Don't Try to Change Me

by EGB Fan

The difficulty of living in LA seems to be telling on Peter, and he's moved the family back to New York. But Oscar is far from happy about it.

1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Ghostbusters © Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Columbia Pictures. John and Eden Spengler are the original creations of Fritz Baugh; Charlene Zeddemore was created by Fritz Baugh, and developed by Brian Reilly and myself. All other original characters are my own creations.

Ghostbusters: Don't Try to Change Me

Part 1

New York City, February 2002

The baby, of the two people there, was the only one to acknowledge his arrival. She gave a small exclamation, held out her fat little hands and fixed him with an angelic smile, totally devoid of recognition but nonetheless hugely flattering.

"Hey there!" Peter Venkman, knowing that she didn't have the faintest idea who he was but still feeling like the most special person in the whole world, picked her up and started jigging her about, saying whatever came into his head in the usual patronising tones with which one addresses a baby. "How cute are you? I wish my kids were still babies. They were beautiful babies, and they didn't talk back then. You're getting big now, aren't you? Now there's something I don't say to a lot of women. I'd get a slap round the face if I said that to Janine."

"If you said to her what you say to most women," said Janine Spengler, "I would feel it my civic duty to have you arrested."

Peter looked at her. "Oh, good - I'm not invisible to everyone but this kid."

"Her name's Conchita."

"I know. Poor baby." He looked back at Conchita and resumed talking in his baby-voice. "And I thought 'Oscar' was bad enough. Some people don't know how to give their kids sensible names, do they?" Conchita laughed. "Do they!" She laughed again. "Aww, thanks for that, honey - it's nice to feel welcome."

Janine put down her ballpoint pen and looked up at him. "I'm very sorry, Dr. Venkman. Welcome back. How was your journey?"

"Nightmare."

"How are you settling into the new house?"

"Nightmare."

"How's the family?"

"Nightmare."

"All right, fine, I won't talk to you."

"No, no, talk to me," Peter said hastily, trying to hold her gaze as she turned it back towards her work. "I'd just rather not talk about the family just now."

As far as his family was concerned, Peter had not been having a good day. Come to that, he had not been having a good couple of months. Since the decision to move became final, his stepson, quite frankly, hated him. The transformation was astonishing. Oscar had always been so good-tempered, so easy-going… so nice. He was a nice kid. Peter loved him, and for well over thirteen years the feeling had been mutual. But now…

So far nothing had been worse than the morning of their departure, and the night before. Oscar simply refused to pack. His decision to leave his bedroom door wide open while he read up on the album charts was quite deliberate; he had wanted to be found not packing, with piles of clothes on the floor and all of his possessions still in their places.

Peter found him, as planned, and stated the obvious: "You're not packed."

"I'm not packed," said Oscar, "because I have absolutely no intention of leaving."

"Well," said Peter, "I'm going to make damn sure you're coming with us, but I don't mind taking you and leaving your stuff."

He had hoped that Oscar would be scared into submission, but his room was in exactly the same state the following morning. Even when they were loading the cab to the airport he didn't give in. He knew that his parents wouldn't take him all the way to New York with nothing to wear - they could hardly send him to school naked, and he was very aware of what he could do if they tried it - and he was actually going to make Peter physically pack up all of his possessions and transport them himself. Oscar certainly didn't imagine that the stunt would change anything; it was designed purely to make Peter feel guilty. And it certainly worked. When she began to get anxious about missing the flight, Peter's wife Dana found him carefully rolling up posters and securing them with elastic bands.

"You're not packing the posters," she said.

Peter, looking down at the rolled-up Red Hot Chili Peppers poster in his hand, feigned puzzlement. "Aren't I?"

"Leave them. And the CDs, and the ghetto blaster, and the walkman - it'll serve him right." She would have mentioned the two guitars - one acoustic, one electric (boy, but that kid was spoilt) - but Oscar was not letting those out of his sight.

Peter, who had thought on more than one occasion that Dana could be a little too strict, was genuinely shocked. "No," he said.

"He can live without all that."

"Physically, yes, but he'll never be happy without his music."

"So use it to teach him a lesson. I heard you last night, Peter: 'I don't mind taking you and leaving your stuff'."

Peter winced. It sounded horrible. "I shouldn't have said that. He's just angry - I'm not going to punish him and I'm not going to play games."

"You're too soft on them," said Dana. "Both of them."

"Perhaps," said Peter. "But I don't think it would be very sensible of me to push him further away - do you?"

Dana sighed resignedly. "No, I suppose not."

Now Oscar was in his new home, which he swore would never really be his home, refusing to unpack. That was no skin off Peter's nose, though, and Oscar knew it. He just wasn't ready yet to apply any personal touches to a room that he simply could not accept as his own. His room was back in Los Angeles, stripped and abandoned.

"So." Peter attempted to regain Janine's attention. He didn't want to talk about his family, or the move, so what did he want to talk about? "Is Egon around?"

"He's upstairs with the twins," said Janine.

"Oh, yeah - how are they?"

"Flourishing."

"Kids out on a call?" Perhaps, Peter thought, he shouldn't call them that - two of those kids were the parents of the kid in his arms.

