close she could see some sort of internal battle going on behind his eyes.

"What, did you have to tie your shoe or something?" Eileen brushed her hair out of her bandaged eye, also hoping that her stupid quip would brush away some of this weird tension.

But it didn't.

"There is… one more ghost."

"Oh, man."

"Yeah… and this one… I don't know why, but I think it's gonna be… bad."

Eileen sighed. She could only imagine a fiery, bloated, long-haired ghost waiting beyond the door… in some train-filled, forested, cylindrical world. Or whatever. "Please tell me he didn't die by getting turned into Frankenstein, at least. Or a big, rabid rhinoceros. Because I can't even begin to—"

Something about the way Henry suddenly seemed like a ghost himself shut her up.

"Henry? What…"

16121. 17121. 18121. Then… who was 19121?

"Um, so, who all do you know at our apartment in South Ashfield? I didn't really know anyone until now… is that the same for you?"

Eileen vomited.

"WOAH! Eileen! Are you okay?? Oh, oh man! Here… I've a thing of pocket tissues."

She didn't know why, but it was all she could do to just stay on her hands and knees. She couldn't even take the wad of tissues Henry was trying to wedge in between her fingers—she was absolutely sick.

"Are you saying someone I know… is the next ghost?"

Someone I know… is DEAD?

Before she could throw up on this thought again, Henry helped her sit up. His touch settled her stomach, but it did nothing for the panic that had been birthed and was growing rapidly.

"No! I mean, okay. You might've known of this person. But he didn't seem like someone you'd know-know. You know?"

Know, know? She had known EVERYONE, asshole!

"I knew-knew everyone, Henry. I knew-knew every last angel and scumbag in that building, every last twitch and bad habit!"

"Oh… you probably didn't like them, though. So… just breathe for a second."

Didn't like them? Maybe. But she did care about them, no doubt, as she cared for all of her neighbors, no matter how drunk and annoying or perverted and nasty they were. She was concerned about their general well-being, at least… but…

How stupid she had been, not to be concerned for her neighbors NOW! How stupid she had been, not to see an insanely obvious threat to each and every tenant at that place, now with the holes in the walls and everything, than there had ever been, ever! If she was here in this whacked up world, and Henry from the same building had been here even longer… yeah, why not someone else from the apartment, too?

"Oh, no… Henry, who…"

"Wait. Calm down. Oh, man, I should've had you sit down and listen to this like two worlds ago… I'm sorry, so please…"

The faces of each and every neighbor flashed through her head. Although it should have been only one face, one time each, there was one person's face in particular that seemed to wedge its way in between every other personality she had come to know over the years. But why think of him in particular? Because Henry had said she wouldn't like this guy? And he was the one guy who came to mind who would obviously be the bane of the entire apartment… but he wasn't really, at least to her… actually, he sometimes gave her a ride to places with his car… because she didn't have a car of her own yet… and he was going to drive her again today, too, because the subway was closed down—he was going to drive her to that party!

Oh, my God.

She remembered now.

He had been late picking her up…

And how had that guy, Walter, known his name to say when he came to her apartment? That had been his password for her to open the door, practically… He said, he'd come to pick her up because…her ride was… "tied up…"

"It's not… it can't be… it's not Richard, right?"

Henry looked confused. "I thought that would make it better…"

"BETTER? Oh, my GOD, RICHARD."

What had he said when she had last seen him? That if he was driving her, and it wasn't on his way to work like the ride usually was, she owed him one? And since it was to a "damn party," she owed him two? That if any guy didn't leave her alone, to come back and tell him that guy's name and address, so he could break the perv's ass? That he'd be up to her apartment around 6 to pick her up, and she'd better be ready because he really didn't like hanging around that freaky Room 302 longer than he had to?

But she had been the one left hanging… because he never came.

"Eileen? …Are you ok?"

She didn't know… what to do… if she should do anything at all… if she could do anything. She wanted those green eyes of Henry's, so compassionate, so patient and sweet… to suddenly become blue and startling and brash. She wanted the shy arms that were tentatively tightening around her middle, sheathed with a dirty white dress shirt… to clutch at her violently, to be in sleeves of blue with white stripes. She wanted the harmless breath against her neck… to breathe a soft and dangerous life where there was one no more.

"No way… come on… he had a gun. He could've…" Five tears fell simultaneously from Eileen's good eye, and unseen touchy pain blinked in her other eye.

"That's… what I was saying. But then, maybe he couldn't… just like Cynthia was 16121, maybe he was meant to be… 19121."

"No…"

"Yeah. I'm sorry, Eileen."

Henry hugged her still longer. She let herself be held close, against his chest and neck, but not for a second forgetting why she was there. Not for a second enjoying the pleasant feel of tender hands sensitively brushing through her hair, not for a second pushing away the flashing white lights of shock from her mind. There was only one thing she could enjoy, and that was the suddenly obsessive memory of the wink she'd gotten earlier that day… a wink from blue eyes, for the first time she'd ever seen them unclouded by agitated self-awareness. That was the last time she saw him…

"Shh, it's okay."

Eileen suddenly realized how real everything was in this unreal world—how real it must have also been for Richard, who had gotten there, too, somehow. Richard, who'd gotten there and, unlike Henry… had not been able to… get back… out.

What had Walter said? "Mr. Braintree is tied up at the moment…"

Eileen let out the hardest sob she'd ever managed. Her throat collapsed on itself as she tried to beg Henry's pardon for her distress.

"Oh, my God… I'm … I'm sorry, Henry… It's… it's too real… Richard…?"

She couldn't breathe.

"I know. Our 207. Pretty bad, huh?"

A whiff of the laundry detergent Henry used frustrated her senses. Where was the cologne… she had taken for granted, even if she hadn't enjoyed it as secretly and intensely as she should have, she now thought regretfully. And it wasn't like they had been close, but they had been friends… or probably the closest thing to friends that either of them had in that place. Probably the only people to actually make friends at that place, too, so… wasn't that special? A little bit?

"207! You asshole, he's RICHARD! I don't know who the hell this Cynthia was, but Richard is definitely as much if not more of a person than she was!"

Henry didn't say anything. This was good, because if one more insensitive thing came out of his mouth, he would have been eating Eileen's whip chain weapon in less than two seconds.

As it was, however, Eileen just continued to cry. She didn't know why she was shedding actual tears for Richard. He wouldn't have done the same if she died, but… maybe just knowing that about him—no, being able to know something about him on that sort of level… maybe that's what made her cry.

"Ok. But we have to go now."

What? No! She couldn't face whatever was left of that guy. What would he look like? What would he… do to them?

"I-I don't want to go to the next place, Henry. Not yet. Please."

She thought the silence that followed was Henry's way of caving, but then…

"Look."

But Eileen couldn't look. She couldn't see through her tears and bangs and bruises and smashed pieces of immediate memories… of that guy…

"Eileen, look."

"What?" She couldn't bring herself to say anything else. The things that were going to happen in the next few hours… they stole her words away.

"Come on. Ugh. Whatever, here."

A gun dropped onto her lap, the only place she could look without breaking down.

"What…?" She examined it. It was familiar, somehow. It wasn't Henry's pistol, though… it was a long revolver, slightly scuffed on the tip. Could it be…

"Richard's revolver."

Henry hadn't caved. He had just spent a few moments of silence looking through his pockets and belt loops for the revolver.