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Burn That Candle, End to End

Chapter 2: The Story So Far

Summary:

Gwen arrives five minutes early. Later than Alice – always fun to see – but she doesn’t seem to be in the mood for a brief scuffling session, so Alice keeps her head down. No comment on the whiteboard message either, once a couple of minutes pass.

It’s going to be a long night.

Notes:

This chapter I hate but what can ya do. Better stuff coming I promise!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Alice pulls a whiteboard marker out of her jacket pocket and taps it against her chin.

She’s already cleared the whiteboard off with her sleeve, blank slate, ready to have a new message imparted on it. There haven’t been that many scary or funny cases recently, so it’s fairly slim pickings if she’s going to try and summarise one of them.

She settles on JETTY MELTS INTO OCEAN, which is very newspaper-headline of her but not altogether bad. Shame to see the robot one go, though.

Gwen arrives five minutes early. Later than Alice – always fun to see – but she doesn’t seem to be in the mood for a brief scuffling session, so Alice keeps her head down. No comment on the whiteboard message either, once a couple of minutes pass.

It’s going to be a long night.

Quietly, but not silently, she curses herself for committing to keeping up the whiteboard tradition. She could be in bed right now, with the cover quota doubled for the winter, warm up to her neck. It seems like Gwen hasn’t found out about the heating system yet, and Alice isn’t about to ask her to turn it on like some crawling, snivelling thing.

Her coat is much thinner than it looked in the store. Maybe now is one of those times where it’s better to opt for comfort than fashion. One of those rare times.

She clicks the computer on, only to check what time it is. How has it only been one minute since Gwen arrived?

Alice has been weighing the pros and cons of quitting in her mind since… what happened to Sam and Colin. Since long before Sam and Colin, actually, but she’s never hated this job as much as she does right now. She’s never felt shameful receiving her pay before, which is saying something.

It’s not just that Sam and Colin are gone, though. It’s that Gwen’s become about a hundred times more insufferable with that promotion. No, not insufferable… unreadable. It’s still easy enough to get her riled up – Alice doesn’t know what she’d do if she lost that feature of her day – but it’s just so different to how it used to be.

When Gwen leant over her desk to prod at Alice before, it was easy enough to have the following quarrel over and done in a matter of minutes. Now, Gwen lingers. Alice doesn’t know if it’s Gwen or herself that’s sadder – if Gwen is indulging Alice or vice versa.

She really hopes she’s the good one in their horrible relationship. She doesn’t know where her fixation with being… better came from, but it’s only grown in the recent weeks, flared up to fill her with something markedly unfillable.

Now she doesn’t know what she’s competing with Gwen for. Moral superiority? Is that it? She makes herself sick sometimes.

Celia makes herself known with a few sharp steps resonating from the door to the room. Alice smiles up prematurely, and has to hold her face that way until Celia properly comes into view.

‘Hi, Alice.’ is all she gets before Celia has settled down in front of her computer.

‘Celia.’

God. Poor Celia. Alice understands if she’s earned any hate from her. With all that happened with Sam, she should really just be leaving her alone.

She sticks her head down and stares blankly at her keyboard. She’ll have to work eventually, but until Gwen comes out to give a routine rousing, it can probably wait.

And there she is. Like clockwork.

‘Alice.’ Gwen says.

‘I’m working already. You don’t need to remind me.’

Gwen shuffles around to stand behind her and get a look at her evidently blank computer screen.

‘I see.’ Gwen says. ‘Here’s a reminder – I shouldn’t have to remind you. You come here to do your job. Try and remember that.’

Alice sort of wishes Gwen had put on her annoying know-it-all voice on so that she could echo it back at her, but this time her voice clicks into something like a teacher voice, like someone spelling something out for a child. And that makes Alice too angry to even start anything with her.

‘Sure.’ is all she manages.

Gwen stays hovering until Alice has reluctantly clicked her way into the case interface. Then she walks back off without a word – though a sigh escapes her slightly. That means something, but Alice can’t be bothered to sift through Gwen’s many miseries to figure out what’s causing it.

Alice gets to work.

It only takes two cases for the disgusting neediness to form a grip on her again, and by the next one it’s practically unbearable. She rolls away from her desk and stares at Gwen’s office door.

