Erin Gilbert awoke to the sound of heavy boots shuffling frighteningly close to her head. She groaned, shifted to the side, and immediately regretted it. A speaker was positioned directly next to the couch where she had fallen asleep the night before, books still strewn across the coffee table. It was blasting some loud dance beat that Erin vaguely recalled from the one time she had been dragged to a club by Abby.
"Off with your head!"
Erin turned to look at the clock, and saw that Jillian Holtzmann was obstructing her view of it. Holtz was using her newest blaster gun as a microphone, shimmying and shaking her hips in tune to the music.
"Dance till you're dead!" Holtz crooned to her weapon. "Heads will roll on the floor!"
"Ok, I'm up, I'm up," Erin said, picking up the open science journal lying across her chest and shifting her legs to the side of the couch. "God, you don't have to be so obnoxious." Secretly, Erin was quite pleased at Holtz's enthusiastic display, but she tried to appear annoyed at the rude awakening.
"That's what I'm best at, though," Jillian said, still gyrating her hips and letting her head bob. She winked at Erin, and Erin looked away, trying to ignore Holtz's blatant flirting. Erin's cheeks were glowing red as she ran to the bathroom, grabbing the toothbrush she'd stashed there for just this kind of morning. The music from the other room continued to blare as she glanced at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, trying to decide why Holtz was affecting her this way.
For the past couple of weeks, Jillian had definitely upped her flirting game, and Erin thought it might be because she hadn't seen Holtz go out with anyone recently. Plus, she thought, Holtz was always flirting with everyone. Even though - and this was just from Erin's own observations - she usually stopped once she either got what she wanted or got a rejection. Erin had given her neither, in part because she didn't like to get in the middle of things and in part because she wasn't sure what she would say. She was always sort of attracted to Holtzmann, that was for sure. But… it had been ages since she'd been in any sort of relationship. Plus, what would the others say? It wasn't that she was against her friends being with girls, but she had certainly never thought of herself as the type to do so. Well, not until Holtzmann had come into the picture and ruined her whole little Gilbert worldview. She closed her eyes with the toothbrush still in her mouth and the water still running, imagining the moment Jillian had introduced herself… 'Come here often?' she had said, her mouth folding into a little smirk. Erin thought about Jillian's dimples when she did that. Her hair had appeared so unkempt and she was just so wild about everything she did. Erin imagined what it might be like to touch that hair. See what ticked behind those bright tinted goggles and those pretty eyes…
"Come out, come out, wherever you are!" Holtzmann interrupted Erin's reverie, throwing the bathroom door wide.
Erin started. "You didn't think to knock?" she reprimanded. Her heart felt as though it was exploding, and not actually from annoyance.
"I'm booooorrrrred," Holtz complained, kicking over the garbage can and scattering tissues and floss everywhere. "Can we doooooo something?"
"It's eight in the morning! Relax!" Erin bent over and gathered the contents of the wastebasket, flipping it upright and dumping the trash back inside. She tried not to appear too flustered. Jillian's presence was making her stomach flutter, and not in a bad way.
"Gilbert! The day is our oyster!"
"It's Tuesday, Holtzmann. It's a workday. Why are you here so early anyway?"
Holtzmann sighed deeply. "I wanted to work on my new blaster thing. But now that's done, and I didn't want to wake you up by hanging up new plans for my next one -"
"So you woke me up in a louder fashion?"
"Exactly. You're catching on, Gilbert."
At that moment, two things happened. Jillian took the toothbrush from Erin's mouth, where it had hung precariously and quite awkwardly throughout their conversation, and the door to the firehouse squealed open as the others came in to work.
As Erin blushed furiously, Jillian placed the toothbrush on the side of the sink and scampered away, babbling to Patty about the features of her completed invention.
Abby came and joined Erin, reaching for her daily packet of Emergen-C, which she kept in the medicine cabinet.
"You okay? You're looking really flushed."
"Fine," Erin said, pretending to read the directions on the back of her toothpaste. "Tired. Slept here last night."
"Oh," Abby grunted as she drank the last of her Emergen-C and started to leave.
