A/N: Whew. Well then. Hiya, folks! Little late with the update, aren't I? XD No, but seriously, I'm not going to beat about the bush. Long story short... I got writer's block for this chapter and another chapter for a different fanfic series of mine. I won't bore you with the details up here, but if you wanna know why I struggled so much, you can find my vent in the author's notes at the bottom of the chapter.

But anyway! Allow me to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been favouriting, following, reviewing and reading this story. I cannot tell you how shocked I was at how much this has blown up on here and over on AO3 too. Like, where have you all come from? Seriously! XD But it's honestly great to see how much people love this silly little story of mine and Cordelia as well, even after over a year since I published the first chapter too. And hopefully, that will continue as we gradually get through Season 1. I am aiming to try to end Episode 2 on Chapter 16, potentially Chapter 17 as a push, but don't hold me to that. Not sure when I will have the next chapter out, but either way, I hope you guys enjoy the long awaited (and proper) interaction between Cordelia and Alison.

Chapter 15: Conscience's Calling

Amidst the night-time shrouded and cramped bedroom in the west wing of Button House, Cordelia and Alison stood on opposite sides of the room, their wide-eyed and frozenly shocked expressions exposed to one another under the faint and shimmering light of the moon streaking in. Neither ghostly woman nor living woman dared to move a muscle or break eye contact, acting as if they'd both just made the fatal mistake of looking into the eyes of the mythical Medusa and getting themselves petrified for their ignorance.

That only changed when distant thumping approached from the corridor adjacent to where Cordelia's bedroom was. Cordelia observed Alison's pupils shrink as her head whipped towards the door out of alarm in response to the approaching sounds, her jaw twitching with the urge to scream. The confused haze cast over her mind prior to Alison's entrance dispersed at recalling the screaming and approaching footsteps from a minute or two ago, causing the Victorian woman's brows to raise at the realisation that smacked her in the face in that moment.

Alison had been running away from someone. Who, Cordelia couldn't be sure, but the guilty ache that struck her chest at seeing Alison's terror gave her a pretty good guess that it was probably one of the ghosts harassing her, most likely Robin, she assumed, based on the way the footfalls bounced and leapt towards them. None of the other ghosts made such a racket, and while Robin could be quiet and stealthy when the need called for it, the caveman was never one to be graceful in his walking.

'Has the latest operation gotten out of hand?'

She couldn't think of any other reason why Robin of all ghosts would be bothering Alison at this ungodly hour, but the blonde-haired ghost had little time to confirm an answer to her own internal question.

As the bounding footsteps gradually came to a halt close to her corridor, Alison sucked in a ragged breath ready to scream the manor house down, forcing Cordelia to react without thinking and hold out a palm towards the living woman to physically dissuade her.

"Hush, please!" she whispered hastily, startling Alison with a flinch and silencing the poor woman instantly as she turned to look at her with a wide blink and a slight recoil towards the door. "You will give yourself away!"

When what she'd done had sunk, however, Cordelia's eyes nearly bulged out of their non-existent sockets.

'Cordelia, you half-wit!'

The blonde-haired ghost realised too late that her reckless actions had likely increased Alison's distress, prompting her to wince and turn her head away with the expectation that the poor woman was about to release a scream much louder than the one she'd previously heard. However, when around ten seconds passed and the absence of sound lingered, Cordelia dared to peek back at the living woman with a partial turn of the head, finding Alison staring at her with knitted brows and a squint. She seemed more confused than scared by Cordelia's actions than the Victorian ghost initially thought she would be, causing Cordelia to copy Alison and direct a suspicious frown and squint straight back at her.

During the last two encounters Alison and Cordelia had, the former had acted terrified of the latter's presence without Cordelia uttering a single word. And yet here they were again, with Alison having another 'frightful' encounter with the 'old timey lady' who'd she'd seen conversing with a decapitated Tudor man's head over a day ago, only this time… she wasn't making a sound. Was she too confused and scared by Cordelia's actions to utter any noise or had the living woman actually listened to her pleads despite believing she was haunted by figments of her imagination?

'What is happening? Are my mental faculties tricking me with sleep-induced fantasies?'

She must have dozed off, right? There was no other reasonable explanation for what was occurring before Cordelia's eyes.

That was swiftly disproven by noisy and muffled sniffing flooding through the silence in the corridor outside, followed by a deep and gruff male-voice loudly whispering.

