Melinda and Delia stood in the club, staring at the lead singer. Jim was next to them; he'd appeared by them at the beginning of the evening and Melinda hadn't yet figured out how to politely get rid of him.

And oh lord, as the evening went on and the more alcohol was consumed, the less Melinda wanted to send away the handsome paramedic. She was sure that he could make her happy, and with ease and delight in doing so. And it would definitely be nice to be able to stop thinking about Rick for more than an hour at at time.

Still, Jim was such a good guy Melinda knew that he deserved to be more than a distraction.

On stage, the band in question finished a set, noticed someone in the crowd and a guy in his mid-twenties was being called to the stage to sing a song. Melinda turned to Delia to finish a nonsensical conversation about paper vs. cardboard when Melinda felt an unpleasant tingle she usually associated with being visited by a ghost.

On stage, the guy was nervously strapping on a guitar and readying himself to join the band for a song. Melinda saw the ghost then and flinched a moment before everyone else did, as bad feedback exploded from the guy's mike, flooding the room with painful sound that made everyone cover their ears.

And then she was head over her heels into another ghost's mission.

Whatever. She was used to it, and she definitely could handle it.

Jim grabbed her arm. "Let's get out of here," he urged and she only had time to nod before he was pulling her through the crowd towards the doors.

Delia waved at Melinda frantically before giving up and letting her leave with Jim. Melinda could have sworn that her friend mouthed, what about Rick? before Melinda had quite left.

Outside, Jim rubbed his hands down his arms. "Chilly night," he commented, noticing Melinda's short sleeves.

"It was too warm inside so I don't mind the cool air," Melinda said, knowing perfectly well what opportunity she'd just missed. Taking his coat was not a step she wanted to take yet.

He nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets as though he feared he'd do something with them if he didn't take care.

She knew that Jim was attracted to her. She was okay with that. But even with his good looks, charm, kindness...She could very easily picture a future with him. The sex would be great. She could wake up to him bringing her breakfast in bed. They could have great looking kids together.

But something held her back. She refused to label that something as a someone...Rick Payne, in particular. No, Rick didn't have to do with it.

She just didn't have a future with Jim.

And she wondered if that was something she was obligated to tell Jim, too.

"So, Melinda," Jim began, his breath showing in the cooler air. She resisted the urge to shiver because she wouldn't be able to talk him out of giving her his coat.

"Yeah?" Melinda asked, distracted.

"I was wondering if you'd like to do something like this again," he said. "As a planned thing."

"As a date," she corrected and he had the grace to blush.

"Yeah," he said simply, and there was a smile in his voice.

"I don't know..." she began but he interrupted.

"It doesn't have to be serious," he said immediately. "Just a friendly date. I will not, I swear, go in for a kiss at the night's end even though I know I'll want to."

She almost laughed at the rushed, humorous but deadly serious words Jim was saying.

"I'll call you," she said, surprising herself. "So that's a maybe."

The smile he gave was soul shaking and Melinda was shocked that she could make this man so happy with such a simple thing. "That's enough for me."

"Back with more questions, Melinda Gordon?" Rick called as his office door opened behind him.

"You're positively uncanny sometimes," Melinda commented, actually sounding a bit startled that he'd known it was her without turning around.

"I know, aren't I?" Rick said happily, swirling around and almost moaning at how good she looked in her black dress, low cut as Melinda seemed apt to wear.

True, he preferred scoop necks over the v-neck she was currently wearing but he'd take what he could get. Hell, she could come in wearing a burlap sack and he'd still manage to get hard-on from just seeing her.

Speaking off...he moved behind his desk and pretended to look over the students' papers there.

"What is it this time?" He said. "I'm glad to see that you're no longer afraid of the big bad wolf, at any rate." He looked up at her and saw amusement in her eyes.

So he was back to amusing her instead of unnerving her.

Hmm. He'd take what he could get.

"Music," she began. "What kind of connections do spirits have to music? If someone was a musician, then after they died, how would they communicate with this world?"

"Be more specific," he said. "Miss Gordon, just cut to the chase."

She huffed, folding her arms. "You're beginning to know me too well, Professor Payne."

"The chase," he reminded, and continued to shuffle through papers on his desk. God, it was hard work pretending to be busy.

"There's this band in town who say that they have been cursed by a dead member," Melinda said and Rick exulted in the words.

He loved this woman's ability to make his life interesting. He just loved it.

"Elaborate a bit more," he urged and she explained the whole thing.

As she did, with a bit of arm waving and nodding, Rick could hardly take his eyes off of her. He remembered how happy he'd been in his first year of marriage to Kate. The first thing they'd always done upon getting home was pour each other a glass of wine and just sit around talking about their day, all of the crazy things that had happened.

He wondered when they'd stopped doing that. When Kate had no longer wanted to tell him things.

He watched Melinda, and a tightness began in his chest. She told the story so animatedly, beginning with how she'd been at a club and then there was trouble and so she talked to a few people who knew the band, blah blah blah.

