They fall into a routine. Well, she does, and she believes that it is a mutual, unspoken agreement. Every afternoon, as she sits watch from a green wooden bench whose paint is nearly all peeled away and whose metal stand is corrugated with rust, the woman runs past. And every afternoon, this woman, her brown curls pulled back, leaving her face open and exposed, will shift her gaze from wherever it is in her mind that is drawing those green eyes inward, and she will focus in on Helena. And she will smile when she is close enough for Helena to make out the green of her eyes and Helena will smile in return, shakily. And when the runner is near enough for her to see that there are gold flecks that flicker like spots of sunshine through leafy branches in the woman's eyes, she will say, "Hi." And every afternoon, Helena will almost forget to say it back, but it will come out, rushed, awkward, breathless just as the runner is passing her. "Hi."

This is their routine. Their tradition. And she finds, as the days slip by, that she measures the passage of time by the number of greetings they have shared. And she marks the days off with a red marker in the back of her mind every night now. And that once more, she is aware of the days of the week and the minutes of the hour in a way that she has not been for many, many months. She wonders if the woman knows that their encounters are the only time she stretches her vocal chords throughout the day. She wonders if the runner would care. She thinks, perhaps, she might. But she isn't sure if she wants her to.

They are familiar: these greetings. Tinged with a hint of laughter, as though the runner finds these short exchanges a bit amusing, as one might fondly greet an overenthusiastic child. They are familiar, as one might be with an old friend whose existence one has nearly forgotten about until you run into them in the grocery store between the milk and the bread, pushing the metal cart distractedly in front of you until suddenly, there they are, stumbling into your space. And you're both laughing, and questions fly between the short distance, catching up on a decade's worth of stories in the five short minutes they have to spare before they simply must run in order to pick up their kid from soccer practice and get dinner started. Familiar almost in the manner of lovers reunited after some time away, as one wraps their arms around the other in the middle of the busy airport terminal, a relieved, "Hi," released softly into the other's hair. But this tone of familiarity causes her to blush when she recognizes it and so she pushes it away.

They are familiar with one another, and amused, but underlying it all is the melancholy with which Helena delivers her greeting. The dip at the end of the sentence. Because it is a sentence. The dip at the end which causes the other woman to throw a softer smile over her shoulder after she's passed by, a smile that is both encouraging and curious. A smile that says, 'Tell me please, why you sound so sad. Tell me please because I think I'd understand.' And without knowing quite how, she is aware that the set of this woman's shoulders, the power with which she carries herself, is tempered by a moment much like the one Helena keeps under lock and key. And she feels an overwhelming desire to agree, 'Yes, alright.' Because where this woman's heart should be, is an empty space that Helena believes might mirror her own cracked façade. They are a pair. She knows this. A strange pair. Strangers. A pair of strangers. But, a pair nonetheless.

It is Friday. Charles is arriving this evening. Thankfully he's offered to catch a cab from the airport, and so she has not had to miss her afternoon in the park. She is terribly afraid of his coming, of the disruption he will bring into her carefully scheduled life. A schedule built around monotonous routine in order to better avoid anything other than the constant ache that is called absence burning slowly through her skin, her organs, her bones. Anything that might cause this slow roasting to speed up.

Change breeds chaos, and she is barely hanging on as it is. Chaos would serve to push her right over the edge of the cliff where she has been forced to construct her new life. And she is not sure that she would survive the fall. Never one to be afraid of much, she finds that heights are now her greatest fear, and that when she dreams of falling, she wakes up only after she realizes she will never feel solid land beneath her feet again. Charles' coming is an annoyance not easily brushed off or avoided. And she is unsure where one might purchase a parachute.

Today is Friday, and as the woman approaches, Helena feels the desire to reach out and trap a slim wrist between her own cold fingers as it passes by growing within her. She is afraid that the warm skin would simply slide through her grasp, seeing as she has grown transparent, no longer corporeal in her seat. But, she is also afraid that the touch would bring the other woman up short, connecting them, tying them together. Entrapping this woman by her side has become both her greatest desire and her greatest fear. The cloak that is her grief desires the taste of this woman's flesh above all others, but it is the one thing Helena refuses to give it. She has been at war. At war with her invisible captor for the past several weeks. Her strength is waning. She folds her hands primly in her lap, squeezing until her knuckles are white in order to avoid making contact.

Even if her desire were not fed by an emotion she has personified to sit as a second consciousness beside her own, she knows that it would still exist. Although at first two letters were a mouthful, she has found that, like with any drug, time has caused her immunity to rise. Two letters is no longer enough. She craves more. Two words perhaps. Three. A name would be the largest hit of all, enough to catapult her to a near euphoric state. The high it might induce. It sends a shiver down her spine, and she is fascinated by the goose bumps that appear on her arms at the thought. Maybe she should have been a drug addict. She ponders this possible lifestyle for twenty heartbeats before tossing it away.

