Smoke and Mirrors

by EGB Fan

The Ghostbusters are taking the day off to celebrate Roland's marriage. But demons don't take days off, and the party is interrupted by a woman facing criticism from someone she did not expect to see again.

Disclaimer: Ghostbusters and Extreme Ghostbusters © Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Fil Barlow. Charlene Zeddemore and Jonathan Spengler © Fritz Baugh. Kaila Zeddemore © Brian Reilly. All other original characters © the author.

Extreme Ghostbusters: Smoke and Mirrors

Saturday, July 11th 2009

"Are you nuts?" the girl said.

"No." Carol Saunders, with much effort and self-control, turned to look at her tormentor. "Don't you ever stop talking?"

"You're an accountant?"

"Please leave me alone."

"Wait a minute." The girl peered over Carol's shoulder at the email she was reading. "I thought you just got this."

"I did."

"It says here it's Saturday. Is it Saturday? Why are you working on a Saturday?"

"It's good money," said Carol. "No, actually, it's great money. Please go away."

"You sell-out!" the girl said. "You coward! You traitor! You… you… you…"

"All right, look," said Carol. "What does it take to get rid of you?"

Suddenly the assertive teenager's expression became confused, and she sounded almost childlike as she said, "I don't know. Maybe you have to, like, change your life."

"No friggin' way."

"No friggin'way?" Her face stretched into a sneer. "It won't kill you to say fuck."

"You're a really horrible kid - you know that?"

"At least I'm not a sell-out."

"All right," said Carol, telling her computer to shut down with angry, forceful clicks of the mouse. "If you're not going, I am."

.-.-.-.

"We thought you'd be gone by now," Peter Venkman said, with a note of disapproval in his voice, dumping two grocery bags on the table as he spoke.

"So did I," said Roland Jackson, in an undertone, keeping his voice down for fear of offending anyone who might overhear. "Y'know, the fact that I'm reliable is one of the things she likes best about me. It would be really bad if I was late."

"Well," said Jessica, Peter's sixteen-year-old daughter, "I guess that's as good a reason as any to get married. It's all very well being reliable, Roland, but if you're going to offer rides to unreliable people…"

"They're doing their best," said Roland. "It's just Rose."

Oscar, Peter's stepson, stopped rifling through the CD collection he had brought and put his head into the next room. Rose was only a five-year-old girl, big-eyed and beautiful in a sleeveless dark green dress, potentially the picture of innocence. She was small even for her age, and yet clearly she was winning the battle of wills against the five-foot-nine man standing over her. Eduardo Rivera, with no less conviction than the situation called for, said again, "Tell me where they are."

"No!" said Rose. She was hunched up in one corner of the couch, her limbs all folded up and her angry little face almost an exact miniature of his.

"Roland," said Oscar. "It looks like it could go on for a while. If you want to tell them to leave her here, I don't mind watching her."

"I think it would be cruel to make her go," said Jessica.

"We all know what you think," said Oscar, moving further back into the room as Rose's mother, Kylie Griffin, swept in from the stairwell and made her way towards the kitchen. Wearing knee-boots, a tight-fitting black dress and a sour expression, she looked not much different from when Oscar had last seen her, but still the absence of the goth makeup was noticeable. "Hi, Kylie. Oh, wow, you look gorgeous."

"You said I was gorgeous when I used to plaster myself in makeup," said Kylie.

"So you were. You're beautiful with or without it."

Kylie managed a smile then, and said, "If you want to be charming, Oscar, go and try it on Rose. Maybe she'll tell you where she's hidden her shoes."

"Oh, that reminds me," said Roland. "Oscar, speaking of being charming, can you maybe not try and get back with my sister this time? She's seeing someone now."

"Is she?" said Oscar, not sounding too perturbed by this news. "Some brainiac she's met at medical school, I guess."

"Well… yes."

"Can he sing?"

"Um…" Roland looked taken aback for a moment. "I don't think so."

Oscar nodded solemnly. "Good."

Eduardo came in then, looking rather battle-weary. Kylie looked at him, missing the odd look that she was getting from somebody else. Jessica was thinking of saying something to her, but she abandoned any such idea when Eduardo took Kylie's attention.

"I wouldn't have dared talk to my father like that," he said.

"Well then you shouldn't be such a soft touch," said Kylie.

Eduardo went from looking defeated to looking irritable. "My dad would have hit me," he said pointedly. "Do you want me to hit her?"

"No," said Kylie. "Just be firm with her."

"I am being firm with her."

"I bet you're not."

"I bet I am!"

"Are you sure you wanna get married and have kids?" Jessica said to Roland.

"Jess, don't," said Oscar.

"Oh, butt out," said Jessica. Then she turned back to Roland. "Is she taking your name?"

Roland hesitated a moment. Then he said, "I'm not telling you."

Jessica muttered something that sounded like, "Traitor."

"Y'know," said Roland, "Temple's her slave name."

Jessica seemed to consider this a moment. Then she said, "Jackson's your slave name."

"Yeah," said Eduardo, with a faint smile. "That's even worse."

"Well," a new voice said, and they all turned to see Conchita, Eduardo and Kylie's older daughter, entering the kitchen with a tiny green sandal in her hand. "I found one."

She was followed into the room by Slimer, the Ghostbusters' small green pet ghost. He looked around the kitchen, swiped the shoe from Conchita's hand and then presented it to Kylie, with a triumphant, "Tuh-dah!"

Kylie said in faintly hysterical tones, as she snatched the shoe from Slimer, "Of course she didn't hide them both in the same place! Why would she?"

Slimer, looking dejected, floated out of the door with a hangdog expression.

"Kylie," said Roland. "If you want to leave her here…"

"Oh no no no no no," said Kylie, turning to face Roland and brandishing the shoe at him like a weapon. "That's what she wants."

"I'll keep looking," said Conchita, making for the doorway.

"Chita," said Kylie, holding out her hand to her daughter and then pulling her into a brief but heartfelt embrace. "Thank you."

Conchita left. Eduardo looked at Kylie, and said in challenging tones, "Well?"

"Well what?"

"If you can do so much better…"

Kylie shot him a defiant look, and then strode purposefully from the room. Eduardo sat down at the table, by all appearances having been through a long and difficult day, when in reality it had hardly begun.

"Hi, Oscar," he said. "How are you?"

"All right," said Oscar, knowing that he must look pale and drawn, because he felt it.

Kylie came back shortly, looking even more annoyed than she had before. Eduardo raised his eyebrows at her, to which she responded with, "She hit me."

"Me too," said Eduardo. "How many people get hit by their parents and their kids?"

"I never hit you, did I?" said Conchita, coming back into the room. She headed straight for one of the low cupboards and started rummaging through it.

"Only when you were a baby," said Eduardo. "Not on purpose."

"I think I'd have seen her if she hid it in here," said Roland.

"This is Rose we're talking about," said Conchita. Then she emerged from the cupboard, seemed to notice Oscar for the first time and gave him an angelic smile. "Hi, Oscar. I'm glad you're back. I really liked that concert you did at Wembley Arena." She said the name carefully, as though struggling to remember it, but pronounced it flawlessly.

"Oh, thank you," said Oscar. "Your parents let you watch that, huh?"

"Only the first hour," said Kylie. "Honey, you can stop looking now - we really have to go. Why didn't you tell us what time it was, Roland?"

"Well, you were looking for Rose's shoes," said Roland.

"She's still missing one," Conchita added.

"Then she'll just have to go without," said Kylie, getting to her feet and picking up a shoulder bag no one had really noticed. "Come on. We'll see you guys later."

Eduardo, Kylie, Conchita and Roland all left the kitchen, but another minute or two elapsed before they left the building altogether. Rose refused to move, and then Kylie found that she couldn't shift her when she refused to comply, so it was left to Eduardo to lift what was essentially a dead weight and carry her down to Roland's car.

"You're always playing Wembley Arena," said Jessica to her brother, in accusing tones. "I suppose fuck face was there."

Oscar was shocked by this, but did not show it. "What, Hayden? He went with a bunch of people from school. One of them decided to be his girlfriend by the end, actually."

"Oh, really?" Jessica said disinterestedly. "What's her name?"

"Christine. She's a really sweet girl - I met her last year. She plays the clarinet."

"Is she pretty?"

"I don't know. Kind of, I guess."

"Guys," said Peter. "I thought you were supposed to be helping me. Oscar, have one of these little mini-quiches or something - I haven't seen you eat since yesterday."

­­.-.-.-.

"What are you doing in here?"

"Just giving my opinion on wedding night lingerie," Spencer Daniels said coolly. "We were married, Adele, I've seen it all bef- ow!"

"We're just talking, Mom," Grace Temple said, shooting her ex-husband a look to match the kick she'd just given him. They were both sitting on the edge of the single bed in Grace's childhood bedroom. "Look, we've got all of our clothes on and everything."

That was true enough. This time, Grace's dress was smart but understated. Spence was wearing a suit that had already come unbuttoned, untucked and generally unacceptable. Adele shot him a look of disapproval before making a dignified exit.

"Don't antagonise her," said Grace.

"Tell her not to antagonise me," said Spence.

"I have."

"Have you? Oh, thanks. She doesn't seem to be taking any notice, though, does she?"

"None of them are," said Grace. "I'm sorry, Spence. I practically begged, but they just won't accept that it wasn't all your fault."

"It was all my fault."

"It wasn't. It was never going to work - I shouldn't have married you in the first place."

"I shouldn't have asked you. You were just a kid - you didn't know any better."

"I was eighteen," said Grace. "I know that's young, but it should be old enough to know better than to marry a lame duck."

Spence raised his eyebrows. "A lame duck, was I?"

"You know you were. And I was a sanctimonious little…"

"Yes?"

"Well… you know why I married you, don't you? Because it made me feel smug."

"Really?" said Spence. "Didn't you like me a little bit? Because I did kind of love you."

"Well," said Grace, "all right, I kind of loved you too. It wasn't that bad, really, was it?"

"No, it wasn't. And I'm glad it didn't put you off, because I want you to be happy and Roland obviously makes you happy."

"He does. It did occur to me that the whole thing with him is kind of… well, safe. He's almost pathologically reliable. If he says he's gonna do something, he does it."

"I'm sorry - "

"I know you are. And I thought about that - how he's almost like the exact opposite to you, and maybe that was why I thought it would be a good idea to marry him."

"Why do you say that?" said Spence. "Do you want me to contradict you?"

"No," said Grace. "I've gone over it myself, and there was no way I was going to marry for a stupid reason again. I've grown up now, and I want to marry him for all the right reasons. So I guess we can get going, can't we? If you want to go and, um…"

"Right," said Spence. He was glad to be there with Grace just before she remarried, and he thought she felt the same way, but the real reason for his presence was to serve as a kind of double agent. Their nine-year-old daughter, Natalie, was unwilling to undertake her duties as a bridesmaid. But her predicament wasn't Spence's fault, so she could not reasonably vent her frustrations on him. "By the way, Grace, you look really beautiful."

"Do you remember the first time you said that to me?"

"Yeah, it was after you smushed my face into your boobs and stroked the back of my head and told me I wasn't a bad person."

"See?" Grace said. "Sanctimonious. I am so glad Roland didn't know me then."

.-.-.-.

