Okay, I fully intended this to be a one-shot, I even had it written as one (it was a really long one-shot, but a one shot nonetheless). But then as I went to post it I realized that it was better divided up among several chapters. They will all be posted today, but it might take a while, because every time I upload a chapter before the previous chapter went through its loading process, the secondary chapters don't seem to be recognizable on mobile devices. Anyway, think of it as a really long one-shot that has kind of held my attention for the past couple days. Enjoy.

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Another Side of Me

Her face, her voice, it was all so familiar to him.

And what she had called him: "grandpa." It was almost like…

'No,' he told himself, 'It couldn't be. She's dead.'

The balding, middle-aged teacher paced in his empty classroom. It was after school, and, by now, he should have left to go home like all of his other colleagues. However, he had been behind on his grading and did not want to lug the large stack of essays home with him for the evening.

Unfortunately for Mr. Lancer, it seemed impossible for him to get anything done with the somehow unknown familiarity of the pop idol on his mind.

'But then, how do I know her?' he asked himself. Between all the stress of teaching and grading, and the fact that he was beginning to have memory lapses that only seemed to get worse as he aged, he could not place the teen singer who had just recently captivated the entire student body before disappearing off of the face of the earth.

'Perhaps she was one of those B side artists that one of my students had shown me several years ago, who had finally made it big as a one-hit-wonder,' Lancer considered before immediately dashing the idea. He had never paid much mind to his students' tastes in music, especially not to the point where he would have recognized one of the artists to this extent.

"I should go home," he said out loud, glancing out at the darkening sky, "Susan will start to get worried."

Robert Lancer and Susan had been married for twenty-five years as of the past July. The two had one twenty-year old daughter named Katherine.

When Katherine turned eighteen, she had opted to go overseas and serve in the Peace Corps. It was admirable that she had wanted to help others, but, despite their emails and the occasional Skype, her parents were disappointed that they did not get to see her very often. The last time Katherine had been home was during the first week of June; nearly five months ago. And they would not be seeing her again until the week after Christmas.

Mr. Lancer pulled into the driveway of his home. The house was nothing special, red brick lined in white around the chipping window and door frames, with a cracked cement path that was in desperate need of repair. He kept telling himself he would get to it eventually, but neither he nor Susan actually believed he would.

Immediately, he was hit by the scent of his wife's cooking when he stepped into the house.

The inside of their house was eclectic. Most of the furniture was from when they had first bought furniture together after they had gotten married in 1989. After that, furniture had only been purchased as needed, so there were several pieces from the nineties and 2000's mixed in around the house. On the mantle of the red-brick fireplace, dozens of pictures were arranged. But, other than their wedding photo, all of the other pictures were of Katherine from over the years.

"Hi, honey," Susan poked her head out of the kitchen, "You're home late, everything okay?" she asked.

"Oh yeah," he replied nonchalantly, "Just behind on my grading."

Susan smiled reassuringly at him before walking back into the kitchen. Lancer slumped with heavy-footed steps into the kitchen, the brute of the day's exhaustion finally hitting him like a freight train, and sat himself in one of the old, floral patterned, vinyl-covered, chairs.

"We're having beef stew," she said, ladling some of the thick brown liquid into two bowls in front of her husband and herself before sitting across from him. The old wooden chair creaked but held steady as it always had.

It didn't take much for Susan to realize that something was wrong with her husband, although she figured it might have just been the combination of stress and exhaustion from a long day at work. She clicked on the TV, hoping that the news would be a welcomed distraction to whatever troubled him.

He ate the stew in silence, occasionally glancing to the screen and occasionally glancing to her with a polite smile.

"So I talked with Katherine today," Susan decided to create some conversation.

"Oh yeah," he nodded without really listening to what she had said.

"Yeah, she says that she might not be able to make it here until the first week in January," Susan sighed. Her husband still wasn't listening. If he had been paying attention to what she had said, he would have been upset. He was already irritated that Katherine could not be with them on Christmas day.

The news station switched from the local weather to another news anchor standing on the downtown street.

"The albums sales of the star plummeted after her final performance and sudden disappearance. Although some loyal fans still cling to the popular single on their albums, many have opted to move the artist's work from their MP3 players to the trash. Now all there is to wonder is 'Where did Ember McClain go, and will she be coming back?' Some members of Amity Park are beginning to speculate that ghosts had something to do with her bizarre appearance and disappearance or perhaps that Ember was a ghost herself, however no investigation had been conducted to test these theories. From downtown Amity Park, with all the coverage on the streets, I'm Mark Winters…" Once again, the mention of the popstar had peaked Lancer's attention, and now, he felt, he was closer to determining her familiarity.

Ember's name, he decided, was also familiar, similar to a former student of his, but not exactly the same.

His interest in the news reel did not escape Susan's notice. Her husband was many things: kind, funny, smart, an online gamer (on occasion), but interested in pop-culture he was not.

"What is it, Robert?" she wondered.

Lancer, however, was still lost in his own thoughts.

Ember…Amber…Amber McClain.

Yes! Of course!

With the confirmation that she was a ghost, it made perfect sense! Amber McClain had died in 1984, he had known her, and he had been at her funeral. That's why he had been unable to connect the dots! The logical part of his brain did not connect the dead Amber McClain, with the ghost popstar, Ember McClain.

"Robert, honey, what is it?" his wife asked again.

He studied her for several seconds. He had never told her about this particular student, and he was debating whether or not to do so now. Her eyebrows scrunched in concern as she watched him with a frown.

"Did I ever tell you about my first year of teaching?" he asked her, already knowing what her answer would be.

"Not really, what does that have to do with that young girl?" she wondered.

"She had been one of my students," he said, the memories slowly trickling back to him.