And today, there is the chance, fleeting, yet it exists, that, because of forces outside of her control, namely Charles, she may not assume this same position in the park, a state of nervous anticipation, the following day. There is the chance that he will disrupt her schedule enough to remove her from the routine they have worked out. The hold she has over the reins of her life being easily disrupted. Her grip is weak. Therefore, she wants to reach out, to make contact, because she wants to explain why she might be absent, and she wants to ask, even if she has no right to do so, that their routine might continue, on the other side of the interruption of several, "Hi's."

She spends too long racked by indecision, and before she has had time to make up her mind, to flex her muscles, the woman is upon her. Smile. Nod. "Hey." Gone. Hey. She has changed it up again. More familiar today. Hey.

"Hey, Momma," a little voice pipes up from the backseat. They are on their way to the airport to pick up Uncle Charles.

"Hay is for horses," she can't resist teasing.

Christina pouts. "Dear, Momma," she responds, sarcasm already firmly in place.

Helena rolls her eyes. "Dearest daughter?"

"Is Unc older'n you?"

"He is."

"So, he's like your big brother."

"Mhmm."

"You're his baby sister?" She is not sure where the child is leading this conversation.

"Mhmm..."

"Momma?"

She sighs. "Christina."

"May I please have a baby sister?" It is asked with the sincere, sugary sweetness only a five year old can conjure.

She is at a loss for words for a moment, an event that rarely, if ever, occurs. "Well, where would you like me to find one for you?" She sputters finally, aware that this is not the correct thing to say.

"Sephy said that her momma had a baby. She said a big, white bird brought it allllll the way to their house from the North Pole. Santa sent it!"

She ponders the mixing of these two myths for a moment. Sephy's parents sound a bit unhinged. "Well, I'm not sure we'll be inviting any storks into our home for the time being." She does not tell her daughter that there will most likely never be any younger siblings, that she cannot fathom the thought of loving a child as much as she loves the one in the backseat. That even though everyone says you find it within you to share the love among your offspring equally, from seem deeper place, pulled out of you like a bucket up from a well the first time you hold the new baby in your arms, she does not believe them. Because the amount of love filling her for the brown eyed girl whose tiny hand fits so perfectly in her own, spills out the cracks in her soul on an hourly basis, and she has no extra space to store any more.

Christina looks disappointed and slightly put out by her mother's brush off, however.

"But, I'll tell you what," because this is something she has been planning for quite awhile, and now seems as good a time as any to bring it up, if only to bring out her daughter's cheeky smile once more. "While Uncle Charles is here, I thought we might go look at some puppies."

"Puppies?" Christina perks up at the mention of cute, cuddly things, less fragile than a newborn would be.

"And maybe," she catches her daughter's eye in the rearview mirror, "consider bringing one home. Without the help of a bird," she clarifies. There is a woman she has been in contact with for the past several weeks, and a litter of labradors is almost ready. Roly-poly round things, tiny and sweet who love unconditionally.

The squeal emanating from the back seat is enough to burst some eardrums. "Yes, yes, YES! And we can name him Henry! Or Henrietta. And she can sleep on my bed. And we'll take walks. And oh, mummy, yes, please! Let's get a puppy!" The excited chatter accompanies them the rest of the way to the airport, and Helena cannot stop smiling at the excitement she has brought to the five year old's face. Her love breaks its bounds once more, racing across her face and warming her to the tips of her fingers and the ends of her toes.

Helena is left to whisper to a retreating figure, "Hello."

The taxi door slams, echoing in the quite neighborhood, her brother's booming laugh floats up to where she waits in the doorway. He called to let her know he'd landed. And so she has been waiting for this moment, anxiously, forced to push away intruding thoughts of a woman moving swiftly, gracefully through the park with burning green eyes and flecks of gold.

She has not seen him since -

It has been...awhile. He's arrived late, a delayed flight, and the sun has already turned golden as opposed to yellow and has begun to sink, tinging everything with a slight sepia hue. She wraps her arms around her waist. She should not feel afraid. This is her brother. She has known him since she was ten minutes old.

"Helena, darling!" He declares, bounding up the front steps, as she makes her way out onto cold wood to greet him. "You look lovely!" But this is simply something one says to one's sister when you haven't seen her for ages. He doesn't really look at her, not yet anyway, before sweeping her into a bone crushing hug.