While Roland and Grace were getting married in the presence of their families and close friends, the firehouse was filling up with expectant partygoers. Peter and his children had helpfully taken care of the food, the music and the congratulatory banner, which were the only things that needed seeing to. Grace, who at eighteen had been unable to fight her naïve optimism and the wishes of her very excitable relatives, had this time insisted that there be a minimal amount of fuss. In traditional terms, it was more like a birthday party than a wedding reception.

A few people Grace worked with showed up, as well as two couples with children Natalie's age. Oscar, who had been catching up on some work by composing snippets of a melody on the acoustic guitar he had brought, remembered his manners and put the instrument down in order to introduce himself. Peter stuck with the people he knew: his own wife Dana, whom he knew very well, and also his fellow senior Ghostbusters and their families. Egon Spengler and Ray Stantz had both managed to bring their spouses and offspring, but Winston and Kaila Zeddemore had had to come without their daughter Charlene, as she was on the other side of the country serving an internship.

Jessica, when she saw Winston and Kaila, was inspired to give Charlene a call. She had her cell phone out anyway, as she was sending an important text message. She finished this up quickly, and then speed-dialled Charlene's cell phone.

"It's two fifteen," Jessica said, moving on from the preliminaries of their conversation as quickly as possible. "Do you think they're married yet?"

"I don't know," said Charlene. "What time did they start?"

"How would I know? I guess everyone's got their cell phone switched off, haven't they? If I sent someone a text message… well it doesn't really matter at the moment. So anyway, are you okay? Didn't you used to be in love with him?"

"Jess, come on, that was like five years ago," said Charlene. "Let's talk about something else. Why are you so worried about a text message?"

"I'm not worried. Who said I was worried?"

"It's obvious. Does it have something to do with you getting back with Cameron?"

"No," said Jessica, feeling uncomfortable. This was a bald lie, and she did not want either to retract it or to expand on it, so she hung up. Then she made her way over to the couch, where Peter was engrossed in conversation with a red-haired boy of nine or ten.

"And Gina Dane's step-dad got killed in a motorcycle accident," the child was saying, "and Lisa Smith's step-dad is in jail because he'd been touching her."

"Oh my God," said Peter.

Jessica sat down on the other side of the couch, then shifted as she felt something digging into her back. She leaned forward, felt around behind the cushion and finally pulled out a small green sandal.

"Oh," she said. "She was sitting on it."

Peter looked at her. "Oh, that's so obvious."

"And David Blake's step-mom got cancer last week," the child went on.

"Do you have any friends with stepparents who nothing has happened to?" asked Peter.

The boy considered a moment. Then he said, "No. But Natalie's not really my friend."

"So what are you doing here?" asked Jessica.

"My mom made me come. She's friends with Mrs. Temple."

"It's Miss," Jessica said irritably. "Miss Temple. Or maybe Mrs. Jackson by now. They must be finishing about now, mustn't they? If they're not, then they've told everybody to get here much too early. I call that rude. Oh, I'll get that," she said, jumping to her feet as the landline phone a few yards away started ringing.

"Jess," said Peter, looking at her oddly, and not for the first time that day. "Are you -?"

Jessica flapped her hand dismissively at him as she picked up the phone, and said to it, "Hello, Ghostbusters. Unless it's a life or death situation, I'm afraid we can't get anybody out to you until tomorrow."

"What?" an angry female voice came back to her. "Why the hell not?"

"They're all taking the day off. We're having a party."

"A party?"

"Yes. Well, a wedding," Jessica amended, hoping that this would appease the woman. She knew that only a handful of people shared her opinion of weddings. "You know - let's make all our friends take a day out of their lives to watch our smug-fest. Who can make the most people throw up with their wedding vows - that kind of wedding. Look, what's the problem? If it's an emergency…"

Suddenly, the phone was wrenched out of Jessica's hand, and she found herself being shooed back to her father by Janine Spengler. Janine then put the phone to her ear, and said, "May I be of assistance?"

"That's what you get for trying to help," Jessica said, perching on the arm of the couch.

"And my aunt got breast cancer two years ago," Peter's young companion said. "She's okay now, but my grandma died of it when she was fifty-six."

"Hey, kid," said Jessica. "What's your name?"

"Jamie."

"You like weddings, Jamie?"

"I've never been to one. My cousin Sophie was supposed to get married, but then her boyfriend got killed when a truck drove into him on the freeway."

Jessica, in her present mood, felt inclined to get settled on the couch and have a whole conversation with Jamie. Then she heard Janine rounding off her telephone conversation, and was interested to know what it had been all about.

"It's an interesting one," said Janine. "Apparently she's being criticised by her past self."

Peter raised his eyebrows. "Her past self?"

"That's what she said. She doesn't seem to be in any immediate danger, but I said we'd send someone out as soon as we could."

"Her past self must want something," said Peter. "If it is her past self. It's probably some kind of demon. How do you know she's not in any immediate danger?"

"You can go and check it out if you want to, Dr. Venkman," said Janine.

Peter got up and walked over to Egon, who might very well have had an idea as to why a woman would come face to face with a younger version of herself. Jessica turned back to Jamie, about to ask him whether he knew anyone who was actually happy, when the sound of the returning wedding party caught her attention. She jumped up and made her way quickly downstairs to the firehouse foyer, after deciding it was best not to appear too keen by sliding down the pole.

A lot of people Jessica didn't know were making their way towards the stairs, as well as several that she did. She was looking for Kylie, whose daughter's shoe she still happened to be clutching, but when she passed Roland's sister Amy she made a point of looking at her boyfriend. He was white, fairly tall and not particularly good looking. This was all Jessica could tell at a glance - and of course, she already knew he was a medical student. She thought quietly to herself that the guy was nowhere near as good as her brother, and then she forgot all about him when she spotted Kylie with her family. Eduardo was carrying Rose, who was wearing a faintly smug look as though she thought she had won their little battle. He lowered her heavily to the ground as Jessica approached.

"Let me guess," said Jessica. "The sidewalk's too hot to walk on."

Eduardo nodded. "My dad would have made me walk on it anyway," he said, looking sharply at Rose, who shrugged and turned away in a gesture that plainly said she knew she could get away with plenty of things he wouldn't have. Eduardo then spotted the shoe in Jessica's hand and said, in tones of utter defeat, "Where did you find it?"

"She was sitting on it," said Jessica, handing it to him.

"Oh, that's so obvious!"

"Hey," said Kylie, in a tone that said nothing to the people around them, but which caught Jessica's attention straightway. "I got your text message. Come on," and, hoisting her bag more firmly onto her shoulder, she started shepherding Jessica towards the bathroom.

.-.-.-.

With the arrival of the wedding party, the firehouse was surely full to capacity. As well as the customary two parents, Roland had four brothers and two sisters, three of whom had brought partners and one of whom had brought a twenty-one-month-old daughter. Grace had two parents as well, but only one older brother, who had brought with him a wife and two young children. Then there was Natalie, a four-foot smoking volcano desperate to get out of the pretty dress she had been forced to wear; Spence and his girlfriend and baby, and a few close friends of both the bride and groom.

Jo and Garrett Miller were in the unique position of being close personal friends with both of Grace's husbands (although Jo did only know them through Garrett). Spence, feeling outnumbered by all of Grace's relatives, was making sure to stick with them as much as possible.

"Oh no," he said, ducking behind Garrett's wheelchair and looking furtively over the top of his head. "Archie's here."

"Who's Archie again?" asked Jo.

"Grace's dad," said Spence.

"Well of course he's here," said Jo.

"He's not really one for parties. I hoped he might leave after the ceremony."

"Uh-oh," said Garrett. "He's coming over."

Archibald Temple was indeed walking their way. He was a frightening sight to behold - large and angry looking, with very little hair on his head and a thick grey moustache on his upper lip. Garrett and Jo both wondered independently how a man like this could have produced a fairly small, unimposing and generally happy daughter like Grace.

"This is the headquarters of the Ghostbusters," Archie said to Spence.

"Yessir, I know," said Spence.

"Is it quite safe for us to be here?"

"Absolutely it's safe," said Garrett.

"I have just seen a small green disgusting creature attacking the buffet."

"That's just Slimer," said Jo, just for the sake of joining in. "He's all right."

Archie made no response to this, but instead turned his attention to something going on behind Spence and Jo's shoulders. Pointing, he demanded, "Who is that?"

Jo and Spence both turned round to look, and saw any number of people behind them. In the general direction of Archie's pointing were five-year-old Max Miller, Adele Temple, two of Roland's brothers, Grace's four-year-old nephew Mark, and Grace herself. Most of these people Archie ought to have recognised, so Jo assumed he was referring to Max.

"That's my son," she said, clearly affronted. He was involved in an energetic game with Mark, which seemed to involve crawling around under the buffet table. Max could take some getting used to, Jo knew, but to ask about him and Slimer in the same breath…

"That is no way to behave at a wedding reception," said Archie.

"Archie, come on," said Spence. "They're kids."

Archie glared at him, and looked about to launch into some kind of lecture, when a woman none of them had ever seen before came bustling through the crowd, demanding, "Do any of you people actually work here?"

"I do," said Garrett, surprised, but ready to do what he could. "Can I help you?"

"You're a Ghostbuster?" said Archie.

"Yes," said Garrett.

"Impossible! I mean, you're… well…"

"He's very capable actually," said Jo, who was rapidly approaching her full quota of aspersions on her loved ones. "I bet he could kick your butt. Shall we see?"

"Maybe not kick as such," said Garrett, deciding that he couldn't be bothered with Archie and he didn't care what he thought. "Now then, ma'am, what seems to be the problem?"

.-.-.-.

When Kylie had finished in the bathroom with Jessica, she was happy to see that Eduardo was with a large middle-aged black woman she didn't know, as that conversation surely couldn't go on for long. While she waited, Kylie had a look round for her daughters, and saw that Conchita was befriending a girl she thought she recognised as Grace's six-year-old niece, while Rose had attached herself to Oscar. He was one of the people Rose could tolerate if she occasion called for it, and Kylie was satisfied that he would look after her. She continued to watch Eduardo, and then took her chance to get him on his own.

"Hey," she said, wrapping her arms around his waist. "I'm sorry about before. I don't know why I said that - I know what a pain in the ass Rose can be."

"It's okay, babe," said Eduardo.

"And I'm sorry I made you wait with them outside while I went into the pharmacy."

"That's okay too. Um… about that…"

"It's nothing for you to worry about."

"All right," said Eduardo, though he didn't sound convinced, and Kylie decided to take his apparent concern as the excuse she wanted. She knew she shouldn't tell him, and yet she had known all along that she was going to.

"I was getting a morning after pill."

"Really? But I thought we were using - oh!"

Kylie nodded. "She asked me, so I got her one. Do you know something? That girl has no idea what money is worth. In the bathroom just now, she pulled out something like a hundred and fifty dollars and asked me how much she owed me. Then she said she was going to buy sneakers with the rest because that's what she told Peter she needed the money for. It's a completely different world, isn't it? Can you imagine spending that much money on our kids' shoes? Oh God! Did I do the right thing?"

"Of course," said Eduardo. "If she gets pregnant, it won't be your fault."

"That's pretty much what I figured. But I was just thinking… if I found out someone had done that for one of ours… when they're a little older, obviously… I'd be pretty upset."

"A little older?"