"Hey," Erin said. "Wait. Ummm…" Abby paused and looked pointedly at her.
"Do you think… you would be cool if I maybe went out with a girl?"
"Depends on who she is? She gonna break your heart?" Abby asked sincerely. "Because don't go out with someone who'll do that or I'll break her heart and everything else in her body."
"That's… very good, Abby. Thank you." This time, Erin prepared to leave, but Abby touched her arm as she went by.
"Is there someone you like? Because I would just tell her. Any girl would be lucky -"
"Got it, thanks," Erin interrupted. "I mean, I'm just not sure if that's… because she might be the type to break my heart. She's a bit of a… umm…" She didn't want to give too much away. Holtz was easy to describe because, well, she was Holtz. There was no one like her in the world. Abby saw right through Erin, though, because she immediately inferred, "Holtz?"
Erin nodded, embarrassed. "S'okay," Abby said. "She's kind of a player, in theory. But I've never seen her flirt with anyone like she flirts with you. Trust me, with other girls, she stops. With you? Not a chance. She loves you! Go for it. I've seen the way you jump every time she walks in. You're really obvious, by the way."
Erin's mouth dropped open. She hadn't realized it was so easy to tell. She'd tried to keep her feelings under wraps, but with the butterflies that had recently begun to appear in her stomach whenever she thought about Holtzmann, she wasn't exactly surprised. What did surprise her, though, was Abby's assertion that Holtz loved her. Erin hadn't really ever been in love before. Of course, there had been guys who'd made her feel special, but nothing amazing. She cocked her head and thought about what it might feel like to be in love with Holtz.
"Just think about it, anyway," Abby said, patting Erin on the shoulder and walking out of the bathroom. Erin stood there, listening to the cacophony of noise from the mixture of voices, loud music, and… the phone. The phone was ringing.
"Kevin!" Erin shouted, her voice still a bit shaky from her conversation with Abby. "Get the phone!"
"K, boss," he said. "Which phone?"
"The desk phone! The one that's ringing!" Erin said, exasperated. She walked back into the main room as Kevin actually managed to pick it up.
"Wassup?" Kevin said into the receiver. "Okay, bye."
"Who was that?" Patty asked.
"Dunno." Kevin looked up at her innocently.
"Kevin! How many times have we told you to write down the details for us?"
"Twenty-two, boss?" Kevin smiled.
Erin frowned. Normally, a smile like that would have knocked the wind out of her. Not today, though. Today it just slightly annoyed her. As Patty called the person back, Erin twisted her auburn hair in her fingers. She felt hot underneath her silk shirt and tweed skirt. She adjusted her collar as Patty said something to the customer. "Excuse me? Are you sure? Alright, ma'am, we'll be right there." She hung up and made a face. "Guess we're going to catch some ghost-mermaids."
Holtzmann cheered. Erin looked away.
When the group got to the harbor, a crowd was gathered by the beach in anticipation. Fortunately for Erin, she was thoroughly distracted by the aforementioned mermaid-ghosts and thought little of it when Holtzmann gave her the newly minted weapon and briefly explained its mechanics. If she had stopped to think, she would have realized Holtz was brazenly flirting again (she never gave her newest weapons to any of the other team members). However, there was little time to do that, because above the harbor, there floated gauzy green shapes that definitely did resemble mermaids.
The crowd, dressed in beach attire, was gasping in awe as the shapes swirled above the water, flicking the spray out into the group and eliciting tiny screams from some of the more squirrelly beachgoers. The Ghostbuster women looked at each other in consternation, then nodded unanimously and marched through the gathered crowd to the shore.
Abby gave a nod to signal to the other women, but just as they were about to aim their weapons and catch the mermaids by surprise, a sound not unlike that of a million electric screwdrivers scraping down a million blackboards shook the beach. Erin, disgusted, covered her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. When she was able to force one eye open, she saw something that made her open the other one in shock. Everyone on the beach was paused, as if enamored by the sound - everyone, that is, except for Erin Gilbert. She glanced up at the single-tailed shapes drifting lazily above the ocean spray and knew immediately that the sound was coming from them. She figured they were some sort of syren - she knew this from her course on classical mythology in college - but she wondered why she was immune to their cries. She uncovered her ears warily, and discovered she was able to tolerate their hideous noises, at least for a little while.