"Kim Wilde! Where you go?!"

Cordelia quietly groaned and dug her fingertips into the roots of her hair, slowly gaining the urge to tear her dirty-blonde strands out at acknowledging her earlier suspicions were, indeed, correct.

'God, spare me! It is Robin!'

The Victorian ghost flinched at a muffled creak echoing from the other end of the corridor outside, indicating that Robin was now opposite her bedroom door. Cordelia covered her mouth and nose with her palms and took purposely slow breaths to try to quieten her non-existent breathing (yes, the ghosts still breathed despite no longer needing oxygen; it was habit to them even after all this time).

'If it was anybody else, this would not be a problem. But Robin has mastered the art of attuning his bodily senses to his surroundings. A single misstep from either Alison or myself and that excitable caveman will be upon us like Dante the moment he got a glimpse of Lady Button!'

However, within her peripheral vision, the blonde-haired woman spied Alison observing her intently amidst the fear glistening in her eyes. Cordelia said nothing as blue met terrified green, the Victorian ghost once again shaking her head to subtly indicate for Alison to remain silent. She couldn't risk whispering again in case Robin's sharp hearing picked up her voice and exposed the fact she was awake, so all she could do was use her body language and hope her intentions got across clearly enough. Though at first Alison didn't appear to understand, an assumption Cordelia made based on the faint frown and slight purse of her lips that appeared on Alison's face. But when another muffled and slightly louder creak echoed outside and jolted Alison's body like she'd been electrocuted, the living woman seemed to get the message, copying Cordelia's actions by muffling her own breathing with her hands while turning to face the door.

Judging by the volume of the creaks alone that popped up between the occasional sniffing, Cordelia presumed that Robin was gradually sneaking down her corridor and that he'd gotten about a quarter of the way to her room, prompting a lump to spring to her throat at the realisation that sound wasn't the only issue for them.

'Please do not tell me Robin has already taught himself to recognise Alison's scent…'

But then… the creaks and sniffing suddenly ceased, causing Cordelia's non-existent heart to leap into the confines of her mouth. The blonde-haired ghost squeezed her eyes shut and waited with bated breath, expecting Robin to burst into her bed chambers at any moment. Instead, she opened her eyes at hearing Robin huff exasperatedly and start grumbling to himself, the creaking of the floorboards resuming and heading in the opposite direction to her bedroom.

"Pha! Must have went other way."

Neither Cordelia nor Alison dared to move or utter a sound, the pair staying as still as statues while listening to the caveman's dying retreat from Cordelia's corridor and then the adjacent one. Once the chronologically oldest ghost's footsteps completely stopped, though, Cordelia and Alison exchanged a sideways glance, had a silent stare down for at least five seconds, and then… dropped their hands away from their faces with simultaneous sighs of relief, their bodies drooping forward slightly.

'Thank goodness! Fate is merciful!'

A resounding thud from behind startled Cordelia from her momentary respite from tonight's crazy events. The Victorian ghost whirled her body towards the sound out of alarm, only to gasp at beholding Alison on her knees and violently trembling, her arms wrapped round her shaking shoulders.

At a first glance, Cordelia jumped to the conclusion that Alison was hurt again, one that made her invisible stomach drop and prompt her to rush forward. But as the blonde-haired woman prepared to enquire if the living woman was all right, she stopped dead at hearing Alison's teeth chattering, spying faint remnants of her erratic breathing rising and dispersing into the air like a ghostly fog. She was clearly cold, and Cordelia already suspected the reason why.

'Ah…' Cordelia's hands rubbed along the sleeves of her shirt and the front of her shawl, her spectre being feeling indifferent to the chilly air she was currently surrounded by. 'I oft-forget this part of the house has a nasty draught, an element of the living world I am no longer affected by.'

Furthermore, now that she could get a better look at Alison's face under the moonlight coming into the room, Cordelia spied the heavy bags under her eyes and Alison's slow and repeated blinking, like she was trying to fight off the urge to close them.

'Oh,' Cordelia realised with the placement of her palm to her chest, allowing her shoulders to relax at the relief that returned to her being in that moment. 'And it is not only the cold, I see. Her weariness has clearly caught up. I suppose that is to be expected given the circumstances, but in the least, she is not hurt. That is good.'

