Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Please do keep in contact with me, I welcome all feedback and comments!

"Get the fuck out, and stay the fuck out!" Sarah threw the nearest heavy object – in this case, a phone book – at the kit of pigeons that had wandered into the vestibule of the rental office, seeking respite from the unseasonably cold Missouri weather. "Little two-legged shit machines," she grumbled. She lowered the volume on the television mounted in the corner but did nothing about the radio on her desk before answering the phone. "Time Centre Apartments, Sarah speaking." She kicked her feet up on her desk, knocking an entire stack of rental applications to the floor. "Oops. Hey, hang on a minute."

Meg smiled. Between the television in the background and the radio in the foreground, plus the familiar hush of paperwork hitting the floor and the muttered curses following the woman dropping the phone on the desk, she felt immediately at ease. 'Randy might say it's a little too relaxed...but she sounds normal. I need normal.' Meg waited patiently, and before long the woman materialized on the line a second time. "Sarah speaking, did I say that already?"

"Yeah, but it's fine. Sounds like it's one of those days." Meg chuckled and commiserated; she knew all too well what it was like to have her attention pulled in too many directions and figured she'd caught the office in a busy moment. "If it's a bad time, I can call back."

"No, it's all good. Just too much on my desk. What can I do for you?"

"I was hoping you had a two bed, one bath unit available? Don't care what side of the complex, don't care about parking, don't care what floor, and I won't be there to see it before I rent it – if you have it."

"Shit," Sarah started, "I mean, uh, 'scuse me, shoot! Shoot. That's the easiest thing I've had to deal with all day." She punched Meg's few requirements into the office's central terminal and waited while the ancient machine fired a short list back to her. "Look at that. Tons of them. You sure you don't have any preferences other than beds, baths, and 'now open'?"

"Now that I think about it, you have anything at the back of the complex? Like, kinda away from people? Oh...and maybe furnished?" 'Assuming Randy doesn't kill me, he might not want to be stared at if he slums it and visits. And he might like a bed to sleep on.'

Sarah couldn't suppress an appreciative laugh. "Okay, wait. This isn't a prank?"

"Serious call, I really need the place. Why?"

"Because most people like parking spaces and a view of the pool, that's all. Y'know, civilization?" She kept chuckling while she waited for the computer to narrow the list based on complex location. "Okay. Here we go. I'm down to four units."

"Well...of those four, since I'm not coming in to see them...which do you recommend?"

"Oh Lord. Shit, uh, I mean, shoot, I don't know. The ones over by me are the most recently renovated, how about that?" Sarah paused, now perplexed. "Wait. Where did you say you were that you're not coming out to see them?"

"Washington. Out by Seattle."

"Hell of a hike. I can run your credit and get back to you by the end of the day, sound good?"

"Look, I'm serious about renting." Meg was suddenly afraid Sarah would hang up on her, thinking the call was a joke. "I have friends...a friend...out there, and I'm a nurse." 'Okay, whoa there. That's half the truth, on both cases.' "I just don't want you to think that I'm some kind of scam. I need it soon – I'm going to be there in a couple of days."

Sarah paused, thinking, chewing the end of her pen. The pigeons had returned, the radio station she picked was crappy, and this was the most interesting thing to happen all day. "Nope. I think this'll work just fine. What's your name, again?"

One stellar credit check later, Sarah called Meg back to let her know she was set for a two bed, one bath unit, asked for her move-in date, and left a call back number, all in a long, disjointed voicemail message. She was calling from her unit, sipping whiskey and flipping channels, and realized far too late into the phone call she'd probably had too much to drink to call a potential renter back about an approval. 'Oh well. She didn't get on my ass about the first phone call, hopefully she's okay with this.' Nudging her cat out of her way, she sauntered to her fridge for a slice of cold pizza, hopping over the back of her sofa just in time for the football game to cut on.

It was just as well that Meg didn't answer when Sarah called; she was in the middle of yet another heated discussion with Dave. It hadn't taken him long to put two and two together; Meg was planning yet another move. He could only assume Randy didn't know about it – if he did, Dave reasoned, Meg wouldn't have been setting it up on her own. 'There's no way he knows – he'd never let her drive on her own. And Lord knows she's driving; why would Meg bother getting an ID so she could get a plane ticket? I fucked up any chance of her staying in Seattle. There's no way she has a Washington ID. And I've got to catch her...he wraps soon, so she's on the move soon.'