"Who - who are you?" she shouted with as much volume as she could muster. One of the mermaids/syrens/whatever they were - the biggest one, Erin noticed - stopped its noise while the others continued.
"We are the syrens of the ancient world," she crooned seductively. Ok, Erin thought, so she was right.
"But why are you here?" Erin cringed. The noise was starting to give her a headache.
"We have come here for you," she said.
"What?" Erin's eyes widened. "Whoa there, I -" The syren laughed.
"That was great. Really scared you there. We actually just like tormenting people on the beach." The syren cackled loudly and twirled in midair. "It's just so much fun!"
Erin couldn't think of what to say or do. Her mind went blank. She had never fought a ghost alone, much less a whole army of them. She looked to her friends, frozen in admiration for the 'music' the ghosts were producing. Her gaze landed, not surprisingly, on Jillian. She suddenly felt a wall of jealousy well up inside her. Jillian was staring intently at the syrens, smiling, clearly in awe of these perfect specimens of ghost seduction. The ghosts weren't afraid to flirt, unlike herself. Erin decided she wouldn't be surprised if Jillian decided to flirt incessantly with the ghosts instead of her when they made it back to the lab.
These thoughts (as well as the incredibly painful headache that was now gnawing at her brain) were what made Erin decide to fight these ghosts alone. She took out the containment device, which the syrens laughed noisily at, and opened it. She aimed Holtzmann's newest weapon at the biggest mermaid, said "here goes nothing," and fired.
The results were spectacular. This was clearly the most powerful weapon Jillian had ever fashioned, and its rays quickly snared not only one, but four of the syrens and started to drag them in. Erin strained against the pullback, trying to stay upright. Her mouth formed a grimace and she took several steps backward as she yanked the syrens into the device and shut the door. Breathing hard, she glanced up at the remaining twenty or so.
"You got this," she said. "Come on Erin. Come on." She thought of Holtz and how she needed to do this for her if she ever wanted to get her out of that stupor. Few by few, Erin managed to load several containment traps with syrens. By the last couple of groups, her back ached and her fingers were bruised and sore. When she finally forced the last screeching, wiggling group of sirens into a cylinder, she fell, exhausted, onto the sand and reached her hands into the water, splashing it onto her face, not caring that it was salty and stung her eyes.
Suddenly, she heard the normal noise of the beach resume, along with some cries of wonderment as the New Yorkers gazed up at the ocean and realized there were no ghosts left. She felt a hand on her back.
"Did you do this, Erin?" It wasn't Holtz, as Erin had hoped. It was Patty.
"Yup," Erin said, gritting her teeth. "My head hurts. Can we go home?"
After Erin had situated herself on the couch and given the other Ghostbusters an abbreviated version of what had happened, she fell asleep on the couch with a hot towel on her head. Not for long, though. It seemed to her that she had just fallen asleep when the couch squeaked and someone sat beside her.
"Hey! Gilbert!"
Erin groaned. Her head still hurt, but not nearly as much as it had before.
"Hey! Didya like my new invention? Cool, huh?"
"It was good," Erin said, rolling over and ignoring Holtz's presence. She wasn't done sleeping yet.
"I put a new device in it. I call it my Noise Projectile Disfunction Thingy because I don't have better name yet."
"Ok."
"It obviously worked well, because it kept your brain from getting all messed up by those syren thingies. I kinda wanted you to use it because I figured you could handle the ghosts. I had a feeling we'd run into something crazy when Patty told us there were mermaids."
Erin processed this information. She felt immensely grateful towards Holtz, but she couldn't quite believe what she was hearing. "You would have handled it better yourself," she said, adjusting her warm towel over her head and eyes.