Kylie gave him a dry smile. "I think you and I are looking at this a little differently. If it was Chita" - in her mind she had taken Rose out of the running, knowing how readily Conchita came to like and trust people, and how readily her sister refused to do any such thing - "what would bother me would be the fact that she didn't come to me."

"I think she would," said Eduardo. "Who's gonna have unprotected sex with her?"

Kylie was tempted to give him the name of somebody there - Mark Temple, perhaps, or someone they knew a little better like young Jonathan Spengler - just to see if he would start to believe it and conduct himself threateningly around the chosen boy. But this was supposed to be serious, and it was already more than Kylie felt comfortable with.

"Well why didn't Jessica go to Dana?" she asked. "She's a good mother, isn't she?"

"Sure she is, but she's way stricter than you are. I wouldn't go to her with that."

"Oh, Eduardo, I feel so guilty!"

Eduardo opened his mouth, ready to tell her that she didn't need to feel guilty, when Jo suddenly appeared from somewhere and said, "Have you guys met Roland's father-in-law? What a complete asshole! Listen, Garrett wants you both - he's over there with a woman who's being stalked by a younger version of herself."

"She's being what?" said Kylie.

"You heard. Go over there and talk to her - it's really interesting stuff."

.-.-.-.

Eduardo and Garrett took Carol Saunders to a room on the top floor, and offered her a bed to sit on. The rest of the firehouse was more or less full, but this room was being used only as a stronghold for Oscar's much beloved acoustic guitar. Kylie went to tell the more senior Ghostbusters what was going on. Even if they wanted to stay with the party, she felt they ought to be informed. Five minutes later she joined the small gathering with Egon and Peter, who had been aware of Carol's case since her call came through.

"She just keeps getting at me," Carol said, flapping both of her hands in imitation of her younger self's mouth. "I shouldn't be an accountant, I shouldn't have got married, I shouldn't have got divorced, I was supposed to go and be an artist in Paris…"

"Wow, that sounds great," said Kylie.

"It sounds great to me too," Carol said desperately. "That's why I thought of it in the first place. But it's really not practical. And when I got married… I did love him, but…"

"It's all right, you don't have to tell us all of this," said Egon, trying to sound reassuring and helpful, though the effect was somewhat marred when he pointed his PKE meter at Carol and frowned intently at the screen. "I've never heard of anything like this happening before. The things this girl says… are they consistent with your memory of what you were like at that age?"

"Completely," said Carol. "I thought I had it all planned out, and I could not envisage any scenario in which it turned out I was wrong. About anything."

"You should meet my daughter," said Peter.

"It seems unlikely that it really is your past self," said Egon. "For one thing, we have to assume you'd remember meeting a future version of yourself."

"Does she know who you are?" asked Kylie.

"Excellent question, Kylie," said Egon. Then he looked expectantly at Carol.

"She knows," said Carol.

"Okay, so she's a demon," said Eduardo, very aware that neither he nor Garrett had done anything since offering Carol the bed. "She's trying to, um…"

"Piss you off immensely," said Garrett.

"But why?" asked Carol.

"That's what we need to find out," said Kylie. "There are a lot of demons out there that like to annoy their victims, and for any number of reasons. Some even like to annoy them to death. This one might not be in the habit of appearing as people's younger selves - that could be unique to you. I'll go do some research."

"Kylie, this is a party," said Peter. "And we did tell Ms. Saunders we wouldn't be able to help her yet unless she was in immediate danger."

"How do you know I'm not?" said Carol, bristling.

"An excellent point, Ms. Saunders," said Egon. "Why don't you stay here for the time being, as our guest? If your younger self bothers you again, come and tell one of us and we'll see if we can do anything about it."

"Oh, there you all are." Roland made his way into the room, clearly puzzled. "What are you guys doing up here?"

"We're helping Ms. Saunders with a problem," said Garrett. "Carol, this is Roland. He's the one who got married."

"Tchuh," said Carol. Then she checked herself, got to her feet and said, with a polite smile, "Congratulations. I hope you'll be very happy."

"Perhaps you'd like to come with me, Ms. Saunders," said Egon. "Now then, if one or two of you would just check the place to see that Ms. Saunders's demon isn't here…"

He left it at that, and escorted Carol back down to the party. In the doorway they just avoided bumping into Conchita, who flashed a brief smile at her parents before adopting a look of total seriousness, and saying to Peter, "Bosley, there you are! We need you."

"Okay, Kelly, I'll be right with you," said Peter.

At that Conchita turned and left, apparently satisfied. Peter turned back to the four younger Ghostbusters, and said, "Jess and I are playing Charlie's Angels with her and Natalie and that Jamie kid and Roland's new niece."

"Carrie," said Roland.

"If you say so," said Peter. "I have to call her Kris. She's a nice kid, but something tells me she doesn't do this kind of thing at home much."

"Yeah, Luke and Nadia aren't really fun parents," said Roland, somewhat ruefully.

"Oh, right, Bull Murray was Bosley in the movie," said Garrett, sniggering slightly.

Peter gave him a wearied look. "I know, it's hilarious. Jess thought of that. Now, you just remember to check the place for demons like Egon said."

As he left, it occurred to Kylie that she ought to thank him for entertaining her daughter. She made a mental note to do it later, just as Roland sat down on the bed and said, "Why is Jess so adamant she'll never have any kids? She obviously really likes them."

"Liking them is a far cry from having them," said Garrett.

"Hey," said Kylie, with an uncharacteristic brightness in her voice that caught the attention of the three men. "Do you remember when Leonard Bates was here, and we were all getting ready to spend the night, and we talked about our hopes and dreams for the future? You said you wanted to have a son, Garrett, didn't you?"

"What's wrong with daughters?" said Eduardo.

"Well," said Garrett, "nothing, I guess. I just never really understood girls, especially when I was eighteen."

"I think you were the only one who got exactly what he wanted," said Kylie. "Mind you, Roland just got married. Maybe he'll have a whole bunch of kids in a few years."

"Oh, not a whole bunch," said Roland. "Grace said… well, she might not want me to repeat what she said. But I'm happy now, anyway, even if we don't have any."

Garrett looked sceptical. "Really?"

"What about you, Kylie?" Roland hastily moved the conversation along. "You said you wanted to travel the world with a handsome intelligent man."

"Oh yeah," said Kylie. "Well, I guess I'd still like to do that someday."

"What'll you do with Eddie?" asked Garrett. "Leave him with the kids?"

"No, they'll be grown up by then. If it ever happens. But it doesn't really matter now anyway. I have more to stay here for now than I did then."

"I seem to remember," Garrett said, looking at Eduardo, "that you went all quiet when we had that conversation. Kind of like you are now."

"He did," said Kylie. "Then he said that his big dream was to kick your butt in a pillow fight, Garrett. He didn't want to talk about his feelings - did you, babe?"

"There's a time and a place for talking about your feelings," said Eduardo.

"What were you thinking?" asked Roland. "When we were saying all that stuff?"

"I can't remember."

"I bet you can," said Garrett.

"Aren't we supposed to be making sure that demon's not here?"

"Oh, right, of course we are!" said Kylie. "Actually it was the demon, or whatever it is, that made me remember that conversation. I was just wondering what my younger self would say to me. Even if I was a little bit into Eduardo then, I'm sure I never thought I'd marry him. And I definitely didn't want kids. Ever. Ha - it would serve Jess right if she got pregnant by accident, wouldn't it?"

"I don't think I'd have much to say to myself," Eduardo said. He still didn't want to talk about his feelings, but nor did he want Kylie spreading Jessica's personal business any further. "I never thought about the future much anyway."

"You'd probably be happy to know you'd had sex with Kylie at least twice," said Garrett.

"The more I think about it, Garrett," said Kylie, "the more I think you've done better than any of us. Just in terms of what we wanted back then, I mean. You're still doing your physical therapy, and that was how you met Jo - and you would have liked her when you were eighteen, wouldn't you? You wouldn't wonder how you ended up married to her."

"I might have been a little cynical about marrying someone I got walking again from having two broken legs," said Garrett. "Florence Nightingale Syndrome wasn't really on the course curriculum, but it was mentioned. And anyway, I didn't expect to do it so young. We should have waited a couple more years, really. It was because we're both so impetuous. Things were getting kind of comfortable, so we thought it'd be fun to get married. It's a good thing we did, though, because it made adopting Max pretty easy."

"So if Max hadn't come along when he did," said Roland, sounding almost shocked, "would it not have been a good thing that you got married?"

"You never know how things might have been different," Garrett said. "Jo likes being kept on her toes. Remember she suddenly decided to get a puppy a couple of years ago. The woman's insane - she can't sit still for five minutes. But that's kind of my point. When I first knew her, I thought that was great, but I've matured since then. We all have, and I think we could all get into an argument with our younger selves if we wanted to."

"I don't think I could," said Roland. "There was nothing wrong with me."

Kylie scoffed. "Nothing wrong! Garrett's right - we've all matured since then. He's not as reckless; Eduardo's not as sulky; I'm not as distant; Roland's not as smug…"

"Smug?" said Roland.

"I'm going to look for this demon," said Eduardo, making his way towards the door.

"I hope if it's here, Grace doesn't meet it," said Roland. "She never has anything good to say about herself when she was younger."

.-.-.-.

Eduardo saw no reason to assume that Carol's demon hadn't followed her, and sure enough, he found strong PKE readings near the ground-floor bathroom. He grew anxious when he saw that the game of Charlie's Angels was going on nearby. Jessica, Natalie, Conchita and Carrie were all there. Carrie was a beautiful little girl, he noticed, although obviously she had nothing on Conchita.

"Ah, here's our informant," said Jessica, as he approached. "What have you got for us?"

Carrie started giggling uncontrollably, and Eduardo saw what Peter had meant about her. She obviously didn't play imaginative games very often.

"The lead you gave Bosley was a red herring," said Eduardo, improvising as best he could. "I think you should talk to the musician with the ponytail again." Oscar would be happy to join in the game, and what was more he was on the floor above.

"I knew it!" said Jessica. She turned to Natalie, Carrie and Conchita and said to each of them in turn, "Jill, go and entice him with your feminine wiles. Kris, play some tennis. Kelly, go put on your bikini and confront people on the beach."

Giggling uncontrollably, the three girls all turned and headed for the stairs.

"Everything okay?" asked Jessica. "You didn't seem very into that."

"Sorry," said Eduardo. "I think there's a demon in the bathroom."

Jessica wrinkled her nose. "There's not, is there?"

"I'm going to have a look," Eduardo said, feeling very awkward about talking to her now that he knew she had lost her virginity in the last seventy-two hours (if he remembered correctly about the morning after pill). "So who are you - Sabrina Duncan?"

"Of course," said Jessica. "Listen, Jamie's hiding from us - the little nine year old with red hair and big ears. Keep an eye out for him - it'll make Chita happy."

Having stamped out any intention he may have had not to play the game, Jessica turned and made her way up the stairs after her fellow Angels. Eduardo made his way towards the bathroom, thinking of Roland's point that Jessica might actually like having kids of her own one day, and realising that it wasn't such a stupid thing to say. Then he knocked on the bathroom door, just to make sure it was empty of people, before venturing inside.

.-.-.-.

The bathroom looked as normal, but in it was a little boy who wasn't supposed to be there. He didn't look older than five or six, and he was looking around him as though confused and frightened. Eduardo began to feel sorry for him, and wondered how he could help, for he knew this child very well indeed. But then suddenly the boy looked pleased with himself - almost devious - and climbed into the shower cubicle.

