Hey guys! This'll be a loooong chappy! Bout 6 pages! Not sure if there's a point to it… well, actually, I kindof think there is tho. Hey, wut do y'all think of my new name?
Arg!! Not quite 10 reviews!! ::giggles:: but I'll 4giv u all… this time. Hope u guyses like this'n! Thanx especially 2:
Like You Care
P0rn04Pyr0s
Acidic-Lover
gatorchick007
Pens in potatoes
soin2jesse
phishphood
thanx also 2
Calendar
Fantasy writer13
SpicyGurl
Like You Care (again!)
desipoplover13
znadias24
Acidic-Lover (again!)
gatorchick007 (again!)
Pens in potatoes (again!)
AngrySmiles
soin2jesse (again!)
AND ALL MY REVIEWERS!!!
jess: ::grins:: well 1 point I plan 2 make it a poll on who should have the next sesh. If I get back 2 having seshes, which I plan 2 do. Eventually. But I kindof have a plan 4 a little bit, which surprised me. Keep lyaoing, its amusing.
moovalous3: ok, all u people who ARENT REVIEWING, read catie's reviews and just imit8 them.ok? do that. NOW!!! ::giggles::
Like You Care: I already kindof like paul. I didn't really when I wrote that, 2 b honest, but I do now. ::giggles:: which is y this is eventually going where its going. I'm fighting the urge 2 have sum1 named Emily come in and take away 1 of the guys. Think I should? ::giggles:: I keep giggling… I'm glad u liked that bit, and I luuurve making people laff outloud.
soin2jesse: short and sweet.. nice review… I liked it cant wait 4 more. ::giggles::
AmethystHannah: ::GRINS::
znadias24: ::GRINS MORE:: by far the most hilarious chapter ever, eh? I'll have 2 check what I did in that chappy that evry1 liked… hehe it makes more sense than most things I say…
Pens in potatoes: I think about it… but not in this chappy neway I not very good at it, tho. O and thx 4 the complymenz.
desipoplover13: thx I liked that line. OMG I LUV THAT SONG!!!! THAT'S AN AWESOME SONG!!! I'da thought u got it off a site but it has all my OCs in it. Yay! Thx! I liked that chappy. I also like this'n, but that's just me.
u all rock!!!! w00t!!
Finally, my day off. Tonight was Halloween, and they were showing old horror movies at one of the theaters. One of them was The Sixth Sense, which I had to see with Jesse (read, drag Jesse to see). But I didn't want to look like I was at a movie alone. I wished I had a mediator friend… Hey, why not? I called Claire. "Hello?" came a voice that wasn't quite as… timid as the one she had used in my office.
"Hi, Claire. It's Suze." Silence. "Dr. Simon?"
Comprehension. "Oh… Is there a problem?"
"Nope. No problem. Just wanted to know if you wanted to double?"
"Double… date?"
"Yups."
She launched into a prepared speech. "Well, you see, I'm a widow, and I'm really not interested in dating again—"
"Save it, Claire. I'm the mediator one, remember? Bring your husband. I'm bringing Jesse."
"Oh… Right… Well… I mean… I'll have to check…"
"OK. Check now, then."
"Oh… OK… One moment please." A soft thud as she put the phone down and some voices I could barely hear. "He says he thinks it might be fun… So… I guess…"
"It will be. Meet me at my place? Movie starts at 9, so be here around 8:30?"
"Sure…" I gave her the address and room number.
