Hi, and welcome to the second chapter! Thank you everyone who send me a review about the rather featureless beginning! (Tane: Cold Case? never watched it...) I should probably warn you that after the depressing events now there's fluff ahead...dunno if that's an improvement, you'll have to see...O_o have fun!

.

.

.

II

.

Good Thing

.

Kitty fled from her grandma's house and took the next bus to the main land. She needed to be with people, and she wasn't going to be picky. She left the bus when it stopped at the port and hoped to find some kind of market place, pub or café where she could just sit among others, where the silence wouldn't drive her crazy.

As she soon discovered, this was no town for joviality. No market place, no café, and she didn't like the looks that some of the men in the only pub laid on her.

Kitty left the centre of the village and stirred towards a little forest, where she vaguely remembered to be some huts.

And then...voices, joyful voices, and laughter and music.

A party.

.

I'd really've liked to see Kitty again, I realized when I wandered aimlessly through the night. But I had to stay somewhere near the house, so a trip to London was out of the question.

The night was cold and silent, except for the distant sound of the breakers. Muffled noises reached my ears, eventually the sound of cheerful conversation. I was in some kind of allotment, and as I rounded a corner I could see colourful lanterns in one of the little gardens.

A party.

.

Kitty stayed behind the garden fence and watched the blue and yellow lanterns bathing the young people in peaceful light. A young man noticed her and came over. "Entry's over there", he said and grinned. She smiled back and accepted the drink he offered.

Just what she had needed. Company. Someone who talked to her. A drink or two or more of them.

And then her gaze fell on the spot at the fence where she herself had stood an hour ago. She jumped out of her seat, spilling her beer over the guys' shoes. "Sorry" she whispered. "I...", and was gone, running towards--

.

Of all places.

Of all places. Really, what are the odds?

There she was, talking to some guy who seemed to have second thoughts. I willed her to look at me, and when she did, there were no doubts on her side because she jumped up and came running. She stopped just in time before she'd crashed into the fence and touched my face.

"It's really me", I grinned. "Though I have no idea why you--" the sentence remained unfinished. She hugged me fiercely and lifted me up ((I was Ptolemy at that time, and he's much shorter than Kitty was then.)) I stretched and wriggled a bit until my form had taken her height and my feet could touch the ground again.

"Careful." I smiled when she finally let go. "Or else you'll spike yourself on that fence."

She grinned back and slapped my now broader shoulder. "Then come over already."

.

Some time later we sat in a bower and soon gave up trying to understand the wonder of coincidences. She drank and I listened as she told me what had happened in the last four years.

That after her trips to Egypt she had wanted to visit her parents and discovered that they had died in a car accident two months before.

That she had been offered a job in the new government but she had refused.

That she still worked in The Frog and had had some boyfriend or other.

That she had never really believed me dead, but also never had the courage to find out for sure.

And that one day she had received that letter from her grandma who asked her to come and help her because the grandfather had died. And her grannie was dying, too.

"She lives on that island, Calm Blue, you see. It's beautiful but-"

"Lonely I guess", I said.

"Yes." She sighed and leaned her head on my shoulder. I put my arm around her and felt content for the first time since I was on earth.

It was good to be with her. A good thing.

.

Kitty snuggled closer to the djinn. She had drank too much, she realized, before she fell asleep in Bartimaeus' lap; vaguely hoping that this wouldn't make him uncomfortable. And it felt good, his arms around her, his hand in her hair.

.

Around three o'clock in the morning the police arrived to crash the party. Kitty was still sleeping, so I carefully carried her into some nearby garden hut which was easy to be broken into.

I wrapped her in a blanket, lay down beside her and watched her in her sleep. Her pale face seemed almost white against the now again dark hair. So pale...I realized that soon her whole family would be dead. This was unfair. But I didn't want to think about her loneliness, as it made me remember my own.

Kitty's eyelids fluttered and opened slightly.

"What time is it?" she whispered.

"Round half past three" I said quietly. "Sleep some more."

She smiled and obediently closed her eyes again. Her hand crept across my chest and she buried her face in my neck. I tried not to move. "She's drunk" I told myself. "Drunk."

When I was sure she was asleep again I put my hand behind her head and pulled her closer. Drunk she might have been but she smelled good.

Peaceful.

There was a humming in the air.

She caressed my side in her sleep.

She's drunk.

...A good thing.

.

.

.

I did warn you, didn't I? reviews make me happy! love you guys!