"Yes," said Janine.

"What is it?"

"Ghost kid's been bothering some family who just moved here. So there you go - you can't be having as much trouble settling in as they are."

x x x

There were cardboard boxes all over the floors, and what furniture was there was covered with dustsheets. The Wilsons were your average nuclear family: mother, father, three-year-old girl, six-month-old baby boy, boisterous golden Labrador. Roland Jackson was more interested in the baby, Harry, than he was in the ghost, so he stayed in the kitchen and chatted to the mother about feeding habits and such while Garrett Miller, Kylie Griffin and Eduardo Rivera did their job.

"Of course," said Garrett, "everyone gets the creeps in houses where everything's covered over with dustsheets. You just never know what might be underneath them."

"Well," said Kylie, indicating with a tilt of the head, "that one looks like a piano… that's a chair… I don't know, though - some of these could be anything. Personally, I think they'd feel a lot better if they just got rid of some of these white sheets and dusted a bit and put up some family photos or something. I'm just not getting any readings."

"Total waste of time," Eduardo surmised, though he was still scanning the room with a PKE meter. "Janine had better charge them extra for this. Whoa!"

Garrett and Kylie whipped round to face him, hands on proton guns. But then they all relaxed when they saw that it was just Laura, the little girl. She had been freaking Eduardo out ever since the team arrived. She was unnaturally pale, her hair was almost as light as her skin and she had this way of just standing and staring.

"He's here," Laura said simply. "I've seen him."

"Are you sure it wasn't just a dustsheet, sweetie?" Garrett asked, with a patronising smile.

"I've seen him," said Laura. "It's a boy."

"How many times have you seen him?" asked Kylie, in businesslike tones. She wouldn't talk to Conchita like that, but even now that she was a mother she just couldn't seem to change the way she was with other people's children.

"Twice yesterday," said Laura. "Once this morning." She pointed over Eduardo's shoulder. "There."

"Chrissake," muttered Eduardo, hastily backing away from her.

"He's not here now," said Kylie.

"He will be."

No one expected to get much more out of Laura. Her description of the ghost had been vague, and with the possible exception of Harry, who couldn't talk at all, no one else had seen him. Harry was a suspected witness because, shortly after the family arrived at the house, he had started screaming louder than he ever had in his life for no apparent reason. His mother reported feeling suddenly cold when the crying started, but even she accepted that such memories could not be relied upon. Harry, she said, had calmed down as soon as she took him out of the room.

Laura left silently. Eduardo breathed out audibly and said, "Man, that kid's creepy."

"You're going to have one of those in about two or three years," Garrett pointed out.

"Yeah, well, hopefully she won't be weird," said Eduardo. "And at least she's got some colour. Have Laura's parents actually mentioned her to us? I think she's a ghost."

"They mentioned her to Janine when the call came in," said Garrett. "And when we got here Mrs. Wilson said, 'My daughter saw him in the living room'."

"That's not her daughter, then," said Eduardo.

"Don't be ridiculous," said Kylie. "She didn't give off a reading."

"Who didn't give off a reading?"

They all turned to see Roland standing in the doorway, with Harry on one arm.

"Laura," said Garrett. "You are going to give that back before we go, aren't you?"

Roland looked blank. "Give what back? Oh." He looked at Harry. "Yeah, sure. Isn't he cute? Why would Laura give off a reading? She's not a ghost."

"Eddie thinks she is."

"She's not a ghost, Eduardo - she's just anaemic."

"Anaemic?" Kylie raised her eyebrows. "You really are friendly with Mom."

"She says she doesn't feel comfortable here either," said Roland. "The husband hasn't noticed."

"There's no ghost," said Garrett.

"Hmm…" Roland looked vaguely around the room, as though in the hope of suddenly noticing a ghost in the corner. "Well, let's go over the whole house before we tell her that. Anyone checked the basement yet?"

"Of course," said Kylie. "Nothing."

"Right, well." Roland raised his eyes and said, "There's an attic too."

x x x

Oscar's room had it in a bed, several cardboard boxes and Oscar himself. He was sitting on the bed, just staring into the middle distance. Dana had only been angered by his attitude until very recently, but now she was beginning to worry. Seeing him like that, so subdued, brought tears to her eyes. Eventually she plucked up the courage to enter his room, sat down on the bed beside him and said gently, "I wish you'd unpack."

Oscar shook his head. "I can't." He was facing away from her. All she could see was the dark hair splayed across his shoulders, for once allowed to fall into disrepair.

"I think you'll feel better if you start making this room feel like yours."

"Bullshit I will."

"Oscar!"

"How could you let him do this to me, Mom?" He whipped his head round. His usually babyish blue eyes, now stained red, turned daggers on her. "Why did you agree to this? Did you really want to come back here?"

"Oscar, come on - he was here all the time. We hardly saw him."

"Oh, I see." Oscar sniffed, and turned his face away. "You don't fail twice, do you, Mom?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You either had to let him go, like Andre, or follow him. That's it, isn't it? I didn't think you were that kind of wife, Mom - I thought you had more self-respect than that."

"I - "

"You decided we were going to live in LA, and he chose to follow you… us. He came into my life - what right does he have to suddenly turn it upside-down?"