"What are you doing in here?" asked Eduardo.

"Who are you?" the boy said.

"I'm… the guy whose bathroom this is."

"Oh. Sorry, I just found it in my closet. I'm hiding."

"From who?"

"Mi mama. I'm supposed to go to my brother's wedding."

Eduardo smiled slightly. "Okay, I get it. Did you try hiding your shoes?"

"No." The boy's head emerged from behind the shower curtain. His expression was guarded, but contained a glimmer of interest. "I didn't think of that."

"I wouldn't have thought of it either. It was a girl I know. I don't care what anybody tries to tell me - she's worse than you are."

"My dad would kill me," the boy said.

"He'll kill you anyway, after your mom finds you. He's not helping her, is he?"

"Prob'ly not. He never does anything - he just tells me what to do all the time."

"You don't like that, do you?"

"No I don't! I hate him!"

Eduardo winced slightly. "Don't say that."

"And I hate my brother too."

"Well, I guess it's okay for you to say that. Look, you love your mom, don't you? Why do you wanna make things difficult for her? She does her best for you."

"I don't wanna go to no stupid wedding!"

"What about the woman your brother's marrying?" said Eduardo. "Do you like her?"

The boy shrugged. "She's okay."

"Well," said Eduardo, knowing what a vast understatement that was, "don't you think she'd want you to be there?"

"It'll be boring! And there's gonna be kissing and stuff!"

"Well… yes. But look, your mama's gonna find you, and then you're gonna get hit."

"I don't care."

Eduardo knew that this was the truth, and he didn't want to tell the child to stop being stubborn and to fear the blows his mother dealt him, which after all didn't hurt very much. Even having been on the other side of this situation, he sympathised with that boy. He sympathised with Rose too. He understood exactly how she felt, but as an adult he also had to see that there were times when she couldn't be allowed to get away with it.

"Wait, why am I doing this?" said Eduardo. "You're your parents' responsibility."

"They'll never find me in your bathroom anyway."

"They might." He realised, with a jolt, that he had in fact been found in his closet after successfully dodging his mother for some time. "I'm gonna leave now, okay?"

The boy shrugged. "Don't care."

Eduardo turned and made his way out of the bathroom, back to the party, which looked just as he had left it. When he had finished thinking through what had just happened to him, it occurred to him that he hadn't done anything at all useful. He didn't have any new information about the demon, and he hadn't made any attempt to deal with it.

Looking around, Eduardo saw Kylie. She had not given up on her search, and seemed to have picked up the same PKE trail that he had just found the end of. Feeling suddenly sentimental for no reason at all, he approached her from behind, wrapped his arms around her waist and said, "Actually, I was thinking that the only thing I really wanted was you."

"Really?" said Kylie. "Even back then?"

"Sure. I wanted to sleep with you then, at the very least."

"Aww, that's sweet, Eddie. Babe, listen, there's some PKE - "

"I know. In fact I just met myself in the bathroom. Aged five."

.-.-.-.

Egon, Carol, Eduardo, Kylie and Garrett all congregated back in the top-floor bedroom. Roland had managed to meet up with Grace again, and Peter wasn't interested in Carol since Jessica's boyfriend had turned up and joined in with the game of Charlie's Angels.

"Wait a minute," said Carol, once Eduardo had told his story. "That's different. With me, it's like I'm the one that's supposed to be wrong. But you weren't being criticised, were you? It sounds like it was trying to show you what a brat you used to be."

"Did he know who you were?" asked Kylie.

"No," said Eduardo, wondering why this had not occurred to him.

"Well then that is different," said Carol. "I don't get it."

"What did he say to you, Eduardo?" Egon asked.

"Just that he was hiding from his… my mom," said Eduardo. "I don't wanna go to my brother's wedding, it's gonna be boring, I hate my dad…"

"All things you would have said, right?" said Garrett.

"Yeah, sure. You know, I really did hide from my mom when we were getting ready to go to Carlos and Beth's wedding. She found me in the closet, and that's where the kid said he was. He said he found the bathroom in the closet."

"But he didn't seem surprised?" Kylie asked.

"No. Well, at first he was. Then he just accepted it."

"That fits with what's been happening to me," said Carol. "She sees where we are, and she doesn't seem surprised. Mind you, she never said anything about going into a closet."

"Have you had any problems with it since you came here, Ms. Saunders?" asked Egon.

"No," said Carol.

"Well then, I'd like to suggest that you go home - I'm sure you have better things you could be doing. If you're bothered again, you can call us or come straight back. But it sounds like our demon might have decided to try antagonising some other people here."

"I'm going to do some research," said Kylie, as Egon escorted Carol back downstairs. "I don't care what anybody says. Roland won't miss me, and this thing sounds dangerous."

"How do you figure that?" said Eduardo. "I mean, what's it trying to do?"

"It's pissing people off, like I said before," said Garrett. "Or trying to, anyway. It sounds like it didn't work on you, Eddie. Maybe it's trying to get somebody to strangle their younger selves to create like a major paradox or something."

"You're suggesting they've been talking to their actual past selves?" said Kylie.

"Well… yeah, I guess I am," said Garrett.

"Wouldn't I remember that?" said Eduardo.

"Not necessarily," said Kylie. "I didn't remember the Grundle taking Jack for years. But look, we could stand around here speculating forever. Let's hit the books."

"Or find it," said Garrett.

"I already found it," said Eduardo. "What was I supposed to do next?"

"You were on your own," said Garrett. "But three of us, equipped to deal with it…"

"We don't know what it is," said Kylie.

Garrett rolled his eyes. "You and your books. If there's some kind of animal making a noise under your floorboards, do you get a bunch of books and try to figure out what it might be? No, you don't - you pull up the floor and take a look."

.-.-.-.

Kylie earnestly stuck with Eduardo and Garrett on their search for all of one minute. Then she became distracted by the sight of Jessica being kissed by Cameron Doherty, her ex-boyfriend - although apparently the "ex" no longer applied. As well as kissing her, he was occasionally talking in her ear and making her laugh. It was whilst tittering at one of these amusing comments that Jessica spotted Kylie looking at them.

"Hey." She put her hand on Cameron's chest and pushed him gently back. "We should get back to the game - the kids are enjoying it."

"Y'know," said Cameron, "whatever it is, it must have been me. It's always the guy one of the Angels falls in love with."

"Hey! Who says I'm in love with you?"

They laughed, and then Cameron obediently made his way towards Natalie and a child who matched the description of the boy Jamie, whom Kylie had heard about. Then Jessica, her expression betraying nothing, walked over to Kylie and said, "What is it?"

"Nothing," said Kylie. "None of my business."

"No, no, I've made it your business. So what's the problem - him being eighteen?"

"Is he eighteen?" said Kylie. "I mean… no, it's not that. I'm just a little worried about him being half incubus. Are you sure you're safe?"

"I'm still alive today, aren't I?" said Jessica. "Kylie, I'm really grateful for what you did for me, but it doesn't make me your responsibility. Don't worry about me, okay?"

With that she turned and walked away, towards the stairs leading to the ground floor. With no more peace of mind than she'd had a minute before, Kylie remembered her mission and looked round for Eduardo and Garrett. She didn't need to look very hard, however, as a moment later they found her.

"Here you are," said Garrett. "What have you been doing? Come on, we found it."

.-.-.-.

"I think to say that you 'found it' was very optimistic," said Kylie, two minutes later.

"All right, so we can't see it or hear it or sense it in any way," said Garrett. "But we know where it is. It's here."

"Where?" They were at the back of the firehouse, completely alone.

"The PKE meters say it's here," Eduardo said.

"Exactly," said Garrett. "We found it. And what have you done? What did Jess have to say that was so damn important anyway?"

"Nothing," said Kylie. "Look, these readings indicate that it's hiding in some kind of force field. That's fine. Except we can walk right through it - look!" She demonstrated by walking several yards in about eight different directions. "How are we supposed to get to the stupid thing?"

"Maybe there's a book that tells us," Eduardo said brightly. Kylie glared at him.

"We must have some kind of equipment that can deal with this," said Garrett. "When you're inventing ghost-catching equipment, this is definitely something you'd think of."

"Let's ask Egon," said Eduardo.

Kylie looked annoyed. "I don't like asking Egon all the time. We should know by now."

"Come on, Ky, let's just ask him," said Garrett, making his way back inside.

Almost at once, they were met by Dana. She glared at them all, perhaps without really meaning to, and said sharply, "Have you seen Jessica?"

"Not in the last few minutes," said Garrett.

Annoyed, Dana turned round and stalked off. None of them knew what Jessica was supposed to have done, although Kylie suspected that Dana knew more about her daughter's relationship with Cameron than she was supposed to.

Together, the three Ghostbusters made their way back to the party, all intent upon looking for Egon. Eduardo forgot all about that, however, when he caught sight of Conchita attached to boy of about nine or ten by a pair of plastic toy handcuffs.

"Who's this?" he demanded, covering the distance between them in a second.

"Oh - hi, Daddy," said Conchita, smiling sweetly. "This is Jamie. Jess… Sabrina told us that if we found him, we had to cuff him and bring him in. Have you seen her?"

"Where did those handcuffs come from?" said Eduardo, looking suspiciously at Jamie.

"Jess had them," said Conchita.

A disturbing image flashed through Eduardo's mind. "Oh my God."

"What? We're only playing Charlie's Angels, Daddy."

"I had an uncle who liked Charlie's Angels," said Jamie. "Once, he got arrested for stalking Lucy Liu at an airport. And then he killed himself."

Eduardo stared at him. "Why?"

"Because one of the original Charlie's Angels died. He was a little crazy."

Eduardo looked at Conchita. "When are you taking those things off?"

"I don't know. When we find Jess, probably." Then she shot him an impertinent smile, and said, "It's all right, Daddy, really. We're private investigators, not cops."

"What's wrong with cops?" said Cameron, walking into the little gathering.

"If you're not careful you might see for yourself," said Eduardo, unable to stop himself.

Cameron blinked at him a few times, looking both puzzled and guilty. Then he turned to the two children, and said, "I can't find her, guys. She probably went out for some air."

"Do you think so?" said Eduardo, suddenly worried.

"Well," said Cameron, "she's not around here any place."

Eduardo was not happy about leaving his precious daughter handcuffed to a boy who was surely a whole year older than she was, but nevertheless he made his way into the crowd of people to look for Kylie and Garrett. He had to stop, however, when Archie Temple suddenly decided to bar his path and look gravely at him for several seconds.

"It is a bad sign," he said at last, "when your girl begins handcuffing herself to boys."

"Yeah, tell me about it," said Eduardo. "Look, I'm sorry, but I have to - "

"Do you have any sons?"

"What? No, no, just the two girls. I - "

Archie nodded approvingly. "That's good. If my son had not befriended that Spencer person, Grace would never have met him."

Eduardo, wondering how to get rid of this guy, said, "Yeah, I heard that didn't work out too well. But you got Natalie out of it, didn't you?"

"Yes," said Archie. "She's a very unruly child, you know. I blame her father. Look at that," he said disapprovingly, as something behind Eduardo's shoulder caught his eye. "A man has a duty to protect his children. Where is her father, I'd like to know?"

