Yay! The long awaited Chapter 4 is here! Sorry it took so long *sheepish grin* The good news is, there's only 11 more days left of school. So I'll have more time to write :)

Just an update: Chapter 9 of I, Melissa Spengler is about 1/3 done. I still need to edit here and there, and write more of it.

Holy Frijoles, it seems my chapters are getting shorter and shorter...I need to develop them more then, don't I?

Disclaimer: I do not own Ghostbusters. I only own Makenna.

The next few days consisted of the four cleaning and fixing up the old firehouse. It was a simple yet ongoing task, which always stopped around 11 o'clock at night and picked right up again at 8 in the morning. They only stopped for lunch and dinner breaks, but with Peter, breaks were quite frequent. Sometimes he would disappear to fetch something downtown, and then wouldn't return until several hours later. Makenna found this to be expected. Her brother had always been a man who didn't like to do much physical work. It was a wonder to her how he managed to stay thin and not be a couch potatoe. But then again, that was one of the things that made Peter...well, Peter.

Makenna chuckled to herself as the thought about it.

"What?" Egon asked her from under the sink. He was laying on his back, fixing a leak in the pipes in the upstairs bathroom, and Makenna was handing him tools.

"Oh nothing." she answered. She smiled and took the monkey wrench from his hand and handed him a flaslight. "Just thinking about Peter."

"Ah," he clicked on the flashlight and went back to work. He stretched his legs out so they wouldn't get stiff from being bent the whole time. She watched him and bent her toes from within her shoes, loosening them up. She heard the tiny, satisfying crik that they made and breathed in through her nose.

Makenna sighed and shifted so she was in a more comfortable position than sitting on her legs. They tingled as they started to fall asleep. She examined her nails for traces of dirt, and when she found none, stared at the far wall.

"Why do you idolize him?"

"Huh?" Makenna turned to stare at Egon's visible half.

"Why do you idolize Peter?"

She shrugged. She had never really thought about it before. And she told Egon so, thinking the exact answer over in her mind.

"Well, he's my older brother for one thing. Aren't little siblings supposed to idolize their older siblings?" she asked, smirking.

Egon's shirt jerked as he tried to shrug.

"I'm not sure."

"Gee, you're a lot of help."

She chuckled. Egon shrugged again.

She sat there for a while, occasionally asking a question or trying to start a small conversation-one that wouldn't either confuse the hell out of Egon or make him uncomfortable. And during this time, Makenna was starting to get the feeling that Egon was beginning to become a decent friend, despite the fact that he sometimes didn't answer her when she talked to him.

Egon continued to work. Makenna sighed and waited patiently for him to hand her something, but all the while feeling incredibly bored. Egon noticed this by the sound of her sigh in an instant.

"I can take care of this, Makenna." he stated, making said young woman nod, stand up, and stretch. He watched her movements, noting that she seemed a tiny bit stiff. A good shower ought to help. "Why don't you go take a shower? You seem stiff."

Makenna looked down at the visible half of him. She agreed. A long, hot shower is exactly what she needed right now. She was feeling very tired after waking up early in the morning, and Peter's methods of getting her out of bed weren't very...subtle. They mainly consisted of flipping her matress over. On a rare occasion, he would jump on top of her and yell "Steam roller! Steam roller!" while log-rolling on her. And then there was the classic grab onto her ankles and pull her out from under the blankets. Either way, it made her a little stressed out. All she wanted to do was just sink into a hot bubble bath.

"I think I'll do that. Thank you, Egon." she said. But the shower was in the room she was standing in and Egon was in the vicinity. She couldn't just begin stripping down to nothing while he was present. That would be totally embarrasing. So she sat down again.

"It'll have to wait until you're done." she stated. Egon nodded and went back to work.

At that moment, Makenna heard the front door close loudly and footsteps thud up the stairs.

"Honey, I'm home!" a familiar voice called out sarcastically. Makenna smirked and shook her head at her brother's humor.

"Welcome back, Pete." she retorted, grinning at him as he came in. Peter stuck his tongue out at his little sister. She mock glared at him.

"Okay, I think I've got it." Egon said, scooting out from underneath the sink. He stood up and twisted the cold water nozzle, turning on the faucet. A gentle stream of water shot out into the sink, but what Egon was checking for was no leak in the pipes below. Sure enough, the pipes were fixed. Makenna clapped with glee, happy that Egon had fixed it and that she could take a shower now.