"She agreed!" I shouted to Jesse. He was in the kitchen making soup. Kind of funny to watch, really. Every time he cooked I pictured someone coming in and seeing a bunch of things floating. It had taken him a while to master the stove and for the most part he refused to use the microwave. I always protested when he wanted to cook, because he, of course, couldn't have any, but he didn't like the idea of eating the slop I usually cooked up. My cooking was, of course, a far cry from my stepfather's… Actually, it wasn't even near the food at my college. It generally wasn't the right color, and that was when it was canned. Jesse's was much better, and he basically insisted on cooking except when I sprung to eat out. I always felt bad eating in front of him, but we talked or he pulled out a book. He got a LOT of books read. No surprise. He read not only sometimes while I ate, but most of the time while I slept. The rest of the time he just laid there next to me. A/N: Watch me try desperately to keep the rating… He finished with the soup and sat by me. He was reading my old English Lit textbook from college. I'm serious. Just reading it for fun. I'll never understand him… He laughed at something in the book. "Wutcha readin'?" I asked him between blowing on my soup. Man, it smelled good!
"A Midsummer Night's Dream."
I had read that one. Hadn't understood a line of it, but the professor seemed to think it was hilarious. "That from your time?" I asked conversationally.
He looked at me amusedly. "It's from the late 1500's."
"Oh… sorry… never paid attention in English…" He laughed.
I finished my soup a minute after he finished his story. It had ended in a huge bout of comedy, apparently. It was only 8 o'clock, so I filled him in on the basic plot of the movie. "Kid sees dead people. Guy tries to help him. Big shocker at end. Not terribly realistic, but how would they know?"
"Sounds… interesting," he lied obviously.
"It is. Huge blockbuster. Everyone's heard of it. We'd have to get there early, but we're sitting in the back, so it's OK."
"Are we?"
"No, we're going to sit in the front row and whisper to invisible people. I'm going to explain random things that don't need explaining very loudly so everyone can hear me."
He looked vaguely confused until a bit through the sentence, where he started looking at me sheepishly. I grinned to show I was still in a good mood. I thought about how he wasn't used to being spoken to except by the random mediator. And Paul. But the random mediators were my patients, and Paul was a psychopath, so none of them counted. Claire and her husband were his chance to meet some people in a social setting, rather than a ghost who just wanted to talk to the mediator. There hadn't been very many interesting ghosts lately, anyway, just the general "give the necklace under the stairs to my granddaughter" types. We talked for a while on Shakespeare. I know. Really. I think he just wanted a laugh, frankly. Or to educate me or something. I'm not stupid though. I just get that way around Jesse sometimes. Anyway, finally, the buzzer buzzed.
"Who's there?" I asked politely. Well, not really.
"Claire," she said out loud, then whispered, "and Tim."
"'Kay." I let them in. The dog went nuts. If you must know why I didn't mention her, it's because she'd been asleep. The whole time. My getting there wasn't important enough to wake her up, but anyone else's was. I addressed the little brown thing trying to jump high enough to lick their faces (both of their faces, she didn't mind that one was a ghost, having been raised around Jesse). "This is Maxine." She was named after my (step)family's old dog, who had lived well into his teens. The cat came in from the kitchen. "And this is Spike." The same Spike. We didn't know how old he was, but I wouldn't have been surprised if he was as old as Jesse. Cat's are freaky that way. Of course, he could possibly have been, like, 12…
"Your apartment is great!" said the man I assumed was Tim. He wasn't as hot as Jesse, of course, but then, who was? He was pretty average looking, but I might have thought he was kind of cute. You know, if I had never met Jesse. "And the people are so friendly!"
This was contrary to my experience, and I said so.
"Well to Claire they were! Like there was a man on the elevator, and he asked Claire whether she lived in the building, and who she was meeting, and where she was going, he was very polite!"
I chilled. Here in New York, that wasn't friendly, that was suspicious. "What did he look like?"
Claire responded with a graphic description. Paul. Couldn't be anyone else. He had seen a ghost on an elevator. Now he knew she was coming to see me and what movie we were going to see. I swore. "What's wrong??" Claire asked, worried. Jesse knew, though, but all it took was one shake of the apartment and a whimper from Maxine before he realized what he was doing. I explained just a bit about Paul, then realized I hadn't made formal introductions. "Oh, right, excuse me. Tim, I assume?" He nodded. "I'm Suze, and this is my boyfriend Jesse." Introducing him as my boyfriend just never got old.
