A/N: Sorry for the long wait. I promised my friend I'd update, so that explains this. I'm not sure if I'm going to continue this story or not. It seemed like a good idea a month ago, but now… I'm not so sure. Anybody think I should continue it? I have plot ideas… Anyway, read and review, please!

Disclaimer: I don't own the Mediator series, or else Paul would be under a headstone in the Carmel cemetery the second we met him.

This Is Now, For Now

Chapter Two

I was this close.

This close to jumping on top of him and demanding where he had been for the past few months, why he hadn't responded to my letters, and why he had come now. This close to pounding him to a pulp, using all my guts and skills to make him regret ever showing up here again. This close to breaking down and crying, bawling my eyes out in relief and sorrow.

For one wild moment, I imagined he came for my graduation. Maybe he had missed his flight. Maybe he had to drive a beat up pick-up truck cross-country just to get here. And he'd just shown up, apologizing for being hours late, and then pull me into his arms and kiss me senseless, out of the dreamlike state that this last year had taken.

I wanted to believe it, but found I couldn't.

At the same time, my heart shattered and cracked like a rock dropped on a thin sheet of ice. All those months, all those times he hung up on me, all those times he didn't reply to my letters. My eyes started to sting around the edges. Now, more than ever, I felt like clinging to him hopelessly and then pushing him away, just to give him a little taste of what hell my life had been like for the past year.

My mother stood awkwardly between us. I probably looked like a silly child stuck between whether to be overjoyed at a Christmas present or appalled that it was something I hadn't wanted. Either way, she said, "Jesse, how nice to see you! Please, come sit down."

See, my mom knew nothing about how Jesse and I had grown apart. I simply lied to her about how we called each other every night, wrote e-mails, all the usual forms of communication. She was easy to fool, but my stepbrother was harder to shake. David knew me better than anyone in this house, and once he found out the truth with some guessing, it was hard to keep his mouth shut when Brad was looking for some good blackmail on me.

Go figure. Brad actually had a plan of action these days.

"No, thank you," Jesse said politely. My heart fluttered at the sound of that soothing, velvety voice I hadn't heard in a couple of months. Being mad at him didn't stop me from loving him. "I'll just be here for a little bit, not long at all."

Not long at all. The words echoed in my head over and over again. My little fantasies blew away with wind as cold and whipping as his voice.

"Are you sure?" Mom asked, skeptical. "You look a little jet-lagged." It was true. There were the beginnings of bags under those dark, liquid eyes. It had to be around eleven o'clock back in New York.

"I'm perfectly fine. I just need to talk to Susannah." Once again, my foolish heart did leaps and dances at hearing my name on his tongue.

Mom just patted my shoulder lightly, saying, "Well, if you need anything, I'll be in the living room," as she exited the foyer. Leaving me alone with Jesse for the first time in a year.

I finally got a good look at him. He was wearing a beige coat with dark pants and a midnight blue sweater. Leave it to Jesse to break my heart and look stylish while doing it.

"Susannah," he curtly nodded, taking a step further into the foyer than I silently dared him to.

I couldn't talk. My throat was glued shut. I could barely breath. And I certainly couldn't stop my heart from beating furiously.

"I'm here for a reason, you know," he continued. Because college guys just flew across the country to drop in on their high school sweethearts everyday for no purpose at all. Right. I've get it.

"I kind of figured that out for myself, thanks," I managed to reply weakly, my voice distant and sarcastic.

His dark eyes flashed over at the first sound of my voice, light passing through the inky irises. This emotion – I thought I had memorized all of his reactions – was unknown to me.

"Can we talk without being overheard?" Jesse asked, shrugging off his jacket and draping it over his arm.

"I guess," I simply said. I turned on my heel, wrapping my bathrobe around my body tighter and trying to tame the mess of my hair by finger-combing it. Why hadn't I tried to look a little better when I came down? What had been going through my head?

Not knowing where to go, I started up to my room. I didn't need to turn around to know he was climbing up behind me. It still amazed me that he was finally human. I was so used to him sneaking up in front or behind me when he was a ghost. But now, I heard his footsteps and felt his breath on my neck.

Okay, yeah, I know I probably shouldn't have gone to my room. It was probably one of the stupidest mistakes I could have possibly made. But it seemed like an easy solution at the time.

Once I opened up my door and stepped inside, I gestured for Jesse to walk right in. He strolled inside my room nonchalantly, gazing around. With my back turned to him, I shut the door, locked it with a light click, and whipped around, only to see his back turned to me.

Spike darted out from my closet – his resident hiding spot these days – and into Jesse's eager arms. He scooped him up, holding that dumb cat to his chest like it was a form of life support. Spike purred, happy to see his favorite person in the world again. I couldn't say he wasn't the only one in the room who felt that way.

I walked over to my bed and sank down on it, smoothing my bathrobe over my legs to keep it from riding up. I glanced in the mirror across the room; my chestnut locks were wet, limp, and tangled, and my face was blotchy from the scalding water of the bath. I rubbed my hands over my cheeks, hoping to erase the effect.

"So." I started, not leaving room to finish, and kicked my legs up onto the bed. It was quite ironic that only an hour ago I was crying on this bed, wishing he were here. Now, an hour later, he was here, but I was wishing him away.

He nodded his head, still cradling Spike, and looked around a little. "Your room looks different."

It was true. I had finally got rid of the canopy on my bed, and painted my walls a soothing purple. The cushions on the window seat were shades of yellow, blue, orange, and green. Overall, it was very colorful – the only compromise I could come to with my mom and Andy. They sure loved to ruin my life.

I shrugged. I wouldn't dignify that simple question with an obvious answer.