Eduardo turned, and saw Roland's small niece sitting on the floor, playing with a piece of wire and by all indication about to pull the television set down onto her head. He hurried over to her and scooped her into his arms, to which she did not react at all. There was no one in the world, Eduardo thought, who knew the whereabouts of Dawn Jackson's father, but he wasn't going to mention this to Archie. He seemed not the kind of man to approve of his son-in-law having a sister who would sleep with three men in quick succession, and then not even bother to wonder which of them it was that got her pregnant.

Thankfully Archie did not seem to want to discuss parenting any further, and Eduardo was able to find Kylie and Garrett. They were with Oscar and Rose, the former wanting to know whether they had seen his sister.

"Why do you have Dawn?" said Kylie, when Eduardo joined them.

"No one was looking after her. She was about to kill herself with the TV."

"Well where the hell is Tara?"

"How should I know?"

"Shall I take her?" said Oscar. "It looks like you guys are after a ghost or something."

"We are," said Garrett.

"Should we be worried about not being able to find Jess?"

"I don't know why it would want Jess," said Kylie. "But we'll try and find her for you."

As soon as Oscar had wandered off - taking both Dawn and Rose with him - the three Ghostbusters got into a small huddle, and Garrett said, "She's with the demon, isn't she?"

"I think we should go and try behind the firehouse again," said Kylie.

"Did either of you talk to Egon?" asked Eduardo. "I couldn't. Grace's dad cornered me and then I had to stop Dawn from killing herself."

"I couldn't either," said Kylie. "I got talking to this guy Grace works with."

"And I had to listen to that Jamie kid's mother telling me in graphic detail about when she had him," said Garrett. "He was born the day after Natalie, in the same hospital - did you know that? Actually, I didn't even see Egon. I don't think we should waste time looking for him - Jess might be arranging a date with this demon as we speak."

On the way out, they were met by Grace, who wanted to introduce them to her brother and sister-in-law, as they had missed each other at the ceremony. As it was a party, it was to be expected that they would see people, but why did so many of them want to talk?

"Is that your little girl my daughter has been playing with?" the sister-in-law said, looking at Kylie. Nadia Temple was certainly a stunning woman, which explained why Carrie was so much more beautiful than the other members of the Temple family. But unlike Carrie, she refused to smile, and no one could imagine her ever playing Charlie's Angels.

"Well she's playing with a lot of people," said Kylie.

"Such as the boy and the girl who were behaving inappropriately several minutes ago."

"Nadia," said her husband, "that's hardly these people's fault."

"I'm sorry about them," murmured Grace, ushering them away from the bickering couple. "Don't tell anyone I said this, but Nadia's a complete nightmare. I think they'll probably split up before long - Luke's starting to see it too. Hey, what's with all the equipment?"

"Demon," said Garrett.

"Oh no!"

"It's all right," said Kylie, not sure how confident she sounded. "We're dealing with it."

.-.-.-.

"Whoa!" said Garrett, the moment they were back behind the firehouse. "She just… I just… I saw her!"

He pointed vaguely to an area a few yards in front of them, though without much conviction. Eduardo and Kylie both wondered what to say. As Jessica had gone missing, and there was definitely a demon around, it seemed more likely that Garrett had in fact seen Jessica than that he was going mad. Kylie opened her mouth, hoping something sensible would come out of it - but then they all saw her, for more than a split second this time, clutching her stomach and doubled over with laughter.

"Okay, what's going on?" said Eduardo.

Jessica disappeared, but then reappeared again very quickly. It was like bad television reception. They kept seeing her, or hearing her, sometimes both at once, but every time she would suddenly cut out. Between shrieks of laughter, they heard snippets of what she was saying, getting longer and clearer each time.

"… I'd never … I hate that word … definitely not by him … try, really, very nice try but I'm … something I'm gonna believe! I mean…!" She dissolved into fits of laughter again, before turning and walking away from whomever she was talking to. Then she was back with them absolutely, no longer laughing, and walking towards the firehouse.

"Oh, hi," she said, looking nonplussed when she saw the three Ghostbusters. "What are you looking at me like that for? Still trying to catch your demon? I don't think it's here."

"You… you don't?" said Garrett.

"What have you been doing out here?" said Kylie.

"Is that any of your business? Just getting some air, okay?"

"Hah. And you didn't… talk to anyone?"

"Kylie," said Jessica, giving her a patronising look. "There's no one here."

"If you had talked to someone," said Kylie, turning as Jessica passed them and made her way inside, "you would tell us, wouldn't you? If it was important, I mean."

"You've gone completely nuts, Kylie," said Jessica. She looked at Eduardo. "I'd keep a close eye on your wife if I were you."

"Don't you hate that word?" Garrett said significantly.

"What, 'wife'? Well, yeah, but it's not so bad on other people. Can I go now, please?"

They all nodded, waited a few seconds for her to get out of earshot, and then started talking in hushed voices.

"I don't get it," said Eduardo.

"She doesn't remember," said Kylie. "But that doesn't make sense. You remember, and that Carol woman remembers."

"No they don't," said Garrett. "Not originally. Come on, Kylie, it's not like you to be this slow. The demon… maybe we shouldn't keep calling it that when we have no idea what it is. Anyway, it was showing her the future, not her past self."

Kylie stared at him. "Do you think so?"

"Of course it was! Didn't you listen to what she was saying? 'I'd never', 'definitely not by him', 'something I'm gonna believe'…"

" 'I hate that word'," said Eduardo. "It might not have been 'wife', Garrett."

"I think it was," said Garrett. "I think she's gonna get married and have babies."

"We don't need to try and guess what it showed her," said Kylie. "It's best that we don't know. The point is, she's actually talked to it."

"So?" said Garrett. "So's Eddie. So's Carol - years ago. They don't remember."

"I don't know if I would have talked to it," said Eduardo. "I mean, what would it have said? 'One day you're gonna walk into a bathroom - doesn't that make you feel like killing yourself?' There's something different about what it was doing with me."

"I think you're right," said Kylie, "but I don't think trying to figure that out is going to help us. We already know its weakness. It's her." She nodded in the direction Jessica had gone just minutes earlier. "She didn't believe it, and she laughed at it."

"And that's why the force field that stopped us from seeing her kept cutting out," Eduardo surmised. "Okay, fine. What are we gonna do about it?"

"Why didn't she get mad at it?" said Garrett.

"Because she didn't believe it," said Kylie.

"Yeah, but it's like her to get mad anyway, isn't it?"

"Garrett! She didn't believe it!"

"That's not the point!" said Garrett. "Have you ever tried telling her she might change her mind one day and get married? She hates that. I would have expected her to react exactly like teenage Carol did, even if she didn't believe what she was seeing."

"Yeah, but she didn't," said Kylie. "Why does it matter?"

"I was just thinking," said Garrett, "that maybe on some level she liked what she saw."

"Well, what if she did?"

"Why do you keep arguing with me, Kylie? I thought you liked talking things through. Look, whatever this thing is trying to get out of all this, it obviously involves pissing people off big time. But it's screwed up with her, hasn't it?"

"Kylie already said that," said Eduardo. "I asked what we were gonna do about it."

Garrett curled his lip. "I don't like it when Roland's not with us. You guys are ganging up on me. Hey, maybe we could go talk to him about it. He wasn't with Grace anymore, was he? He's probably talking to one of those horrible people in there - I bet he'll be glad to get away from them."

"What horrible people?" said Kylie.

"Grace's family. Haven't you noticed? I mean, how did she turn out so normal?"

.-.-.-.

Roland was in fact listening to Jamie's mother's experiences of childbirth, just as Garrett had been forced to do not so long ago, and was more than glad of an excuse to get away from her. Kylie led the way up to the bedroom they had been using (Garrett took the elevator), but as soon as she arrived she quickly turned round and ushered them all back.

"What's going on?" asked Roland.

"Tara's in there," said Kylie.

"Really? Doing what?"

"Well… one of Grace's cousins. Listen - "

"What?"

"It showed Jess her future," said Kylie. "We're sure of it. And she talked to it, but now she can't remember a thing. So it really is your younger self you're talking to! That complicates things, I guess, if it's existing in multiple time periods or something. But listen, she weakened it. She didn't believe what it showed her, and she laughed."

"Oh, good," said Roland. "We can use that."

"All right, I'll say it again," Eduardo said irritably. "How?"

"Roland, we only want an opinion," said Garrett. "It's your wedding night, remember."

"Not yet it isn't," said Roland. "Adele has her at the moment. I think she's giving her advice on what she needs to do differently to make this marriage work."

"See?" said Garrett. "They're terrible! Most of them don't even like each other!"

"Maybe I'll go see if they're finished," said Roland. "And while I'm doing that, I suggest you either look at some books or ask Egon. I mean, what have you been doing?"

Roland made his way towards the staircase, a muttered comment from Kylie about the difficulty of hunting demons at parties just reaching his ears. He reached the bottom of the stairs with every intention of finding Grace, and find her he did, with no difficulty whatsoever. She was on her own, eleven years younger than she ought to be and dressed for a wedding much more extravagant than the one she had just had.

.-.-.-.

"Oh," said Kylie, as she reached the bottom of the stairs. "It's here."

She was looking at her PKE meter, while Eduardo was looking straight ahead. With a mild note of panic in his voice, he said, "Where the hell is Roland?"

Kylie looked up in alarm. "Oh my God!"

They both looked around for their friend, knowing that he ought to be close by, as he had been only just in front of them. Then Eduardo directed Kylie's attention towards Grace, who was with both of her parents and her brother. Roland wasn't with them.

Garrett approached from the direction of the elevator, saying, "It's here."

"Roland's missing," said Kylie.

"Oh, terrific!" said Garrett.

"Excuse me," said a voice on the stairs, behind Kylie and Eduardo, and they had to make way as Tara Jackson pushed herself forward.

"Good, was it?" said Eduardo.

Tara looked at him. "I've had better. What's it to you?"

"Did you know Dawn was on her own?"

"What? I told Joey to look after her!"

Tara forced her way into the crowd of people like the tornado eating its way through Aunt Em and Uncle Henry's farm. For a moment, all three of the Ghostbusters thought that of all the people in the building, Tara's little brother - the youngest sibling, at fifteen - was perhaps not the most sensible choice of childminder. Then they remembered Roland.

"You know what we need to do?" said Garrett. "We need to get everyone out of here."

"Then what?" said Eduardo.

"One thing at a time, Eddie. We don't want to cause any panic. Y'know, about half the people here like Roland a whole lot. I wonder if we can avoid them having to find out he's disappeared."

"It'll be okay," said Kylie. "No one this thing's been bothering has actually died, have they? They always seem to come back."

"Right," said Garrett. "And when Roland does come back, we really need to deal with this thing. So let's try and find an excuse to get everyone outside, shall we? I'll go talk to Egon - maybe he has an idea."

"I doubt it," said Kylie, as Garrett rolled away. "I'll try Peter."

"Why Peter?" said Eduardo.

"I don't know, it seems like the kind of thing he might be good at. You try, um…"

"Grace?"

"No!" said Kylie. "How's she going to feel if she finds out he's gone?"

"But Ky," said Eduardo, "she's gonna notice."

"Hey," said a voice at Eduardo's ear, and he turned to see Tara, now holding her small daughter in her arms. "Joey's normally good with her, you know. She must have just given him the slip. I'm not completely irresponsible."