"Oh, Jesse, I didn't see you there!" Tim finally noticed Jesse sitting on my window seat. Just seeing if you were paying attention. I didn't have a window seat. Honestly, people. He was sitting on the sofa. Anyway… "I'm Tim, Claire's husband." He and Jesse shook hands. "Well we got here late so we should leave. I've seen the movie before but Claire hasn't."
We got onto the subway. If they'd wanted, the men could have just materialized at the theater, but that's a pretty stupid date. Plus Jesse didn't like the thought of women on the train alone. I mentioned the back row thing, but Tim protested. Something about full viewing experience for Jesse and Claire. I gave in because he seemed really adamant about it. He was kind of weird, but OK… long story short (too late!) we sat in the front row. I was next to Claire and we were both next to our dates. We were pretending to talk only to each other. We couldn't exactly PDA or anything, but we could talk. There were some annoying preteens in the row behind us kicking Jesse's seat, but what could we say? Oh, I thought of something. "Excuse me, but that noise is annoying. Can you stop kicking the chair?" They giggled like mad. Preteens are little freaks, really. I can't believe I ever was one. I bet Jesse was a sweet little kid. And smart, of course. And really helpful. I wished I'd known someone like him when I was young… well, when I was 12, Jesse'd have been… oh yeah, 21. And when Jesse was 13, I'd have been… 6. Minus about 150. Anyway, so the screen was still blank and it was pretty quiet when who should walk in but… well, three guesses who it was. If you said "Leon", you're really weird. It was Paul, of course.
He acted all surprised to see me. "Suuze!! Fancy meeting you here! Lets watch the movie together!" He moved to sit down next to me, where Jesse already happened to be. I tried to think fast, because the little freaks behind us were watching raptly…
"No, sit next to me!" shouted Claire. I was kind of shocked, she hadn't spoken much all night. She moved over one seat, into Tim's lap. I was stunned now. She had just stopped a huge scene. Paul, of course, sat next to her. What else could he do? He yawned and brought his arm on my shoulder. Beyond lame. The preteens behind me went "oOoh!" really loud. I imagined grabbing the hand and flipping it, and the body attached, over my head. That'd be fun. While I was wrapped up in my fantasies, Jesse reached picked up his hand and threw it. This confused the preteen freaks behind us. Good. I wanted to put my head on Jesse's shoulder or something, but I couldn't because he wasn't there. To anyone else, I mean. So I put his hand on the armrest and held it. Hopefully it was dark enough that no one would notice Claire sitting a few inches above the seat. Tim had his arms around her. Aaww! I looked meaningfully at Jesse, but he doesn't like PDA much in general, so he shook his head. Paul winked at me. Wonder of wonders, Jesse suddenly got all possessive and put his arm around me after all. Hey, thanks Paul!
"Hey, do those two have a history or something?" asked Tim to Jesse, possibly forgetting that all of us could hear him.
"No," denied Jesse, maybe a bit too quickly. Tim raised an eyebrow.
"Bit of one, yeah," Paul responded to no one visible. He then changed his mind. "Quite an extensive one, actually." I heard some confused preteen noises. They were starting to bug me, actually. I don't know why I say "starting"…
"So, Paul, I didn't even know you'd gotten out of jail already! How long do they give for a thing like murdering little giggly preteens?" The little freaks behind us apparently either had no idea I knew they were listening, or knew the jig was up.
"Umm… I think we can see better… from the back!" announced one of them. The rest heartily agreed, and they were finally gone. I grinned to myself. Jesse was looking at me with amused disbelief, which I relished. Claire was covering her mouth and rocking with laughter, while Tim permitted himself a loud laugh. Paul smiled wryly.
"10 years, but less with parole and good behavior." It took me a second to remember what he was talking about. "So, what's been up with you lately, hot stuff?"
"Not much. And yourself?" responded Tim. Hah! I laughed out loud. Even Jesse cracked a smile, despite his evident bad mood. "Shh, the movie's starting!" We were all silent for about 2 minutes, when we realized the movie still hadn't shown signs of starting and we realized Tim was shaking with laughter. Claire smacked him playfully. Wow. She really had a personality… weird.