She tries not to flinch at the contact, she tries not to hold herself stiffly in his arms. She has not been touched in months, let alone hugged, her entire body wrapped in the embrace of foreign, living and breathing, matter. He doesn't seem to notice the tension in her muscles however, or the way she does not bring her head to rest upon his shoulder. Instead he gives one last squeeze, before stepping back and holding her at arms length.

And she can pinpoint the exact moment when he understands, the exact moment when his expression goes from one of delight, to one of worry, through a pitstop at pity, to understanding, and then wiped clean into one of attempted nonchalance. She may not be able to create such emotions using her own facial features any longer, but she can certainly still recognize them in others. Like a mask he has not had time to fully prepare, Charles schools his features into one of tempered worry. She does not even have to consider the mask she assumes, plucked casually from the shelf: disinterested removal. She is a master, and he is merely an apprentice.

"Come inside," she leads him through the doorway, and the moment he steps foot in the hallway, she feels the house shift. The foundation, so used to her own flitting footsteps that it has stopped recording her movements, is surprised at the new pulse entering its domain. It is rousing itself, shaking off its slumber, rolling in its bed to greet the new arrival. Dislodging the dust that has gathered in its windowpanes and beneath its floorboards. She empathizes. She, too, has had to disrupt her hibernation for this intruder.

He carries his bag in one hand, black eyes roaming the hallway as they walk. She realizes that she has forgotten to turn on the light when he stumbles on a mote of dust. She curses her own idiocy. She must be more careful.

When they reach the kitchen, she is quick to flip the switch, bathing the room in the stark, unnatural lighting. and while he takes in the room she has presented to him, she stares at the floor. It is bare. There are no dishes in the sink, no artwork on the fridge, no flowers in the vase on the table, no notes posted to the microwave. He must sense the emptiness of a house housing a ghost, because he shifts awkwardly. Quickly, she jumps into motion, her bones screeching at the sudden disturbance. They are used to slow movements, deliberate. This hyperactivity is jarring.

"How was the flight?" she asks.

"Good," he begins, but her attention has already been caught by the glow of the setting sun off the stainless steel of the toaster oven. She lets his words wash over her, clearing out the remaining cobwebs in her brain, filling her ears with sound waves louder than the sea during a hurricane.

"Are you hungry?" Because that is the next question she has prepared, filed away in her brain on note cards. "Proper Conversation Questions in Order."

"I could eat," he admits. "Have you got any tea?"

"No," too blunt. Easy, she reprimands herself. "I have coffee?"

"Oh, no thanks. Beer?"

She shrugs, striding over to open the door to the refrigerator. She scans the shelves with increasing hopelessness. Empty. She forgot. She forgot to go shopping. "Maybe we should call in for something?" She attempts to sound bright and cheerful, but he is already standing behind her, peering over her shoulder, and she knows that he's seen the clean shelves before she can shut the door, cutting off the light.

"What are you in the mood for? Indian? Chinese? I've got some menus here someplace," and she slides open one of the drawers, rifling through its contents fruitfully. The menus have all been thrown out long ago, along with any other scraps of paper in the kitchen.

"And two orders of fried rice please," she says into the telephone, the pen in her hand clicking on the hard top of the counter. She glances up at Christina and gives her a wink. The three year old has a pen held awkwardly in her own hand, and she is drawing squiggles on the paper menu, her tongue poking out of her mouth slightly in concentration.

Helena finds that she is filling in the space of the 'e' in 'Jamie's Thai!' She stops. Christina gets this habit of doodling from her. They both do it, leaving behind their illiterate markings on papers and envelopes and lists all over the house. Whenever she is on the phone, she is doodling, and her daughter emulates her immediately.

"That'll do it," she agrees with the person on the other end of the line. "7:15? Great, thanks. Oh, and how much will I owe you? - Mhmm. Excellent." She ends the call, and wanders over to examine the drawing the baby has made. "Forty minutes until supper, darling."

"I'm hungry," Christina responds. "See what I draw?" She holds up the yellow menu for her mother's inspection.

"It's lovely. See mine?" And they both examine one another's doodle art. Christina has scribbled over the entire entree section. Next time she orders Indian, she'll have to ask for a new menu. She smiles ruefully. "You are your mother's daughter, are you not?" She smirks.

Christina stands up on her chair and presses a kiss to her mother's cheek, before blowing a loud and wet raspberry. Helena laughs, pulling away, to wipe the slobber off her face. "And a bit of a troublemaker," and she lifts her daughter off the chair to swing her gaily through the air, the setting sun sending colors of red and soft orange through the kitchen window to glint off of Christina's curls, highlighting the golden streaks her mother swears are present. They fly, swooping and soaring, until dinner arrives, and dusk has outstripped the sun, turning red to purple and orange to deep blue.

"Whatever's closest," he saves her, cutting off her frantic search.

