The smell of bacon and fresh baked biscuits, awoke Peter out of his self induced coma. The smell alone was enough to make him drag himself out of the bed at the ungodly hour of nine o'clock to throw on a robe and walk downstairs to the kitchen.
When he got there every else was already at the table eating. Even Aggie.
"To what to we owe this incredible smelling feast this morning," he asked walking into the kitchen.
"Don't look at me man," Winston said digging into his eggs. "I didn't do it this time."
"My aunt used to make biscuits like this," Ray said, grabbing another biscuit. "Fresh from scratch."
Peter frowned as he sat down with a plate of food. "Well if you didn't make it," he asked Winston. "Who did?"
"I figured Aggie did," Ray said. "She was in here when Winston and I came in."
Aggie swallowed a piece of bacon and smiled sweetly at Ray. "As much as I'd love to take the credit, this feast is all Janine's work. She came in this morning, asked me to stay for another week, then proceeded to come up here and fix breakfast."
The four men stopped eating. "Janine's here?" Ray asked. Aggie nodded.
"You told me she was coming back this morning."
"Well, yeah. But when we didn't hear anything..."
"I'm sorry, I should have told you guys." "Don't worry about it," Peter said. "Where is she now? Why isn't she up here eating?"
Aggie shrugged. "I asked her, and she laughed, saying she'd eat later. I think she went downstairs to start on work."
Peter nodded, grabbing another biscuit. "I'll talk to her after breakfast, If she keeps this up, I might have to give her a raise."
"Hello? Ghostbusters." she listened for a moment, frowning . "Hold on a moment let me find something to write with." She found a pencil and a notebook. "Okay now what's wrong?" She wrote the problem and address down, telling the man on the phone, the Ghostbusters would be there as soon as possible. She hung up the phone and looked around the desk. From the depths of her memory, she remembered a bell that was used to call the guys when there was a call. She found the red button the side of the desk and pushed it. Nothing happened, except the cold sticky feeling on her hand. Grimacing, she lifted her hand. On it was a green slimy substance.
"Eeeww," she said, trying to shake it off. "Where did this come from?"
Her answer came in a from of a small green blob flying straight for her screaming. Janine screamed.They were cleaning up the remainder of breakfast when they heard Janine scream. Egon was the first out of the kitchen with the others following. He ran down the first floor stairs and ran right into Janine, who was running up them. He grabbed her to keep them both from tumbling back down.
"What's going on?" Ray asked, before he saw a very upset Slimer floating around the reception desk. He moved past them, to go shoo the small ghost off.
"Slimer scared her?" Peter asked, unbelievingly.
Janine pulled away from Egon. "I...I'm sorry. He startled me. I'd forgotten about him."
She pulled her hand away from his waist, wrinkling her nose. "Oh, I'm so sorry about that my...um, I forgot the red button was full of slime."
Egon looked over at Peter. "Don't worry about it, There'll be worse things on it before the day's over."
Janine pulled away, searching for Ray. "There was a call. The address is on that paper." she told him, pointing by his hand. Ray picked it up, reading the description quickly. "He's back," he told the guys.
"Right," Peter said, moving down the stairs. Janine scrambled to get out of his way. "I'm getting tired of this gooper."
Janine let the other two past to get suited up, them sat down on the steps, trying to calm herself down. She'd completely forgotten about Slimer, and wasn't expecting such a excited reunion with him. She'd have to make it up to him later after she calmed down. If she could just make it through this day, she'd be fine.
"Janine?"
Looking up, she recoiled slightly, seeing Peter standing in front of her. He still reminded her too much of Michael. Peter, sensing her fear stepped back slightly.
"When we get back, I'd like to talk to you, if that's all right."
Janine nodded, still not trusting her self to speak. Peter nodded, then was gone. Janine sighed heavily. She wasn't sure if she had the strength left to make it through the rest of the day.The guys were gone for the rest of the day, and Aggie reacquainted her with the computer and the rest of the work. Slowly, it came back to her. Aggie also told her about the class seven roaming around the city that had managed to elude the guys for the past four days. Something that they weren't happy about. Janine caught up on the work on the table and tinkered around, reacquainting herself with her job, until Aggie left for lunch. As soon as yhe door closed, Janine relaxed. She had the entire firehouse to herself...except Slimer, and she was used to the idea of him being here now.She finished the dishes in the kitchen and cleaned up the firehouse up a bit, until she reached the lab doors. Hesitating slightly, she remembered she hardly ever went in there unless it was for something important. The only other person in there as much as Egon was Ray. She forced herself to push open the doors and step in. Once inside, she looked around stunned. Except for the newer equipment, it looked almost like Christopher's lab. Over in the corner were books, and tubes and jars. There were experiments on tables. She walked through, soaking in the entire room. Over towards the back of the room was a small window. She walked over there, standing in front of it. Even with the window closed, she could feel the sun shining on her face. From right here, if she closed her eyes, she could imagine herself back in the other lab. Her other home. And for the first time since she returned back to this time, she felt truly at peace.It was late when the Ghostbusters returned back to the firehouse. Aggie was walking down the stairs to meet the four as they dragged themselves out of Ecto. "I was just getting ready to go home." she told them. "The list for tomorrow's appointments are on the desk, and everything else is taken care of."
Peter nodded wearily. "Is Janine still here?"
Aggie shook her head. "No. She left about five. But I wanted to talk to you about her." Egon stopped long enough to glance over at her. "What's wrong?"
"I'm not sure. But she seemed agitated after I returned from lunch. I may just be imagining things but, I don't think she's going to make it until the end of the week. I keep having this suspicion that she's going to leave here one night and not come back the next morning."
Egon shivered, slightly. Peter nodded.
"Don't worry about it. I'll talk to her tomorrow, when she comes in."I have this suspicion that she's going to leave here one night and not come back the next morning. Aggie's voice rang in his mind again. Egon put down his tools again, staring off into space.
She's probably right, he thought. What's keeping her here?
Ever since she'd come back, he'd been holed up in his lab with his work. When she was gone he couldn't do anything, now that she'd returned, he was hiding himself from her. Why?
Because she scares you, the nagging voice said. You liked the old Janine, the one who teased. This one isn't like that, and it scares you because she brings up feelings that normally you could push away.
"It's not like that," he told himself. But deep inside, he knew the voice was right. From the moment she flew into his arms calling him by another man's name, the voice had told him she was still gone. Their Janine...his Janine, the one who was strong, proud, full of her Bronx attitude, was gone and in its place was a young woman who shouldn't be here. It was true that the few times he'd seen her, he could catch a glimpse of the old Janine, but then it would leave. This Janine made him nervous.
Yawning, he picked up his tools and started working again. It was pointless to think of this now. He had to finish this project before tomorrow.