He smiled a little, the edges of his mouth quirking into a grin. I sighed. "So, are you going to tell me why you're here? I don't believe you flew across the country just to visit me."

Amazingly, he glanced down at the carpet, his eyes filled with shame. Get that? In shame. "I didn't," he said in a small voice. He was never like this in all the years I'd known him. What was going on?

"Yes? Then why are you here?"

"To tell you something."

"I'm listening."

My voice sounded cold and cut the tension in the air like icy blades. His, on the other hand, was soft and warm enough to wrap around you and make you feel comfortable in any time, any place, any situation.

But not this one.

Jesse sat down on my new window seat with Spike, gazing out into the dark twilight sky. He seemed very uncomfortable, even though he had sat there dozens of times before – ghost and human. I guess that's what time did to you. Once again, he surprised me, stumbling a little as he said, "It… sort of… has to do with the supernatural world."

"Of course," I muttered under my breath.

He ignored me. "There are some major disturbances in the spectral plane that you should be aware of."

I snorted. "I think I could have found that out perfectly on my own, Jesse, thank you very much." Hearing his name on my tongue for the first time in around six months sent shivers down my spine.

His eyes blazed with a definite and determined purpose. "But these affect you and I."

I'll admit it; my shriveled heart fluttered like a little kid blowing air into a punctured balloon. Then I realized how stupid I was being and glanced at anywhere but him, not letting my emotions show.

"Some ghosts are enlisting help, ever since the word of shifters has gotten out, thanks to Paul Slater." I could detect hate and jealously in the way he said Paul's name. "One of them is asking me and… I can't deal with it alone," he continued. "It's too… personal, for me."

"Perfect. Just tell me what it is, and I'll handle it by myself. You can go fly those thousand miles back to New York, finish med school, and have fun with your life."

His eyes showed traces of pure frustration, and it was leaking into his voice too. That stupid cat kept on purring, reacting to Jesse's gentle touch. "Susannah. I came here because I think we should work together with Father Dominic."

I rolled my eyes, throwing my hands up in the air, but staring up at the ceiling. Anywhere but those dark pools that were his eyes. "I think I'll be the judge of that. Now, tell me what this 'disturbance' is, and I can handle it on my own." I made sure to put a lot of emphasis on those final words.

He avoided my eyes, looking for distractions – the unraveling threads on one of my pillows, the lopsided lamp next to my head, the half-cracked mirror due to another encounter with a ghost. Hey, just because my heart was broken didn't mean my job as a mediator – shifter – was over too.

Somehow, Jesse seemed different. Avoiding my gaze was something he never did. He usually never showed any emotion on his face or in his voice, either. And, most of all, he hadn't called me querida. There was something distant about him, something that wasn't right…

"Jesse," I warned, using a voice that I hoped sounded persuasive enough to force the answer out of him. "Just tell me. I'm not some teenager anymore. I'm an adult, eighteen years old. There are things I can handle now." But more things that I can't handle, like me and you, I added in my mind.

He shifted around, looking for a small distraction. "How was your graduation?" he asked abruptly, throwing off the next jab I had coming towards him. It contained something about where he could go if he didn't tell me any-damn-thing about this occurrence.

But this caught me off guard.

"What?" I asked incredulously, sitting up and looking around my room wildly. My graduation gown was hung up in my closed closet; the diploma was downstairs, out of sight and mind.

"You graduated from the Academy today," he said, a finality in his voice that gave me a clue that he had found out, somehow, someway. A way that couldn't have involved me. He didn't read my letters… right?

"Yeah," I agreed – there was no point in denying it – and laid my head back down on my pillows. "So, back to the – "

"It's supposed to be a happy day, right? Why aren't you happy?" he asked curiously, but, after knowing him for so long, I could tell there was some pretty big emotion under the casually uttered words. I shifted on the bed – I was in a bathrobe, for God's sake! – and stared at my feet at the end of my bed.

"Why wouldn't I be?" I responded, but even I could tell there was major sorrow laced in with my answer. He knew it, too. I quickly saved myself, asking, "So, are you going to tell me who this personal poltergeist is or not?"

It was his turn to be uncomfortable once more. He continued to stroke Spike, not glancing at anything else but the smooth, rhythmic movements on the cat's orange fur. "I really shouldn't."

I sighed impatiently. "Is this about me being irresponsible again? Because, I swear I'm not anymore. Just tell me, and I'll be good, I'll even ask Father Dom for help, but either you're going to tell me, or you can get the hell out of – "

"It's for your safety." He cut me off, still refusing to meet my gaze.

"We've been over that before too. Screw my safety, who needs it anymore – "

"Susannah." His dark gaze finally met mine. There was a hard, commanding urgency in it. "This is not just some rampant ghost wanting revenge or their life back. This has to do directly with us, our emotions."

I could only think of one word: "What?"

"You'll find out soon enough." His eyes were hidden and secretive.

"Wait, why? Jesse, what are you possibly talking – "

A slight shimmer sparkled in the corner of my room, by the bathroom. It started off as a faint glimmer, but soon it took the shape of a female ghost no older than me. The green aura it gave off set my room in an eerie glow. It was dusk now, which made the girl stand out even more. She sported a dress, with a long, ruffled skirt and laced bonnet.

A flare of anger rose in me – she had just dropped in without so much as a warning. Her dark brown curls tumbled down her shoulders, while her dark eyes raked over me. A small, playful smile tugged at the corners of her full, pink lips, while mine were equally matched in a deep scowl.

"Susannah," Jesse said, placing a spitting and hissing Spike on the window seat and walking around to stand by this ghost. Only then was I aware of the striking resemblance; the way their faces were tanned and soft around the edges, their dark eyes that you could get lost in, and their wavy, thick hair.

"Meet my little sister, Josefina de Silva."