"Oscar," said Dana. "There was a time when you wanted him more than I did."

"I was a little kid then. I wanted a father - it never occurred to me that he'd ruin my life."

"He hasn't ruined your life."

"He has." Oscar looked at her. "You both have. I know he couldn't have forced you - you must have said it was ok with you." There was a long pause, in which he blinked rapidly and took a couple of deep swallows. Then he said, "I want you to know that I'm only staying here, Mom - I'm going home as soon as I can. Four, five years - and then I'm not going to let anyone tell me what to do anymore."

Dana sighed. She wanted to hold him, try to comfort him, but she was sure he wouldn't let her. She said, "Four or five years is a long time to hate your life. I wish you'd try and get to like it."

"How can I? You keep changing it."

"This is it now, Oscar. This is where we belong."

"Then why did you take me to LA in the first place?" Oscar was really yelling now, and the force of his anger drove him to his feet. "You keep changing your mind! Here's your dad, here's another one - this is your home, these are your friends, this is how it's going to be until you want to move on, oh wait, no it's not - you make a life for me and then you drag me out of it just when, when my body's changing and I really need not to hate him and, and I've been at junior high five minutes, it wouldn't be too long to wait until I'd be starting high school anyway but for some reason it has to be right now and, and suddenly I have to fit into someplace new right in the middle of the fucking school year…!"

"Oscar, watch your mouth," said Dana.

Oscar, to his mother's astonishment and slight alarm, laughed hysterically. There was a mad look in his eyes as he said, "Weren't you listening to any of that? Your son tells you he's desperately unhappy and all you get is the swear word? Jesus Christ, Dana."

There were no more words after that. Oscar simply turned on his heel and marched out of the room. He had no idea where he was going to go - he would have left the house, if only he had known his way around - but anyway he found his path downstairs blocked.

"Jessica, for God's sake!" He stooped and took some of the weight of the twenty-four-inch flat screen colour television set, which was partially resting on one of the steps, from his eight-year-old sister's arms. "You'll break your back!"

"Well then, somebody had better stop bickering and help me," retorted Jessica. "I've been moving furniture around all day actually. Living room's done. I had a bit of trouble getting the piano over the doorstep, but - "

"We weren't bickering."

"Yes you were, I heard you. Why did you call her Dana?"

"That's her name."

"What happened to 'Mom'?"

Oscar, negotiating the stairs backwards while Jessica encouraged him rather too forcefully with the weight of the television, sighed and said, "Same thing that happened to 'Dad'." Peter was Peter now. Oscar, until he could form some kind of relationship with the fifty percent of his genetic structure that was Andre Wallance, had declared himself fatherless.

"You can't pretend she's not really your parent," said Jessica.

"Family isn't about whose blood you have, Jessica. It's about who you love and trust. It's about who listens to you and respects you and cares about your feelings and doesn't stab you in the back. Where do you want this thing?" They were in Jessica's room now, which she quite accepted was her room.

"Obviously," she said, with exaggerated patience, "I want it on the TV stand."

"Silly me." They lumbered over to the stand and positioned the television set. "Are you really ok with this, Jess?"

"I like New York," Jessica said simply.

"Better than LA?"

"I hope so. I didn't have any friends in LA."

"Yeah, well, I had friends in LA. Good friends. And now they're just going to forget about me."

"You'll make new friends. You're good at making friends. You'll make about a million new friends on your first day at school - I bet you anything."

"You must be nervous about starting at a new school," said Oscar.

Jessica shrugged. "I don't like school and school doesn't like me - it makes no difference what state I'm in."

"Well I hope you hate it. If you're miserable, Da- …Peter'll move us all back to LA before you can blink."

Jessica scowled. "Don't start that. He doesn't love me more."

"Of course he does. You're his, I'm not - it's as simple as that. I'm not his child, I'm just Mom's baggage, and if I want to be a part of this family I have to put up with his shit."

"You don't really believe that."

Oscar looked at her. He had been staring over her head while he spoke, but when he saw the look in her eyes he realised that he was upsetting her more than she let on. He was very fond of his sister, and he wanted her to be happy there even if he couldn't. He let out a long sigh, no longer sure what he believed. He only knew that if he loved someone as much as Peter professed to love him, he wouldn't put them through anything like this.

x x x

Peter was in the rec room, offloading his woes onto Egon. For a time he had been nursing John Spengler, Egon and Janine's two-year-old son, in his lap; but in spite of the arms clamped tightly around his torso John had eventually managed to free himself and toddle off with his twin sister Eden.

"…and it just really hurts," Peter concluded, clenching and unclenching his fingers in his lap. Since John left, he had looked like a smoker who has recently given up and doesn't know what to do with his hands.

"It sounds to me like Oscar's hurting too," remarked Egon.

"Well, yes, but… I agonised over this decision, you know."

"I daresay."

"You're talking about Oscar?" a new voice asked, and Peter turned to see Kylie entering the room with Conchita on her hip. "He must be pretty pissed off about being uprooted."

Peter frowned slightly. "Yes. He is."

"Ah."

