The group of ghosts had been gathered into their usual meeting room by Alison in the early afternoon of a really rather miserable day; it rained, it poured and the skies showed no signs of brightening up any time in the near future. Good job the roof had been repaired before the builders had left frankly. However, as soon as Alison had explained why she'd summoned them all thoughts of the weather had been forgotten and instead the band of the dead just stood there staring at the brunette while Humphrey grumbled in the corner about being on the floor and unable to hear a word of what was going on; his body meandered around in search of the head. Poor Fanny looked horrified.

"... You want to invite more people into my house? And an American at that!"

Alison sighed and deflated a little bit. "Okay, sounds a little racist to be honest with you and let's face it, this isn't your house any longer, it's mine. You lot are all just tenants who don't pay rent."

"You want money from us?" Asked Pat in his usual chipper tone. "Julian hasn't even got trousers on."

Alison raked a hand across her face. "Forget the money thing. My cousin is coming and that's final. She'll hopefully be able to help me deal with you lot without going bloody bananas."

The Captain stepped forwards then looking immaculate as always. The rest of the group wouldn't ever admit it – well, Pat might – but he was their de facto leader and actually rather good at it.

"Alison, am I to assume you're Yankee cousin is a-" The only living person in the room cut him off.

"Yeah, she's a medium, she can talk to ghosts. To be honest with you we always thought she was crazy or lying but after I started seeing all you I'm not so sure. Wouldn't it be nice to, you know, have someone else living to talk to?" She turned to the caveman. "Robin, you could play chess with her." Then to the military man. "Captain, I'm sure she can recommend some war documentaries from the States."

The Captain looked somewhat dubious. "American war tactics?"

"Look, it doesn't matter, my cousin is coming and you're just going to have to live with it for a few weeks, or die with it, I don't know."

As usual it was Pat who piped up as the voice of reason.

"Guys, it sounds like this young woman has taken the time to fly all the way here just to meet us and help Alison so I think we should welcome her. Couldn't hurt to be nice and we've never had a medium in the house before. Alison was scared of us at first but this girl won't be, we should give her a chance before we decide we don't like her. I can give her the tour too."

Julian seemed to think it over for a moment. "In my experience Americans are either egomaniacs or... oh wait, no, that's it, they're just egomaniacs."

"In all fairness, Julian, you were a politician, and most politicians are."

"Thank you, Kitty. We can't just judge her for being American."

"If she's related to sweet Alison she must be lovely."

Just about everyone rolled there eyes at Thomas' irritating infatuation with their living house mate, at first they'd just ignored it but now it was getting annoying.

The rain continued to pour and the ghosts seemed to accept they'd not got a choice in the American's visit, Kitty and Pat seemed somewhat excited while the other sat on the fence, save for Fanny of course who still appeared horrified at the prospect.

"I still says talkings to dead folk is witchcraft, so is flying. Burns her we should."

"Mary, there won't be any burning my cousin and she'll be in a plane not just taking off like Superman. She's not a witch, she's not evil, she's just-"

Lady Button cut her off. "American."

Mike entered then, soaking wet and shivering. He dripped all over the floor and Fanny quickly took to complaining about it but Alison ignored her in favour of running to her husband and finding out exactly why he'd decided to go outside in this storm. She pulled off his hat and tossed it down on one of the wooden side tables then quickly began to rub at his shoulders in feeble attempt to get some warmth back into him.

"Why the hell were you out there, Mike?" Alison's voice was littered with concern.

Mike shivered. "I- God, I'm cold – I broke a pipe and had to go outside to find the water shut off."

Fanny tossed her arms up. "Wonderful, now it's raining inside as well as out."

"Shut up, Fanny." Alison turned her attention back to her husband. "Is it off?" Mike nodded. "Okay, go upstairs, take all these wet clothes off and I'll bring you some of the soup we had last night to warm you up."

Mike looked hesitant and his eyes flashed about the room as though looking for something he couldn't see.

"But what about the-" he lowered his voice to a whisper "-you know, the ghosts?"

Julian pulled a face of disgust. "It's not like you do anything for us, mate."

"Certainly not." Added the Captain completely unnecessarily.

Alison just breathed out a laugh as she pushed her husband out of the room. "You're safe, Mike. I don't think peeping is something they're too focused on."

"Ha, unless you're Thomas."

Thomas' brow raised in shock and a little panic. "I never did. I was just watching for when Alison came out so we could haunt her." He pointed at the scout master. "It was Pat's idea."

"Calm down, Thomas, I'm sure Julian didn't mean anything by it."

Like a perfect lady, Fanny sat herself down on the settee and looked up at her fellow deceased friends.

"I think we're overlooking the main issue we have." All attention turned to her. "There is an American coming here."

"Hmm, they showed up in forty-two and started giving out sweets, called it candy." Said the army Captain. "People loved them."

"Well, they had shown up to help us through the war and they were just being nice." Pat turned to Fanny. "What is your problem with the Americans?"

Fanny pulled a face. "Their Jazz music and their Flapper girls, showing off all their legs like hussies. You mark my words, that American will show up and there will hardly be a shred of fabric on her."

Julian perked up at that, a smile spread across his face. "Mmm, Gweyneth Paltrow."

Mary raised an eyebrow. "Who?"

The group of ghosts slipped into rather pointless conversation after that, Fanny continued to sit and grumble to herself while Julian and Robin settled down for a game of chess. Thomas read the book of Shelley poems Alison had left open for him while Mary and Kitty fell into idle chit-chat. Pat went to help Humphrey's body get to his head. The Captain shuffled off to the window alone though, he stared out at the grounds as think rivers of water washed over the glass and sighed a little to himself. He hadn't been dead nearly the longest – in actuality he was one of the younger ghosts – but he'd grown used to being alone, sometime he and the other ghosts could go a full day without seeing one another. The moustached man didn't know how he felt about there suddenly being to young women who could see and hear him. Still, he was going to just see how it went like Pat had said.