It’s a wholly impersonable door. Cold lettering midway up it simply reads, OFFICE, and the patches where the lacquer is peeling look sharp and splintered.

Silently communing with the door is like silently communing with a brick wall. Because it’s a door, Alice. It’s not too far off it.

‘Celia?’ she calls.

‘Yes.’

‘Uh.’ Alice points lamely to her computer. ‘This woman’s… pet bug escaped. And kept showing up mysteriously in her friends’ houses. What would you call that?’

‘Can you elaborate?’ Celia says, getting out of her chair. She walks over and settles, leaning an arm on the back of Alice’s chair as she looks at the screen.

‘Like, the bug… like, she kept trying to catch it, but she could never touch it and her friends thought she was going crazy. Is that… a ghost, or something?’

‘Hmm.’ Celia mumbles.

And as Celia scrolls through the case, humming tiredly, Alice feels herself slip back into the memory of the cold.

She never saw Sam before he went. That’s the detail that sets her unravelling whenever she comes back to it. And she didn’t see it happen, either, all the stuff with the Archivist – if she didn’t trust Celia, then there’s no way she would’ve believed it at all.

The first thing she did, when she got there, when she found Sam gone, was put her hand on Celia’s shoulder. It felt like some sort of bizarre fatherly gesture – she distantly remembered her own father doing something like that for her. And Celia was crying, at first, face gripped in her hands and tears leaking of her chin, but soon enough it subsided. She spoke through all that had happened, and Alice nodded, and squeezed her hand tighter, and tried as hard as she could to hear the words she was saying.

But soon Celia was gone without her realising at all. And somehow Alice was on the floor with her hands curled up, and it was so cold.

It was the same coat she’s wearing now that she was wearing that day, now that she thinks about it. Maybe it was lined with an especially cold fabric as a cruel joke. But, no, it wasn’t just that that did it – the cold was in her fingers, and creeping over her scalp, and burning on her ears. It was pressing against her from all sides.

All she could do, really, was breathe. And as simple as that sounded, it was an almost impossible task. Breath went out of her easily enough, but getting anything through to her lungs was slow and laborious.

She had to keep her lips parted only just, taking in whistle-sized mouthfuls of air, and filtering them, too – if she tried to breathe any other way her throat would reject it, and she’d be left wheezing and flailing. It didn’t help that she was shaking too much to keep her mouth still, and that tears were clogging her nose and gumming up her mouth.

Possibly the only thing that kept her going was the thought that death by asphyxiation was a stupid way for someone who works closely with the paranormal to go.

It was only because she was so disoriented that she ever found the tape in the first place. When her eyes cleared enough for her to read the writing on it – STATEMENT OF SAMAMA KHALID – she treated herself to a good minute of swearing before gently pocketing it.

Alice’s hand reaches into her jacket pocket now, where – to little surprise – the tape still rests. She should’ve found a safe place for it by now, but while it’s here with her now, the best she can do is turn it so she isn’t sitting on it.

Something pokes her cheek.

‘Alice?’

‘What?’

‘I’ve categorised the case for you.’ Celia explains, leaning over her to make eye contact. ‘You went into daydream mode.’

‘Oh. Yeah, I guess I did.’ Alice says. Her hand closes tight around the tape in her pocket.

‘Or something like it.’ she says. Her shoulders heave into a hasty shrug.

Alice watches her retreat to her desk, and then turns to stare again at Gwen’s door.

Her hand stays in her pocket. She’s not cold anymore, though she can’t pinpoint when she started to warm.

Alice sighs. There’s nothing to be done. It’s now or never. Well, it isn’t, but if she doesn’t do anything now then she’ll just keep putting it off indefinitely for what feels like a very long time.

She slides the tape out of her pocket and clutches it tightly at her side. Her hand wraps around the doorknob, and she pushes it inwards. The hinges squeal, almost indignantly.

‘Gwen?’ she calls. ‘I need your help.’

Notes:

I'm @wizerdbattle on tumblr if you feel like dropping by! Updates are still gonna be slow but I haven't forgotten about this one (yet).

Notes:

Had a lot of fun writing this one! If anyone manages to spot the (what, two?) references in this chapter I'll be very impressed.

I'm on tumblr doing nothing in particular at @wizerdbattle! Come hang out 😊