The other three younger Ghostbusters followed Kylie into the room, Roland carrying a picture frame about the size of your average paperback novel. He looked eager to report on their progress, but apparently Kylie and Peter weren't done yet.

"You got something to say, Kylie?" asked Peter.

"Well," said Kylie, "I just wonder why you 'agonised' - it seems pretty straightforward to me. You marry the boy's mother, have another kid and then drag them all away from her life and into yours just because you're the one with the penis."

"Kylie!" said Eduardo, faintly horrified, partly because she apparently had no concept of what was and wasn't her business, and partly because Conchita was just starting to pick up words.

Peter scowled. "It's not like that."

"Oh," Kylie said flatly. "Ok."

"It isn't. There's more to it than that, like… like Jess. Dana and I didn't want to carry on raising a girl in Los Angeles. I tell you, if she turned out like any of the actresses I've worked with, I'd really worry about her."

"You don't have to explain yourself to me," Kylie said airily.

Egon decided to step in. "How did you get on?" he asked.

"Well," said Roland, "there was definitely no ghost when we went there."

"The creepy little girl's a ghost," Eduardo maintained.

Roland rolled his eyes. "She isn't. This girl, Laura, gave us a very vague description of a boy she's been seeing around the house. It wasn't much to go on, but then we found this in the basement," and he held up the picture frame he was holding.

"Oh God, another portrait case," sighed Peter, taking the picture. "Well, this guy's no Vigo, at least. Hmm… does he remind you of Oscar?"

Egon went and looked over his shoulder. "Not really."

"No." Peter looked more closely. "Me neither."

In the frame was a worn, slightly faded portrait of a boy in his early teens. He was about Oscar's age, and equally as handsome, but that was where the similarity ended. He had short brown hair, dark eyes, a round face and an arrogant air that the artist had captured beautifully. Oscar could be pretty cocky, but not like this.

"Laura says that's her ghost," said Roland.

"But kids'll say anything," added Garrett. "She's probably just crazy. Or lying."

"Who was this kid?" asked Peter, still staring at the painting.

"No idea," said Roland. "If you look in the corner, it's dated nineteen eleven, and there's a signature but none of us can make that out."

Peter squinted at the signature. "I think it begins with J…"

"No way," said Garrett. "That's an R." But quite honestly, it could equally have been any one of twenty-four other letters.

"Anyway," said Roland, "I don't really know what to do next. We definitely didn't find a ghost, or any evidence that there ever was a ghost there."

"Can I look into it?" Peter blurted out.

Roland raised his eyebrows. "You're asking us? You're the boss."

"Oh yeah," Peter smiled crookedly. "All right - this guy's mine."

"Why?" asked Egon. "If you don't mind my asking."

Why? It was a fair question, and Peter wasn't sure of the answer. He just really wanted to solve this one. He didn't want to think he'd been in any way moved by the boy in the portrait - he didn't really look anything like Oscar. Maybe, Peter thought, he just wanted to be busy, as though in justification of the move. His entire family had relocated to the other side of the country, and his relationship with Oscar was rapidly wilting as a direct result - he had to be committed to the job now.

"I don't know," Peter said evasively.

"Well, all right," said Egon. "Where will you start?"

"With the obvious," said Peter. "I'll talk to the family. I'll try to get a glimpse of this ghost. I'll try to find out who he was. And then I'll try to get him out of the house."

"He isn't in the house," muttered Eduardo.

Peter jumped to his feet. "I'll go now. Do you mind if I keep this?" indicating the portrait, and looking at Roland.

Roland shrugged. "It isn't mine."

"Right, well, I'll see you all later."

"Hey, wait," said Garrett, as Peter charged off. "When do we get to see your family?"

"Ooh." Peter winced. "I'll have to get back to you on that one." And he left.

x x x

Mrs. Wilson was faintly surprised to see another Ghostbuster on her doorstep. Peter hadn't bothered to find out her first name, but he didn't need to know it. Egon insisted on maintaining good form by addressing people by titles and surnames until invited to do otherwise. Even Dana had been Miss Barrett once upon a time, before Peter had managed to get her to fall in love with him. He'd lost her once, of course, but still she'd come back to him a second and even a third time. Peter sometimes wondered if she would have married him if it hadn't been for Oscar's enthusiasm. After he proposed, she had said she needed time to think about it, and didn't give her answer until after the first time Oscar called him "Daddy". Both wonderful moments, but if Oscar could turn the clock back now…

"They said they'd come back and investigate," said Mrs. Wilson, "but I wasn't expecting anyone so soon."

"Yes, well, I'm a senior executive of the company," said Peter, following Mrs. Wilson through to the living room and wondering what the hell had made him say that. "The junior team might not have - aww, what a beautiful baby! What's his name?"

"Harry." Mrs. Wilson beamed with pride. "Would you like to hold him? You don't have to," she added hastily. "Only I thought I'd ask because your colleague Mr. Jackson practically turned himself inside out trying to get me to let him hold him."

"I can imagine," said Peter, plucking Harry out of the playpen and holding him over his shoulder. "Hi, Harry. You're a cute baby, aren't you? Yes you are!"

"I have to say," said Mrs. Wilson, "he hasn't had any more inexplicable temper tantrums since your people left. He went a little crazy about half an hour ago, but it turned out his lunch had gone right through him."

