Crumbling Relations

Davis answered the phone on the second ring.

"Davis, I need two hundred dollars," Harrison asked in a rush.

"Tru told me never to lend you money," Davis said with a laugh.

"It's for the vase," Harrison said, hoping that his sister had filled Davis in on all the details.

"Didn't Tru check you had the money before sending you to buy it?"

"No, she probably thought Cassie would pay for it like before," Harrison replied with a sigh. Maybe it hadn't been a good idea to leave Cassie out of things. He didn't know for sure that she was one of the victims. Maybe he had been wrong. No, he reasoned, it was better to play it safe and leave her out of things. "Do you have the money?"

"Yeah, but it'll take a while to get it to you."

"It's going onto the block now." Harrison looked up to see the vase being held high enough for everyone in the room to see.

"Can you pay later?" Davis asked.

"I don't know," Harrison replied. "I've never been to one of these things before."

"Okay," Davis paused, considering their options. "Let someone else buy it and then see if you can purchase it from them privately afterwards."

"No problem," Harrison answered and ended the call. If there was one thing he knew he could do it was talk almost anyone into almost anything.

Five minutes later he left the auction house with the winning bidder, the only bidder, Veronica Carter as she left the building with her new purchase.

"You want the vase I just bought?" Veronica asked in surprise. "Why didn't you just bid on it inside?"

"I was waiting for someone," Harrison explained. Or waiting for a miracle he thought.

"Well I was planning on marking it up and selling it on in my store anyway. If you really want it I don't see why not. It'll be the quickest turn around on an auction purchase I've ever made."

"Great," Harrison breathed a sigh of relief. "I just need to go get the money. You'll hold it for me?"

"Sure," Veronica dug into her purse and pulled out a business card. "This is my store," she explained as she handed it to him.

Harrison took the card, nodded and then hurried across town to the morgue.

It was nearly lunchtime when he walked into the Veronica's store armed with $300 of Davis's money. He had forgotten to ask what she was going to sell the vase for but thankfully Davis had thought to provide him with, what he hoped, was more than enough. He was also under orders to get a receipt. It was a sorry day when even his sister's boss didn't trust him.

"Can I help you?" the young man behind the counter asked as Harrison walked over to the counter. He looked thoroughly bored with his work and far from interested in helping customers.

"Is Veronica in?" Harrison asked as he looked about the musty store.

The young man nodded and let out at ear-piercing yell. "Aunt Ronnie, someone to see you!"

A moment later Veronica walked into the store through the door at the back of the counter. "Ah, the young man who wants to buy the vase," she greeted him with a smile. "I'll just go fetch it for you."

She returned with the vase a minute later and Harrison watched her re-wrap it and box it up. It really was the ugliest thing he had ever seen. Then after paying for his purchase he hurried out of the store and made his way to the morgue. He hoped that Davis was having success and finding translation sites for the vase's inscriptions.

"Got it!" Harrison called out as he walked into the morgue.

"Through here," Davis called from the office.

Harrison walked through the door as he struggled to pull the vase from the box. "I hope you can get this translated before someone else dies."

"Dies?" a familiar voice asked.

Harrison looked up from his struggles in horror. "Cassie, what're you doing here?" he blurted out.

"I came to see what the hell was wrong with you this morning," she replied in a curt tone. "You seem to hang out here a lot so I stopped by and when Davis said you were coming over I thought I'd wait. Now I'm wondering why I bothered."

Harrison stood mute in the doorway as Cassie stood up, grabbed her purse and started to walk past him.

"No, wait," Harrison started, putting the vase down on the desk. Distracted as he was he noticed Davis reaching for the vase and turning to his computer. He suspected he was not only eager to get started on the translation but that he was also being tactful in giving them some space.

Nodding through the door he led Cassie into the main part of the morgue and shut the door closed behind them.

"I'm sorry," he started again. "I was just surprised to see you here, that's all."

"But obviously not a nice surprise," Cassie retorted, her patience clearly running very thin. "You're obviously really busy, what with your hectic schedule of shopping. I'll just leave you to it, shall I?"

"It's not that I don't want you here," Harrison replied. Actually that is exactly what it was he silently wondered. Just not for the reason she was thinking.

"So you're happy for me to hang out here with you for a while?" Cassie asked sceptically.

"Well…" Harrison faltered. The last thing he wanted was for her to be in danger. But how to get rid of her without hurting her feelings was not going to be easy.

"That's what I thought," Cassie sighed and walked towards the door. Harrison realised he had hesitated too long.

"Dammit," he muttered. "Cassie, come back. I'll explain."

She paused at the door, her hand already raised to push it open.

"Please," he added when she didn't turn back to face him.

It was only a few seconds but seemed like much longer before Cassie finally lowered her hand and turned round again.

"Come through here," he said as he walked back into the office where Davis was gleefully examining the vase and making very positive sounding noises as he referenced the markings on the vase with similar symbols on his computer monitor.

He took a seat beside Davis. Cassie sat down at the opposite side of the room, close to the door.

She looked at him expectantly.

He looked to Davis for help but none was forthcoming. At this rate nothing would be resolved by the time Tru came back. He wondered how long it would be before she returned.

"Have you heard from Tru yet?" he asked Davis, knowing he was stalling for time but unable to stop himself.

"Not yet," Davis confirmed. "But she's not due to land for a few hours yet."