"I know you're not," said Eduardo.

"No you don't," said Tara. "I wouldn't let anything happen to her. She's my favourite thing in the whole wide world. Aren't you, my gorgeous girl?" and for a moment she was distracted with kissing Dawn's cheek and making her laugh. Then she looked serious again, and said, "I know what people say about me."

"People don't say anything about you," said Eduardo.

"Sure they do. I'm a single mother who doesn't even know who her kid's father is. I'm not ashamed of that, but it makes people talk. But it doesn't mean I don't look after her."

"Yeah, I know that. Why do you care so much what I think?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Tara, her defiant expression melting into a careless smile. "I'm always telling people that. I thought you might be the first one to actually listen. You're a live and let live kind of guy, Eduardo, aren't you?"

"Yes," said Eduardo. "I'm not judging you, really."

Tara nodded approvingly. "Good. Too bad my dad can't say the same thing. I guess that's why you don't mind your little girl handcuffing herself to boys, isn't it?"

"What?" said Eduardo, looking frantically around for Conchita. "You mean she's still handcuffed to him?"

"Oh, you do mind. What a weird place for a dad to draw the line. Handcuffs."

"I just don't like them, okay?"

"Y'know," said Tara, "handcuffs can be fun. Are you worried she's getting a fetish?"

Eduardo glared at her. "Don't even joke about it."

"When I was about twenty, I went out with a cop for two weeks. He used to like - "

"I don't wanna know!"

"Hey!" Kylie's voice interrupted them, and Eduardo turned to face her as she grabbed his elbow. "What are you talking to Tara for? You didn't tell her, did you?"

"No," said Eduardo.

"Tell me what?" said Tara.

"Well…" Kylie looked at her thoughtfully. "You know what? You're sensible - I don't think you'll freak out. It's not really anything to worry about, Tara, but Roland's missing and we think he must be with this demon that's been hanging around."

Tara looked surprised, and rather worried. "Oh my God!"

"It's all right," said Kylie. "It'll give him back. It gives everyone back. You see Jessica there, with her hands all over her boyfriend's ass? It had her not twenty minutes ago."

"It's cool," said Eduardo. "We can get rid of it. But we kinda need everyone outside."

"Grace can get everyone outside," said Tara. "She's the bride."

"We don't want to worry her with this," said Kylie.

Tara rolled her eyes, and secured her hold on Dawn. "Jeez, Kylie, that's so patronising. You have to be honest with people. Wait there - I'll fetch her to talk to you."

"Tara…" Kylie said feebly, but she let her go. Then she looked at Eduardo, and said with a shrug, "Perhaps she's right."

Garrett rejoined them then, and said, "Egon didn't have any ideas."

"Peter suggested a bomb scare," said Kylie. "Then he suggested starting a small fire. He couldn't think of any reasonable excuse to tell everyone to leave."

"Okay," said Garrett, "so what are we gonna do? Maybe we should start a fire."

"That would be really dangerous," said Kylie. "Anyway, Tara convinced me that - "

"Hey!" said Grace, throwing herself into the middle of the gathering, her eyes wide with fear and anxiety. "What's all this about Roland being missing?"

"He's fine," said Kylie. "The demon will give him back any minute."

"Demon? You told me you were dealing with that! Hold on, where's Natalie?"

"She's there," said Garrett, nodding towards where Natalie was engaged in conversation with Spence and his girlfriend, Stephanie. "Grace, listen, can you think of a way to get everybody outside? We just don't want them freaking out when we, um…"

"Deal with it," Eduardo said helpfully.

"No," said Grace, not taking her eyes away from Natalie. "I can't."

"But it's your wedding," said Kylie. "If anyone can tell everyone to leave, it's you."

"Yeah," said Garrett. "You could go outside to throw your bouquet or something."

Grace managed to tear her eyes away from her daughter in order to glare at him. She spread both her hands, and said, "I don't have a bouquet."

"Well we need to think of something," said Kylie.

"Look, isn't there any way I can help you get him back?"

"Really, Grace," said Kylie, "the best thing you can do is keep everyone distracted."

"What kind of a demon is it anyway?"

Kylie opened her mouth, then closed it again, and looked guiltily at Eduardo and Garrett.

"You don't know!" said Grace.

"Well we can't be exact," said Kylie.

"Oh God." Grace bowed her head, covered her face with her hands, and stayed that way for two full seconds. Then she re-emerged, looking much calmer and more capable. "It is a nice day out, isn't it? Maybe I could say I want everybody up on the roof. Would they fit? Yes, they must. Look, most of them can fit in this one room. But what can I say to make them…? Ooh, Oscar!" she called out, lunging past Kylie and Eduardo, and grabbing Oscar as he made his way towards the kitchen. "Do you want to sing?"

"Always, Grace," said Oscar. "Why?"

"Will you give us a little concert on the roof? I don't feel quite right asking, seeing as you're a famous musician now, but - "

"Of course I will. I have a guitar upstairs, actually. What would you like me to sing?"

"Something my dad would approve of," said Grace, ushering him towards the stairs. "No offence, but I don't think it would be a good idea for you to try and sing any black music - some of the people here might not like it. Could you just maybe do some nice romantic ballads? 'I Guess that's why they Call it the Blues' - I love that one. Do you know it? And, um… that one from Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. Listen, just go get your guitar and I'll start telling everybody they have to go up to the roof. Hi, Daniel - what were you doing up there? Never mind. I want everybody on the roof in five minutes, okay?"

Oscar made his way obediently up the stairs, and Grace started gathering together the nearest groups of people. There were obviously going to be a few minutes to kill, so Kylie headed for the nearest bookcase while Eduardo looked for Conchita. When he found her, she was indeed still handcuffed to Jamie.

"Is there any reason why you two should still be handcuffed together?" Eduardo asked.

"Is there any reason why we shouldn't?" said Conchita.

"Well… yes. It's weird."

"Really?" She fixed him with a placid smile, and said silkily, "I think it's kinda fun."

"Okay, you're freaking me out now," said Eduardo. "Take them off. Please."

Her mouth twitching with suppressed laughter, Conchita relented and snapped open the handcuff on her wrist. There was no key, as it was only a cheap piece of plastic.

"You'd better find Jess and give them back to her," said Eduardo. "Actually, get Rose first, and then I want you both to stick with Jess while Oscar sings on the roof, okay?"

"Oh," said Conchita, "is Oscar going to sing on the roof? That'll be nice."

Garrett, meanwhile, had used the time to locate his own child and give him to Jo.

"Listen," he said, "if he starts to get bored, don't let him jump off the roof or anything."

"Garrett, how dare you?" said Jo. "What kind of a mother do you think I am?"

"Honey, you're a great mother," said Garrett. "But you're also a woman, and we all know what happens to women when Oscar starts singing."

She slapped him lightly on the arm, and then took Max up to the roof, where several people were already heading. As it was going to be a tight squeeze, Grace had decided to tell all four of the original Ghostbusters exactly what was going on - or at least as much as she knew - and ask them not to try and crowd onto the roof. It was, after all, meant to be a distraction for the people who might be disturbed by whatever was about to happen.

Eduardo watched as Jessica took charge of his girls, wondering whether the inclination to have sex at sixteen was in any way contagious, when someone behind him said, "Hey."

Eduardo turned to see Ray and Winston standing there. It was Winston who had spoken. "What exactly is happening? Grace tried to explain, but… well…"

"We don't get it," said Ray.

Eduardo explained as best he could, becoming more and more aware that they knew very little themselves. As he spoke, the room emptied of everyone besides himself, Ray and Winston, Egon, Peter, Garrett and Kylie. They stood in silence for a few moments, and then from above Oscar's beautiful voice and the dulcet tones of his acoustic guitar began to reach their ears. "Look into my eyes… You will see-eeeee…"

"All right," said Garrett. "So now what?"

.-.-.-.

Roland's first reaction was to wonder whether the young Grace could see him. Carol Saunders had interacted with her younger self, and Eduardo with his, but this was different. He was seeing somebody else. It also occurred to him to wonder whether Jessica would report meeting her sixteen-year-old self in ten or twenty years, or whether the Jessica of the present had refused to interact with the vision she had reportedly found so laughable. It would, Roland thought, make life easier if this had been the case. There were too many complications with demons that existed in multiple time periods.

Grace had been adjusting her wedding veil in front of a large mirror attached to an expensive looking dressing table. Her hair was not braided, as Roland was used to it, but rather it was straight and sleek and shiny. Roland knew, because Grace had told him, that she used to take it to a salon where they applied a straightening serum specifically for afro hair, that burned her scalp like napalm. It had been expensive and painful, she'd said, but easier to manage than the tight curls, and she'd thought it looked good as well. It did indeed look fetching on this young bride, who finished rearranging herself soon enough, and turned away from the mirror. Roland caught his breath, then let it go when it became obvious that the young Grace was not aware of a strange man being in her bedroom.

Young was certainly the word for her. He wasn't even sure she looked quite as old as eighteen, though of course she must have been. Still, that made her younger than most brides. She was even younger than Roland's baby sister, who had just completed one year of a six-year medical degree and embarked upon a new relationship. If Roland thought that Amy might have been thinking of marrying the guy, he would have done everything he could to try and convince her to put it off for a few years.

A knock came at the door, and Roland jumped again.

"Come in," said Grace.

The door opened, and Adele walked in. Roland was intrigued. Why did the demon - whatever it was - want to show him this? Grace's mother liked him, and he always endeavoured to get on well with her, but to his intense shame he found it extremely difficult to like her in return. Would this have any bearing upon proceedings?

"You look lovely, Grace," Adele said, a little sadly.

Grace lifted her head and squared her shoulders, adopting a wounded expression. She looked younger still as she said, in martyred tones, "You don't sound very happy for me."

"Sweetheart," said Adele. "If you are happy, I am happy."

"Mother!" Grace whined, like the child that she was. "You're not going to try and talk me out of it now, are you?"

"Grace, listen to me," said Adele, in patronising tones. Grace obviously hated this, and looked sulky. She certainly didn't look in any fit state to decide whether or not she wanted to get married, Roland thought. "There is no worse time to realise that this is not what your heart is telling you. But it's your last chance."

"I'm not stupid, Mom," said Grace. "I know what I'm doing."

Clearly not, thought Roland, and from her expression, he guessed that Adele was thinking exactly the same thing.

"After this," said Adele, "there's no going back. This is forever."

"I know, Mom. But I love him, and I want to spend the rest of my life with him."

A cliché from all kinds of films and TV shows. Well, why not? That would have been where Grace had got most of her information from. Roland was amazed to hear that Adele seemed to be telling her daughter that she wasn't allowed to get divorced. Clearly Grace had not honoured this wish; she and Spence had started divorce proceedings when Natalie was a tiny baby. She had told Roland more than once how sure she was that Luke and Nadia would not be together much longer, so presumably she thought it was possible that they too would get divorced. Roland had not known that Adele felt this way about it.

It was easy to get caught up in the fascination of it all, but Roland forced himself to think of the demon. What was it trying to do? Perhaps it wanted him to pick up on the rashness and sheer stupidity of Grace's decision to marry. Maybe it wanted him to doubt her love for him. So, if he assumed that was the case, what could he do about it? Jessica had laughed, and the demon had weakened. But Roland didn't find this funny.

