Disclaimer: I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho, The Sixth Sense, or anything else copyright protected that I may have made vague references to

Welcome to… Earth?

So there I was, Jena Tashi, sitting with my ass in the grass nursing what could have possibly been the worst migraine of all time, yakking and jabbering on about what, I don't remember, with this not-an-angel kneeling next to me, possibly listening to my every confused and incoherent word.

If I had been him, I would be one step away from calling the nice guys in white coats to come take me away to my own nice padded room where I could get my own nice jacket and the help I'm sure I needed. I don't even know what I told him, probably everything. From my job at the post office, where Sam was too stubborn that day to part with half of his turkey and swiss sub sandwich; to the fact that I didn't really like swiss anyway, but I was hungry enough to try; to how I hated our school lunches, and would love forever anyone who fed me theirs from home; to how I hated be a moocher, but it was –really- my only skill (short of stamp licking; which I'm pretty sure I told him, too); to how Li-Jun's grandfather Mr. Yee shared his wonderful family recipe, and how I didn't know whether I'd crashed into that damn tree or not, but I knew I really hated fortune cookies.

I also knew I was talking too much, but I didn't have any control over it.

I had no idea what I was saying, other than it was too much. More information than I could have possibly remembered about my life than I should have been relating to this total stranger, whether he was an angel or not being beside the point.

It was more information than I shared with anyone. Ever. And I do mean ever. As far as any one person is concerned, anyway. I guess if everyone who had ever known me throughout my whole life had gotten together and spent a whole day dedicated to nothing but me and who I was, they might have collectively known everything I was telling this guy.

Which is way more than I probably care to recollect myself.

Why was I talking to this guy, anyway? I was delusional, sure; I had a pounding in my head like someone had just hit me with a hammer (not that I know what that feels like, but I know people who do, and I wouldn't recommend it), yes; I was confused and in pain, and I might have been dead, and for all I knew this guy really was an angel even though he didn't "think so"; but I was more careful than that. Always.

I never talked much to anyone, angels or no angels, and especially not strangers. And I never ever, ever in a million life times devoted whole tangents and rants solely to myself. Maybe I could go on about how I felt about someone I really didn't like, and what I would like do to that person if we ever found ourselves alone in a dark alley together, with no witnesses and no one who would miss them if they dropped off the face of the planet anyway, but that was rare. It only happened under moments of extreme (extremely extreme) duress.

I hated people that did that, who could talk about nothing but themselves, and I think I may have damn well told him that too. I also hated hypocrites, which I knew even as I kept on flapping my big mouth that I was now one of them. A walking contradiction, (isn't there a song about that?) assuming I could still walk.

At about the same time I realized what I was doing, how I was talking too much about things I NEVER should have been telling anyone, I started to do another thing I never do, not since I was nine years old, and NOT in front of anyone (again, angel or not.)

I started to cry.

Not sobbing and wailing, but there were definitely tears rolling down my cheeks, ones that wouldn't stop even after I had managed to shut myself up and no matter how tight I shut my eyes.

It was mortifying.

I didn't cry in front of strangers! Gawd, I didn't cry in front of my family, my friends, OR angels. I just didn't cry, period.

Why the guy hadn't said anything, called the people in white coats, or at least told me to stop talking, or start laughing at me, I couldn't say. He just sat there, listening or not, I had stopped caring before I started. He didn't say anything and I had my eyes shut too tightly to see his face.

I regretted it, all of it.

If you had been just a nice guy walking around this… (where the hell was I anyway?) "place", enjoying the sun and the nice spring weather, and all of a sudden you saw this girl, lying in the grass. And somehow, you suspected that something wasn't quite right. So you walk over, okay, being a nice guy and all, and ask if this girl might be okay. Your suspicions of something being wrong are than confirmed when the crazy starts talking about heaven and death, and accuses you of being an angel. Concerned she may be a hazard to her own safety and societies, you ask if she can remember what happened. Already assuming (knowing, more likely) that she is insane, you just smile when she says you won't believe her.

