Author's Note:

So, about the previous year. A lot has happened. During this events, I was unfortunately much less inspired to write. I'm not sure if this chapter is a harbinger of things to come, but I hope it is. This will always be a sporadically updated fic, but I do sincerely wish to see it through to the end.

Layman Scripts
A fanfic by Pseudinymous

~ 26 ~
- Freezing Shadow -

A thick shadow cast its way over the room, though no one could quite tell you where it was coming from. One might have said it was the darkened shapes caused by the positioning of the lights, but that wasn't quite it — the shadow was more of a looming type of haze, brought forth by unconscious thought rather than anything physical.

Jazz had positioned a chair up against the table Mira was using as a makeshift bed. The ghost's eyes had finally stopped rolling around — perhaps she'd gained some sort of control over them — but it was obvious she wasn't able to speak. The Ghostwriter sat awkwardly beside them both, and Jazz held onto his hand tightly. In her eyes, holding on wasn't just to help him get around after being de-powered, it was also to spite her mother for her part in that disaster.

Although in the Ghostwriter's mind, Maddie was probably already punishing herself enough.

In the background, Jack and Randy kept their distances from each other. Various tools were being thrown hand to hand as Jack set his engineering skills upon a ghost artefact of his dreams, while Randy floated in the corner, merely… watching. His eyes still shone with red.

"… Can she hear?" the Ghostwriter asked, eventually. He had rested his remaining hand over the top of Mira's wrist, altogether unsure what else to do.

Jazz gave a curt nod. "Everything, I think."

Mira blinked, and then her eyes slowly slid to her old friend.

"Do you remember when we were—" he hesitated, wondering about the right choice of words, "—when we were younger? And you used to stay at my library while I told you stories?"

"Nn," said Mira, who wasn't capable of saying anything else. The Ghostwriter would have sworn he could feel her hand moving underneath his, as if she could just barely make it twitch.

"I kept the drawings," he went on. "I know it's been… nearly thirteen years, but I kept them."

She might have been trying to manage some sort of vague smile, but through her immobilised state it was impossible to tell. Curiosity got the better of Jazz — she wanted to have some method to really communicate with this ghost, so she found a convenient spot upon that greyed-out arm and laid her hand gently on top. The connection was instant.

Don't touch me!

Jazz let go as if she'd been stung.

Those words had been jammed straight through the input of her brain and into the meaning circuits, shoved as if forced with the veracity of a wrecking ball into a fragile structure. This, however, wasn't all that was conveyed — an acute sense of pain and sadness had soon glided in past the wreckage, and it took her a long pause to really understand what this was all about:

That time. The time Jazz had drilled a possessed Mirabella Spectra for as much information as she could extract from her. And in exchange Jazz hadn't gotten anything that was even vaguely useful either — had that been worth it? Making a ghost innocent of all of this… suffer like that?

"What's wrong?"

The Ghostwriter was looking at her, unsure of his footing in more ways than one. Jazz took her hand away and vowed to keep it away from Mira unless absolutely necessary. "When she was possessed," said Jazz, "… She remembers everything from when I was trying to get information from her."

Big black rings wrapped Jazz's eyes, almost as if she'd been punched twice over. But the writer knew exactly what she was talking about; Jazz had made little secrecy over the fact that she'd tried some home-brewed torture on Mira while they were isolated at Sam's house, and the guilt of the situation must have been hitting her twice fold if it turned out the real Mira felt every little bit. Jazz hung her head.

He didn't want to tell her she'd done what she had to do. Not while Mira was around, and could probably hear everything around them. It was too cruel to her. The situation was cruel to both of them. And although he later wouldn't admit it, the entire ordeal truly made his heart ache.

"I want…" he began, but stopped himself before he could get anywhere. Jazz had used this as Prime Distraction Material and had taken his eye contact with gusto, trying to sort out what on Earth he could need before he even said it himself. But in spite of her access into his mind, she found nothing — the Ghostwriter didn't know what he wanted, and more than anything was using the words as an unconscious filler to put anything possible in between Jazz, Mira, and the problematic situation at hand.

I want to talk to her, said his mind, suddenly, and without his permission.

But that would require Jazz to touch her again, and they both silently agreed that wasn't a good idea. It wasn't the right time.