The movie finally started, with some slight ripples on the movie screen when Paul leaned over to hit on me and Jesse got mad. Paul seemed to find this amusing, but I told Jesse not to rise to the bait. I allowed myself to subtly rest my head on his shoulder, and he was OK after that. Especially after I slapped Paul while coughing loudly to drown out the sound. Funness. I avoided his nose for two reasons. The better one was that as long as I left it intact, I had something to hold over his head. The one I didn't really want to admit was that he had… well… a perfect face otherwise. You know, he wasn't Jesse or anything, but… well… he was Paul. Sometimes I wasn't even sure which was better… Jesse! What was I thinking? Jesse! Jesse was better hands down! Whew. Movie finally started. Soon into the movie, Claire suddenly went "Hey, I have to go freshen up, join me, Suze?" That was a bit odd, but I agreed. When Claire grabbed her husband and dragged him along, I realized what she was doing and grabbed Jesse. We all walked out the left door of the theater. When Claire started for the right door, Tim made us run all the way there to not miss the movie. Paul was staring intently at the left door. We tiptoed about 5 rows back. Actually, Tim and I dragged our respective dates five rows back while they stared at the movie (at Tim's insistence, of course). Long story short, Paul walked out, we moved back up to the front, and enjoyed the movie. Well, Tim thought it was the best thing any of us could ever have seen (Claire explained confidentially that he had always been something of a movie buff. I was shocked. Oh, wait, no I wasn't). I thought it was stupid, just like I always had, though I may have been a bit biased against it. Claire thought it was scary. Seriously. She seemed to think that the idea of seeing, omigosh, dead people was terrifying. When I reminded her that she did, in fact, see dead people, she responded as though this were obvious "Yes, but they don't look like that!" Jesse, with respect to Tim, acted like it hadn't been the worst thing he'd ever seen, but really probably saw it as all the more reason to avoid television. Everyone had quite a bit of fun, though, even after Paul's appearance. The other couple were way more lovey-dovey than us. I'd have been sick if I weren't to busy trying to get Jesse to act the same way. He didn't.
Back at the apartment after the movie, they were making out in the kitchen. Jesse was modestly directing his eyes at Spike. And Maxine, who always got jealous when someone paid attention to the cat. I finally got tired of this after a good… 2 seconds and sprayed cold water at them from the sink. That was pretty funny. They had to leave soon though. "Did you have fun, Jesse?"
He smiled and said "Yups" in a pretty good imitation of my voice on the phone. Then it rang. The phone, I mean.
"Hello?"
"Help, please." Said a familiar voice…
OMG CLIFFY!!! I'm sorry, guys, I had no idea it wuz gonna b a cliffi… it just came out that way. Ne1 wanna hazard a guess as 2 who it iz? Comeon, guys, guess! ::grins:: in my opinion, it answers a question about sum1. I don't kno how this is gonna get where I'm planning it 2 get, tho… wow, em, cryptic much? Hehehe when I say "it'll answer a question" I mean 1 in my story, not in da book, just sos ya don't get ur hopes up. )( I'm REALLY not posting this'n till I get 10 reviews, tho. I'm really not. This time I mean it. I'm not even getting it proofread by people who DIDN'T REVIEW!!!! I already have 1 review from Katie that's not shown here cuz it wuz by e-mail, so that brings the count to… 1!!!! Come on tho, guess who it iz! Here's a hint: it's not suze, and it's NOT jesse!!! Oooh!! Big hint!!! Bet u couldn't tell just from the fact that they're both in the room already!!! W0000t!!! ::sighs::... after i reread darkest hour, i sent my bf jesse 2 c suze, cuz they're cute 2gether... that wuz a couple days ago, and he's not back yet... i think she's holding him captive or something. ( i kno! i'll call paul!!! ::giggle giggle::