Louis very quickly realized he might be on his own when it came to the issue of the firehouse apparently being haunted. Janine had found him lying in the spot he'd fallen after tumbling over the couch, and seemed to find it amusing more than anything. She'd told him that he was "Such a cut-up," though he wasn't sure exactly what she meant by it.

Some of the guys were upstairs gathered around the pool table and doing some late-night experiment with a toaster. As hard as he tried, they seemed too busy to listen to him explain what was going on. Though to be fair, he was still pretty frazzled, and his stammering about how "there's a thing" probably wasn't very helpful.

"Whatever it is, would you try to calm down?" Dr. Spengler finally interrupted him. "We're attempting to get a positive reaction out of a psychomagnotheric substance."

"…Huh?"

"You're upsetting the slime." Dr. Stantz translated.

"Sorry, it's just-"

"Actually, we haven't tested how it responds to fear yet." Dr. Spengler noted with a thoughtful expression. "It could be interesting to see if that reaction differs from anger. Would you mind if I measure your adrenaline levels?"

"Oh, uh… Sure, I guess…" He mumbled distractedly. "But I really think one of you guys need to come take a look. There's this really huge thing downstairs, and I think it could be a big problem. I don't know what you guys usually do about this sort of thing, but-" He'd barely even noticed his sleeve being rolled up until something jabbed him, and he immediately let out a startled, "Ow!"

Dr. Spengler almost seemed confused, as if it hadn't occurred to him that people might want a little more than a moment's notice before someone came at them to collect their plasma. "Sorry, would you rather give a urine sample?"

"No, t-that's alright. I just…"

"Here, hold this."

Louis promptly had a Tupperware of the pink slime thrust into his hands. He stared at it curiously for a moment, but his eyes quickly widened to roughly the size of saucers when he realized it almost seemed to be reaching towards him.

"Interesting. Not unlike what Ray experienced down in the Pneumatic Transit system. It seems it may react to fear with aggression."

Louis was doing his best to lean as far away as possible. "Yeah, I think it might."

"Of course, that's just a hypothesis. It would take a few more tests to confirm anything."

He normally would have been quite willing to sit there and do whatever tests they wanted, but the slime was still moving uncomfortably close, even as he held it at arm's length. "Can I put it down now, please?"

"Hold on a moment." Dr. Spengler responded with a distracted wave of his hand. He seemed to be busy searching the room for a particular book somewhere in the scattered papers. "I wonder if it could originate from some sort of predatory creature. It would certainly fit with its behavior patterns. Plenty of animals react to hostility by attempting to seem large and intimidating but go in for the kill when they sense helplessness."

"The… the kill?"

The slime made a sudden lunge towards Louis's face, and he dropped the Tupperware with a terrified yelp as he dove for the nearest place to hide.

"I'd like to test the idea a few more times. Would you mind coming back later so we could repeat the experiment?"

"Okay." A small voice responded from under the pool table.

Dr. Spengler looked over, and seemed a little confused when he couldn't locate the source of the voice. "Louis?" He ducked lower, and then noticed the new test subject clinging to the leg of the table. "Oh, there you are."

"It's alright, you can come out." Dr. Stantz assured him. "It doesn't seem like this stuff moves very fast."

Louis crept out again very cautiously, and was quick to make sure he backed a safe distance away from the slime. Though it didn't have eyes, he couldn't help worrying that it was staring at him.

Much to his relief, Dr. Spengler soon began ushering him towards the door. "I think we've got all the data we need from you for now. Might as well leave the rest to the scientists."

He was definitely eager to head back downstairs, at least until he remembered the reason why he'd come up in the first place. "But… but the… the thing…"

"Well whatever it is, I'm sure you can handle it."

It never seemed to occur to Louis that they might assume he was only worried about some financial situation. It also didn't occur to him that the statement was more of a way to get back to the experiments they were absorbed in than a vote of confidence.

"Well, I, uh… I guess maybe I can handle it. I mean, I don't really know how, but I'm happy to give it a try if that's what you want. Should I just use one of those little box things, or-"

They didn't appear to be paying him much attention, and he quickly found the door shut in his face.

"Okay, well, don't worry. I'll figure it out."

The next day, Louis was more excited to come to work than ever. He still couldn't believe that the guys actually trusted him to handle a ghost. It was almost like he was a real part of the team. Maybe not quite, but almost. And he could always hope that it would go well, and then they'd see him as one of them. Whatever he was trying to do, he always liked to think that there was hope. Of course, he was usually wrong, but that was beside the point.

Though as eager as he was, he wasn't quite ready to jump straight into the thick of things yet. From what he'd seen so far, it seemed to him that this job took nerves of steel. And as amazing as he thought the whole thing was, he had to admit that the idea of actually being the one to face one of those creatures head-on still made him nervous. He wanted so badly to be one of the heroes who could handle those things, but he worried he'd only freeze up when the time came. He figured that maybe what he needed was an example to follow. And lucky for him, he worked in the same building as the most confident person he'd ever met. Surely he could manage to pick up a thing or two. And even luckier, that day brought about a great chance for him to watch and take a few notes.

A lot of business was done over the phone by people who were too busy to come in person. But every once in awhile, people would come impatiently bursting into the office, usually trying to demand immediate attention. They had one of those people that day. The man was wealthy, that much was easy to tell. Not only because of the expensive suit, but because he'd already found many ways to insert it into the conversation since he came in. He was not particularly happy that it hadn't been enough to get his demands immediately attended to.

"I told you, I've got an urgent problem here. What do you mean you couldn't get anyone out before next week?"

