"You're sure about this?"
Her companion only glances at her overtop of his glasses and then starts to answer before she hurries on, "Please answer without all the nerdy science talk this time. I'm nervous enough here without being confused on top of it." The teenager confesses as her eyes drift back to the curled bundle snuggled under one of the park's unoccupied chess tables.
"This was your idea." Egon reminds her, resting a transparent hand against her shoulder in that oddly fatherly way she'd found herself enjoying from the grandfatherly man. "it's already been a few days. You've seen just as easily as I have how they are already starting to bond. It'll work."
Melody lets out a shallow breath that even for simi ghosts leaves a slim vapor of fog behind as her eyes cast back to the table in question as beside her, Egon makes a point of glancing at his watch and then looking back up again with a smile so like Phoebe's it still knocked the breath from her lungs. If she'd had real working ones.
Being around the nerdy girl had made her feel human for the first time since she'd died. And now being around the girl's grandfather just made her miss Phoebe even more.
"Easy, Mels." Egon warns, noticing her dropping mood.
Or maybe it was the sudden dipping in the weather patterns around them that clued him in, Melody muses to herself. He'd been commenting more and more recently that he could always gauge her moods based on the weather brewing around his granddaughter.
Melody always snapped back that she was only one of many souls-Egon's included- that had threaded into the universe so her random emotional changes regarding Phoebe Spengler couldn't possibly have such a drastic changing say in making an overcast day for Washington Square Park turn suddenly rainy just because Melody had picked that moment to check in on her favorite Ghostbuster and the sight of Phoebe playing one-sided chess was just too much for Melody to take without crying just a little in guilt for daring to leave the other girl without a chess rivel.
Some nights, Melody would find new ways of quieting the sounds of the always-so-lived city outside Phoebe's bedroom window when she knew the genius girl was working on something late into the night.
Then, when Phoebe and Co were out on what might be a long ghost hunt, Melody helped a little in 'unsticking' the window handle so a cooling breeze from something other than the opened gunner seat door could dull the arguments sparking in the crowded car.
"See, told you she'd stop over tonight." Egon smiled, noticing something his fellow lurking spirit hadn't quite coughed in her quiet, gazing at the tiny bundle they'd coaxed into taking a nap under a very strategic chess table.
Well Melody had taken to most of the coaxing whilst Egon had supervised in clearing the street of any gathering pigeons or other grabbing hands as they'd carefully guided the stray kitten towards the park.
The task had taken most of the morning, given that Melody had refused to 'body snatch' the tiny little thing.
More than a few times during the trip, they'd spot that familiar car speeding along the street and more than once catch a grinning Phoebe swinging out from the gunner's seat as the car groaned in chase of another loosed ghost.
"Didn't you say you left them plans for upgrades to that rust….."
"Hey." Egon warned, yet his tone did not match the shining pride in his eyes as they watched the car and its ghost catch passengers swinging off up the street for another call. "And, yes, Winston and his team are already working on building Ecto's replacement." The scientist sighs in defeat but adds an amused. "but it seems Pheobe is quite adamant about keeping the gunner seat in this new model."
"She would." Melody had laughed then, taking pity on the small kitten she'd been attempting to keep tethered in a way with dropped scraps of grilled chicken respectfully stolen from the diner she'd used to frequent, scooped up the swaying kitten to carry the rest of the way gingerly.
"Are you sure she'll be warm enough?" Melody asks, eyeing the makeshift bed Phoebe had fashioned out of an emptied-out snack food box during one of the earlier attempted meetings between the two.
"She is growing so fast." Egon sighs.
"Yeah. Even since I knew her." Melody agreed as a red jacket clade newcomer crunched closer to the corner of the park the ghostly pair were watching from.
Yet instead of taking her usual seat at the chess table as the watching specters had anticipated, Phoebe Spengler bypassed it in favor of spreading out a blanket on the grass beside said table, then used her backpack for a pillow, leaned back against the blanket-covered grass trying to look through the haze of light position towards the darkening sky.
"Sill susceptible to weather it seems." Egon muses, seeing his granddaughter huddled in her jacket as she shifts into a better stretched-out position for stargazing.
"Yeah," Melody agrees. "but at least her hearing wasn't completely damaged and that's even without coming back from having separated her soul."
Not for the first time, Melody feels Egon's hand against her shoulder as a new dusting of snowflakes drifts to the ground around them in her chilling guilt at the reminder of her past mistakes regarding his granddaughter.
"Look." Phoebe's grandfather guides rather than allow Melody's spiraling thoughts to twist further.
Melody followed his transparently pointing hand towards the scruffy-furred kitten stumbling towards the softly humming off-the-clock Ghostbuster, attempting to glimpse the stars.
The tiny curious mews draw an already dozing Phoebe's attention as she shifts just a little more against her makeshift bedding.
She'd first tried for the roof of the firehouse, but her craved view was lost in the glaring haze of neon and the simple overpowering everything of the city.
True, it was still reaching her here, but there was stillness. A calmness she'd found herself missing in the lulls between ghost calls or homework.
The curious kitten continues sniffing, inspecting the ends of her boots before starting to playfully attack the laces, earning a low chuckle from the watching girl.
"I don't know if I should be relieved or hurt. You're still here, little one." Phoebe asks with a sleepy yawn digging in her backpack for the tuna ration she'd brought just in case she ran into her stray little friend of the last few nights.
"It's Christmas somewhere in the universe, right?" Melody reasons, watching with envious eyes as the not-so-homeless kitten nuzzled a little closer against Phoebe's slowly outstretched fingers.
"What? What's so funny?" Gary asks whilst Winston only keeps chuckling as he walks towards the door.
"Nothing." The more seasoned Ghostbuster laughs, now eyeing Phoebe and her happily purring companion
"She's seriously gonna call it Twinkie huh?" He probes, snickering at the happy giggling of Egon's granddaughter as her fluffy kitten companion lounged against the kitchen countertop, pawing lazily at a stray threat in Phoebe's jumpsuit sleeve as the human of the two continued to read.
Gary sighs at this. "Apparently," he shrugs, "but she was the one who found her, so it's only right she be the one to name..."
He breaks off at the full belly laugh the answer brings now, drawing everyone's eye.
"That's gonna be one hell of a Twinkie." Winston laughed once again.
"Uuhhh Gar..."
Callie was staring with widened eyes at the phone screen Trovor had just turned towards her.
"Huh. If... if this is what a...a what was is it...a Minx...
"Maine Coon." Phoebe corrects now, gingerly lowering her keen-eyed kitten on the ground.
"Wh...holy Cat." Gary gaped, eyeing the phone screen.