Cordelia's mind was still reeling from the events of this evening, and yet as much as she was tempted to speak to Alison and try to find out what had transpired prior to her panicked entrance, she knew that wasn't wise. Alison was still grappling with her newfound capabilities and discerning reality from fiction, and it was clearly obvious from her reactions to seeing herself and hearing Robin that she was still scared of the ghosts in general. Thus, for the time being, Cordelia refrained from doing or saying anything, not only to give her the necessary time to recover, but also because she was expecting the brunette woman to make herself scarce as soon as she was able to. After all, who would want to stick around in a dark and cold room with a ghost from the Victorian era during the witching hour?

And yet, a minute or two of silence ended up rolling on by between the two women, with Alison showing no sign of wanting to move. Was she too exhausted, Cordelia wondered. Or was it perhaps she was reluctant to leave her hiding spot after whatever had occurred with Robin? Before long, two minutes of silence lapsed into four, to the point where Cordelia contemplated if she should say something.

The silence was eventually broken by Alison's tired groan as she slumped backwards onto her bottom.

"That b-bloody b-budget T-Tarzan!" she forced through stutters, leaving Cordelia cautiously shuffling away with a confused blink; what was she saying? "H-Hiding in the f-fridge in the d-dark! H-How d-did he even g-get in—?!" Alison cut herself off and shook her head to dispel that thought with a huff. "You know what, no. I'm too tired and cold for this."

'I do not have a semblance of an idea what a 'budget Tarzan' is, though from context, I can only assume she is referring to Robin. He is the only ghost I am aware has a tendency to hide and then jump out at us for his own amusement.'

As Alison appeared to be venting to herself, Cordelia stayed quiet and decided to leave her be; although, it didn't last when the shivering brunette woman looked to the Victorian woman upon remembering she was there, a scowl quickly gracing her brow amidst her trembling.

"And what are you looking at?!" Alison snapped irritably upon stilling the movement of her jaw, making the blonde's shoulders tense with a startled jolt.

Cordelia didn't blame Alison for her attitude towards her in the slightest. The poor woman was clearly drained both mentally and physically, and seeing as Robin had apparently disturbed her, Cordelia suspected Alison's ire was mostly directed towards him and she was just lashing out at her because she was technically associated with Robin as one of the 'imaginary people' inside of her head. And yet the déjà vu hit Cordelia hard, like a brick to the face and metaphorical mask shattering kind of hard. It propelled her straight back to the days of the chiding and scolding she and her fellow staff were on the receiving end of courtesy of the Lord and Lady Button of the time, kicking her old habits back into gear; Alison was the current lady of the house, after all.

"M-My sincerest apologies, Lady Alison!" Cordelia hastily cried out as she clasped her hands into the folds of her skirt and responded to Alison with a low and hunch-shouldered bow, missing the living woman's bewildered expression at the Victorian woman's reaction. "I was merely concerned for your wellbeing! It was not my intention to offend you!"

"… Uh…" was all Cordelia heard leave Alison's lips at first, prompting the biologically younger woman to lift her head to see the living woman staring back with a furrowed brow and her shaky palms raised a little out of caution. Poor woman looked like she hadn't expected that and didn't know how to react herself. "Then I guess… apology accepted?" she said with uncertainty. "Just please stop whatever…" Alison briefly trailed off and awkwardly gestured her palms up and down at Cordelia's current position. "…this is."

Cordelia didn't need to look up to know what Alison was referring to. With the clearing of her throat to dispel the embarrassment she could feel heating up her ghostly cheeks, the blonde-haired woman righted herself and stood as straight as a pin, her hands still clasped in the folds of her skirt.

"My apologies," she expressed again, instinctively bowing her head a bit to emphasise her sincerity for the second time. "But you are fine, yes?" When Alison responded to the query with a suspicious raise of her brows, Cordelia knitted her own brows together and pursed her lips at her own wording, her next words tumbling out of her mouth like water gushing over a cliff edge. "I-I mean— No. Of course you are not fine! That was silly of me to ask when you look as sick as the cellar-dwellers." Cordelia's eyes bulged upon realising how that sounded, prompting her to press the knuckles of both of her hands to her mouth and repeatedly shake her head in dismissal. "N-Not that I am besmirching your appearance intentionally! But considering your palpable weariness and shivers, it is understandable why one would believe you are afflicted with a disease—"

Cordelia interrupted herself when she saw Alison frown and narrow her eyes at her, causing the blonde-haired ghost to whip her body towards the window and close her eyes tightly. When was the last time she'd nervously rambled this much?!