"You need to stop, or the phone's going to disappear, Dave. I'm fucking serious! You think you can just, what, stalk me, or check up on me, read the bill and call the numbers, or whatever the fuck you're doing, and I'm telling you-"

"Meg, I didn't call you to give you a lecture! Shut up for a minute!" Dave had to yell to get a word in edgewise; Meg was on a rip and was barely stopping to breathe.

Heaving, Meg's voice was ragged. "Fine." She gasped for air, dramatically. "What?"

Dave swallowed hard, paused, and swallowed again. "Meg...he wraps on the twenty-ninth. He leaves the same day; his flight lands at St. Louis at 3:30 AM – that's the 30th. You can take I-70 in and out, to pick him up. Half-hour on the road, one way. But you have to leave soon. It's a long drive."

It was Meg's turn to swallow hard and be still. Her breathing, finally quiet, evened out, and she held her phone away from her face, looking at it as though it might snap up and cut her. Eventually, she managed to find her voice, starting with Dave's name, then Randy's, and it seemed those were the only two words she knew. Dave finally hushed her, offering her the only explanation he had.

"Meg...Joe's an asshole, and I owe you an apology. This is the best I can give you, because I'm only guessing at what you set up. Try to be out there a day before him, so you can get settled in. If you need it, I'll buy you time with Randy. I won't tell him what you're doing, either."

Meg allowed herself half a smile; it was all that she'd let filter to the surface through the tar of her anger. "You still have a long way to go, Dave. A long way. And you need to start by talking to Randy. He's beyond hurt."

"I know, Meg. And the more I listen to Joe back here..." Dave clamped his mouth shut, knowing he'd let far too much slip in that half-sentence.

"Oh, really." Meg's voice was hard-edged. "Well." She paused again. "What do I even say to that? I'm not surprised? I expected it?" A harsh laugh escaped her, then another, and soon she was on the edge of hysteria. "Oh, Dave. I don't even..." A dry chuckle, a long pause, and Dave knew Meg was losing her nerve. "I loved him," she whispered, "And he wouldn't even talk to me. I honestly didn't expect him to take me back. When I left, it was to protect him. I knew how bad Jackson could get – why would I set Joe up for that? I knew I was leaving forever, one way or another." Dave shuddered, but said nothing. "All I wanted...was for Joe to let me explain. Let me tell him I was sorry. He didn't have to stay." Her voice broke on the last word. "That's all I say anymore, isn't it? That I'm sorry?"

"Meg, look, I wasn't trying to upset you. I don't even know why I said that. I'm sorry. I'm trying to make things right – as right as they can be – by helping you now. It doesn't make it perfect, but...does it make it a little better?"

He heard a small, staticky pop when the line disconnected, Meg never answering him.

She tried to drop her phone on the bedside table, but her hands were shaking more than she realized. Her phone landed limply, and slid from the edge of the table down to the carpet below. Meg didn't see it, or didn't care, but she left it where it lay on the ground and ghosted her way across the room to her laptop. Picking it up and walking back to the bed, she let it fall from her fingers near the bottom of the mattress, curling herself around it and waiting, silently, for Randy to call.

There was no need for her to make any sound – the skulls were filing the room, painted on the walls, and screaming: 'You're so fucking pathetic. A whoring, fucking – because that's what you do – fucking, pathetic idiot. Why are you running to him? He doesn't want you. Nobody wants you. Wait until he sees those files. You're going to wish you were dead. Joe was smart enough to walk away. Stop trying to drag everyone down with you. When are you going to give up?' Their words turned to shrieks of laughter; their questions became more and more vile, and Meg couldn't shut the noise out. She bit into the sleeve of Randy's zip-up, feeling her throat constrict under the weight of their stares. They rubbed against her, crawling on her skin, and Meg went from trying to brush them away from her arms to trying to claw her own skin off, leaving red stripes in the wake of her fingernails.

"Please, don't call," Meg whispered, her eyes still crimped shut, "Because I'll pick up and they don't want me to. I shouldn't."