When the clock struck five it was finally time for the Ghostwriter's powers to return. There was, of course, about thirty seconds delay. This caused some general panic among Jazz, himself, and Randy, but to squarely no one else in the room — it also caused an unfortunate commotion where Jazz tried letting go of the Writer's hand, he flailed midair, and both she and Randy jumped in to try and steady him. He stabilised quickly, but by that point the embarrassing flailing actions had already been made.

"Smooth," Randy shot. The sarcasm was dripping from his chin. The Writer gave him a sardonic stare in return.

"Do shut up, Randy."

Jack had finished up with the keyboard some hours ago. This had soon turned into taking a well-earned nap with his wife in the corner, who herself had become knocked out from an obscene number of hours spent awake. The three of them — or the four of them, if you included Mira — had some time to themselves as long as they remained as quiet as humanly possible.

"We're going to get Mira. But how are we going to do it?" Jazz asked, whispering. "The keyboard?"

The Ghostwriter didn't answer. There'd been a minor delay, but soon after regaining his powers he had noticed the Script of Cause and Effect's powers slowly seeping back in, unwanted in their nature but terrifying in their efficacy. There was barely anything he could do to stop it, so he would just have to become content with the fact that he might accidentally blow up an entire building and then wither away into a wisp. Fantastic. As for where the energy was coming from… well, considering they were currently in the human world, he didn't want to know where it was coming from. Unfortunately, he suspected it might have something to do with ectoplasmic pollution in the Fenton household's air. This was not a good place to get away from it.

"We've probably got some options, but we need to make a decision on them now," said Randy, voice firm and imposing while the writer failed to speak. His red eyes darted over to the keyboard. "So if you could snap out of your little daze and start making up your mind, that would be beneficial."

"Right," said the Ghostwriter, extracting himself from his own little world and returning to reality. He gave the question a few moments thought before reaching a conclusion. "No, you're right, I was just… we've got to take her to the Abyss, but the Sorceress might rightly be there waiting for us."

"… Maybe she's not," Jazz suggested. "She seemed really blown back when I attacked her."

Randy shook his head, arms crossed. "That though it may be, history tells us that she tears apart the cores of others to generate vast amounts of energy very quickly. We're also in a situation where she hasn't yet decided to turn up here yet. This means one of two things; she's either been unable to find a ghost to feed off, which is unlikely, or she's waiting in the Abyss for you to wander down and rescue Mira, and has set an appropriate trap. I'd say your chances of getting jumped are at about 98 percent. The question is, what are you going to do?"

Jazz had never seen the Ghostwriter look so torn. He gazed over Mira's limp form still resting on the table, but then brought his eyes back down to his own hands, which had started to gain back a light but worrying green aura. The ghost's mind exuded anxiety and determination and longing all at once before it finally came to rest on the idea of his keyboard, and some very interesting things indeed came to mind.

"I've touched a Script. Jazz has touched two Scripts. And you've been tainted by one of them as well," he said, taking stock of the situation. "Whether she's waiting there for me or not, I have to fight her."

"I'm sorry, did you just imply that you and you alone would have to fight something like that?" asked Jazz. Randy looked equally worried.

"The only reason I would even consider putting myself in that line is because I can alter reality," the Ghostwriter continued, severely. "You — you can't. It would be more dangerous than you can imagine."

Jazz was determined, however, far more determined than he realised she might be. "I've been in contact with The Script of Truth and Lies and the Script of Cause and Effect. That makes two more to go."

"I won't let you do that to yourself!"

"Yeah, but how else do you think we're going to take this ghost down?" Jazz begged. "She has my little brother, Writer. She has Mira's soul! We don't even know what she wants to do, and you look nervous even with the keyboard. But you've bent reality even without it to stop me from — from losing my mind. I think we can work with this. A-and — if we get her, doesn't that mean the links will get severed? … The Scripts will stop working?"

The Ghostwriter looked as though he'd been slapped in the face with one of the most uncomfortable truths he'd ever come across. Everything Jazz had said made perfect sense, was the reasonable output of a logical mind. And though he could bend the frames of reality to his will, he just wasn't sure it was going to be quite enough when it measured up against the Sorceress's unbelievable power and magic.