"N-Never mind!" she eventually stuttered in a muffled voice. "Please forgive my rudeness!"

Oh, how Cordelia wished ghosts had the capability to fall through the floor, because she would give anything to escape this terrible conversation right now! Still, why was she acting like this? Perhaps it was related to the unknown waters she and her fellow ghosts were treading through with a living person being able to see and hear them now, she concluded. Cordelia couldn't think of any other logical reason outside of that, because the last time she recalled herself getting so flustered and nervous around anyone was with—

'Nay, Cordelia!' she mentally scolded and squeezed her eyes shut tighter. 'Cease entertaining such thoughts pertaining to her. It will not end well if you do.'

The Victorian woman expected Alison to either snap at her again or make a hasty retreat from the room and back up the corridor from whence she came, which is why she didn't dare do or say anything, allowing the two women to once again become enveloped in an awkward silence. Though this time, the absence of sound wasn't prolonged, lasting approximately ten seconds before Alison, much to Cordelia's surprise, became the one to shatter it.

"… You're not like the others, are you?" she remarked in a quiet voice, causing Cordelia to pry open an eye and partially glance back at her with the lowering of her fists.

"I beg your pardon?"

Alison lifted a shaky index finger to the closed door of the bedroom. "I've had every single one of those imaginary faces violating my personal space, stalking me and annoying me in nearly every corner of this house all day. But you…" She lowered her hand close to her body again with a confused frown. "I haven't seen you at all since this morning."

Cordelia's shoulders slumped in dismay at the vague reminder, already having an idea of which encounter she was referencing without the need for further information. Yet Alison's calm demeanour allowed the blonde-haired ghost to relax her formerly tense stance once more, her hands clasping against her front like usual.

"You are referring to when we both locked eyes on the east wing landing and then proceeded to scream to the heavens, correct?"

"Um…" Alison hesitated and momentarily shifted her eyes to the side, as if stalling to try to properly process what Cordelia was saying. "Funny way of phrasing it, but…" She briefly trailed off before she gave a light shrug of her shoulders upon returning her gaze to her. "Yes." The brunette woman frowned and glanced Cordelia over once from head-to-toe. "You seem... different. But what do I know?" She sighed heavily and shook her head. "I can't tell what's real or what's in my head anymore thanks to my injuries." She paused to release a loud yawn. "And the lack of sleep, thanks to Major-General Can't-Sing and Captain Cave-Prick…"

Cordelia's lips twitched with the urge to snort at the insulting nicknames, presuming Alison was referencing the Captain and Robin respectively using the context clues in the names. Although it took a little longer for what she'd said to properly click in the Victorian woman's non-existent brain, so when it did, Cordelia's amusement was soon disappearing with a surprised blink.

"Wait a moment," Cordelia started, frowning faintly. "Are you asserting that the C—ahem!" She hastily cleared her throat upon remembering Alison was unfamiliar with their names and that saying them at this time could potentially complicate matters further. "Apologies. Are you asserting that the Major-General, as you call him, and his… accomplice—" Cordelia couldn't bring herself to repeat the nickname for Robin. "—disturbed your slumber this evening?"

"I'm not 'asserting' anything," Alison stated flatly, her eyes becoming drawn to the wisps of condensation leaking from her mouth with each word she spoke. "They did disturb me." Despite her prolonged shivering, the brunette woman finally attempted to stand from the carpet-less floor, shoving a palm against the floorboards to give her legs a boost up. "The army guy is the reason that crazy cave-prick jumped me in the kitchen and then chased me here. So much for having a cup of tea to calm my nerves."

Upon standing again, Alison's balance was short-lived. The poor woman teetered to the left with a startled 'Whoa!', leaving Cordelia gasping and cringing at helplessly watching her side collide with the wooden table and drop towards the floor again, only to barely catch herself at desperately grabbing at the furniture's circular sides.

"Oof!" Alison hissed as she briefly squeezed her eyes shut, using the table to straighten her posture while ignoring her trembling knees knocking together underneath her. "That dizziness came out of nowhere. I don't think I'm gonna make it back up to the bedroom…"

As Alison tried to get herself together, Cordelia allowed her guilty gaze to wander away from her unexpected guest and to the moonlit glass of the window on the opposite side of the room, the feeling of déjà vu washing over her in the form of dread rising from the invisible pits of her stomach.