"So?" Melinda asked, and he realized he'd completely zoned out.

"Let me get this straight," he fumbled. "The crimson-whatever-they-ares, they can't play music, and now they're blaming it on a curse?"

"Doves," she said. "Anyway, something's been getting in their way, and I think since the lead singer's ghost died just about the same time as they stopped being able to play, it might be related."

"You know what fascinates me about pop culture curses? The delusional weight that the fans attribute to the curse. Have you heard of the "Paul is dead" hoax?" Rick asked, moving to sit behind his desk. He was feeling comfortable in her presence and swung his feet onto his desk.

Melinda raised her eyebrows, but followed his suit, sitting down and smoothing her skirt. "As in McCartney?"

"In a nutshell, a bunch of Beatlemaniacs turned the volume way up on Strawberry Fields Forever, and they think they hear I buried Paul. Next thing you know, rumors pop up that the cute one went toes-up in a car crash." Rick told it simply and marvelled at how Melinda was watching him, her eyes bright and alert. She wasn't glued to him but she was paying attention even to the randomness he was spouting now. It wasn't just about getting information from him anymore, was it?

"All right, admit were the Beatlemaniac who started that rumor," Melinda said, arching an eyebrow and he shook off the feeling of her actually paying attention gave him.

"Oh, sweetheart. You kidding me? If I started that rumor?" Rick could only imagine it but his mind wasn't on his words. "That would have been the best." Well, Melinda kissing him would be the best, but starting an international incident was a close second in his mind.

"But it wasn't me. It was John Lennon's studio trickery. He said cranberry sauce. That was it." He tossed his hands in the air, showing his disappointment.

Now her eyes were just about to go into bored mode. Rick picked up the pace. "Now, you're talking about a physical manifestation, where people are actually getting ill, playing poorly?"

Melinda nodded, her ponytail bouncing with the motion. "Exactly, Professor."

She should say that word more. Professor. It was so sensual coming off of her tongue and so grating on others'.

"Well, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of that. It's called infrasound," he said, going over to his stereo.

"What's that?" She asked, no shame in the fact that she didn't recognize it.

"Infrasound... is a frequency..." Rick said slowly, concentrating on the stereo and not on his words. "Like this." He turned it on.

Melinda flinched, clapping her hands to her head in a protective gesture. "Oh! Please don't do that. It sounds like nails on a chalkboard."

"Like nails on a chalkboard," Rick said at the same time. "See, different frequencies affect different people in different ways."

And you, Melinda, are one of the most different people I've ever met. Of course it affected her.

"But infrasound is a frequency so low that we can't even hear it at all. But human beings can feel it. It rattles our bones, it makes us sick. Now, the old wives' tale is that when ghosts want to make their presence felt, they use that frequency,"

"What about the young wives?" Melinda asked and Rick lost any and all coherent thought from the naughty look on her face.

"W-what?" He stammered and she shook her head, still smiling.

"Ok, so... say that the tale is true, and that the lead singer's ghost pulled a frequency through the amp and speakers, it could make someone sick, right?" She said, getting them back on topic.

"In theory," Rick said, reevaluating the woman in front of him for about the millionth time.

"Ok, so theoretically, how do we counteract it?" Melinda asked, impatience in her voice.

"Uh, well, you have to tune off of it. Go to the lowest "g" chord available on an electrical instrument. Uh, that would naturalize the vibrative harmonies and make the music a little less...stomach-churning." He watched how she took mental note of that, her hands going to her bag unconsciously as if to get a pad of paper before she shook the motion off.

"And what about the number 10?" She asked, standing up.

He hesitated to follow her, since she had suddenly become a vixen and her initiating the flirting was unnerving him to an extreme he didn't like to admit.

"That's a pretty broad topic. Does it have any relevance?" He asked.

"Would I be asking if it didn't?" Was her rejoinder; she leaned in to say it in a lower tone. "It keeps popping up."

"If it has something to do with your curse, I'll look into it," Rick said dizzily. "I'd look into the JFK conspiracy if you wanted me to. Hell, I'd get the truth out of those blasted FBI and politicians in DC."

"I'll make a note of that," Melinda said, again with amusement in her voice. She turned and walked to the door, pausing there to look behind her at Rick.

He held his breath.

"I just wanted to say—"She began but her phone rang. "Sorry. I should be going anyway."

"I don't mind waiting," he said, almost feeling panic that he wouldn't hear the end of her sentence.

He didn't think she even heard him; she'd already pulled out her cell phone and picked up.

"Hey, Delia," she said, waved to him and slipped out the door.

Rick sank down in his seat, staring around at him. The students' papers that he had pretended to be oh-so-important lay in front of him accusingly, daring him to work on grading them.

His arm swept out and he shoved them off the desk in a useless attempt to relieve him of his frustrations.

Why the change, Melinda? Why the change from bold to shy to bold again?

The word that came to him made his teeth hurt.

Jim.

A/N: Next up: Cat's Claw.

Yes, you should be excited. It was watching that episode that had me start writing this.