"Don't think so," Holtz said. "Plus… I… uhhhh…" Erin heard the sound of a zipper and fabric being pushed aside. When Holtz didn't say anything else, she picked up the towel off her head and opened her eyes. Abby had dimmed the lights because of the headache, but Erin could still make out one of Holtz's weapons on the inside pocket of her jacket. It was easily recognizable, because it was the same model of weapon Erin had just used to defeat the mermaids.
"Wait a minute! You had one too! So you weren't actually..."
"Sorry," Holtzmann said, grinning. "I just kinda wanted to see what you could do by yourself. Got a bit jealous there, didn't ya?" She winked.
Erin tried to feel angry. She tried to push words out, but they wouldn't come. Random sounds sputtered confusedly out of her mouth.
"Wh… Uhh… I… Hol… Wait a -"
She was shut up by the suddenness of Holtzmann's kiss. Holtz scooted closer and put a hand on Erin's back, wrapping the other one into her hair.
Erin had thought before about what it might have been like to kiss Jillian. What she hadn't anticipated, though, were the fireworks that went off when she did so. Holtz's lips were a bit chapped and Erin smiled when she thought of Jillian up in the lab playing with blowtorches and forgetting to drink water. The smile caused her teeth to collide a bit with Jillian's cheek, as Holtz was busy kissing the outer corner of Erin's mouth.
"Sorry," Erin said.
"Don't be," Holtz replied, breaking the kiss for a moment and letting go of Erin's hair. "I'm actually the one who should be sorry. Just couldn't think of another way to shut you up."
"Oh. Oh. So you don't actually…" Erin trailed off, looking down at her still-folded hands in her lap. "I thought you… liked me."
"What made you think I don't? It was an affectionate kind of shutting up," Holtzmann said playfully. "Of course I like you. Now I've seen you fight off an army of syrens for me, I'm positive you like me back. Just didn't know if you wanted me to kiss you, is all." She looked pointedly at Erin's hands. "You really don't seem that into it. Hands never left your lap." Her eyebrows rose. "Unless," she ventured, "nervous habits are the norm even when you're kissing."
Erin lifted her gaze to look up at Jillian. "I'm not super familiar with this. I mean, kissing girls and all. Sorry, I must seem like such a failure. Maybe will you, ummm, do it again?"
"I'd be happy to oblige," Holtzmann said. She leaned forward, her glasses colliding with the bridge of Erin's nose.
"Oww! Headache here!"
Holtzmann grinned and pulled her goggles off, not stopping to say anything before she pulled Erin into her arms and kissed her softly. Erin sighed with contentment as Jillian climbed over the cushions and settled herself on top of her. Erin reached up and finally buried her fingers in Holtzmann's hair. It was tangled and smelled of electricity and ocean spray. Erin was overjoyed when Holtzmann pulled away and kissed her cheek lovingly.
"Don't wanna be too forward," Holtzmann said, gazing at Erin's questioning expression, "but I want you to know I may look flirty with everyone, but I'm really not. I mean, I usually stop after a while. Except not with people I really like. Including you." She pulled Erin into another kiss, sweetly brushing strands of straight auburn hair out of her face.
After a moment, Erin pulled away. It took all of her effort, but she gathered the courage and asked, "and how many times has that happened?"
Jillian made a show of pausing and counting on her fingers. "Hmm, let's see… One," she finished. Erin blushed and pulled Holtzmann back into her.
"Holtzy?" she asked between kisses.
"Yes, m'dear?"
"Why didn't you get a headache, then? If you weren't really in a stupor like everyone else?"
Holtzmann grinned. "Took a bunch of painkillers first. Figured if it was mermaids we might have a problem like that."
"You're smart."
"Not as smart as you for picking me, Miss Scientist."
Erin felt her heart melt and Holtz giggled and leaned into her again.
They kissed for a long time.
Erin closed her eyes and let Holtzmann's head rest on her chest. Holtz breathed deeply, calmly, and Erin sighed happily. She didn't care how Holtz woke her up tomorrow, even if it was by singing along to the loudest song possible and moonwalking around the couch. All she cared about was that Jillian Holtzmann would wake her up the next day, and the next, and hopefully every morning after that.