The Victorian ghost had lost count of the amount of times she'd watched the late head of the household struggle to manoeuvre around her own home in the years before her passing. The changes were gradual, but the negative impact it left upon Cordelia remained the same regardless, starting with shaking steps where it was apparent her frail body couldn't support her own weight, then the constant gripping onto nearby furniture or other objects for support, until finally she was restricted to the ground floor of Button House in the west wing bedroom close to Cordelia's, forced to use a 'wheelchair' (a modernised 'bath chair', Cordelia had learnt) during the rare occasions she left the room under the companionship of a doctor or nurse.

And now, here she was, once again an invisible spectator to the late lady's descendant having a similar struggle due to the combination of her sustained injuries and her fatigue—

Wait. No. That was no longer correct. She was not invisible to Alison, a realised fact that left Cordelia blinking widely and glancing down at her outstretched palms.

'From the little knowledge supplied to me by Alison, it is easy to deduce that the Captain has likely ordered everyone to bother her without restraint, meaning that if she were to return to the bedroom in the east wing, she will not be granted a chance for proper respite. Their disorderly and mischievous follies will persist until the arrival of dawn and beyond.' Cordelia's blue eyes flitted to the dark and light blue plaid quilt of the bed before her, curling her fingers loosely into her palms. 'However, at present, no one aside from myself knows of Alison's whereabouts. And while this bedroom is, admittedly, not in ideal condition for a living person to slumber in, the room's tranquillity and the bed's thick covers should be adequate for Alison to sleep undisturbed until eight o'clock at least.'

Under normal circumstances, had Cordelia still been invisible to the eyes of Alison, this knowledge would have gone unheard of by the living woman, forcing the Victorian ghost to be at the mercy of her guilty conscience once more. But this was different to what happened with Heather, Cordelia acknowledged. She could say this to Alison and she would hear her. Cordelia finally had the opportunity to be heard, to help Alison, as she declared she was going to do this morning, even if just temporarily. However…

'Alison is still reluctant to believe we are real, and while she has acknowledged I am different to my apparitional acquaintances, there is no guarantee that she will be convinced to not leave this room. Would my words and reassurances alone be enough?'

Heavy panting from Alison momentarily derailed Cordelia's train of thought and drew her to peek back at the living woman over her left shoulder. Beholding the exhausted brunette's right arm slumped against the tabletop and her left hand gripping her forehead caused the Victorian ghost's brows to furrow out of guilt, giving rise to Robin's voice echoing from the deep crevices of her mind.

"Me get you no like being with ghosts, but you like Kim Wilde, right?"

And Cordelia knew Robin was right. Try as she might to ignore it, Cordelia could not, with a clear conscience, let the current lady of the house leave this bedroom in her weary state, especially with the knowledge that the other ghosts were likely waiting upstairs to torment her further and deprive her of the rest she clearly needed.

'I suppose the moment has finally arrived, Cordelia. It's time to shed your cowardly skin and do what needs to be done.'

So, doing her best to ignore the strange flutter Cordelia felt rise in her stomach, she sucked in a sharp breath through her nose, squared her shoulders, clasped her hands together against her skirt and then gently cleared her throat to get Alison's attention after a short exhale.

"… Lady Alison?"

"Alison," Alison groggily corrected and partially turned her droopy-eyed gaze to the ghostly dark-blonde hiding in the dark, gently massaging her forehead with her fingers. "It's just Alison."

Cordelia nodded out of acknowledgement to the correction, taking that as permission to avoid the formalities. "Alison, then." The Victorian ghost cautiously approached the table while the mentioned brunette woman observed her all the while, but Cordelia made sure to stay in line with the table's opposite side to avoid startling Alison or making her uncomfortable. "If you will permit me to be so bold, I highly advise against returning to your bed chambers in the east wing for tonight."

Alison frowned out of confusion at hearing this, pushing herself up from the table to rest her shivering right side against the nearby wall. "And why would you 'highly advise' that?"

Cordelia's eyes looked Alison's figure from head-to-toe as she tried to find the appropriate words to say. "You are in desperate need of a peaceful respite, and I do not believe you will get it so long as…" Cordelia trailed off for a moment and hesitated to repeat the full nickname Alison had given to the Captain with a straight face, but she soon managed to force it out after stilling her quivering lip. "…Major General Can't-Sing and his accomplices are still at large. I fear that if you return to your bed chambers, they will persist with their disturbance of your slumber."

