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By the time I woke up again, Danny was gone. There was a sheet of crumpled paper next to my bed on my nightstand, and I struggled to read it. Had to go home, parents were getting worried. Will be back later with flu medicine and food. -Danny

I groaned at the last part. Food? I didn't feel well enough to keep down even bread, let alone anything he might bring. At least I wasn't coughing up ectoplasm 24/7 now. I heard someone enter my house through my window and opened my eye again, expecting to see Danny. Instead, I saw an old friend.

"Hi, Rose!" the pink-haired boy beside me chirped brightly. His green eyes glowed, almost ghostly. My friend had an insane smile on his face, a smear of refused medicine coating his cheek.

"Hey, Kit," I croaked. Kit's smile wavered at my obvious weakness, but it remained strong as he crushed me in a hug. He released me pretty soon, though, allowing me to cough ectoplasm into the bucket beside my bed. He patte dmy hair awkwardly, as though the atmosphere of my being sick was too much for his naturally happiness. "Finally break out of the insane asylum again? It's been a good two years since I last saw you." I panted and coughing between my words.

Kit's face lit up. "Mhm!" he purred, burrowing into my blankets next to me. As he bent to do this, a blue-haired ghost behind him anxiously peered out the window. "It took a long time to find you! Cobalt will tell you! I'm not good with time."

Cobalt glanced at me guiltily. "Neither of us are, Kit. But it's been at least a month or two." Sirens wailed outside and Cobalt sighed. "Come on, Kit, time to keep running."

"Already?" Kit pouted. "But we just got here!" He gives me an apologetic grin, and he mock-salutes me. Then he grabbed the ghost's hand and jumped out the window, deterring multiple officials from entering my house. I could hear him laughing crazily as he run for nearly an hour.

Kit and Cobalt were long-time friends of mine. Whenever I was angry with the world as a child, they would sit and listen. Kit would twitch and make me smile; Cobalt would remain a statue until he had time to give me advice. They were twins. They did everything together. But then everything changed. Freshly created ghosts and spirits (the difference between them being that spirits have no ectoplasm) were naturally attracted to the twins; they were never left alone.

They loved their job. They helped ghosts and spirits move on, just by listening to their problems. However, in a terrible car accident, Cobalt died. Kit was the only survivor of the crash, and he was mentally traumatized. He escaped the crash with only a faint cut to the forehead, or so everyone thought. The day his twin died was the day his mind broke. He went crazy. The hospital staff found him clutching the broken remains of his twin to his chest, sobbing. Cobalt, whose bitter regret at leaving his brother all alone made him a ghost instead of a spirit, reappeared and refused to move on. He vowed to protect his brother, and so far he did a good job of that.

No one save for ghosts could see Cobalt. He was like a guardian angel. People became concerned for Kit's mental health and he was admitted to an insane asylum. Cobalt followed him there and since then, he'd broken out over a thousand times. Kit was older than I was, bordering on 22. His birthday was in March. Cobalt had aged with his brother, probably the mental link between Kit and himself doing it.

Sometimes, I forgot that Cobalt was dead. Sometimes, Cobalt himself forgot he was dead. It didn't matter what we remembered, though; Kit never got over the fact that his twin had died. Kit was forgetful, that much was true; the only thing he could never forget was how his twin had died in the crash that should have killed them both.

***line break***

I had no idea how long I stared at my ceiling, trying to fall asleep again without success, before I heard someone enter the room.

"Are you feeling better, Rose?" Sam asked, brushing my hair out of my remaining eye. I smiled at her and sat up a little, wincing as the action started up a coughing fit.

"Yeah, a little better," I rasped to Sam, reaching a hand forward to take my pile of papers from her hand. "Would you help me catch up with the rest of the class?"

Sam smiled with relief and helped me do the papers, which I complained over and I even threatened to look up if giving this much homework was legal. It suddenly occurred to me that today was Friday; I'd missed three days of school.

"Sam, did I miss any important projects in the three days I've been sick?"

"No," came her quick answer. After a moment, she relented and said, "Actually, yes. It was a group work of fiction about whatever we could think of for Lancer. We, Danny and I, decided to write about you having the ecto-flu, because no one believes that ghosts can get sick. You're in our group, so don't worry. Mr. Lancer said that doing a cross-class group was perfectly okay, too, which is cool. I wish the other teachers would let us do stuff like that."

I nodded in thought, and we continued working for an hour before Danny peeked his head and grinned widely at the sight of me sitting up in bed and doing work. He entered the room and sat on my other side, ruffling my hair and saying he always knew I would get better. Sam whispered into my ear that Danny had been worrying the most and had been the one to panic over the thought that I might not get better.

***line break***

On Monday, I was determined to do something other than lay in bed like an invalid. I'd done that all weekend and now I was bored. I actually missed going to school; I'd slept a lot in the three days I was sick, and my energy levels were rising to the point that I might start slipping. So I forced myself to get out of bed, I forced myself to get dressed, and I forced myself to walk to school. Danny was immediately and obviously worried that I had turned up to school barely on time, and even Mr. Lancer seemed a little concerned for my health.

I shivered through the entire school day, my vision blurry again. However, I turned in all of my papers that day which I considered to be a win. I coughed on Dash, who complained that I might get him sick and went to stuff Mikey in his locker, of whom I let out as soon as Dash had left the hall. Even Mikey was aware that I wasn't my normal self; I snapped at him when he tried to suggest that I go to the nurse. I was never so irritable in my life.

Later on, during lunch, I apologized to Mikey and told him I was just sick of being told that I should go to the nurse. He nodded hesitantly but accepted my apology wholeheartedly. I thought he was desperate to believe that I was just tired, not actually sick. I thought everyone was hoping that, actually. Even Tucker looked like he was hoping that I was just tired.

Danny had to help me walk home because by the end of the day, I was completely devoid of energy. I tried to refuse his help, squirming out of his hold only to stagger. I tried to insist that I was fine; he said nothing the entire way home, his lips in a tight, thin line. He was worried over my behavior, and he was worried that I was only getting worse.

When we got to my home, I nearly collapsed onto the couch, shivering horribly. I was cold all over again, and Danny felt my forehead and cursed. It occurred to me that I'd never heard him curse. He wrapped me up and tried to get me to lay down when I insisted on doing my homework. I refused to get behind again.

***line break***

I didn't remember falling asleep, but when I woke up Danny's head was resting on my shoulder. I realized that I needed to get dressed for school and tried to shift away from Danny; Danny mumbled something and wrapped on arm around me, holding me securely to his side. Blushing, my foggy mind realized that this was the calmest I had been since I'd gotten sick.

I wanted to keep it that way, but of course my wants would go unanswered as time went on.