Taking Stock

"Still no answer?" Davis asked as Tru frowned at the phone after trying to get in touch with Harrison for the third time.

"Something's wrong," she said as the phone rang continually before clicking into the answering service. "My phone rings once, stops, and now he's not answering."

"Maybe he rang you by mistake?" Davis suggested.

"Then why isn't he answering now?" Tru shook her head. "There's something wrong. I know it."

"You don't know that," Davis pointed out. "Maybe he just doesn't want to be disturbed right now. Have you tried phoning Cassie's place direct?"

"I don't have the number," Tru admitted. She and Cassie had never really been friends and of the few times she had seen her without Harrison being present there were the times she was spying on her and the time she had thrown a bowl of soup over the unsuspecting girl. She wondered if she should have made more of an effort to get to know her and resolved that from now on she would. Harrison certainly seemed to like her and the last thing she wanted was for him to accuse her of disapproving of all his girlfriends again.

"Well it's quiet here if you want to go over to her place and check Harrison made it there okay," Davis suggested.

"Are you sure?" Tru asked. She didn't like leaving Davis alone when they could have a new victim arrive any minute. She felt she should stay. It was bad enough that her ability to relive the day meant she was often leaving Davis to carry on alone when she should be at work. To leave him now really didn't seem right. She wondered how much of wanting to stay was related to the feeling of dread that seemed to have settled over her.

"I'll call if I need you here," Davis insisted as he picked up Tru's jacket and passed it to her. "You're not even meant to be on this shift anyway."

"Okay," Tru agreed, moving towards the door. "I'll just stop by Cassie's and check nothing's wrong."

"I'm sure everything's fine," Davis reassured her. Tru nodded, unable to shake the feeling that something was definitely not right.

Tru hurried up the stairs to Cassie's apartment a short while later. The door was shut to but not entirely closed. She knocked and waited. There was no sound from inside. She knocked harder and the door swung open. She was always telling Harrison to remember to close doors properly, it looked like his girlfriend had the same bad habit as he did.

Tru stepped into the room and looked around. It appeared to be deserted.

"Cassie?" she called out as she closed the door behind her.

"Harrison?" she tried again. There was still no answer.

Tru looked towards the bedroom door that stood open. The room was empty and Tru breathed a sigh of relief that her timing was not entirely bad.

She wasn't sure what it was that drew her attention further into the room. Maybe it was a small sound or the sliver of light from inside. Whatever it was Tru found herself walking into the bedroom and turning towards the glaring light of the bathroom.

She saw Harrison immediately and froze.

She felt like an intruder as she watched her brother quietly whispering to his girlfriend who, she could see, would never hear what he was saying. She wanted to step forward and tell him that it would be all right. She wanted to have the day rewind as quickly as possible and erase the look of grief from his eyes. She wanted to reassure him that tomorrow it would be different but she couldn't move from the spot where she stood.

They're meant to die she recalled Jack telling her countless times. With Harrison's help, she had saved Cassie once before and now, just a few weeks later, she was dead, again. She knew Jack would say that it was meant to be this way, that you can't cheat fate forever. But she couldn't accept it, any more than she could ignore her calling completely.

"Harrison?" Tru finally spoke. Her voice broke the quiet and sounded strange to her own ears.

"Tru?" Harrison looked up, startled. His eyes were reddened and filled with sadness, horror and something else Tru couldn't quite recognise. It was a look she couldn't remember ever seeing on her fun-loving brother's face before. It was a look she never wanted to see on his face again.

She knew instinctively that the day was going to rewind again. She was grateful that when it did Harrison would not remember anything about this version of the day. She only wished that she could forget the look on his face as easily.

"What happened?" Tru asked, moving forward and sitting down by her brother who had not moved from his spot on the floor.

"I don't know," he replied as he brushed Cassie's hair back from where it had fallen into her eyes. "She was…like this…when I got here."

"Why didn't you call me Harry?" Tru asked.

"I don't know," Harrison whispered, shaking his head.

"Did you see anyone when you got here?" Tru asked, eager to find out as much as she could and get to the rewind point.

"No," Harrison replied. "She was in here when I got here. I didn't even get a chance to say I'm sorry."

"I'm sure she knows," Tru assured him as she drew him into a hug.

"You have to stop this happening again," Harrison stated, his voice rising.

"We will," Tru insisted.

"Not we, you," Harrison repeated.

"I can't do this one on my own Harrison, you know that."

"You'll have to. You've got Davis. He'll help again. Just leave me out of it."

"You don't mean that."

"Yes I do!" Harrison hissed, his voice quietly determined. "This is my fault, so leave me out of tomorrow's rewind so I can't screw it up again."

"It's not your fault," Tru argued, aghast that Harrison had come to that conclusion.

"The day keeps rewinding and all my help gets you is a new victim and this time it's Cassie. So you really should look at getting someone else to help next time around."