… At the same time he choked, he really did, at the thought of Jazz getting even further involved in all of this. Putting herself in so much danger. Visions of her in a puddle of her own blood, or used for some incredibly nefarious purpose by the Sorceress flashed through his mind, each one more terrifyingly vivid than the next. He was only brought out of this by a very firm grab on his left shoulder, which he was surprised to see coming from Randy.

"If you leave her behind, she'll be an open target and you won't be able to see or protect her well. I might be powerful in my own right but my power doesn't stretch like yours does. I can't believe I'm saying this, but if you care about her you'll take her with you. I wouldn't be able to stay behind and look after her myself."

"What, so she can go and touch those Scripts? What if it's too much for my power to hold back? Then what?"

"Then you'll have to leave her be and kill the Sorceress with me."

A darkness crossed Randy's face that writer had never even seen before, another side to his half-brother that revealed a determination to win this fight, whatever the personal cost may be. But it wasn't just that — he had always known Randy had cared for him, was watching out for him in that way that older brothers did… but the direct evidence was always lacking. Randy had naturally always kept his cards close to his chest, so chasing him up on what he might be thinking or feeling tended to be a monumental task. This, however, was unmistakable.

By the time he'd really considered everything, the Ghostwriter's face had turned white. Not grey. White.

"I-I guess we're all in this together, right?" he managed.

"We're going to save Mira and my little brother," Jazz pitched in, with a determination he'd never be able to vouch for himself.

"We're going to crush the Sorceress before she has a chance to bring back a history that should remain lost," Randy added, severely. "For better or worse."

"For better or worse…" the Ghostwriter whispered back. "… For better or worse…"

There was a pause. This was going to be horribly dangerous and risky, and he could feel every single one of his nerves reaffirming it. Sure, the keyboard allowed him to bend reality to his will, but that alone might not be enough against the Sorceress. More to the point, it just wasn't fast enough — everything was limited to how quickly he could type.

He grimaced, but got to his feet.

"What are you…" Randy began, but as he saw the writer approach his keyboard, he seemed to have a brainwave. "Wait, are you about to do what I think you're about to do?"

"Depends what you think I'm about to do," said the Ghostwriter, severely.

"Not the experiment?"

The Ghostwriter crossed his arms in a most determined way, staring down at the strange machine that was supposedly a part of him. "There's no law of nature that says it can't be done. I'm not killing anyone or bringing them back to life. All I'm doing is making the processing more efficient."

The Abyss stretched out before them both, the very place they had not long since escaped. The Ghostwriter held Jazz tightly with one arm around her waist, and she held tightly onto his side right back. A few kilometres away laid the twisted, blackened tree, long dead but an unmistakable marker as to their location. Power welled at both of their fingertips, but he left it there for now. Perhaps there'd be a use for it later.

"I'm going to try approaching this without using too much power," he said, quietly, through a small breath of the uncomfortable air. "We don't know how the Sorceress works, but it might make us harder to detect."

"Fine by me," said Jazz.

He began to glide towards the tree. From there, he'd probably be able to see the little light in the dark that so very likely was Mira's soul.

"… Did you just make it," she interjected as they went, "So that you can bend reality with your thoughts?"

The Ghostwriter said nothing, keeping his eyes fixed on the tree. He didn't like thinking about this. He never wanted to do it. His powers had been quickly expanding for years, and the implication had always been that eventually they would jump the crutch that was his keyboard on their own, given time. The very thought terrified him. And yet, here he was, forcing it to happen faster. If he wanted to try to match up to the Sorceress, possibly even overwhelm her, then this was going to be the only way anyone was capable of doing it. And yet he'd never felt more uncomfortable; he policed his thoughts carefully, just in case a stray thought caused a scene of chaos.

He seemed to remember with a start that Jazz could probably hear everything in his mind. His eyes raced to see her face, but she just looked back up sympathetically, as if she too had no words and didn't want to burden him further.

Nonetheless, this would be dangerous.

The Sorceress was easily of equal power, if not more. If he tried to attack her directly by bending reality, it probably wouldn't be too hard for her to use her own powers to turn that on its head. Whatever method of approach he decided to use, he realised it needed to be subtle. Subtle had the best chance of slipping beneath her radar.

The gravity pockets were still an issue in this place. Gravity tended to go up and down as he moved, but he smoothed it out enough ahead of them to avoid hurting Jazz. It at least meant they could continue in a straight line without trying to break a maze-like path to the tree, as they had last time…

"I hate this place…" Jazz muttered. He stole another glance at her — she was starting to get a bit green around the edges. "How do you even deal with altering your own sense of gravity all the time?"