Then the girl goes off about Swiss cheese sandwiches, crashing yet not crashing into trees, and hating fortune cookies, then to top it all off, this stranger, whom you're not even sure is from the same planet the rest of you are, what does she do? She starts to CRY!

Needless to say, you'd be feeling slightly uncomfortable, no? And maybe you'd stay, regardless of your feelings, to make sure that she didn't hurt herself –or more importantly, anyone else- being the nice guy. Why don't these people run? Don't they have any concern for their own safety? Or maybe they think we're too crazy, even to hurt anyone. I don't know anything anymore, assuming I ever did…

And this is me rambling again. When I had recovered enough to slap myself for what I'd just done, I wished like mad that I could remember what I had said.

But, of course, I couldn't. I just knew it was a lot, too much.

"You must think I'm crazy," I laughed hoarsely as I wiped away the offending tears to look at him. God knows I do. "Sorry, about spilling my guts like that. I mean, I don't do that often –ever, actually. If you want to just forget everything, that would be great."

Non-Angel stood up and looked off into the distance. "So you do not know how you ended up here?"

I was on the verge of talking too much again, spilling even more of my personal life, and so I decided to accept the welcome change of subject and limit my answers to simple yes's and no's.

"No," See? Simple.

Silence ensued.

He appeared to be thinking. About what, I'm even going to pretend to know or guess. With him standing again, though, I couldn't seem to remain sitting. I scrambled to get to my feet, and managed somehow, with no damage done. Other than my pride, but that happened back in my ramble. He offered a hand to help me up, but I didn't see that until I was already standing.

I looked around; on my left was the red headed dude who stood a good six inches over me. I've always been a bit sensitive about my height, but I'm a proud 5'1". Most of the people at my school were about my height, and short of my family (pardon the pun) I didn't know many tall people. I'd wanted to be taller as a small child, with my uncle being 6'4", and my aunt about this guy's height; my little sister, who's four years younger than I, was two inches taller, and I knew my baby cousin Ella was going to be a giant as well, but I've learned to deal with it.

So I wasn't intimidated by his vertical advantage, but I did make the observation.

Anyway, I was looking around. I noticed there was a long stretch of flat land all covered with lush, green grass and a few benches far to the right of where we were standing, with a couple of blooming cherry blossom trees near the… sidewalk.

So we were in a park…

How the hell did I end up in a park?

"How…" I was about to vocalize this question, when I turned my gaze in the direction the redheaded guy was looking. My eyes grew wide, and, gratefully, my mouth wasn't hanging open because I had snapped it closed.

There were before us lines upon lines upon lines of grave stones. Yes, grave stones. I had NOT landed in a park, after all.

I had landed in a freakin' cemetery.

"Oh, joy…" I said, my voice gone soft and dripping with sarcasm.

Now, you see, this did nothing to dispute my theory that I might be dead, and this guy could be an angel. Or another newly dead soul, which would explain why he hadn't run away yet. But I didn't scream, I didn't panic, I didn't do anything. Nope, I just stood there, letting the realization wash over me that I had somehow gone from Fall, November 24th, in the wooded area near my home, to where I landed in Spring, who-knew-what-day, in a burial ground for the dearly departed I could very well be among.

I felt just dandy…

I felt like I was going to be sick...

That last one may be the reason why I fainted.

Ever since I was nine years old, the sight of a cemetery has made me sick. I'm not afraid of them or anything like that, they just make me physically sick to my stomach. I could look at one in a picture, and be perfectly fine; I could watch a horror movie with a cemetery as the setting, and not even flinch. But put me within five feet of an actual graveyard and watch me empty the contents of my stomach onto the well kept grass.