Alison's frown deepened in thought at the last thing Cordelia said, her eyes flitting to the floor when silence descended between them. Cordelia took that as a good sign that Alison was seriously listening and considering what she was saying, so she refrained from saying anything else until Alison raised her head again and closed her eyes for a few seconds, her body slumping against the wall in defeat.

"As much as I want to ignore you, I'm too exhausted to block out your valid reasoning," she mumbled, rubbing at her forehead with one of her arms. "They've been bothering me all day and haven't stopped. For all I know, Budget Tarzan is probably waiting to make me jump at the bottom of the stairs." She limply dropped her arm to her side with a heavy huff. "But even if you are right, where exactly can I go? Your imaginary friends have appeared and followed me throughout every single room in this damn house…"

"Except this one," Cordelia stated matter-of-factly as she let a small and sly smile slip onto her lips, placing a hand flat to her chest. "I do not align myself with the 'imaginary'—as you call us—people and they are aware that I occupy these bed chambers during the evening. Thus, they tend to avoid this area of the house on principle. And due in part to my intervention earlier, they have yet to realise you are here." Cordelia pointed an index finger in the direction of the bed behind her, drawing Alison's attention to it. "I cannot guarantee that they won't come looking for you here entirely, but the odds of you being granted some semblance of a peaceful slumber this evening are much higher here than anywhere else in this house."

"Hm…" Alison hummed in thought while mulling over Cordelia's words, a shaky hand stroking at her chin two times. "That bed does look rather cosy." She tilted her head a little when the sounds of crickets came from outside, her gaze fixing on the moonlit glass of the window with a satisfied intake and exhale. "And it is very quiet in here." Her head rolled back to the wall as she turned her eyes to the ceiling with heavy blinks. "But what about Mike? He'll get worried if I don't go back upstairs."

Cordelia's smile faded with a heavy sigh. "I understand your concerns." The blonde-haired ghost gestured a palm towards Alison's trembling form. "But your accident has left you in an awful condition, not helped by the stress you've been forced to endure due to the present state of Button House and the behaviour of its imaginary inhabitants. You need to rest, L— Alison. You cannot make a full recovery without it."

Despite her hasty correction at the end there, Cordelia allowed the bedroom to fall still, its two current occupants wordlessly staring each other down under the faint and silver light streaming in. It felt like forever before Alison finally pushed away from the wall and staggered a little to the left, wrapping her trembling arms around her middle.

"Will you leave me alone if I sleep in here? No keeping me awake?"

The enquiry left Cordelia blinking out of surprise, the Victorian ghost a little taken aback that Alison was seriously considering what she was saying. Yet Cordelia was quick to regain her composure and give Alison a stiff nod of confirmation, even going so far as to cross her right arm diagonally over her chest and deeply bow her body forward.

"You have my word," she answered with forced emphasis to highlight her sincerity.

Another short pause followed, but eventually an irritated and defeated huff from Alison brought Cordelia to straighten up again.

"Fine," the brunette woman grumbled while running a palm down her face, stretching her skin a bit in the process. "I've already lost the plot anyways. It's not like I'll have anything else to lose…"

As Alison hobbled over to the bed and lazily tore back the quilt, Cordelia placed her palms together and held the tips of her index fingers to her lips, feeling the uncomfortable fluttering in her stomach finally dissipate from her ghostly being at the wave of relief that washed over in that moment.

'Oh, thank you, Lord, for granting me mercy this night!'

Cordelia was never expecting Alison to heed her words upon releasing them from her tongue, yet she was grateful for gathering the courage to take the risk, nonetheless. Finally, her efforts had borne positive fruition!

'And now that is one guilty thought tossed from my conscience.'

A soft thud brought Cordelia's focus to Alison once more, who had proceeded to flop backwards onto the middle of the mattress and wrap her body up in the quilt after wiggling about from side to side to get herself comfortable.

"Huh. This is softer than I thought!" Alison quietly remarked. "Maybe I'll get some shuteye, after all!" She paused and balled her hands into loose fists, proceeding to stretch her arms above her before tilting her head in Cordelia's direction. "Wish me luck, old timey lady!"

Cordelia hid an amused smile behind her hand. "It's Cordelia."