"Are you going to tell me what this is all about?" Cassie asked. Harrison looked her in the face and knew that there was no way he could manage to stall long enough for Tru to get back and help him out. Usually he found that he could talk his way out of anything but despite not knowing him for that long, Cassie knew him well enough to anticipate pretty much all of his tricks.

"It's about Tru," he began. It was as good a start as any.

"I gathered that already," Cassie said. "What about her?"

"It's complicated," Harrison looked across at Davis again and saw that his attention had been drawn away from the inscriptions and he was frowning at him. He knew he as silently trying to warn him about saying too much. He realised Davis didn't know that Tru had told him to tell Cassie about her ability. Davis's next words confirmed that.

"Harrison, don't you think maybe it's for Tru to tell people?"

"She told me to tell her," Harrison replied turning back to Cassie who was avidly watching the exchange.

"Are you sure?" Davis asked.

"No," Harrison muttered. "I'm about to lose my girlfriend because of Tru's secret so no, I'm about as not sure as you can get."

"You're so sure I'm going to dump you?" Cassie asked with a frown.

"Yes…no…I don't know," Harrison finally admitted. "I'm a gambler, I take risks, but I don't know if I want to be taking this one right now."

"I promise to hear you out," Cassie offered. "Just tell me what's going on."

"Tru relives days to save people's lives," Davis said bluntly. Harrison turned to him in surprise. "Well we'll be here all week if we have to wait for you to get round to telling her," he pointed out with a shrug.

"Relives days?" Cassie asked.

"Yeah," Harrison nodded. "People ask her for help and she gets to relive the day and help them."

"You're serious?"

"Yeah."

"So how does it work?" Cassie asked, leaning forward in her seat. Harrison breathed a sigh of relief that she wasn't walking out the door and actually seemed genuinely interested in what she had been told.

"I have a theory about the whole thing…" Davis began before Harrison cut in to stall him.

"Davis, the inscription," he reminded him. Davis nodded and carried on examining the vase.

"We don't know how it works," Harrison admitted. "Not even Tru knows. It just happens, and has been for over a year now. A dead body asks her for help and the day rewinds and she saves them." He halted at that. At least she tried to save them. With Jack hindering their efforts it meant that not every rewind day was a success.

"I died, didn't I?" Cassie whispered. "That night at the river?"

Harrison nodded.

"I'm sorry I threw you out that day," she offered with a weak smile. "I just…"

"I know," Harrison interrupted. "We just sounded so insane."

"Yeah," Cassie agreed with a wider grin. "I guess I can see why you had trouble telling me."

"I can't believe you believe us," Harrison grinned.

"I'm not entirely sure I do," Cassie admitted. "But I'm willing to at least listen this time. Deal?"

"Deal."

"So who's the victim today? It's not me again is it?" She grinned and stood up to see what Davis was doing.

"Your client Winters is one of the victims," Harrison said. He paused and frowned. Something still nagged at him about Tru's voice that morning. He was almost sure that Cassie was one of the other victims but he couldn't bring himself to tell her that, especially without knowing for sure.

Cassie nodded and pointed at something on the computer screen. "That symbol with the legs there. It's on the vase here."

Davis looked at the vase and quickly found the matching symbol. The other markings close to it also matched those on the screen.

"So what does it mean?" Harrison asked as he too leaned in to get a closer look.

"Death," Davis grimly replied.

"That's great," Harrison muttered. "Why am I not surprised that this vase, according to Tru the only connection between the victims, had death written on it?"

"I guess we better keep working on the rest," Davis said. "At least now I know what language we are looking at."

For the next few hours the three of them took turns in squinting at the similar looking symbols on the computer screen and comparing them to those on the vase. Tru called Davis to say she was back in the country and they each took a break for lunch, but other than that they didn't stop.

They were still no nearer to figuring out the entire translation when Tru finally walked through the door, still carrying her suitcase.

"How's the translation going?" she asked as she put down her case, gave Harrison a quick hug and leaned over the desk to see the notes that they had been scribbling down all afternoon.

"We're pretty sure the vase is what's killing people," Davis said. "The inscription seems to be something about death and a curse."

"Think you're up to the job of stopping a curse?" Harrison asked.

"I'm sure we'll figure it out," Tru replied with a curious glance at Cassie. She raised her eyebrow at Harrison and he nodded back in reply. "Great, no more secrets to worry about today."

"You're sure about that?" Harrison asked in a tone that sounded harsh even to himself.

"What do you mean?" Tru asked, her voice sounding a shade too casual.

"I think you know what I mean," Harrison replied as he grabbed hold of her arm and pulled her through the door and into the other room. He shut the door on Davis and Cassie and walked his sister to the far side of the room before turning to glare at her. "Did she die yesterday?" he asked in fury. He didn't need to clarify who. Tru's glance straight through the window at Cassie was enough to answer his question.

"You lied to me," he accused.

"I didn't lie," Tru argued. "I just didn't tell you."

"Same difference," Harrison shouted. "How could you do that? How could you not tell me that my girlfriend's going to die? And even worse, how can you justify telling me to do the same as we did yesterday and put her in danger again?"

He looked at Tru and waited for her reply. She trusted him to tell his girlfriend her biggest secret but didn't trust him enough to tell him all the facts. He wondered how many other times she had lied to him and kept things from him. Even worse he wondered whether he could completely trust her again.

A/N - I love to hear what people think of the direction of this story. So please read and review. Assuming anyone is still reading of course.