"Not having a human stomach certainly helps," he said, voice still quiet. "I can stop you from feeling nausea though, if you'd like."

"What're the chances that could backfire?"

The Ghostwriter bit down a little on the back of his lip. "I doubt it would cause any major problems."

Jazz took a few moments to think about it. During that time they hit yet another pocket of reduced gravity, and Jazz shook her head as she covered her mouth. "Okay, yeah, please."

Afterwards, her complaints died down. She looked happier, too. He wasn't quite sure how to tell her that it was now entirely likely that she'd never feel even the slightest trace of nausea ever again, as pleasant as that idea might be. She'd probably get the picture from his thoughts, anyway.

The twisted tree came up faster than imagined.

It was just as magnificent and horrific as the first time he'd seen it, really. Grand but utterly dead, as if raged by fire millennia ago from which it never recovered. Gravity was stable around this region and so he put Jazz down carefully, where she began wandering around the base of the tree.

"How do you think this got here?"

"Unsure," said the Ghostwriter. "To be honest, I doubt it's even wood. Looks like some sort of construct brought forth during… unpleasant times."

"Like a war?"

He nodded meaningfully. "We're not exactly in the Ghost Zone, but I'd say this place is well-connected enough to make the thoughts and sentiments of those involved take form. Sometimes it's more direct, but in this case I'd wager it was formed by metaphor."

She didn't say anything else, but did carefully put her hand against the tree. It distorted slightly at her touch, but otherwise nothing happened. The Ghostwriter took his eyes off her and started looking around, particularly for that dark, malformed hollow-like path that led to nowhere. He couldn't seem to see it. Wary, he too stalked around the tree, trying to figure out where exactly he'd managed to wander even further into the Abyss that should reasonably never be breached.

"Where is it?" Asked Jazz, staring around as the tree began to lose her fascination. "That hollow you started going down last time?"

"I can't see it," he muttered. "I can't see her."

"You mean… the little light?"

"Yes, it's like… it's almost as if it's not accessible from here anymore."

No. This wasn't good. He was trying to use as little energy as he possibly could in order to avoid as many forms of detection as humanly possible, but it seemed almost as if Mira had probably been moved in order to cater for this. There might have even been some sort of backfire trap to deal with him using his powers at all here, but he just wasn't going to know until he tried.

… And it would be so easy to just teleport to wherever Mira's soul had ended up, too. Too easy. He didn't trust anything like that. The fact that they hadn't run into some kind of trap already was warning enough.

The Ghostwriter found himself milling about the tree some more, testing patches of land that were further and further away, all the while commanding Jazz to stay put where she was. He didn't like any part of this and he'd be damned if he knew what was about to happen next; it was possible, however, that he had to be standing in a very specific spot to see that hollow in the first place, and there wouldn't be any need for magic tricks of any kind.

To his astonishment, he was right. But he was also wrong.

From one perspective the great dark hollow stretched out before him, glorious in its depth and terrifying in the dark. But down it laid not the tiny little ghost light he remembered being entranced by so vividly — instead there was nothing, nothing except for the inky blackness ahead.

"… We're going to go down there anyway?" Jazz murmured. He soon found her to his side regardless of his advice for her to stay put — it seemed she was trying to see properly. "It looks like it goes forever…"

"Let's hope it doesn't," he told her, before holding out his arm. "Come on, back with me."

She nestled into his grip without complaint, and he began to make his way down through one of the most intimidating areas he'd ever seen. Vaguely, a dripping sound could be heard. They walked, restricted to seeing using his ghostly glow alone.

"I don't like this," said Jazz. The Ghostwriter shook his head. He didn't either.

They walked and walked until the light of the strange dimension behind them became but a small pinprick in the distance. Whether they moved through the surprisingly stable gravity for ten minutes or an hour, neither was quite sure; the dimension lulled you into a strange altered state of consciousness, perhaps one that might have been considered meditative had it not been so utterly chilling.

Eventually, the tiny light to their backs disappeared, the only thing left being the deepest darkest path before them.

"If something jumped out right now, I couldn't — I couldn't do anything."

