Behold me, for I cannot sleep

Rory sloped into his room, dumped his bag on the floor, and flung himself onto the bed. He bounced off, flying upwards towards the ceiling. A few inches away, though, he stopped himself, and hung in mid-air, staring at the grooves and ridges of the plaster. He wrenched off his glasses and massaged his eyes. He crossed and then uncrossed his eyes. It really hurt, wearing glasses when you didn't need to. It felt like his brain had twisted up at the front. He had no idea why he'd carried on wearing them all day. He shook his head briskly, and focused on a spot a few centimetres above his nose. There. That was a little better. He was amazed that no-one had commented on his sudden return to wearing glasses after nearly eighteen months. People just didn't bother themselves with these things, he supposed.

With a sigh, he dropped back down to his bed, sinking into it. No matter how hard he'd tried that day, he'd had no luck in finding a solution to Cathy's problem. He'd pored over web-pages, print-outs, and had even snatched a few brief glances at Benny's spell book, but all to no avail. But he had to find some way of doing it! There must be a way…

He sat bolt upright and kicked his heels against the end of his bed. How to do it… He frowned and stared at the carpet. The last time they'd tried to deal with a ghost, they'd only managed to transfer the spirit from place to place. That wasn't what Cathy wanted. She just wanted to disappear. Maybe if he – no, that would never work. He bit his lip in frustration.

Rory's eye was drawn across the room to his phone, which lay, temptingly, on his desk. He only needed to pick it up and Ethan and Benny would help him. His fingers twitched. It would make everything a lot easier. Certainly research was boring. And Ethan liked this kind of thing. And Benny would go along with whatever Ethan liked, just for something to do. They could probably even get Sarah involved if she was feeling bored. It wasn't like she or Erica had anything else to do these days. They'd both been accepted into the University of Toronto. That was lucky really, for, if they really needed them, they wouldn't be too far away. You could fly there in less than half an hour from Whitechapel. But he was digressing…

Rory stood up, his hand outstretched. Then he sat down again with a sudden bump. No. He'd promised Cathy that he would do this. He would do this. On his own. He would prove to himself (and the others) that he was just as capable of handling a supernatural project as they were. Better, maybe. Given Benny's current track record, all he had to do was not destroy the universe. Or kill Ethan.

He went over to his desk, and firmly pushed his phone away. He opened up his laptop and put his glasses back in their case. Right. Forget about trying to be Ethan. He was just going to try and do it the Rory way. Whatever that might be. There must be something on putting ghosts to rest. That might be a more promising search topic. After that, he would just have to rely on his vampire powers and intuition. Or just randomly guess. He tapped away on the keyboard, and pretty soon was lost in the paths of the internet.


That night, Rory waited impatiently on the bench, banging both of his trainer-clad feet into the plinth. Where was she? It had taken a long time, and some inspired guesswork, but he was pretty sure that he knew how to do it. He was immensely excited, and rather proud of himself. He really had worked it out on his own, with no help from anyone else. Of course, it might not work, but, then, even the plans that Ethan made often needed some, uh, adjustment before they actually solved the problem.

He stared around at the gathering darkness. He wondered why she wanted to die. Surely even life as a ghost was better than just nothing? Maybe it was just a lingering on, helpless, unable to affect anything, but she could still talk to people. She was still around, even if she could only come out at night. He remembered being dead. Permanently dead, that is. Well, as it had turned out, temporarily permanently dead, but, for that day or so in which he had been in limbo, it had seemed like forever. Just an endless void, in which he would never see anyone that he loved again. The eternal monotony of nothingness.