Peter's nose was next to Harry's ear, and he was breathing in that familiar baby smell. It was a smell people tended either to love or hate. Peter hadn't really minded it when he'd first smelt it on Oscar - the whole "he stinks" thing had only been his childish way of saying unkind things about the baby's father - and since then he had come to love it.

"And," Mrs. Wilson went on, "I've been feeling ok too. I didn't see anything - just felt a bit, you know, weird. But that might just be because it's an old house."

"What about your daughter?" asked Peter. "I'm told she's been seeing him."

"She hasn't mentioned seeing him again."

"Can we go ask her about it?"

"Sure."

Laura was doodling in a colouring book at the kitchen table. Peter, having come straight from Hollywood, wondered if she was drawing members of her family in compromising positions with the ghost she'd been seeing. But when he looked over her shoulder, he saw that she was colouring in a picture of a saucer-eyed cat with a ball of wool.

"Honey," said Mrs. Wilson. "Have you seen that boy again, since those people left?"

"No," said Laura.

That was that, then. Peter, still carrying Harry, allowed Mrs. Wilson to lead him to the front door.

"I wonder," he said, "about that portrait you let the junior team take away with them."

"What about it?"

"Maybe the ghost went with it. We've seen cases like that before."

"Oh, like in your movie," said Mrs. Wilson.

"Exactly," said Peter.

"Where's the picture now?"

"It's in my car. I'll look into it."

"Great." Mrs. Wilson smiled. "Thanks."

"Here." Peter would have liked to take Harry home with him, but it probably wouldn't have been such a good idea, so he handed him back to his mother. "I'll let you know if I find anything out. Bye now."

"Bye."

Peter smiled as, while he pulled the car into gear, Mrs. Wilson applauded Harry's attempt to wave goodbye.

x x x

"Hey," said Peter to Dana, when he arrived home in the early evening. "You know about art, right?"

"Not really," said Dana. She was making a start on dinner. "I don't know how I got that job at the museum."

"I do. You got it by being attractive to the boss."

"Oh, I don't know - I think it was more that he felt sorry for me. At the interview, when he asked me why I wanted the job, I said, 'Because I'm in the middle of a divorce and I have a baby and he has to eat'."

"Well," said Peter, "I wouldn't give you a job. I'd worry that you were unreliable."

Dana raised her eyebrows. "You mean you don't think it's acceptable for a single mother to put her child before her job?"

"Let's not have that argument now," said Peter. "Look - can you make out that signature in the corner there?"

Dana looked down, and found that there was a framed portrait in her hands. "Handsome kid," she remarked.

"Yeah, well - can you make out even a little part of it?"

"Well, no, it's just a scribble. It's no one famous enough for me to recognise their signature. I may have seen it at the art museum, but I saw a lot of illegible scrawls there. You know what you should do if you really want to know - you should take it to Janozs at the museum."

Peter wrinkled his nose. "Does he still work there?"

"Of course he still works there - there are people who would kill for his job."

"So there's no hard feelings, then? Between you and him?"

"No," said Dana. "He was bewitched when he kidnapped Oscar and took him to Vigo, and before that he gave me a job when someone like you wouldn't have."

"He tried to come onto you."

"I was single - he was entitled to try. But he never overstepped any boundaries."

"He's short, isn't he?" remarked Peter. "Why do you attract short guys?"

"You're not that short, honey."

"I was thinking more of Louis Tully. Oh, hey sport," as Jessica walked in.

"Hi, Dad." She hugged him. "What's with the picture?"

"It's work."

"Oh."

"How have you been getting on today?"

"I had to do all this myself," said Jessica, spreading her arms in a gesture encompassing the entire house. "Mom and Oscar have been arguing all day."

"Oh," said Peter. "You brought the piano in, did you?"

"Yes. Well, Jim may have helped a little." Jim was from the removals company.

He stroked her hair. God, but it was a mess. "Jessie, would you like to go and see everybody at the firehouse tomorrow?"

Jessica shrugged. "All right."

"Great. Do me a favour - go ask Oscar if he wants to come too."

"All right."

"Thanks, sweetie." Peter stooped and kissed her on the cheek before letting her trot off. Then he turned to Dana and said, with an empathic smile, "Does he hate you too?"

"Well, why not? I'm as much to blame as you are." She sighed deeply. "He's so determined not to be happy here."

Dana was still stinging from Oscar's remark about not wanting to fail in her second marriage. It was true to the extent that she wanted to stay married to Peter, but notions of success and failure had nothing to do with it. They had spent long periods of time apart before, when she and Oscar had moved to LA and Peter stayed in New York, and that had almost finished them. She had gone in order to further her career, which hadn't really worked in the long run. As of next week she was back with the orchestra she'd been playing in when she first met Peter. And that, she knew, was the right decision. Family had to come first now.

Jessica reappeared and said, "He says he'll come with us."

"Oh, good," said Peter, smiling.

"He also says he's not going to have any dinner."

The smile vanished. "Oh, God - he has to eat."

"That's what I said."

"And what did he say?"