One hour passed, stretched into two, and she began to think Randy really wouldn't call. The skulls, still tittering, biting at the pens, rolling along the walls, had quieted somewhat, and Meg was comfortable letting herself stare blankly ahead at the corner of the dresser. The ring tone that emanated from her laptop startled her out of her daze, and every foggily-hallucinated shape that had been on the verge of leaving her scurried eagerly to crowd in, daring her to push the issue further. Eyes crushed closed, skin clammy, Meg slid a singular finger forward and tapped at the touch pad on the laptop, the screen popping to life accompanied by an obscenely bright and cheery glow. She opened her eyes and felt her pupils constrict in the severe light.

"Hey, Meg, sorry it took – Meg? Meggie? What happened? What's wrong?"

She tried to speak, then just to whisper, but nothing came out of her mouth. 'And all this because now I know what Joe is doing. Saying. I don't need to know exactly, but I know enough. I can't go to Saint Charles. I have to let go. And I have to go to Saint Charles because I can't let go.' Giving up and pressing her lips together in a thin line, Meg laid still on the bed, unable to will herself to move, care, or explain. Randy struggled to keep his panic at bay and think of anything he could do to get her to respond to him.

"Meggie?" He waited; she looked like she'd slipped past sleep and straight into a coma. "Meg?" Still nothing. 'What the fuck is this? This is like when we started in Tampa. Catatonic.' Suddenly angry, but unsure what to direct it at, or even what the root was, he slammed his hands down on the table in his trailer, feeling the laptop jump between his palms. "Magdalena, talk to me!"

Not a single fiber of Meg's body responded. Her eyes were glazed, her breathing was nearly non-existent, and her skin had taken on a greyish pallor. Randy was moving from panic into something colder and less-functional. 'I can beat the fuck out of the problem later. I need to help her now. What do I do?' "Okay. Okay, Meg. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to...you're scaring me. Can you talk?"

Silence. More silence, and an oppressive stillness that had the furthest reaches of his mind questioning whether or not he'd just watched her die.

"No? No. Okay. Uh...what happened today, what did you do?" Randy rubbed his hands over his neck; his body ached for a shower – for her, really, but filming had been confined to a warehouse, and stage lighting had quickly heated it well past oppressive – and now he was going to have to make up answers to his own questions, knowing Meg wasn't going to say a word. "You...did you go out?"

Nothing. Not even the faintest verbal hint. 'No. Not it, try again. Go faster. Or go get a car and go down there.' "No, okay. No, you didn't go out. Nobody came to the room, right, Meg? Nobody hurt you?" Again, nothing, and Randy had to believe that if she had been hurt, he would have gotten some kind of call from security. Her phone was the only thing left that Randy hadn't asked about. "Right, nobody hurt you. Not my Meg, right?" He dug for a smile, having to force it across his face. "You didn't go out, and nobody came in. What about your phone, Meg?"

A single, slow blink. Randy scrambled for his phone and dialed the only number he thought she might have called – Dave – watching Meg on the laptop the entire time.

"Medical and triage, this is-"

"Save it, you sorry piece of shit. What did you say to Meg? What did you do?"

Stunned into silence, Dave took several seconds to recover. His voice was small when he spoke, unsure, and – more than anything – afraid. "I...Randy, I don't know. We talked earlier. She was fine when we talked. What happened?"

"If I knew what happened, I wouldn't be talking to you. She's laying on our bed in our room and she won't move, won't talk – nothing. So what did you do?" 'Our? Mine?'

"Randy, I swear to God, I -" Dave stopped short, suddenly hearing the end of his conversation with Meg echo back through his mind. "No. No, wait. There was – oh, oh shit. At the very end."

"Make some fucking sense, Dave." Randy's voice had become a low growl; he hadn't taken his eyes off of Meg on the screen. She still hadn't moved; looked for all the world like she was a corpse, and now Dave was talking in circles. "Did you say something to her?"

"What is she doing?"

"No, asshole, you don't get to worry about her now! I asked you a question, so fucking answer me! What did you do? Did you say something? She looks like she's fucking dead, Dave!"