It's not because I'm psychic, I don't "feel the presence" of spirits or see dead people like that kid in that one movie about "senses". It's a psychological thing my therapist (if I had a therapist) would probably call "post traumatic stress" or some other psychiatric mumbo-jumbo. What happened was this:

When I was nine years old, my mother died. And I'm not trying to be insensitive by not saying "passed away" or "is no longer with us" (which is actually how Evelyn put it when she told us- me and my sister, that is), it's the truth. I wouldn't intentionally damage anyone's fragile psyche, but it is what it is. Anyway, I was nine years old. My sister was five, and we went to the funeral in matching dark blue velvet dresses our grandmother bought us. (I've been to too many funerals in my life, and never once have I worn black. White, when I was a baby for my great grandmother; Dark blue, for my mom; Forest green, for my great grandfather, Pale gray and light blue for my grandmother's many relatives, and blue, pink, and bright yellow for my childhood friend Maria, who wanted a celebration and confetti instead of tears.)

I remember sitting in the third row, the one reserved for "members of the family" with Kim on my left and my grandma's brother –in- law on my right –he and my great aunt got a divorce a year later, and all I remember about him was thinking he reminded me of Kim's dad. I was irked at the young guy giving the eulogy, because he didn't sound like he knew her at all. He was nice enough, and said nice things, but it was so cold and impersonal. I didn't like it.

The casket was closed, and had white and light blue flowers on it; roses and I don't remember what else. Between bursts of tears throughout the day, somewhere along the line I asked my grandmother why it was closed, why I couldn't see her. She said I wouldn't have recognized her. That worried me, but I managed to stay silent. I couldn't have imagined her anyway other than what she had been: my mommy. My grandmother said it would be better that way.

After the guy was done talking, my uncle, great-uncle Ron, one of my grandma's cousins who had a granddaughter my age that I played with, and five other people I didn't know carried my mothers polished wood tomb out to the black hearse waiting out side. I heard one of the guys say he didn't remember Lei being that heavy, a smile on his lips and a tear rolling down his cheek. That was when I first began to feel sick.

I held my grandmother's and Kim's hand as we walked through the grave stones, flat pieces of polished rock, some with shiny metal, engraved with names, dates, and in some cases, flowers, birds, and animals. My mother was buried next to my great-grandmother and someone else from our family. My great grandpa was still alive at that time, but was in the hospital after having a stroke. I heard people saying how sorry they were, whispering behind our backs, expressing remorse and pity for my grandma, Kim, Uncle, and me. My stomach started doing back flips.

When we got to her final resting place, she was already in the ground, her stone with her name and dates and little birds and baby fawn in place over her casket. I looked at the dates and used my fourth grade math to do some quick figuring.

29, she was 29.

I think my stomach was going for a gold medal in gymnastics.

The young guy was talking again, and I stopped listening. I heard something behind me, and I let go of Kim's and Grandma's hands to turn around. There was an old lady walking between a row of stones, wearing rags and limping with a cane. She was wearing a raggedy brown coat and had a lump in her back; her stringy hair covered her face. She hobbled along with her jerky motions, she was carrying a bundle of something in her hands, I moved away from my family in the first row, through to my uncle who was standing behind us and he put his hand on my head. I watched the lady hobble over to a stone in the ground, no bigger and no noticeably different from any of the others. She took out her package, unwrapped a slab of stone in the shape of a bird, and she set it down next to the grave and looked up. She stared at me, with glazed over gray eyes, and smiled, showing her missing front tooth and the rotting others.

I couldn't help it, I puked right there.

I'd never had nightmares, I'd never lost any sleep over it (I've always been an insomniac, I don't know why), and I'd most certainly never fainted.

Boy, if I hadn't felt like an ass before, when I had been talking too much, I sure would have then. Not only had I spilled my guts (figuratively, this time), talked too much, cried, now I'd gone and fainted.

If I'd been that guy, I would have left. Most people I know would have, I would have expected nothing else. I didn't know the first thing about him, even though he (had he been paying attention) would know enough to blackmail me for the rest of my life. I could sum up my situation in one highly articulate, well-expressed word:

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

Yeah, you get the point.

So I fully expected to wake up back where I had fainted, on the grass in the cemetery, or possibly, in the woods with my bike wrapped around a tree and me on the rocks I really didn't want to land on, but somehow had only managed to hit my head hard enough to knock me out, "and it had all been a dream". I hated it when books ended that way as a kid, but under recent circumstances, I might not have minded ending this that way.

Too bad it doesn't.