"He said he didn't see why he should accept food from somebody who doesn't give a flying fu-" - she cut a glance at Dana - "…who doesn't care about his wellbeing."

"I do care about his wellbeing!" Dana expostulated.

"He says - "

"This is getting ridiculous." She marched out of the room and up the stairs.

"Jess, has he been out of his room all day?" asked Peter.

"He hasn't been out of that room," said Jessica. "But, as you know, it isn't his."

Peter sighed. "Do you like it here?"

"I like it fine."

"Good. I'm beginning to wonder if we made the right decision."

"He'll be all right," said Jessica. "Once he settles down."

Peter smiled at her, and pulled her into a hug. "You know exactly how to shut me up, don't you?" he said.

"If you and Mom had split up," said Jessica, "and you came here and Mom stayed in LA, I would have come with you."

Peter was so touched by this, he almost wanted to cry. "Would you, honey?"

"Yes."

"I never would have let that happen."

"So if Mom really wanted to stay in LA, and she said she wasn't moving to New York no matter what, and if you wanted to keep her you had to quit ghostbusting and stop coming here, would you have done it?"

"Of course."

"Oh," said Jessica, and he could feel her wrinkling her nose against his chest. "Well, don't tell Oscar that. He'd never forgive you if he knew."

x x x

Ray Stantz made a special effort to go to the firehouse when he learnt that Peter's family was going to be there for a time. Winston Zeddemore would undoubtedly have done the same thing, given the choice, but he wasn't given the choice. Dana called him some twelve hours in advance and demanded that he bring his daughter Charlene. Their two daughters had met before, of course, but with Jessica always having to go back to LA after only a few days they hadn't really had many chances to bond. Charlene was only about four months older than Jessica, and so ticked pretty much the only box on Dana's criteria for potential friends. Jessica, on the other hand, was not so sure.

"Honey," said Dana, as they arrived. "Try to be nice to Charlene."

"You can't force me to like her," said Jessica.

"You've met her lots of times before. You liked her all right then, didn't you?"

Jessica shrugged. "I didn't hate her. But she's a girl."

The first port of call was, as ever, Janine. Dana later realised that she probably laid it on a bit thick when trying to make up for her children's lack of enthusiasm in greeting her. Jessica looked bored; Oscar just looked miserable.

"Hi, Janine!" Dana went all the way round to the other side of the desk to hug her. "How are you?"

"I'm good," said Janine. "What about you? Settling in all right?"

Oscar answered that one: "No."

"Well," said Janine, "of course it'll take some getting used to."

"I'm getting used to nothing," Oscar said acidly. "I hate New York."

Janine blinked. She didn't know what to say. Then Peter's cell phone interrupted the awkward silence, and he whipped it out of his pocket.

"Ooh, that might be Janozs," he said excitedly, glancing at the caller display, and wandered a few yards away as he flipped the phone open and put it to his ear. "Hello?"

Janine raised her eyebrows at Dana. "Janozs Poha?"

"He's gotten interested in a painting," said Dana.

"Oh," said Janine. "That."

"Janine," said Oscar.

She looked at him. He was trying to smile, but it wasn't really working.

"Sorry about that."

"Don't worry about it, sweetie."

This was one of the hardest places to be thirteen - Oscar had already discovered that last year. Everyone else was either grown up or a child. Jessica was doing her level best to get along with Charlene Zeddemore. Peter had more than enough friends there. Dana was having a slightly embarrassing conversation with Kylie about the woes of pregnancy and birth. Oscar didn't feel that he could join in with any of that. He was, however, very taken with Conchita. She was growing up fast, and had acquired several new talents since last he saw her. She was crawling, for example, and with everyone else so occupied it fell upon Oscar to make sure she didn't wander off and fall downstairs. She could also stand for about half a minute before toppling over sideways. The fall caught Oscar by surprise the first time, and he only just managed to catch her in time. She fell against his chest and grabbed onto the sleeves of his t-shirt, and seemed to find it hilarious.

"When I had Oscar," Dana was saying, when Conchita had stopped laughing and Oscar was once again able to hear every word, "I had to have fifteen stitches in spite of the episiotomy."

"No one offered me an episiotomy," said Kylie. "They damn well should have, though - she ripped right through me."

Oscar winced. "Oh," he said, as Conchita pulled herself up on his bent knees; "we're going to do that again, are we?"

"I wouldn't have wanted one, though," said Kylie. "It sounds really, really nasty."

"Well," said Dana, "if they make the incision while you're having a contraction, it pales in comparison. I was a bit worried Jess would open the scar on her way out, but there were no problems at all with her."

"I'm sorry, Mom," Oscar said ironically, as he caught Conchita for the second time.

"You were a big baby," said Dana. "You did not want to come out. And it didn't really help, Andre being there," she said to Kylie. "He was useless."

"Did you know your marriage was doomed before or after I was conceived?" asked Oscar.

Dana scowled slightly. "After."

"Why did you marry him?"

"Oscar, we've been over and over this."

"Do you blame me for it going wrong? Is that why you don't care if you ruin my life?"

"Oscar!"

Conchita said something that sounded like, "Nwabo!" Oscar blinked.