"Well," Adele said, "I hope your love proves to be strong enough. I wish you knew a little more about life, Grace. You'll find that being a black woman in this society is difficult enough, and marrying someone like Spencer is going to - "

"You mean because he's white?" said Grace.

"Honey, some people are opposed to those kinds of relationships."

"Are you?"

"No, but I want you to understand that - "

"Not all white people are racist," said Grace. "Spence definitely isn't racist. Did someone tell you he was racist? He's not racist!"

"I know, sweetheart," Adele said.

"Oh." Grace was subdued. "Good. You know, Mom, you ought to learn to look a little deeper. You don't still think that Nadia woman is good for Luke, do you?"

"We don't know her very well yet, Grace."

"But Mom, she's obviously just a pretty face! She's so superficial!"

As she said this, Roland instantly remembered hearing it before, in an extremely close approximation of that voice - though it had been even higher, and even whinier. It was Grace's impression - the Grace he knew now - of her younger self. They had not been together for very long when she confided to him that she had never liked Nadia, and then admitted that she had not been much better herself when she first formed this opinion. Then she had done her impression, and when he remembered it now, Roland laughed.

Then it happened, just for a split second. He was back in the firehouse, and there were Kylie and Garrett, and a few other people he didn't have time to take in. Eduardo was there too, presumably, but apart from six or seven people they seemed to have evacuated the room. Roland caught Kylie's eye, and her look of surprise, and then it all vanished. So was that it - a glimmer of a chance? Could he make it happen again? He imagined them all back in the firehouse… eleven years in the future, he supposed, or rather a few months shy of that figure… asking each other if they had seen him, and wondering if it was going to happen again and what they would do if it did… or if it didn't.

Back in the young Grace's bedroom, Adele had gone. Grace was standing by her bed. A single bed, Roland noticed. She was holding a small pink teddy bear and looking earnestly into its eyes. Of course, this little tableau only served to emphasise how young she was. She looked like a little girl, playing at being a bride.

"Grace!" hissed a voice, and Roland and Grace both turned towards the closed window.

"Spence!" Grace ran over to him, opened the window and grabbed his elbows, apparently worried that he might fall. Then she laughed. "What the heck are you doing?"

"I couldn't wait to see you," said Spence, gazing adoringly up at her.

"But we're getting married in like a half-hour."

"I know. I couldn't wait that long. I had to come." He hoisted himself further up onto the window ledge, wrapped his arms around her waist and continued to look at her with a goofy smile on his face. "I'm better when I'm with you, Grace. Just being near you…"

"I've told you before, my darling," said Grace, stroking his hair. "You're a good person."

Roland forgot his friends in the future who were trying to help him, and watched transfixed as the scene continued. Everything he was seeing of Grace was consistent with what she had told him. She had been arrogant, and believed that she had the power to decide who was and was not a good person. Spence, Roland could now see, was playing right into that. She told him he was good, and he believed her. He believed that she made him better. No wonder she had been so self-righteous.

As for Spence, he was nothing like Roland had seen him before. He had known him as a racist thug, or apparently racist, as it was impossible to see that his heart wasn't really in what he and his pseudo-friends were doing. That had been only about a year before this day, Roland thought - and how Spence had changed since then! In the next few years, he was going to be a negligent husband and then a loving but completely hopeless father. Now, Roland knew him as a normal human being who did his best and loved his children. It was hard to imagine him getting there, from where he was at this time.

"Oh Grace, I don't deserve you!" said Spence. "Look at you! You're so beautiful, and good, and smart, and… and…"

He stopped when Grace cupped his face in her hands and started to kiss him. They had not yet made love at this point, Roland knew, but there was obviously passion between them. The demon was doing a lot better this time, it seemed. Spence had taught Grace a great deal about sex, and Roland knew it, but that didn't mean he felt comfortable watching it. As Grace threw back her head, and Spence moved his kiss down to her neck and breasts, Roland turned away and said loudly, "I don't wanna see that!"

"You see!" a rasping voice said, and suddenly Roland felt a twinge of hope. The demon wanted to communicate, just as it had apparently done with Jessica. He hadn't been there, but the way he understood it she hadn't just been laughing at whatever she saw, but she had been talking to whoever was showing it to her. Surely, then, this was a good sign. "You see how easily she gives her heart."

"Come out," said Roland. "Let me see you."

He waited a moment, and then something emerged. Roland was very curious to know what the demon looked like, and was disappointed to see no more than a hunched figure in a shadowy cloak. He looked closely, but could not see anything of a body.

"Okay," said Roland, "so who are you? My friends have been trying to figure it out."

"Do you think you'll see them again to tell them?"

"I don't know. If you have your way, will I not be able to?"

"The best way to find out what I intend to do," said the demon, "is to wait and see. So, how do you feel about this woman now?"

"I love her," said Roland.

The demon was silent. Roland couldn't see its face, but he imagined it looked angry.

"I already knew all of this," he said. "Grace told me. She's ashamed of how she was then. Well… maybe not ashamed, but she doesn't like it very much. In fact it's me who's always reminding her that if she hadn't been through all of this with Spence, she wouldn't be the person she is now. And that's who I love - the person she is now."

"Hmm…" said the demon, and then suddenly there was another flicker. There they were - Egon and Peter this time, debating quite heatedly with each other, and then looking up in the two or three seconds that Roland appeared to them.

"All right," the demon said, and then the scene changed. It was the same room, but it looked different. It was too tidy to be lived in. The teddy bears were sitting in a neat line along one of edge of the bed, leaning against the wall. Sitting on the opposite edge were Spence and Grace, looking exactly as they had when Roland had left them in the present.

"Really?" said Spence. "Didn't you like me a little bit? Because I did kind of love you."

"Well," said Grace, "all right, I kind of loved you too. It wasn't that bad, really, was it?"

Roland glanced at the demon, wondering what it could be thinking this time. Was it trying to make him believe that Grace and Spence were still in love? That was insane.

"No," said Spence, "it wasn't. And I'm glad it didn't put you off, because I want you to be happy and Roland obviously makes you happy."

"You have no right to be showing me this," said Roland.

"He does," said Grace, smiling softly in a way that Roland had often seen before; nothing like the beaming grin she had given the nineteen-year-old Spence when he climbed up to her window. "It did occur to me that the whole thing with him is kind of… well, safe. He's almost pathologically reliable. If he says he's gonna do something, he does it."

"I'm sorry - "

"I know you are. And I thought about that - how he's almost like the exact opposite to you, and maybe that was why I thought it would be a good idea to marry him."

Then Spence said something, but Roland couldn't catch it. Their voices were quiet, and a light buzzing seemed to obscure them. Their conversation was being censored, which made Roland think that the demon had totally lost control now.

"That's it?" he said.

"By the way, Grace," said Spence, "you look really beautiful."

Grace smiled at him. "Do you remember the first time you said that to me?"

"Yeah, it was after you smushed my face into your boobs and stroked the back of my head and told me I wasn't a bad person."

"See?" Grace said. "Sanctimonious. I am so glad Roland didn't know me then."

Roland looked at Grace as she said this, then back at the demon. "See? That's what I said - she's ashamed of what she was like back then. In fact, I don't think what you showed me looked half so bad to me as it would to her. I love her! And this is a private conversation, by the way. Showing people their past selves is one thing, but this… I don't get it! What are you trying to do?"

As he said this, the scene around him fluctuated, and he was seeing increasingly longer flashes of the firehouse. Looking up, over the head of the demon, he saw Kylie hold up her proton gun and give him an enquiring look. He nodded, and then she disappeared.

"Well whatever it is," said Roland to the demon, "you're not very good at it, are you? Eduardo, Jessica, me… we're not falling for it! Maybe you've been doing this for centuries, but you should know better than to mess with the Ghostbusters!"

The firehouse interior reappeared again. At once, Kylie threw her proton gun to Roland. He put out his hands and caught it, sure that he could hear someone singing "Everything I Do" from the closing credits of Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. He recognised it at once, because it was one of Grace's favourite songs. Then, as soon as he had his hands on Kylie's proton pistol, the firehouse disappeared. He was back in Grace's bedroom, and Grace and Spence were both still there, but they were younger this time. In fact, judging from what was being said, Roland guessed that they must be seventeen and eighteen.

"And I painted racist graffiti on the synagogue!" wailed Spence, bawling his eyes out as Grace patted him rhythmically on the back. "And I stood on street corners with them, trying to intimidate black people… But I didn't want to, Grace, I swear!"

"Pathetic," said Roland, levelling the proton pistol on the demon. "Absolutely pathetic."

.-.-.-.

Roland appeared near the bottom of the stairs, with something caught in a proton stream.

"Well," said Garrett. "That was easy."

"Can someone get a trap?" Roland shouted over the noise.

It was Winston who picked up the ghost trap they had put aside, and threw it down a few feet from where Roland was standing. He was about to open it, when Kylie put her hand on his arm and said urgently, "Wai-wai-wai-wai-wait. Just let me look at it."

Winston raised his eyebrows. "Look at it?"

"I want to know what the hell it is!"

"Actually, I'd like to know that too," said Egon.

Kylie squinted into the proton stream, the glare hurting her eyes and of course hindering her view of the demon. She took in its very small size, its darting movements and its sheer blackness before turning sharply away and saying, "It doesn't look like anything!"

Winston opened the trap, and the demon went into it without any trouble. Then into the ensuing quiet drifted Oscar's voice, sinking down from the roof and in through the open windows. He was not yet even halfway through "Everything I Do".

"Is that Oscar?" asked Roland, looking up at the ceiling.

"Of course it is," Peter said proudly.

"What did it show you?" asked Kylie.

Roland looked at her. "What?"

"What did it show you?"

"Oh. Grace."

"Grace?" Kylie almost shrieked. "Not yourself?"

"No," said Roland, smiling slightly. "I know the difference between Grace and myself. It showed her to me at a few different points in her life. She was younger… it was when she was with Spence. Before they got married."

"But…" said Kylie. "But that's completely different! Oh, that's really confusing!"

"Sorry, Ky," said Roland. "That's what it showed me."

"Well," said Peter, "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm going up to listen to Oscar. He really is amazing, isn't he?"

"Yes, Peter, he's amazing," Ray said obligingly.

Evidently some of the people on the roof agreed with this sentiment, as the sound of screaming interrupted the music. Evidently a few of the younger female guests had forgotten themselves and imagined they were at a Mood Slime concert. Peter went up the stairs, and Roland followed him. Garrett quietly decided that getting out onto the roof - something being disabled did make slightly difficult for him - was not worth the bother when there were so many people up there. Winston, Ray and Egon briefly discussed whether they would go, and then decided that they should try and keep the numbers down. Winston decided to call Charlene to see how she was getting on, while Egon and Ray began to discuss theories about the demon they had just encountered.

Kylie was already back over by the bookcase, thumbing through an old volume. Eduardo put his hand on her shoulder and said, "I'm going up."

"Okay, babe," said Kylie. "I'm finding out what that demon was."

"Y'know, you're supposed to be having a good time."

"I can't have a good time until I know what it was. I don't like not knowing. We still don't know why Grace got attacked by man-eating pigs in February, do we?"

.-.-.-.

