Who: Melissa, ghost Nick and Adam and Cassie too if she wants. What: A haunting Where: their apartment in the projects When: Tonight Warnings: Angst
"You used to love this song, Melissa."
Nick was wandering her small ratty bedroom as some depressing The Smiths song came on her cd player. Melissa was curled up on the mattress she had been sleeping on in the corner of the room. Melissa was a small girl at just barely five feet and she seemed even smaller folded in over herself. How could Nick be here? How was it even possible to bring back the dead like this?
"I pretended to love this song because you loved it," she said in a dull monotone.
"You did a lot of things to make me happy, didn't you?"
Well, it was nice that he finally noticed now that he was dead and there was nothing to do about it. Nick wasn't a nice guy. He didn't seduce Melissa with romance. He was more like Faye, cruel and quick to cut losses and have fun. She figured that must have been why she fell in love with him and a little bit with her. Because she liked the pain but the small parts, the pieces of hope she saw in them. It made her feel alive. She just nodded to answer Nick's question. He was sitting right next to her now. If he wasn't a ghost, she would feel his shoulder pressing into hers.
"I'm glad you didn't come back as the demon," Melissa finally said quietly. She had hated that thing and it had taken her awhile to see that the demon wasn't Nick. It was just Nick's body. She had killed the demon, not Nick. She had to believe that.
"Me too. That guy was a dick." Nick agreed as "He ran a hand through his blond hair and gave Melissa a look. "He wasn't me though. I don't even really remember what he said and what he did."
"What was it like to drown?" she asked him.
"I dunno." Nick shrugged. "It didn't hurt though. Not really. I wasn't even scared."
Melissa looked over at him. She knew better. She'd had that fucking demon inside of her and she had been scared. So scared. Stuck inside her own body, helpless to do anything but watch as that monster took control. She started to cry again, she had been crying on and off since Saturday morning. Adam and Cassie had tried to do what they could for her but they didn't know what to do and they had their own Nick guilt to work through.
"You came back," Melissa said in a shaky voice. "Months later. The demon survived the drowning. I thought maybe you were still in there somewhere. I wanted to believe but I guess you really died in the water. That thing that I killed wasn't you."
She heard a shuffle at the door and turned to look at Nick.
"Come in," she called. She wasn't really in the mood for company but they both had the right to see Nick too. He was their friend too.