She voiced a fear he himself shared, and intimately; if something attacked Jazz and he couldn't do something about it, then she was going to be on her own — and yet it was still infinitely preferable to have her here in the Abyss, where he could watch her, than it was to leave her in the barely apparent safety of Fenton Works. He held her tighter as an apparent show of protest, making sure each finger encompassed the girl gently and comfortably. She held tighter too, clinging.

"Writer, we're not finding anything…"

He hadn't heard anything quite like this sense of apprehension from her before. For the first time in their walk, he finally stopped and looked around in the inky darkness, trying to figure out how long this lonely path continued and how likely it was they'd be doomed to find nothing in the end.

"You're right," he eventually sighed. "I can't even see the way back out anymore. She's not here. Not even a trace of her…"

"… You might have to use your power," Jazz suggested, carefully. She knew how much he didn't want to. "I mean… when does this place even end? It's like it goes on forever…"
The Ghostwriter nodded. "Well," he said, "Brace yourself for anything."

It was probably the best advice he'd given in the past two weeks.

With the decision to go through with this the rough way, he could already feel the anxiety that normally settled in his chest rising quickly. He breathed deeply, once in, and once out, if only to forego the need to perform the ghost equivalent of hyperventilation. And then he told his mind to take them both to wherever Mira was.

The teleportation was smooth — if not instantaneous — but the Ghostwriter knew better than to go off just what he could see. Warping reality tended to leave behind ripples and stretch marks for some time, though only the attuned could sense it. By performing such a serious teleportation straight to the object of their desire they were in turn creating some pretty serious disruptions in the dimensions above. If they weren't noticed, he'd eat his scarf.

Jazz clung to him for dear life. Before them was a strange room, the walls bright pink, but not quite bright pink enough to melt your retinas. And yet you could tell all of this in the dark — the whole place was pitch black, unreflective of ghostly glow. How on earth either one of them was seeing anything around them was a total mystery.

In the middle of the room, far beyond Jazz's human senses, a tiny light floated.

It caught the Ghostwriter just as it had before; serene, calm, somehow calling to him. Just like last time he was drawn to it, he began shuffling towards the light almost oblivious to his surroundings. Even more so now that he had one very crucial piece of information: that light was Mira's soul.

Something hit the edges of his hearing but his mind simply didn't want to process it as any kind of noise. As he reached out with his one free hand the light's energy invigorated him, encouraged him to keep reaching, until indeed, he finally had graced it with his finger… something was shaking him…

"Writer!"

The world snapped back to normal at the piercing sound of Jazz's shrillest voice. It was Jazz. Jazz was the one shaking him! And now that he looked at it properly, this light was black…

The ghost pulled himself backwards with a violent jerk, staring at the strange black hole in the already black pink room. Jazz, who was still very much clung onto him, went too. For a brief moment some odd scrabbling sounds ran around the outside of the base of the tiny room, followed by silence.

It was then the Ghostwriter realised he'd made a mistake.

Maddie grasped desperately at the air her daughter had occupied just seconds ago. Her fingers found nothing, however; when the ghost had whisked her away, he'd done an exceptionally clean job of it, and even those attuned to the distortion such an ability creates might not have been able to feel it.

"Don't bother. They're gone."

Desperation in her heart, the ghost hunter looked up to face one of the creatures she'd hated for so long. Its irises were still a bright and vicious red, but the expression on its face — was that sympathy? How was she supposed to accept something like that? Something like that from one of those — she knew it wasn't true, deep down, but — one of those monsters? And yet she'd seen enough over the past week, and heard well and truly enough tonight, that she just couldn't fault him. Much as he did seem to enjoy taunting those around him with things they didn't want to accept, he was also a dead-straight talker, and conducted himself at all times with absolute sincerity.

Randy raised an eyebrow at her. "I'm not lying."

"I… I know you're not," she managed, finally putting her arms down and giving up the air for the empty void it was.

Jack was quickly by her side. "Mads," he began, but she gently shooed him away, preferring instead to withdraw into a bubble of quiet personal space.

"So what, you're going to tell us that the only thing we can do is wait, aren't you?"

Randy said nothing, because she was inherently right.

"So what, now you're not even going to talk to me?"

"That's not what this is about," Randy began, with a deep sigh from his little corner of the room. "We're all waiting. You, your husband — you're waiting for your daughter. But I'm waiting for my brother. It's not supposed to be easy."