Janine was clearly unfazed by the man's anger, and only briefly glanced up from her typing. "Next week means next week. You know, seven days? It's Friday now, that means you've got to wait until Friday comes around again. Need me to get you a calendar and explain it?"

"No." The man said with a frustrated sigh. "You know that's not what I meant. I'm not an idiot."

Janine's eyes went back to her typing as she gave a disinterested shrug. "Look, even if you hadn't shown up at the last minute demanding we get rid of a ghost so you can host some corporate party tonight, we've got a waiting list a mile long. You'll be lucky if we can even fit you in that soon."

The man then went for a different approach, one that Janine always seemed to have very little patience for. "Look, I don't think you know who I am…"

She looked up at him again, slowly slid her glasses down the bridge of her nose, and glared at him over the top of them. "Enlighten me."

"I happen to represent a distinguished law firm in this city. Handling paranormal activity is your company's job, I could sue you for negligence after the damages we've sustained."

He loomed over her, leaning in so close that his tie dragged over her desk. Janine pointedly moved a few things out of the way, and then looked past him to the spot where her co-worker was standing across the room.

"Louis, you wanna explain why he can't do that?"

"Oh, uh… sure." Before answering, he scrambled to grasp at a few papers in a hurried attempt to make it look as if he'd been doing something besides watching them. "Suing for negligence requires proof of a breach of duty. We're a privately owned company, which means we don't have any duty towards anyone until we've formed an agreement with them. It would be impossible to hold my clients accountable for damages on the claim of negligence before we have any contract to breach."

He hopefully glanced at Janine with an expression that seemed to ask, 'Did I do okay?'

She nodded once, and then turned her attention back to the man at her desk. "I suspect you'd know that if you spent so much as a day in law school. Now, how about we move things along so you can get back to working in daddy's office? Or whatever it is you actually do."

The man sputtered indignantly for a moment, and then the steely look in Janine's eyes seemed to deflate him. "Friday, then?"

"At the earliest." Moving at a speed that suggested she didn't actually have any desire to help him keep to his oh-so-precious schedule, Janine gathered together a few papers and slid them over to him. "Sign pages one and three, initial page four."

The man did as she said, even if his mouth was pressed into an irritated frown. With a decisive movement, Janine pulled the necessary papers together, grabbed the stapler, and slammed it down firmly. The man stood back up to his full height, and the papers came with him. He looked down to find them stapled to his tie.

"My mistake." Janine stated. The tone of her voice was precisely the opposite of apologetic.

It wasn't long before the man was walking out again in an indignant huff. Janine looked over to Louis, the atmosphere of the room shifting back to friendly again. The phones spent a lot of the day ringing off the hook, but he loved the times when he and Janine got a chance to talk.

"I hate when people go around acting like they're better than everyone else just because they've got a suit on." Janine muttered somewhat irritably. "Though I guess it's better than the people who think it isn't obvious when they're only being nice to you to get something. Don't you hate when that happens?"

"Yeah, I guess so." Louis replied. To be honest, he wasn't sure if he could remember a time when that happened to him. He supposed all of the people at his last job never wanted to do anything outside of work, and only ever said that they might have time if he'd agree to help them with something. But they were busy, so it seemed only fair. He sometimes heard a bunch of people there making plans without him, but maybe they just forgot to tell him that something opened up. And then the Ghostbusters had been nice enough to let him have a job here. Sure, he wasn't exactly being paid a lot. Now that he thought about it, he wasn't sure when he'd last been paid at all. But the guys said they would get around to it, so he was sure they just kept forgetting. And as Dr. Venkman pointed out, he did owe them after they freed him from the terror dog, so the fact that they forgot to give him a paycheck sometimes wasn't a big deal. Even if he was starting to get a little worried about paying his bills…

He was pulled out of his thoughts again when Janine continued, "Of course, the worst is when guys see a skirt and think they'll get everything they want just by flashing a smile and dropping some cheesy pickup line. Sometimes I have to tell them I'm seeing someone just so they'll leave me alone." She paused to send him a meaningful smile, though what exactly that meaning was flew well above his head. "It would sure be nice if I could say it and have it be true, though."

He wasn't sure exactly how he was supposed to respond to the look she was giving him, and decided to go for reassuring. "Hey, don't worry. You're a great person. I'm sure it wouldn't be hard for you to find someone who's great, too."

Still smiling, she leaned forward to rest her head against her fist. "Bet I don't have to look far."

Louis turned around and sent a confused glance at the wall behind him, struggling to figure out what she suddenly found so fascinating. Finding nothing, he turned back again, and decided to put it out of his mind. He really liked spending time with her, and it was best not to waste it worrying. He still wasn't very used to the idea of having coworkers who seemed to go out of their way to pay attention to him. And she was certainly giving him her full attention now.

"Have you got a girl, Louis?"

"Nah, nothing like that." He said with a nonchalant shrug. "One girl at my last job asked if I'd want to go get coffee, but it turned out she was just sending me to pick up orders for the rest of the office."

"Well, it's a shame you're not seeing anyone." She responded. Though she didn't exactly look like she thought it was a shame. "Sweet, good looking guy like you, and a lawyer, too? Not to mention a great accountant. Any girl would be lucky to be with you."

He still didn't understand the look she was giving him, but he felt a strange, sort of happy fluttering in his chest. That might be the nicest thing anyone had ever said to him. "Really? You think so?"

"Sure I do. You know, a lot of women say that there's nothing more attractive than a man with intelligence." She paused to take a sip of coffee from the mug on her desk, never once breaking eye contact. "I know I think so."

He felt a lot better about the idea of hunting down a ghost now. When he was talking to Janine, it seemed almost like she saw something in him, even if he didn't know what it was. But if she believed in him, he was sure it had to mean there was hope for him yet.