"That's Spanish," Kylie said proudly. "De neuvo means again, I'm told. Eduardo always repeats it back to her correctly," she added, looking significantly at Oscar.

"De neuvo!" Oscar said enthusiastically.

"Isn't that fantastic?" said Dana. "Her growing up bilingual? It's amazing how they pick things up at that age. Oscar could get a tune out of the piano before he was stringing three words together - I used to play him a lot of music."

"But not talk to me," said Oscar.

Dana scowled again, more deeply this time. "I did talk to you. In spite of what you may think, Oscar, I love you and I - "

Peter appeared in the doorway, a backpack slung over one shoulder, and said, "I'm off to the art museum now."

"Ok, honey," said Dana. "Say hi to Janozs for me."

"Bye, Oscar." He didn't expect a response, and he didn't get one. "See ya, Kylie."

"Bye."

"You love me and you what?" asked Oscar, when Peter had gone.

"Never mind." Dana exhaled heavily, and returned her attention to Kylie. "Jessica had whole sentences by the time she was a year old…"

If it's a competition, thought Oscar, I think this kid's already won with the second language.

He could barely remember a time when Jessica didn't talk. She'd always had something to say, and she had always been able to express herself even before she had any words. Oscar wasn't so good with words. He knew music, and that was it. That was how he expressed himself. He'd even spent the last few nights in LA composing, because he had no more words in him. He'd tried talking, and no one had listened. He was surprised he had any words at all before he could get a tune out of the piano.

"Can you dance, Chita?" asked Oscar, holding onto her hands the next time she stood up. "Like this?" He bounced rhythmically from side to side, and started to sing, "Cuttin' up baby, move in time; we'll go dancin' tomorrow night… That's it!" as she started to copy his movements, with considerably less precision and accuracy than Oscar displayed.

Eduardo wandered in at that point, and watched with interest.

"Clever girl!" said Oscar, and caught her as she fell forward again, laughing hysterically.

"He taught Jess to dance when she was about that age," said Dana.

"Dance!" Oscar said to Conchita. It was an important word - he felt she ought to know it.

"Baile!" added Eduardo.

"I have to go to the bathroom," said Dana, and went.

Conchita danced, in the loosest sense of the word, to Oscar's rendition of the first couple of lines of "Footloose", and then got a bit grizzly and started to crawl towards her parents.

"She wants a boob," said Kylie, lifting Conchita onto her lap.

"Go on, Ky - 'just like her dad'," prompted Eduardo.

Kylie started rearranging her breasts. "I think that joke's wearing a little thin now, babe - don't you? I'm sorry, Oscar - you can leave if you want to."

"Don't worry about it," said Oscar. He stood up, only because he'd been kneeling for twenty minutes and his joints, young as they were, were beginning to stiffen up. "My mother breast-fed one baby in front of me, my aunt by marriage two and my step-mom three - it really doesn't bother me."

"Kevin can't stand it," said Kylie.

"Speaking of which," said Eduardo, "Kev says you only have to ask if you want him to show you what thirteen-year-old New Yorkers do for fun."

"That's nice of him," said Oscar. "I may take him up on that, seeing as how I don't have any friends here."

Kylie looked up from the baby attached to her nipple and offered an encouraging smile. "You'll soon make friends," she said.

"That's what everyone says."

"Well then there's probably some truth in it. Have a little faith in yourself."

"Look," said Oscar, blushing slightly. He was cute when he blushed, Kylie noticed. "I'm sorry about making all those little digs at Mom. I'll have to get out of the habit of doing it in front of people."

"You should go Goth if you want to annoy her," said Kylie. "She'd hate that."

"I already went Goth for a while last year - I don't think I'll be trying it again. I don't want to play Goth music."

"Why? What's wrong with Goth music?"

"Nothing. It just isn't me. Mind you, neither is New York." Oscar looked over at the window. "God, look at it! It's ugly, it's dirty, it's absolutely freezing… How could they have wanted to leave a beautiful place like LA for this?"

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Dana returned. Oscar looked in her direction for a few moments, though his eyes seemed to cut right through her, and then suddenly had to turn his head away and walk out of the room.

"What's the matter with him?" asked Dana.

Kylie smiled weakly and said, "Breast-feeding."

x x x

"Hello again, Dr. Renkman." Janozs Poha proffered a handshake, which Peter graciously accepted. "And how are you this morning?"

"All right," said Peter. "Yourself?"

"Not bad at all, thank you for asking. And how is Dana?"

"Good."

"And the baby?"

Peter cocked an eyebrow. "The baby will be turning fourteen very soon."

"Oh my goodness me - has it really been that long? Little Oscar nearly fourteen! And I heard you and Dana had another?"

"Jessica. She's eight. Look, Janozs - can we maybe move this along?"

"Of course, of course, we are both very busy people," Janozs gibbered in his generic, indeterminable European accent. "Please step into my office."

Peter hadn't actually seen Janozs's office before, and vaguely wondered if he'd had one at the time Dana was working at the museum and all the subsequent shit had happened. He couldn't help thinking about Vigo, and how things would have been if he'd had his way. Oscar would be dead, and that asshole would be walking around inside his healthy young body, making some kind of attempt to take over the world - he might even have succeeded already. Dana would be broken, living as Janozs's trophy wife, too far gone even to care. Peter himself would be dead, probably. So would Egon, Ray and Winston. There would be no next generation. No Jessica. The Ghostbusters had prevented a lot of horrible dystopian futures from being realised, but that one had to be the worst.