I woke up, again, this time without any pain in my head. I had been dreaming about the cemetery and my mom's funeral and I refused to open my eyes upon regaining consciousness.

There something soft under me, but it wasn't the grass. It felt cushy, like an overstuffed couch. My first thought was that I'd been dumped in some psychiatrist's office, and I listened for the sound of breathing or tapping of a pencil against a clipboard.

I imagined a balding man whose receding hairline had only left him the hair just around (and in) his ears. I could imagine him looking down at his clipboard through small framed glasses, one foot resting on the floor and the other crossed over his knee, with his clipboard in his lap.

The vision bore a remarkable resemblance to my world history teacher.

My eyes flew open at that thought and I shot up with a start. I had to stifle a scream and settled for a gasp. I realized quickly that I wasn't in any psychiatrist office I'd ever heard about or seen on TV, and Mr. Johnsen was nowhere to be found.

Neither was anyone else, for that matter. What I'd woken up to now looked like the waiting room to the doctor's office, but a lot more comfortable and slightly more inviting. Or maybe a guest room that hadn't been used in a while, and was slowly being turned into a place for storage. There was a couch, which I was laying on, and four neutral-colored walls (I don't know how to describe them better than that, they weren't very memorable.) with a single light bulb fixed into the ceiling. I swung my feet to the floor and noticed the only other thing in the room besides the couch, me, and the dust bunnies. A door in the wall opposite to the couch was the only other thing worth noting. Mostly because it seemed like the only way out.

I continued to sit there, staring at the door. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to get up or not. I was suspecting a trick of fate, and so I glared at the door. Was it a dream? Was this whole thing one annoying, extremely unpleasant dream?

I wasn't willing to take any chances. So I sat there, staring at the door, daring it to disappear.

They've done that in my dreams before, disappeared. I'd be in this empty room (much smaller than this one usually) and there would only be one way out. I'd see it and instantly, every time, run toward it. As soon as I'd get there - wouldn't you know it?- my only escape would vanish. I'd stand there pounding on the wall with my fists, but I couldn't scream. Somehow, I knew my voice wouldn't work and it would be wasted effort to try. Ah! But banging on the wall, that was different. Someone could surely hear that.

I don't know what my strange dreams mean, Li-Jun's the one into subconscious interpretation.

When I was about to give up, and try the door despite the disappearing effect these things tend to have, the handle clicked, like someone had turned it from the other side. I watched it, suddenly seized with the urge to hide behind something. But that didn't make any sense.

Especially since there wasn't anything to hide behind. I was about to lie down again and pretend to be asleep still, but the door opened and in walked…

"A cat," I said in tone of mixed disbelief and this-shouldn't-surprise-me-now.

"Mer-ow," was the reply. The orange and white striped feline sauntered about four feet into the room, and then sat back, swaying its tail and observing me as though debating whether to get closer or not.

I sighed. It's not the strangest thing that could have happened. I'd learned that in the… however long it's been since my bike accident. I slowly moved off the couch to sit cross legged (yes, cross legged, "cris-cross apple-sauce") on the floor. I stretched my hand out to the kitty and purred at it like Li-Jun did to her cats.

"Here, kitty-kitty," I cooed gently. "It's okay. As long as you don't claw my eyes out, we'll get along just fine."

I never understood why people told cats they wouldn't hurt them. Most cats I knew could put you in the hospital if they felt threatened. Guard dog, nothin', my German Sheppard ran if Grandma let our cat in the house.

The cat eyed me for a moment, with the whole you-are-beneath-me attitude that all other fat and happy house cats I knew possessed. This one apparently deemed me worthy though, as it came up and sniffed at my outstretched hand with its cold nose. I didn't move, waiting for it to tell me I had been accepted.

Eventually, the fur ball purred and nudged my hand. Universal cat-talk for "you may pet me now".

I stroked the little thing behind its (I didn't know if "it" was a he or she) ear, and the cat purred louder, sat down and closed his/her eyes.

A chuckle from the door way caused me to look up, but the cat went on purring.

