Jessica's dark eyes met his over her mug of tea. Somehow, she was still faintly smiling, though now it was tinged with sadness. Quill realized now the air of melancholy that hung about the girl, despite the fact that she hardly ever showed it. It was the mantle of loss, which so many carried ever since the problem had started. It somehow felt wrong that Jessica should be the one to have a burden such as that.

"It was a while ago. I've had time to forget," and he saw right through the lie and into the sorrow that even then haunted her eyes. "And besides, I have Anthony to take care of. I can't really afford to wallow in sadness while my little brother fends for himself."

He nodded and remembered the young boy who had let him in, all curly hair and big, dark eyes. "He's here with you?" he questioned, catching her faint grin at the mention of the younger boy.

"Yeah. He's seven right now," she replied, smiling over the top of her tea. Quill couldn't help but smile back; her happiness was infectious.

"Are you attempting to distract me on purpose?" he asked, and the grin faded just a bit.

"Distraction is often the best way to forget, at least for a little while," was her faint reply. He felt the sadness in her words.

"That's how you deal with it?" he queried. She nodded.

"My parents traveled a lot. They were sort of psychic researchers, but they went all across the world trying to find artifacts that could ward off or trap ghosts; basically, they looked for psychic artifacts that could help agents combat the Problem. I remember waiting with Anthony for them to come home, looking at whatever they had brought back from their trips. To us, it was the best thing we had ever experienced.

"A year ago, the phone rang and I picked it up. It wasn't my parents on the end of the line. I'm sure that you can guess exactly how they died," Jessica spoke bitterly. "I came here after that. Gravedigger is a family friend and a mentor to the both of us, especially Anthony. He's too young not to have parents."

Quill stared at her from his chair. "You didn't have to tell me," he said to her. She gave a sad smile and looked away.

"It's eleven at night and we both had nightmares. It's not like there is an abundance of other people to talk to, Quill."

"True," he replied softly as he looked away. The halls were carpeted in shadows, papered in thin tendrils of darkness. He could see the corners and indents where there were doors, and the staircase a few feet away glowed with faint light. Opposite that, the far end of the hall was dark and cold, which he found oddly fitting for the current conversation.

Jessica was sipping her tea and looking at him with a clinical eye; not cold by any means, but neither was she asking for anything.

With nothing else to say besides what had been weighing down his very soul like a thousand pounds of stone, he began to speak.

"It was right before I came here. Actually, it was the reason I came, I suppose. I was on a case with my team and utterly useless supervisor, and a Phantasm came. We were expecting a Spectre, and the thing killed a team member. She was the closest thing I had to a friend, and I was in ghost-lock in front of her as she died. I watched the life drain out of her eyes. She was staring straight at me." He rubbed his hand over his face, sighing. The words came tumbling out, faster and faster.

"Her funeral was public because they were trying to show that they actually cared about a girl they sent to die! She just became another pawn in their endless, useless fight against the things that killed her. Now that's all I see when I try to go to sleep at night or when I'm on a case. I wake up feeling like I got ghost touched because it's her ghost reaching for me, her voice saying that I am going to miss something again, because I missed the Phantasm until it had her in ghost-lock, and it's her saying that I will cause someone else's death. It's her face staring at me out of the gloom, whispering that any of my team could be next, that they will be next. It scares me sometimes, what that did to my brain," he ended, whispering. "And I have given up on agents even putting a dent in the Problem. It's been fifty years, and all we have to show for it is a country built on dead children's blood."

Jessica herself looked more ghost than living then, her dark hair falling into shadows behind her, skin like dead ivory. The dark always managed to steal life, even when there were no spirits. She set her tea on the end table and dark eyes met dulled green. There were no words spoken, and yet an understanding was reached between the children who were far too young to have loved and lost so very much.

"I sometimes start thinking about starting my own agency. Not when I'm an adult, but now. Now with only kids, teenagers, people who can actually be useful. My own team," she spoke. "It's never going to happen, or at least not with me. Anthony seems to have other ideas."

Quill gave a half smile. "If you ever do, sign me up," he replied.

The two of them were flipped sides of the same coin. They were agents of their own making, and they were, in that instant, free.

A/N: This is the true start of their friendship. They are united in a moment of vulnerability and realize that not growing close is impossible.