"It's not your fault," Tru argued. "It's no one's fault. We just have to figure out what's happening and stop anyone from dying."

"You have to," Harrison pointed out as he gathered Cassie into his arms and carried her through to the bedroom. Tru followed behind him and watched as he laid her out carefully on the bed.

"Harrison?" Tru asked as she watched him carefully close Cassie's eyes.

"I'll be through there," Harrison said quietly as he moved away from the bed and towards the doorway.

"Wait a minute," Tru said.

"What for?" Harrison asked in a dismal tone. "I just want this day over with. You know it won't rewind with me in here. If it was going to do it would have already."

"I want to look around first," Tru explained. "See if I can figure out what's happened before the day restarts. You stay with Cassie while I look around in case she asks for help before I'm done."

"Okay," Harrison nodded, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

Tru turned back towards the bathroom and stepped through the door again. She saw the vase almost immediately. It was stood on the counter next to the sink. There was a damp cloth on the floor, but other than that there was nothing out of place in the room.

"Is this the vase from the auction?" Tru called through to Harrison.

"Ugly looking beige and brown thing?" Harrison asked.

"Yeah."

"Then yeah, that's what she got from the auction. What about it?"

"It's the only connection we have."

"So the vase is somehow killing people?" Harrison asked, sounding clearly sceptical and slightly impatient.

"Could be."

"You don't think that sounds a little strange?"

"Stranger than my hearing dead people asking for help and reliving days?" Tru pointed out.

Tru picked up the vase to study the base. There were no markings to indicate its origin or maker. It felt heavy for its size. The vase itself was covered in markings that looked vaguely Egyptian but Tru didn't know enough about ancient texts to know the difference between the various scripts, and she certainly didn't know how to read the inscription that circled the vase.

"You don't think that theory's a little strange even for you?" Harrison remarked with just a trace of his old humour returning.

"I think next time around we need to get this vase and get it to the morgue as quickly as possible. Do you think you could pick it out again with a description from me?"

"I told you to leave me out of it tomorrow," Harrison insisted with a glare at Tru as she came walked back into the bedroom with the vase in her hands.

"Fine," Tru replied calmly, knowing that Harrison would forget all about the conversation anyway. She felt slightly uneasy about lying to him but if saving his girlfriend's life wasn't a good enough reason, then she didn't know what was.

She knew she could get Davis to go to the auction house instead of Harrison but somehow she felt that if she did that she would be cheating her brother out of the chance to prove he could help. She had the impression that on occasions Harrison had been disappointed that Tru was always asking Davis for help before him. Even this time she had called Davis first and only resorted to enlisting Harrison's help when she could not contact Davis.

She knew that Harrison was always one to take the easy option through life but just recently she had been seeing a difference to him. Since his break up with Lindsay he seemed to be taking stock of things. He hadn't looked for a job yet but helping her out on the rewind days was a start to his finding a purpose in his life.

Tru knew instinctively that if she did as he asked now and cut him out of her plans and only turned to Davis he would soon revert back to his old irresponsible self. Worse still, unless she told him about Cassie's fate today, he wouldn't even know why he was being cut out of things. He would just think that he was being overlooked because he would let her down or disappoint her.

It wasn't that he was a disappointment, Tru just felt it was a shame that he was wasting his life, because when he made an effort he could do anything he put his mind to. Sometimes he just needed a little push in the right direction and like it or not when the day rewound he was going to get one massive shove in the right direction.

"I'll get Davis to go and buy it," Tru lied, her mind made up. "How much was it marked for?"

"Two hundred dollars," Harrison replied. "Apparently it's a bargain."

"It is rather awful isn't it?" Tru grinned.

"Even without the potentially lethal properties," he replied. "Now can we just get this day over and done with?"

Tru put the vase on the bedside table and nodded.

Harrison stood up and put his arms round Tru holding her close. "You have to save her," he whispered, his voice breaking again. Tru nodded as she hugged him back and then watched as he left the room. He glanced back to the bed one last time when he reached the door. He didn't need to say anything else.

Tru looked at Cassie where she lay, patient and silent. She looked towards the doorway, a feeling of dread starting to rise. The last time she had felt this way was when she had waited for Harrison to ask her for help. He had waited so long to ask her she had thought for a moment that she had lost him forever.

"Ask me Cassie," Tru whispered with a nervous glance towards the door. She couldn't go through there and tell Harrison the day was not rewinding. She just couldn't. "You have to ask me. You asked me before. You have to ask me again."

There was still no movement from the lifeless Cassie.

"Please Cassie," Tru whispered. "You have to give me the chance to save you. You have to give Harrison the chance to make things up to you. Please."

Finally the air seemed to still and for a moment there was nothing and no one else in the world except Cassie as she turned her head towards Tru.

"Help me," she asked as Tru's day spiralled backwards and the rewind heralded another chance to put things right.