She sighs. She still has the number to the local market memorized. They deliver sandwiches and pizza. And so she orders them food, carefully asking the teenager on the other end for each item that Charles declares he wants, making certain not to stumble over the now unfamiliar words. And while they wait for the food, her brother goes upstairs to get settled in and wash up, and she is left alone to make a cup of coffee for herself and attempt to slow the racing blood pounding through her veins.

It is after dinner. After Charles has regaled her with tales from his job in the publishing industry. After she has managed to keep him talking with only minimal difficulty for several hours. After he has yawned twice in ten minutes because of jet lag and she has yawned in response once. After dishes have been cleared and she is nursing a third cup of coffee, the black liquid steaming into the clear air, wrapping itself about their heads in a halo of heat, that he begins to study her. His eyes are heavy with fatigue.

"Should we turn in?" She suggests, more so to get his piercing black gaze, so much like her own, off of her. But she is unsuccessful; he doesn't even bother to respond, merely tapping his pointer finger on the table top in thought.

"Have you been seeing anyone?" He asks, breaking the peace.

She opens her mouth and closes it again. He has always had such a way of getting straight to the heart of the matter. The heart of the matter; she nearly laughs at the irony. No, would be the honest answer. No, she has not been 'seeing' anyone, her brother's polite way of asking if she's been seeing a shrink so as not to go mad. She revels in the madness. He must not realize how therapeutic it can be to act a little mad now and again.

She should say no, but unbidden, the thought of the woman from the park pops into her head. Her knowing smile. Their ritual. The fact that someday, someday Helena will learn her name. "Yes," she responds simply, leaving him to interpret that as he will. And, because of her runner in the park, it is true.

He nods, and for a moment she can picture him in a great study, seated behind a mahogany desk with a tumbler of brandy in one hand, pipe in the other. She shakes the image away. "That's good," he says. She wants to scoff, because how could he possibly know what was good or bad. Good or bad? Good or evil? He has been thousands of miles away. He has not seen, has not lived, has not died. But, she does not scoff, instead she merely shrugs, an undignified gesture she has grown rather fond of.

He clears his throat. "You know if you ever want to, mmm, talk. I'm here." He opens his arms as though to present an available front.

She does not tell him that talking is more challenging than walking in a straight line. She does not tell him that words have lost all meaning and that where once sentences bubbled out of her as a brook from an underground stream, now she must dig for each release of sound, each phrase. She does not tell him that his belief in the power of time to heal all wounds is false, that talking does not soothe the invisible ache within her. She does not tell him that in his uncertain kindness, he is merely acting as painful reminder. That by coming here, he has disrupted a finely tuned instrument of disengagement she has been perfecting for six months.

She does not know how to tell him that ghosts are real, but people are not. That being haunted is nothing like having Casper the Friendly Ghost floating over you. That the ghost of a child is the most menacing of all. She does not wish to break the shining glow through which he still views the world. She does not desire to describe to him the way invisible matter feels as it makes its home in your bones, a cat settling into the cushions of your insides, purring so loudly it causes your entire body to vibrate in response. She does not tell him that ghosts are like strays who multiply at night, their yowling keeping you up until you think you might go mad. She does not tell him that at that point, you already are mad, and there's nothing you can do about it. She does not warn him to stay in his bed at night, and to leave the wandering of the halls for her, unless he wishes to suffer a most painful death only to be revived once more with the dawning. She does not tell him that rebirth is a horrendous process and its much better to simply stay dead. She does not tell him about the ghosts because she does not think he will understand that they glow golden in the night and not silver as the stories would have you believe.

Instead, she says, "Thank you, brother," and reaches across the table to touch his hand briefly with her own. "But you must be exhausted. Let's get to bed shall we, and perhaps we can talk more in the morning." He takes the bait, hook, line, and sinker, and leaves her willingly at the base of the stairs with a goodnight peck on the cheek.

And as she slides into her bed that night, she wishes for a night free of ghosts, if only because there is company in the house. It is rude to haunt guests. And perhaps the walls hear her, because that night the only being who haunts her dreams is a tall brunette with a knowing smile and hands of softest silk. A woman whose touch turns her skin to gold until she is a statue under an unspoken spell. A woman whose name she does not know, but who causes her blood to transform into molten metal in her veins. When she awakens in the morning, her limbs are heavy with the half-remembered feel of metal softened by the sun. Metal that is strong enough to cause wars among men, yet soft enough to capture the finger prints of a woman. A woman who she would recognize simply by the way her voice fashions a single word. "Hi." Spinning gold out of nothingness.

AN: Thank y'all so much for the follows and reviews. I'm so glad someone else is enjoying this story! Love.