"What are you wearing?" Mick asked as Ketch walked into the office on Monday morning.

Ketch looked down at his outfit. He was wearing black trousers, black shoes, a grey shirt, and a striped tie. "A shirt and tie. Is that a problem?"

"It's not a problem, but why? I've been asking you to stop wearing suits to work for two months."

"Well Abby said I should probably stop because it might seem a bit strange and suggested I wear something more casual." Ketch shrugged as if it was the most normal thing in the world to change his entire wardrobe for a girl after a total of two dates.

Mick couldn't decide if he wanted to be annoyed or kiss her. Because whilst he had been working exactly that issue for months, at the same time it did annoy him a little that it had been someone Ketch had known for all of a couple of weeks that convinced him and not his best friend since age 13.

Mick was always teasing Ketch about his suits, constantly trying to make him wear something different. As though he only did it as a fashion statement. Ketch laughed along with Mick's jests, but only he knew the real reason behind it.

Much like most other things, it went back to his training, which was a little different to everyone else's. When bringing about a new elite team of killers, fight training is not the only thing they taught. Staying undetected was a large part of it too.

For the most part, Hess didn't involve herself personally with training, but for Ketch she took a special interest. He had talent, and with the proper training he could be the most ruthless of them all. Mostly, he was an obedient student. But then, there were times that he disappointed her and those memories haunted him.

He remembered the beatings he would receive from the other trainee killers on her orders, as she stood there and watched chastising him. "If you present yourself as a gentleman, Mr. Ketch, people won't question you. They won't see the killer that you really are. But should you insist on dressing as a commoner, people will treat you as such. You represent this organisation, and I will not let you bring us down. You will do well to remember my warnings, I won't be so lenient next time." She left, and the others followed, leaving Ketch bloody and broken.

From that day on, he always wore a suit whenever he wasn't hunting. It was for his own safety. Despite the fact that Hess was dead, it was still so ingrained into who he is.

She had managed to convince him that if he looked and acted a certain way, presenting a false image of himself to the world, and was careful about not leaving evidence, he would be untouchable for his crimes. It created an illusion about him, that for a long time even he believed, that he was superior to all others.

He'd never tell anyone this of course, not even Mick. Nobody could understand how something seemingly insignificant can fill him with dread. He barely understood it himself. That's why deciding to wear something different, after Abby asked him to, was a huge thing for him. That was the first day in a long time that he wore something different, outside of when he was hunting. Or at least had done so willingly. He wasn't comfortable doing it, but he told himself Hess was gone, he wouldn't try to live up to her expectations anymore.

It had only been a couple of days since she'd last seen Ketch but it was still a couple of days longer than she liked. Despite knowing that he probably wouldn't be able to, Abby texted Ketch to ask if he wanted to go shopping with her. She needed to go anyway but she would have loved the company. Hope was round her dad's and Abby just wasn't in the mood for family, she'd much rather see her boyfriend. Boyfriend. She liked how that sounded. It was probably a little early to be thinking about labelling what was going on between the two of them but she couldn't help herself.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a text from Ketch saying he'd love to meet her since Archie was with Mick. She told him where she'd be and went to sit on the water fountain. It was a modern waterfall style instalment with LED lights to turn the water different colours as it cascaded into the pool. She had her back to it so didn't see the colours changing from blue through to green and by the time Ketch arrived to red. Abby saw him freeze at the sight of her. Someone walked into the back of him but he didn't seem to notice. His eyes were glued on the fountain and Abby could tell something was wrong. She got up and was by his side almost instantly. "Arthur?" She took both his hands in hers. "You with me?" She could see his breathing had quickened and realised he was having a panic attack. She stayed with him and soothed him until he was finally able to snap himself out of it. "You ok now?"

"Yes. I think so. Thank you."

"Come on, let's go sit down somewhere." She suggested, noticing how unsteady he seemed all of a sudden. "Do you want to talk about it? Or do you need me to call Mick? You two seem pretty close."

Ketch thought about his options for a moment. He couldn't tell Abby about what just happened. About how seeing the red water reminded him of the recurring nightmare where he drowns in the blood of everyone he's killed. He could talk to Mick about it but Abby was such a calming presence that he didn't feel the immediate need to. He would tell Mick, but later. Right now spending time with Abby was far more important. "I'm fine. I'm sorry if I scared you."

"I'm fine, it's you I'm worried about." Abby explained gently.

"I'll be fine. Come on, let's go shopping." Abby looked unconvinced but followed his lead. She needed to finish present shopping for her family before she went home for Christmas anyway. She did her shopping and before they left, they already had another date planned.

Abby and Hope didn't think anything of it when the show overran. Double date night at the theatre had been Ketch's idea since they weren't going to be seeing each other for a month. It didn't occur to the girls how much of a bad idea the late night might have been. Particularly when they both forgot to set their alarms.

Abby woke up first and a glance at the clock had her cursing under her breath. Their plane had been at 07:00 and it was now 07:02. She went to wake Hope and bundled her friend into the car. They were supposed to be flying to visit Abby's father up in Scotland and having missed the last flight would now have to drive.

It was about half an hour into their journey that their phones started blowing up. Everyone they knew was trying to contact them. Abby pulled over and picked up her phone to answer a call from her father. Whilst Hope was on the phone to Mick, Abby managed to get rid of her dad by reassuring him that she was fine but with no idea what the sudden concern was.

She saw there were a dozen missed calls from Ketch. "Arthur? What's wrong?"

She could hear him letting out a breath he was holding. "Thank goodness. I thought you were dead."

That made Abby falter. "What? Why?"

"It's on the news. Your plane went down, 40 minutes into the flight."

"Sounds like the demon in Phantom Traveller." Abby muttered more to herself than to him.

"The what? In what?"

"The Supernatural books." It hadn't quite hit her yet that they could have just died but the realisation was just beginning to slowly dawn. "We could have died… If we hadn't been on that date last night, we wouldn't have slept through our alarms… we would have died…"

Ketch and Mick stayed on the phone to their respective girlfriends until they were calm enough to continue their journey, helping them to factor in the road closures from the crash.