"Then I apologise in advance if I forget it by the morning."

"Duly noted," Cordelia muttered in jest, her smile remaining until Alison turned her head upright and fell quiet.

Deciding to try to give Alison some peace of mind and not make her uncomfortable lurking close to the bedside, the Victorian ghost made her way to the table and sat on the chair beside it, folding her arms across the tabletop and resting the side of her head against them. It didn't long for her own fatigue to kick in and make her eyes heavy, yet Cordelia did nothing to fight it off. Despite how chaotic tonight had been, the welcoming warmth that blossomed in her chest acted as a reassuring sign that she could resume her sleep once more; a small reward for the good deed she'd done this evening.

'I do not doubt that I will awaken tomorrow morn with terrible discomfort from lying in such a position. But I suppose it is a small price to pay for the comfort of another soul in need.'

The young blonde woman was well aware that this small victory of hers would be short-lived when she next woke up. Cordelia couldn't even begin to imagine the chaos she had unleashed by hiding Alison in her bedroom and what was likely to await them the moment the other ghosts realised Alison was missing. But, of course, that was tomorrow's problem, a statement she told herself as she finally closed her eyes and drifted off to the distant hooting of an owl outside and the steady breathing of a sleeping Alison occupying the bed.

A/N: So, yeah... I'm sure people can probably guess that Alison was the main reason for the writer's block. XD Trying to write Alison at her current stage with the ghosts was tough as is, but trying to write Alison at her current stage with the ghosts around Cordelia? That was tough times two. But this is why I purposely chose Cordelia and Alison to get a proper interaction by having Alison accidentally flee to Cordelia's room and not back upstairs like she does in the episode.

A lot of you have probably noticed by now that Cordelia is very routine-orientated and stubborn, caused in part by her unresolved trauma surrounding the circumstances of her demise. Sure, the other ghosts have helped her to have epiphanies and gradually start to accept the feelings of attachment she tries to avoid acknowledging when it comes to Button House and Heather, but it obviously wasn't enough to push Cordelia out of her comfort zone and actually do something to help Alison. Cordelia wants to keep her peace and avoid the antics of the ghosts as much as she can, yet she is smart enough to notice when her outspoken nature will cause unnecessary drama because of how the others are. Well, when she can keep herself in check, that is. XD This is why she usually goes along with the others' silly suggestions in some situations, especially pertaining to Alison because of how unusual it is. I mean, it's not everyday the ghosts encounter someone who can see them, right? XD And while by this point she was trying to approach this from a logical standpoint to be cautious, witnessing first-hand just how bad things were getting for Alison was what she needed to realise that she couldn't keep waiting for an opportunity to do something that wouldn't cause further conflict with her invisible acquaintances. And this is something that she will finally acknowledge in the next chapter.

And then we have /Alison/. It didn't make sense to me that Alison would immediately trust Cordelia just because she was avoiding her all day, especially because throughout this part of episode 2, she is still heavily convinced that the ghosts are all in her head. And as she is under a lot of stress because of the ghosts' antics by this point and is struggling to even get a goodnight's rest because of them, that is certainly not helping her mental state. So in Alison's eyes, she still associates Cordelia with 'the imaginary people' initially, even though Cordelia does inadvertently save her from Robin. However, her struggles to figure out what's real and what's not while in her exhausted state, I imagine, would make her easily swayed into listening to Cordelia this time around just because, partially helped by the fact she has noticed Cordelia is acting differently to the other ghosts, not just by her actions, but also her words. Alison has spent the entire day having the ghosts harass her in every nook and cranny of the house, with the majority of them only speaking to her because they want something or to be rude (outside of Pat and Kitty, who are trying to be friendly but... are approaching it in the wrong way. XD) Cordelia is the first of the ghosts who has actually apologised to her for her behaviour, who has asked her if she's okay, who has expressed concern for her wellbeing and attempted to offer a solution to her problems. Even if Alison is not in a good headspace and she were still convinced that Cordelia is imaginary, I did feel like this is a factor she would have noticed and wouldn't ignore, though she is still sceptical about everything at this moment in time. So while Alison and Cordelia aren't at a point where the former is completely convinced that the ghosts are real, nor at a point where she can completely trust Cordelia, I did feel it was realistic for Alison to at least come to a temporary truce with Cordelia under the current circumstances, in part thanks to Cordelia being Cordelia. XD