"I guess you've met the pest," A kid stood there, not far from being my age, leaning in the door with a small smirk on his face. He had slicked back, black hair and light brown eyes. He was looking at the cat, and I couldn't be sure if he'd meant the cat or me as "the pest".

Before I could reply or stand up, a second guy came to stand behind the first in the door, looking slightly pissed off he said, "Stuff it, Urameshi. You're just jealous 'cause people like my cat better 'en you."

"You know what Kuwabara-,"the one I could only assume was Urameshi started to reply, but never got to tell the other- Kuwabara- what. He was cut off by a third, more feminine voice.

"Oh, you two," A girl appeared and pushed through them. "Cut it out. You're giving our guest a bad impression with your arguing." She smiled at me, "Hello, dear. Are you feeling better?"

I stopped petting the cat and stood up. The bubbly, smiling girl had long blue hair pulled into a ponytail kind of like mine, only longer, less messy with longer bangs, and… blue. The one called Kuwabara was taller than the other two and had a mop of orange hair on his…head…

That couldn't have been his face. No way. I was proven wrong, though, when –before I had a chance to answer the blue haired girl- Urameshi had pinched his cheek and started to pull.

"Yeah, dimwit," He said with a cocky grin. "You're setting a bad impression, especially with a mug like this."

So it wasn't a mask? I was glad no one could read my mind at that moment. I'd been through enough that… we'll just call it a day.

"Why I otta'…" Kwau-Kuwa-…oh, hell- Ugly immediately retaliated by pinching both of Ur… uh…meshi? Yeah, that was it. Anyway, he took hold of both sides of Urameshi's cheeks and stretched them out to the side. Urameshi then grabbed the other side of Kuwa…bara? Yeah, Kuwabara's face, when the blue haired girl swhacked them both.

"Knock it off!" She commanded, and both boys grumbled and muttered under their breath, but did stop.

"He started it…" Kuwabara whined, but a looked from the girl made Urameshi keep his mouth shut.

And it looked like she'd finished it. I liked her immediately.

She turned back to me and flashed another smile. "Sorry about that, boys will be boys!"

"Then did you have to hit us!" Urameshi griped.

"Yes," and she thwacked him over the head again, her smile gone and replaced with a snarl in an instant.

I didn't know how to respond or even if to respond. So I just stood there, and blinked like an idiot.

"Oh, now look what you've done, Yusuke!" The girl exclaimed upon looking at me again. She ran over and before I knew what was happening, she had me in a suffocating hug. "You've scared the poor darling! It's alright, hon, he may be rude and a bit brash, but he's not so bad."

I choked for breath.

"Botan!" Yusuke, Urameshi, whatever his name was, shouted. I was seeing spots… "You're strangling her!"

"Oops!" She let me go; I almost fell to the floor. She smiled apologetically. "Sorry."

"'s alright," I said, regaining the use of my lungs. "It isn't the first time."

And it wasn't. I had a "cousin" on my grandpa's side that would do the same thing when ever she saw me, which was about one a year when they came up from Mississippi.

She was raised with all older brothers (seven of them. nice guys, but not people I would want to mess with. The youngest is her full brother, three are their mother's –my grandpa's daughter, and sort of my aunt- from a previous marriage, and the other four are my "uncle Ralph's", as he insists I call him.) and I was the only girl family member she had her age. I never quite got good enough at seeing her coming, and as a result, never got the chance to employ my "duck and cover" drills I'd been practicing the week before.

Somehow, she always got me.

"Way to go, Botan," Yusuke laughed. "She's not even here an hour and you're already trying to kill her."

Well, that answered part of the time question, anyway.

"Um…" I'm very articulate, yes, I know. But I really didn't know how else to start. The whole situation was confusing, and my words and my brain failed me. "Where exactly… am I?"

"Welcome to Earth," Yusuke joked, but I didn't take it that way. "Enjoy your stay."

Well, at least I was on the same planet. Hardy, har har.

"Oh! You don't know, do you?" Blue haired- Botan- asked rhetorically. She smiled again. "Well, this is Kuwabara's house. And- Oh, drat. We haven't been properly introduced! Well, my name's Botan. That one with the big mouth and black hair is Yusuke-"

"Hey," he said with a smirk and a nod of the head. He didn't seem to notice, or care, that Botan had just said he had a big mouth.