"Well then, Dr. Renkman," once they were seated on opposite sides of a big, important desk. "You have a painting you wish me to take a look at?"

Peter dug about in his backpack until his fingers closed around the framed portrait, which he then handed to Janozs.

"What is it you want to know?" asked Janozs.

"Anything you can tell me. I'm interested in the subject, but I don't realistically expect you to know about him. I hoped you might be able to decipher the signature."

Janozs nodded. He had already noticed the signature, and was looking at it intently. "It is a very familiar signature, Dr. Renkman. Arthur Woodcock."

Peter snorted with laughter at the unfortunate name, and then said, "Sorry."

"But we cannot be sure it is genuine. The signature looks authentic enough, but someone of course may have copied it."

"Why would you assume that?"

"I assume nothing," said Janozs. "What makes me wonder is that Woodcock had a reputation. As far as anyone is aware, only two portraits were ever painted by him in his entire life, and I have them both here in this museum. Incidentally," he said, looking up from the picture, "if I can prove this is an authentic Woodcock…"

Peter just about managed to restrain himself.

"…I would be prepared to pay to take it off your hands."

"It isn't mine," said Peter. "I'll put you in touch with the people who own it after I'm done with it."

"I would be grateful if you would do that for me, thank you."

"Tell me about this reputation."

"Well," said Janozs, sounding very much as if he planned to draw the story out. "You don't have to be an expert to see that this piece has artistic merit."

"You certainly get a vibe," said Peter. "That's one cocky kid. I thought maybe that was because it was haunted."

Janozs smiled politely. "That may be. I shall have to be careful with it - you know my history with possessed portraits. Speaking of which, I must apologise again for - "

"Janozs, you apologised at the time. I know it wasn't your fault - it's all right."

"The boy is really all right?"

No, but that's nothing to do with what happened when he was a baby. "He's fine. Please go on with what you were saying."

"Well," Janozs said again, "Woodcock clearly was a promising young artist. But he never came to anything. As I said, he is known to have painted two portraits. The first was of his own sister - a Miss Caroline Woodcock. The day after the portrait was finished, she disappeared. The two events were considered coincidence only, and when Woodcock showed the portrait to a local millionaire he was commissioned to paint this man's daughter - Eliza Winterson."

"Let me guess," said Peter. "She disappeared as well."

"Certainly she did. Twice cannot be coincidence - yes?"

"It can."

"It can indeed, but no one wanted to take that chance. No work was ever commissioned from Woodcock again. Whether he painted portraits in his own time, to satisfy his own artistic urges, I do not know."

"I think," said Peter, looking over the desk at the frame in Janozs's hands, "he probably did. What happened to him after that?"

"Within a few weeks he had vanished."

"Intriguing."

"Indeed."

"You say you have the two portraits in this museum. May I see them?"

Janozs instantly looked suspicious. "You will not photograph them this time?"

"Why would I want to do that? There's postcards available in the gift shop, right?"

Janozs, smiling weakly, rose to his feet. "This way, Dr. Renkman."

Woodcock's two pieces hung side-by-side in a deserted corner of the museum. Both were bigger than the portrait of the teenage boy, now back inside Peter's bag - about fifteen square inches, Peter estimated. The canvas on the left showed a dark-haired young woman with a look of sheer rebellion in her eyes; on the right, an apple-cheeked young girl, perhaps fifteen or sixteen years old, with sweet blond hair.

"I like this one better," said Peter, pointing at the dark-haired woman. "He really nailed that look in her eyes - you can tell exactly who she was. Like with the boy."

"That is Caroline, his sister," said Janozs. "Miss Winterson's portrait is well painted, but I think not as good. It is only something bland, for the girl's father to hang on his wall."

"I can believe these were painted by the same artist who did the boy. But I'm no expert."

"I can believe it too. What will you do now?"

"May I take some readings?"

Janozs looked uncertain for a moment, but then shrugged and said, "Very well. May I ask, Dr. Renkman - why are these of interest to you?"

"The portrait of the boy was found in a house in which the little girl complained of seeing a ghost. I thought the portrait was suspicious, and your story about Woodcock confirms it for me. What else do you know about him?"

"There is a chapter about him in the guide book."

"I'll buy one on my way out." Peter was studying his PKE meter with some disappointment. "The boy didn't give off a reading either."

"Maybe there is nothing suspicious."

"How can there not be?" He squinted at the dates in the corner of each painting. "So this Caroline was painted in the same year as the boy, and Eliza Whatshername the following year. Assuming these dates are all correct."

"He would have dated the two official portraits correctly."

"When did he disappear?"

"He was last seen in New York in nineteen fifteen."

"So he had three years in which to cause trouble after the blond chick disappeared. But the boy was painted before that. Well, someone must know who he was."

"I cannot help you there," said Janozs.

"You've been a big help already," said Peter. "Thank you."

To be continued…

Disclaimer: "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" © G. Michael, 1984