"I call the shower!" she pointed at the door. "Out!"

Egon and Peter walked out of the room, Peter shutting the door behind him. As soon as he did, Makenna began unbuttoning her shirt, tossing it onto the counter-top. Then she pulled back the shower curtain.

Ray finished assembling the last of the four beds with a sigh. He was sitting on one of them, half tempted to flop backwards and fall asleep. In fact, he felt his eyes begin to droop a little bit. He yawned and gently lowered himself backwards onto the matress. He closed his eyes, ready to welcome the sleep he so greatly desired. But he suddenly jolted awake by a sound that made his skin crawl.

A high-pitched scream.

That sounded like Makenna, he thought in a rush. His heart began pounding in his chest for some reason. She sounds like she's terrified of something!

Quick as a flash, Ray sprang up from the bed and darted to the scream's place of origin: the bathroom. He threw the door open, expecting to see Makenna being held down by a thief or being strangled by a serial killer. But instead he got a pale-faced Makenna, shirtless but still in a bra, rooted to one spot and staring petrified into the bathtub.

"Makenna? What's wrong?" he asked, worried. She said nothing. But she pointed a trembling finger into the bathtub.

He looked in and what he saw made relief and a tiny bit of annoyance wash over him.

It was a spider.

An incredibly small spider.

She's petrified...of a spider? he asked himself.

Makenna whimpered as the spider crawled a little towards the drain. It was then that Ray realized Makenna was one of those girls who were terrified of bugs, with the exceptions of fuzzy caterpillars, inchworms, and butterflies. So instead of questioning her on why she was so afraid of a little spider, his expression softened and he went to comfort her.

"It's okay, Makenna." he soothed her. "It won't hurt you."

"I don't care," she responded in a quiet, but trembling voice. "Get rid of it!"

Ray looked around the bathroom, trying to find something to use to get rid of the spider. He then spotted an old, abandoned magazine hiding under the sink, whose doors were standing wide open still. He grabbed it and held it in a way to make it stiff. He walked over to the bathtub, kneeled down, and placed the far end of the magazine in the spider's path. The spider acted like it wasn't paying attention and scuttled right onto it. Ray then stood up quickly and walked over to the window. He opened it and carefully and gently shook the spider onto the ledge, where it continued it's journey and disappeared out of sight over the edge. He knew that squishing the spider would've been so much quicker, but he wanted to let it live. He remembered something that his mother had said to him when he was little and loved squishing ants.

"Why is their life any different from yours? Even the tiniest of insects should be allowed to live."

He shut the window and turned to Makenna. The color was beginning to return to her face, and she smiled gratefully and sheepishly at him.

"Sorry for worrying you. I must seem like such a dork for being afraid of spiders, eh?'

"Not at all." he replied, smiling. He gazed at her with an understanding look.

Until he realized that she was almost half naked.

As soon as it clicked, he tried furiously to avert his eyes, but the task seemed to prove difficult. He couldn't help staring at the nearly all exposed skin of Makenna's chest. She frowned and raised one eyebrow.

Wow, she thought, he acts like he's never seen breasts before.

Ray suddenly noticed that he was staring and looked away, his cheeks flushing bright red from embarrasment. His heart rate quickened, and it suddenly became a little difficult for him to breathe. Makenna noticed his embarrasment and smiled to herself.

Aww, she cooed in her mind, he is so CUTE when he's embarrased.

"Uhh...I-I should...umm...probably...b-be goin now....umm...e-excuse me." he stuttered as he quickly rushed past her and out the bathroom door, shutting it quickly behind him. Makenna stared after him, thinking about what had just happened. She thought about how Ray had blushed furiously, and about how he oogled at her breasts. She also noted the look on his face when he came into the room after she had screamed, and how he looked at her as soon as he let the spider go free. It made her confused, more so than usual.

Makenna shook her head, making her hair whip around her head. She sighed to herself.

"There'll be plenty of time for thinking about it later." she said to herself. "Right now, you've got a date with a shower."

And with that, she proceded to undress and stepped into the warm, inviting water.

Ahahahahaha! I am so cruel!

I actually had the whole spider incident in my head for this chapter for a long time. I also had the whole 'barging in the bathroom when someone's in the shower' scenario in there too. But it seems so cliche, so I improvised!

Chapter 5 is on the way!

Hope you liked it :) Reviews will be greatly appreciated !

~H.E.T.