"And the other one is Kuwabara."

"Nice to meet you, pretty lady," He smiled a big, cheesy grin.

"Hello," I said. I was too confused and lost to have done much else.

"And what's your name, dear?" Botan asked patiently. "Kurama didn't say when he brought you here."

Kurama? Was that the red haired kid?

"Oh, uh…" Dear god, what was my name? I was thinking too many other things, like where was this Kurama person? How much had he told them? Anything? Did these people know how I got here? Why was I here? What were they going to do with me? How was I going to explain this to my grandma when I got home? If I got home? Did they even know I was gone yet? And what the hell was my NAME!

Maybe now is as good time as any to explain that I don't exactly live with my parents, though I'm sure you already picked up on that. But while I try to remember my name, I'll go ahead and clarify. Like my sister, I live with family, just not of the mom and pop kind. As I've stated, my mother died when I was young, and my father… kind of doesn't exist. Biologically, I suppose I'd have to have one, but we've never met. Considering my mother's occupation before she died, it really wouldn't be surprising if the guy she told my grandmother it was, wasn't really him.

Yes, my mother was a prostitute. No, none of my friends know and never will. That's not me, it's not who I am or ever will be. I don't want people to judge me by things like that, I only want to be seen as me, not my mother. And I don't want to be pitied. That's the worst. Which is probably why I don't talk about myself a lot, or the way in which my mother died. Let me just say… It wasn't pretty.

Anyway, I live with my grandma and grandpa, grandma on my mom's side and grandpa by marriage. My grandma had my uncle first from her first marriage, my mom with the second, and married my grandpa years before I was born. (My family could've made my dear friend Ann's divorce attorney dad a very rich man.) It's never mattered that we weren't blood relations, my biological grandfather is dead, and has been to my grandma for a long time. And though my Grandpa may be a drunk, a three pack a day smoker, and may have (unintentionally, of course) tried to kill me or put my life in danger once or twice (never when sober), I know for a fact there are worse things. And certainly worse things than teaching your granddaughter (again, by marriage and affection only) to tie her shoe laces and ride a bike.

"Jena," he'd say when he'd introduce me to his friends, "My granddaughter." He never once acknowledged that we weren't related, not in my whole life.

Ah, there's the name.

"Jena," I said. "Jena Tashi."

"Great!" Botan said. "Now that that's settled…"

"Sorry, excuse me, Botan?" I interrupted, as politely as I could.

"Yes, dear?" She waited.

"Where… I mean, I don't know what you were told, but..." I was debating on how much to tell them, trying to guess how much they already had been told.

"Oh, you've got amnesia, right?" Botan guessed. I raised a startled eyebrow. "Well, I don't know all the details, but Kurama said you didn't know how you ended up in the cemetery, he said you couldn't remember?"

So he hadn't told them the tree story… I think I blushed. What would they think of that? Truth or not, amnesia definitely sounded better. I didn't want to tell them, but I couldn't flat out lie either. Sure, I didn't know what had happened between the time I closed my eyes to the point I opened them again in the cemetery, but I had a strong feeling it wasn't because of amnesia.

"Amnesia? No," I shook my head, and almost laughed. "I don't think so. Of all my recent problems, amnesia definitely isn't one of them."

"Hmm…" Botan said thoughtfully. "Well, your situation is new to me. I've never heard of any cases of people suddenly appearing in cemeteries. Unless you were abducted by aliens, but how realistic is that?"

"I don't know," I said. "Not very, but neither is anything else I can think of to explain it."

"Well, why don't we have a nice cup of tea and you can tell us exactly what you remember, okay?" She said cheerfully, steering me toward the door.

"I don't think you'll believe me," I said doubtfully, dragging my feet along the carpet.

Yusuke laughed, "I think you'd be surprised what we'd believe."

I didn't know exactly what to make of that, but I allowed myself to be pushed through the door. What have I gotten myself into?