Dave flinched; he deserved every word and more, but hearing someone tell him after years of watching after Meg that she was no longer his – that the decision had been made for him, he simply wasn't involved anymore – tore at him. 'Like what Joe did to her. Replaced her.' "Okay. Randy, listen. We talked. Joe came up at the end, and she got upset. She was saying she shouldn't be surprised he's talking about her backstage, shit like that. I didn't think-"

"And who brought up Joe? You? How else would she know he's talking about her?" Randy windmilled his arms, as if simply by whirling his phone he could also lay his hands on Dave. 'And by the way, thank you oh so much for giving me a new reason to pound Joe. Even after all this time, he can still wreck her.' Randy felt a deep-seated twinge that somehow, if he had done more or been clearer, then she wouldn't have been as affected by Dave – or Joe. 'And that's bullshit, because she spent the whole weekend keeping you at arm's length. What were you gonna do, Orton, demand that she be in love with you?'

"I fucked up, Randy. I'm sorry." Dave's tone was flatly exhausted. "What do you need me to do?"

"I don't know, Dave! I don't know! She won't move, she won't talk to me, and I had to guess it was a phone call that upset her. What the fuck were you thinking, saying anything about Joe to her?" Still as stone, Meg laid on the bed, trying her best to look through the screen and not at it, unable to escape the hissing images on Randy's arms and in the air around her. She forced herself to blink again, and waited for her eyes to stop swimming and refocus. The motion caught Randy's attention and he cut the line off on Dave, who promptly called back – and was just as promptly ignored.

"Meg?" Randy was cautious, trying not to startle her back into whatever mental hole she'd just crawled out from. "Kiddo? I'm here, it's okay." 'Don't say that shit, Orton, it's not okay.' Shaking his head, he tried again. "Meg, I mean..."

She slid her hand forward, over the touch pad, and paused. "Sorry, Ran. I can't, tonight." Her voice was barely audible, and her hand had started to shiver where she held it.

"Meggie, please. I can come down, I only have one more day to film, my plane ticket can be moved back. It's all okay. I can be there. Tell me what you need."

Unceremoniously, Meg ended the call. Randy dialed back, but Meg didn't open the line, instead just watching the small avatar of Randy pop up over and over again on the display. All the while, her phone rang from the floor. And, all the while, Meg never moved from the foot of the bed, bathed in a sickly fluorescent glow from the screen, feeling the edges of her hallucinations curl against her almost protectively, whispering that she had done the right thing, it would all be fine now.

Shakily, she pushed off the end of the bed and went to the balcony, shutting the door firmly behind her. 'Guess I know why I saved the last cigarette. Not a bad time to have it.' With much effort and a complete lack of coordination, Meg managed to light it, enjoying the rush the nicotine gave her with her first deep breath. She inspected the lines on her arms while she smoked, daring to laugh at her own ineptitude. 'Little red marks. How very attention-seeking, Meg. If you're going to do shit like that, make it permanent.'

Permanent. The strangeness of the word struck her; nothing in her life had been permanent. She'd always moved from place to place, even taking a job that refused to allow her to sink roots anywhere specific. Loneliness had never particularly bothered Meg, but inasmuch as her jangled brain would allow her to think of 'company,' she'd become overly-used to having Randy around her – and overly-quickly – to the point that his absence had clearly thrown her over an edge she didn't realize she was still standing snugly against. "I asked Randy to commit to his film. Dave is actually helping me commit to the apartment. Meg...figure it out. Figure it out." She exhaled coolly, trying to steady herself into understanding the implications of her decision. "Call Dave. That's safe. He owes you. He said so."

Turning to go back inside and call, Meg suddenly crashed backwards into the railing of the balcony, nearly sending herself over. Leaning against the glass door, a slimy, bloody smear in his wake, was Jackson. His pen protruding from his leg, dust from the airbag coating his face like a powdery mask, the edges of the hole in his chest dripping and moist, he looked as though he'd simply stepped from the car, rode the elevator, and let himself into her bedroom.

'Go if you want, kitten. You're taking me with you.'

Meg dropped down behind the chaise, not feeling her cigarette connect with her thigh until the burn had settled in deeply. She stayed there, her head resting against the back of the lounge, waiting until she was sure she saw nothing, heard nothing – just the persistent ringing of her phone and chiming of Skype, all in a digital glow. Peeking around the legs of the chaise, she confirmed what she suspected: Jackson was gone, the skulls were gone, the pens were gone, and only her rattled nerves remained.

It was only the oozing welt in her thigh that reminded her any of it might have been real at all.