When Roland emerged onto the roof his eye was drawn to Oscar, as he was set apart from everyone else. He was sitting on the raised edge, his guitar resting on one hitched-up knee, valiantly singing on whilst clearly afraid of the two women nearest him becoming overexcited and accidentally sending him to his death. They were already making a grab at his t-shirt - it all looked very dangerous, Roland thought. Then he spotted Grace, not standing far away from him, watching Oscar with an anxious look on her face. The look was for him, he supposed. He walked over to her and touched her shoulder.

"Roland! Oh my God!" she squeaked, throwing her arms around his neck. "Well, that didn't take too long. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," said Roland.

Grace started kissing him, but stopped when a voice level with her shoulder blades said, "Eww, Mom, get a room."

"We already have one, sweetie," said Grace. "Maybe we should go there."

"Now?" said Roland.

"Soon. Just let me go and make sure Spence knows he's got Natalie for the week, and then we can start saying goodbye to everyone."

Eduardo, meanwhile, was with Rose. He had found her sitting as much by herself as she could be, in a corner away from Oscar, twisting the untied ribbon on the waist of her dress around her fingers.

"Are you okay?" said Eduardo, crouching down beside her.

Rose shrugged. "I hate weddings."

"I know, mi querida. And you haven't even been to a really big one yet."

Rose looked up at him sharply, her eyes full of suspicion. Clearly she did not believe that this - with so many people, and singing on the roof - was not a big wedding.

"Will you let me carry you?" Eduardo asked. "I'm worried you're gonna get stepped on."

Rose shrugged, which Eduardo knew was her way of giving her consent, so he put his hands under her arms and lifted her up. She might have been small for her age, but she was getting heavy. She was not quite so heavy as a proton pack, but nor was she designed to be carried on one's back with the weight distributed evenly. Eduardo's arms were already stiff from carrying her around earlier, when the ground was too hot for her bare feet. Since then, no more had been said about that incident. He knew she wasn't going to apologise, and she had known all along that he would forgive her in no time.

Eduardo spotted Roland, standing by himself and watching Grace and Spence as they hugged tightly. Natalie was with them, but her eyes were trained adoringly on Oscar.

"You okay, man?" Eduardo asked, noticing something strange in Roland's expression.

"I was just thinking," said Roland. "She's been through so much with him. And not just getting married and having a child - they've really been through it together. They've been through more than most people who end up realising they do love each other."

"Does that bother you?" Eduardo asked.

"No, I guess not. It's just… I don't know, weird, I guess. I'm sure they know each other better than she and I know each other, even if she doesn't love him."

"Which she doesn't."

"Yeah."

"Oh, for…" Eduardo said, as he noticed Conchita in the crowd of people. "Why is she still with that Jamie kid?"

"Maybe she likes him," said Roland.

"Maybe she likes him likes him," said Rose, sounding totally unmoved by the possibility, and much more interested in playing with one of her father's earrings.

"I did say I wanted you both to stick with Jess," Eduardo said expressionlessly. He knew that neither of his daughters liked being told what to do any more than he did - even the more agreeable one - and he had to be understanding of that, especially after seeing his younger self that day. Still, he would rather that Conchita had not decided to hook up with Jamie again. "Ow, Rose, be careful, it's attached."

"Jess is busy with her boyfriend," Rose said distastefully, and wrinkled her nose.

"Mmm, I bet she is. I remember when she was Chita's age. God, that scares me."

"Chita must have been a baby then," said Rose. "Jess is twice her age now."

Eduardo gave her a comical look. Then to Roland he said, "Well, I guess you don't need to worry too much about having kids who are smarter than you."

"That might be a little way off yet," said Roland.

"I remember when my turning thirty seemed a long way off," said Eduardo. "Now it's only a week away. You remember we were talking earlier about that time when you guys all talked about the future, and I wouldn't join in?"

"Of course."

"Doesn't that seem like yesterday?"

Roland had to admit that it did.

.-.-.-.

As people started to drift in from Oscar's concert, Kylie moved her research down to the basement. It was Peter who went and found her there over an hour later. Kylie was a little surprised to see him. She would sooner have expected Eduardo or Egon, as they each had an interest, or possibly Roland, as it was his party she was missing.

"Roland and Grace are leaving," said Peter. "They want to say goodbye to you."

"Oh, all right," said Kylie, reading quickly through a short paragraph as she spoke. "I think I have it now anyway. I mean, there are no other demons that do that, are there? It does have a lot of different names, but I'm sure it's all the same demon. Some cultures called it by a name that just means 'mischievous imp', but in the west apparently people used to call it 'Ordtima', which means 'lord of time' - and then that evolved into 'Mortimer'! How crazy is that? Anyway, Garrett made some comment earlier about maybe it wanted to create a major paradox by getting people to kill their younger selves or something. Well, he wasn't actually that far off."

"Really?" said Peter. "What was it trying to do?"

"Wipe out the human race."

"Oh. Why?"

Kylie shrugged. "It didn't like it. No one quite knows for sure, but from what I've read it seems to have started out as a spirit of the earth. It lived in harmony with plants and animals for millions of years, until a few of them evolved into humans and started getting ideas. For most living things it was just a struggle to survive and carry on the species, but humans grew more and more invulnerable and more and more complacent, so then they started making up new problems for themselves. You know, like money and politics and governments and romantic relationships and shit."

"So you're saying it got gradually more pissed off with us?" said Peter. "I thought it could travel around in time - it doesn't sound like it exists… what's that word?"

"Linearly?"

"Sure, that'll do."

"It doesn't," said Kylie. "At least, I don't thinkit does. It can't. These books can't explain everything - they were only written by people - but they say that at some point it stopped living linearly and started flitting around in time, trying to make some kind of sense of what the hell we were all doing. But it couldn't make sense of it."

"Of course not," said Peter. "I doesn't make any sense, does it, when you think about it?"

"No, I guess not. So anyway, then it started to show us. It was basically just asking us: what the hell are you doing? It got people to talk to themselves across different times, as we know, and then obviously the younger one had to forget straight after."

"Oh, okay, I see," said Peter. "Because I was going to ask you… I've been hearing a rumour that Jess met it, but when I asked her she just told me not to be so senile."

"What a nice thing to say," said Kylie. "Yes, she saw it. We saw her seeing it… if you see what I mean. It showed her the future, but she can't remember."

"Oh. So… what did it show her?"

"I don't know."

"Didn't she say anything that might give you a clue?"

"She laughed," said Kylie, thinking it best to omit the details of what they had overheard. "Whatever it was, she didn't believe it."

"Was it good, what she saw?" asked Peter. "Do you think she was happy?"

"I really don't know. Look, Peter, you shouldn't be asking me this. Surely you've seen the Back to the Future movies. It's bad for you to know about your own destiny, and it's bad for you to know about your daughter's as well."

"Do you believe in that?"

"In what?"

"Destiny."

"Oh, well… I don't want to," said Kylie. "Maybe whatever the demon showed her, she can change it. Mind you, she's in the present, but so is the older Carol Saunders and the younger one didn't change anything for her, did she? Oh, God, it's so confusing - I hate demons like that. Maybe I should go up and say bye to Roland and Grace."

She headed for the stairs, and Peter followed her, saying, "I guess I'd better get Janine to send that Saunders woman an invoice."

"I guess so," said Kylie. "Y'know, the books also say that it only shows people other people… if you see what I mean… when it's getting really desperate. It's almost never happened, but there's one occasion on record. The same thing had happened then as happened here. It showed a few people some stuff, and they basically told it to get lost."

"Makes sense," said Peter, as they came to a stop at the top of the stairs. "No one's accountable for other people."

"No, but if the demon shows you people that you love and trust, it can make you wonder what the hell you're doing loving and trusting them. I think that's what it was trying to do with Roland, but it failed. That must be significant somehow, mustn't it? Mortimer doesn't like love between humans, but Roland's was strong enough to overpower him."

"Him?"

"Okay, it. It's just that Mortimer is kind of a guy's name."

"What if it succeeded?" asked Peter. "What would happen then?"

"It succeeded quite a few times," said Kylie. "And people died."

"Of what?"

"No one knows. It must have just messed with their heads until they… well, died."

Peter looked alarmed.

"You probably have to have a weak personality," said Kylie. "You probably have to really doubt yourself, or hate yourself, or both. You couldn't kill Jessica like that."

"I'm worried about her," said Peter.

"Why?"

"Well, for one thing she's sleeping with Cameron."

Kylie started. "What? How do you know? I mean, what makes you think so?"

Peter shrugged. "I can just tell. Dana suspects as well, and she's furious, but what can we do about it? I can't say anything to her - I was having sex at her age. And Dana would just… I love her, but I don't believe she'd make the situation any better. But look, don't you worry about it - you got another eight years or so before you'll have anything like this on your plate. Mind you, Chita did look pretty cosy with that Jamie kid today."

As she looked for Roland and Grace, Kylie reflected that on some level, she was inclined to agree with Mortimer. If they were wild animals, the mere fact that Jessica was sexually mature would make it quite all right for her to go out, fend for herself and have babies with whomever she liked. She wouldn't make a conscious decision about not wanting to procreate, and she certainly wouldn't ask another sexually mature female to buy her a morning after pill. There would be no guilt and no worry. All anyone would think about would be making it through the winter.

When Kylie found Roland, he was not with Grace. He was with Eduardo and Garrett, probably being subjected to inappropriate jokes about the wedding night, Kylie thought. For all Garrett said that they had matured, they were all still the same people that they had been twelve years ago, when they first came together in that lecture theatre.

"Congratulations," said Kylie, pushing herself into the gathering and giving Roland a hug. "Have a really great honeymoon. And don't worry about Natalie - we'll make sure Spence and Stephanie are looking after her."

"Don't hit her head on anything when you carry her over the threshold," said Garrett.

"And remember to be careful," said Eduardo. "Ky doesn't want another text message."

"What?" said Roland.

"Never mind," said Eduardo, his eyes wandering as he caught sight of Conchita again, still with Jamie. "Just have a good time. It'll be over before you know it."

"Group hug!" said Garrett.

Twelve years ago, they would all have considered themselves above such a thing as a group hug. Now, they all put their arms around each other and squeezed and made exaggerated "awww" noises and laughed.

"Everyone thinks we're nuts now," said Eduardo, when they had finished.

"Yeah, especially Grace's mom and dad," said Roland, smiling a little sheepishly at both Archie and Adele. "And to think, they used to say I was good for her."

"Screw 'em," said Garrett. "They're nuts."

"Everyone's nuts in their own way," Kylie said sagely. "Oh, that reminds me… for some reason. Who wants to know about the demon?"

"I do, babe," Eduardo said obligingly.

"Yeah, me too," said Garrett.

"Thanks, Kylie, but I gotta go," said Roland. "Tell me when I get back, okay?"

"Don't you care?" asked Garrett.

Roland shrugged. "Not really. Bye, you guys. Enjoy the rest of the party."

He walked away from them, found Grace and plucked her out of the arms of her ex-husband. No one, Roland thought, was happier for Grace than Spence seemed to be. He accused himself of stealing the best years of her life, but no one else saw it that way, least of all her. They had made each other into better people, and thanks to Spence, Grace had been able to become somebody she liked and Roland loved. In fact, Roland thought, it had all come together very nicely. He was not desperate to hear about that demon, but he would be interested to listen to Kylie when he got back. Whatever it was, it clearly couldn't see how things so often worked out for the best.

THE END