Maddie seemed to quiet down, shuffling in her spot. "When do you think they'll be back?"

The ghost shrugged. "Anyone's guess. Could be fifteen minutes, could be hours. The best thing you can do is stay here where I can watch you."

"What, in case we get attacked by that Sorceress ghost?"

"… I don't really expect her to come after us, but it's a possibility I'd rather not discount."

Maddie sniffed. "I find it hard to believe a ghost like you would actively defend us now."

Randy shook his head. "Yeah, me too," he said, but far under his breath, just enough for the Fenton parents to hear him. Really he'd had enough of these two — or perhaps just Maddie — to last him several lifetimes, and he was in little mood to engage with her when he'd rather just watch quietly and stick to his own thoughts. He was tired. Using a power like that for the first time in decades was tiring.

Inwardly, though he'd rather not admit it to anyone, he mourned its use. Decades of abstinence had been broken in the short time frame of little more than thirty seconds, and in return he'd been forced to let go of sharpened senses. Few ghosts had ever followed his lines of thinking, but all who had had noticed one very particular peculiarity; the longer they stayed away from using their special abilities, the better their senses got. Randy had gotten away with an incredibly sharp sense of hearing and sight for many years, now, which had allowed him to see and hear better than he ever could have dreamed of in life, but everything had now reverted back to zero. His 20/20 sight felt fuzzy, his perfect-by-all-other standards hearing a simple blur. The moment he'd used his power he'd immediately wanted to take the action back, but it was too late now, and the lie was, in and of itself, more than necessary in the circumstances.

And now he had to deal with these two on top of things, while waiting for his brother to figure out whatever weird solution he could cook up while hopefully not getting himself split apart atom-by-atom.

All Randy really wanted to do was go back to his study and sit down in front of his research papers.

"What is it do you think I want in life?" he asked, suddenly. The curiosity had welled up inside him without his own notice or regard, and he couldn't help but speak it out. Maddie looked shocked that he'd even opened his mouth, but now he was staring at her, expectantly…

"You're not alive," she reminded, severely.

"I said, what is it do you think I want in life?"

The interrogation really took her aback this time. This wasn't a play with my words, I dare you sort of situation, it was an answer me or god help you kind of request. Maddie blinked, looked quickly back to Jack for help (he provided none), then darted her eyes back to the bright red irises of that strange white-haired scholar ghost.

"How should I know what you want? You're a ghost!" she eventually spat. "It's — it's like—"

"You want what you wanted when you were human," said Jack. Maddie's brain stalled to a halt. Randy smiled just a little bit.

"Well, yes and no," he admitted. "My needs have changed a bit since then, and my wants accordingly… however they have the same core elements, I suppose. Important qualities, like safety, people, at least some degree of privacy. The ability to go about and conduct my work without repercussion, notwithstanding where I've clearly overstepped. Family. Perhaps you can relate."

"What other family do you have?" Maddie asked, quietly. It was as if the word had set something off in her brain.

"Just John."

"No mother? Father?"

"They still exist here in the real world," he said, but suddenly a glint caught his eye. "If they're still alive. Perhaps not."

"How old would they be?"

Randy paused, quickly passing a few mental calculations through his head. "Late nineties."

"Oh," said Maddie. "… You haven't known them in a long time, then."

He realised that as he said it, he felt not even a thing. "You need to let go of some things."

It really had been a long time, hadn't it? He found himself taking an oddly timed breath, and tried to look as though he hadn't.

"… What we desire is mostly the same," he concluded, changing the subject quickly. "You can go back to thinking whatever it is you think if we make it through this. But for now we have to work together. All of us. If we focus on the wrong things, there's a good chance we won't survive. Do you understand?"

Maddie swallowed.

"Can you work with John and I, and simply trust that we've no desire to place your daughter in any further danger than she needs to be in — given the circumstances?"

Had she spoken the words, there wasn't any way Maddie could have managed to make herself agree. Yet, she found herself just barely nodding along. Silent agreement, weaned from her unwilling soul.

From now they would work as partners, because she simply didn't know what else to do.

And from the corner, a small murmur of sound, so small that nearly all of them missed it:

"They went the wrong way."

Next chapter - 27: The Script of Sin and Grace

P.S.: If you're still reading, please leave a review. They really do give me life, and they mean a lot.