Holtzmann was always the first one at the firehouse. Whether it was weekday or weekend, or even on most holidays, she was there by the pack of dawn, cup of coffee in tow and an assortment of vintage elective jewelry dangling from her neck. She would immediately rush to her desk on arrival, and usually didn't move from her spot for the entirety of the day, unless the group was called on a job. The other women started to wonder why Holtzmann insisted on showing up to work so early, usually at least a good hour before the rest of the gang, who generally trickled in around the 8:45 mark. It wasn't something that needed explaining, though. It was just Holtz being Holtz, and that's what Holtz did. She showed up at work unnesicarily early and left unnecessarily late. She never took her eyes off of her work and only moved from her chair when testing explosives that had the potential to harm her from this normal seat. The girls wondered if she ever went to the bathroom, or ate lunch, or even consumed anything other than coffee and excessive amounts of pringles.

Erin, on the other hand, appeared polar opposite of Holtzmann. She was always stumbling in late, mumbling apologies and scattered stories about inconveniences, which narrowly alibied her tardiness. She often left the office early, or took trips during the day into the heart of downtown to run errands or make sandwich runs. In the office, she was an utterly disorganized mess, and although her papers and supplies were seemingly neatly stacked, she had no system of origination, and often found herself frantically scrambling around the office, muttering the occasional "shit, where did I put that paper?" or, " Kevin, have you seen the third volume of the physics textbook I had last week? I can't find it."

It was usually Holtzmann who was the one to jump in with an "I think I might have what you're looking for," and pull the book out from behind your back. She would wink, a smirk spreading across her lips, causing Erin to blush. Holtz would pretend not to notice. Erin was easily embarrassed. She blushed all the time when she was dropping those papers or losing those books or apologizing constantly.

Erin stumbled in at around 9:30 one morning, per usual, a large tan stain covering the center of her blouse and a large Starbucks cup in her hand. She paused at the front desk where Kevin was, per usual, paying no attention, and didn't notice her entrance. Instead he had engulfed himself watching a video of a dog licking a cat's paw, on YouTube. Patty sighed and sat her coffee cup down on the desk briefly, so she could adjust the grip of her briefcase under her arm. As she was walking towards her office, directly across the hall from Holtzman's, she heard a large "Bang!" and followed my a series of short and frantic squeals, and then a resonating sizzling noise which sent shivers down Erin's spine. As she entered her office, she peeked behind her to see what the young engineer had been doing that had caused such a jarring sound. When she saw her. Holtz's face was covered in soot and sweat, and she was up from her feet, examining a large, smoking gun on the other side of the room.

Erin would've liked to think that she was curious about what Holtz was doing, but she knew, in all honesty, that she was just looking for an excuse to talk to the woman, and she wasn't fooling anyone. She peeked her head into the room.

"Hey" she said, causing Holtzmann to jump, and frantically jerk her head upwards to find the source of the voice. When she saw Erin peeking in, sheepish grin on her face, Holtzmann let out a relieved,

"Oh, it's you."

Erin felt a small pang in her stomach when she heard Holtzmann's slightly disinterested- sounding tone, but perked up quickly when she turned to get to her office and start work and Holtzmann stopped her,

"Hey, wait, wanna see something super cool?"

Erin whipped around, her hair hitting her cheek, and quickly blushing at her obvious reaction to this question. She tried to recover, but knew it was futile.

"Um, yeah sure."

Holtzmann giggled, watching the red headed woman as she walked toward where Holtzmann was standing, eyeing the smoking gun carefully as she edged foreword. Holtzmann saw this and said matter-of-factly

"Oh, don't worry about that. The fumes are only toxic to ghosts."

Erin couldn't help but giggle. She felt a sense of giddiness, which concerned her. She wasn't accustomed to laughing and smiling so much, but it just sort of happened around Holtzmann. Still, she stood about two feet away from the blonde, still cautious of the smoking object on front of the both of them.

"Oh, c'mon, I told you it's harmless. C'mon."

And Erin didn't know why, but Holtz reached behind her and grabbed Erin's hand, pulling her foreword so she could get a better look at the gun. When she grabbed her hand, it wasn't a quick yank. Erin's heart jumped as she felt Holtz's fingers intertwine with her own and lightly tug at her to follow her lead.

"Okay," Erin said when she had collected herself, "so what am I looking at?"

"Basically," Holtzmann began, without thought or hesitation, "it's the same gun I've been using, but when it releases the electricity, it also releases a gas which is toxic to the ghosts, but not to us. So, not only do we catch em, but we kill em, or at least sedate em for a good day or so."

She chuckled to herself. Erin tried to fake an interest in what Holtzmann was explaining to her, but all she could focus on was the distinct sound of Holtz's laughter: the way her voice was so deep and almost guttural, but when she laughed, she became high pitched, and almost squealed.

"That's pretty cool," said Erin, and Holtz seemed to buy it.

"Thanks. It's taken a few days, but I think I've finally worked out the kinks." She winked again and this time Erin could feel herself turning completely red.

She could tell that it amused Holtzmann, but found it hard to tell if Holtz was laughing at her, or if she liked that she made Erin blush. Erin knew she read to far into these sorts of matters. She needed to keep her head in the game and accomplish some work, herself.

"Hey, this is pretty cool, but I think I need to get to work" she said.

As she drew away from Holtzmann, she noticed that her fingers were still intertwined with the blondes, and that they had been standing like that for the past minute or so, so naturally. As Erin headed towards the door of Holtz's lab, the blonde gave her a pathetic puppy dog look.

"No, don't go, no one else will play with me" she said, more than a hint of irony in her voice, but her eyebrows still arched upward in a way that made Erin feel as though Holtz genuinely wanted her to say.

"Gotta blast" Erin said, using the saying she had picked up on the internet, ever since Patty had convinced her that she spent to much time in the books and needed to "adapt to the modern day world"

"Same," said Holtzmann, moving her arms to imitate the shooting of a gun, "Gotta blast!... Get it? Like blast with a gun? This gun will seriously blast the hell out of anything you've got…. I like this pun thing. Ya know, ya see what I did just now."

Erin giggled, this time not trying to hide the way her cheeks blushed at anything the blonde said, and not caring.

"Yeah, I see what you did there." She said.