He shivered as recalled the moment in which he had disintegrated. He'd never told any of the others about it, or the fact that, sometimes, when he closed his eyes, he relived it, if his mind drifted towards the memory. When that happened, he was glad that he no longer slept or dreamed. He knew that that was exactly the sort of thing that would come up again and again in his nightmares. But he didn't have nightmares, so that was OK –

– Rory shuddered as a sharp pain exploded in his chest. He lurched forwards, flapping his hands ineffectually at his body. For a moment, it felt like thousands of hooks and been attached him, and were now trying to turn him inside out –

It only stopped when one of his flailing hands brushed against the knotty scar on his chest through his top. That brought him back to his senses, as he realised that it was only another memory. He leaned back, eyes wide, on the bench. If he could breathe, then this would be the point at which he would be gasping for breath. He sort-of wished that he could do that. It would at least give some kind of sense that it was over. Rory wiped away the beads of sweat that had formed on his brow and gazed blankly in front of him. He really hated those flashbacks. It only reinforced his confusion as to why anyone would want to die.

"Rory? Are you OK?"

"Huh?" He twisted his head around to see her watching him anxiously from the other end of the bench. He nodded weakly. "I'm fine," he lied. He tried to smile, but, unusually, nothing came. He stared at her, his eyes unfocused, for a long while. She continued to look concerned.

"Are you sure? You're really pale. And that's coming from me…"

"Hmm…? Oh, it's nothing really… Just – just a bad dream. Or something." He frowned briefly, unconsciously running his hand up and down the scar on his chest. Eventually he blinked, and returned to normal. "Anyway, I think I've found a way to, uh, do it!" He beamed widely at her, anxious for her not to pursue his strange behaviour. Cathy took the hint.

"So, how is it done?"

As Rory went to explain, he found that he couldn't look directly at her. He was talking about killing her, after all.

"Well, er, it looks like we have to go back to the place where you, uh, died…" He glanced up briefly, taking in her sad, but calm, expression. He looked down again. "Once there, if we can get to the exact same position then we can tap into the energy that dying, apparently, creates. There's a link between your body, the place where you died, and your ghostly form. If we can line them up, then the ghost bit can just be sent back along the link to become part of the body again. The body is, um, dead, and so, in going back to being part of it, so will the ghost."

"And that's it? Just need to be there?"

Rory winced and then looked even more pointedly away from her. "Not quite… Well, in a way, I guess…"

"What do you mean?" she asked, baffled.

"Oh, er…" Rory rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "… I, um, it seems, uh, that both of the, uh, pieces, of you need to be there."

He looked up again, and found her looking straight at him with unblinking eyes. She held his gaze. "Are you saying that you need my corpse?"

"Well, uh, yeah, I suppose so…"

The girl frowned. "What if I was cremated?"

Rory's eyes widened. "Were you?" he breathed in a horrified tone.

She shook her head and the corner of her mouth twitched. "No. I was just messing with you." She smiled a little wider. "Do we need to go grave robbing, then?"

Rory tipped his head from side to side. "Well, if you come with me, I'm not entirely sure that it counts as robbing exactly. If I've got your permission, then surely it's just, uh, borrowing…"

She laughed. "If you want to put it like that, I suppose. If it makes you feel better." She waved her ghostly hands through the bench. "You're going to have to do the digging, though."

Rory nodded, and then his face took a serious cast. "Are you sure about this?"

She nodded unhesitatingly. "Yes, Rory, I'm sure. It's so painfully lonely being like this; always watching and waiting on the edge. Seeing your friends and family, but never being able to interact with them. All the time I'm surrounded by what I've lost. I've no idea what being dead is like, or if there's anything afterwards, but I know that I don't want this half-life."

Rory hesitated. Should he tell her what he knew? No. Everyone had to find out in their own time. He nodded. "OK. If you're committed." He stood up and held out a hand decorously. "Care to join me on a trip to the cemetery?"

For the first time, Cathy hesitated. She stood up as well, and put her head to one side thoughtfully. "Not yet, Rory. I think I'd like to have a last night before I'm gone forever. We can do the, uh, deed just before dawn." She held out her own hand to Rory. "Will you stay with me for my final hours?"

Slightly taken aback by her sincerity, Rory nodded slowly. "Of course." He stood next to her and looped his arm carefully through the gap between her ghostly arm, taking great pains not to cross through her mist-like form. "Where would you like to go?"