Caleb was leaning against the white ash tree just across the street in her neighbor's front yard. The moon was a pearly white orb in the sky, the clouds slithering past its surface hauntingly. Almost as if they didn't want to get caught up in the middle of things about to happen between two headstrong teenagers.

The quiet of the night was in danger.

Amy wondered why Caleb was standing just out of reach but just in sight. He stoically regarded her and she imagined his melancholy voice whispering in her ear – Last chance, Amelia.

She squared her shoulders, pulled the glass pane down and disappeared from her bedroom window – only to reappear a few moments later at her door. Slowly, Amy leaned against the porch column, mirroring Caleb's stance.

He looked down at his feet and his hand grazed the back of his head. A couple of long strides later, they stood facing each other. His eyes were warily searching her face for clues. Amy let them wander freely, noting that they lingered a second more than necessary on her lips. Maybe he had noticed them quivering after all. This time though, she was in control. Amy gave nothing away.

She led him up the stairs to her room and shut the door. He looked ill at ease, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. But to his credit, Caleb did not say a word. Amy could feel the atmosphere in the room stretch – tauten like a deliberately pulled rubber band. She dug her notebook up from the tangled sheets and signaled Caleb to take a seat.

Predictably, he did not comply. Amy realized this guy was taciturn for a reason. He did not like to play games. She softened her approach.

"Caleb, please sit down so I can explain," Amy said quietly, not wishing to wake her parents up. It would be hard to explain why she was mumbling to herself at one-thirty in the night. She doubted they would be able to handle two daughters needing therapy.

"If the answer is no then I don't want to waste my time here," he said harshly. "Besides I don't know how much of it I have left."

His tone didn't intimidate Amy this time. She knew he was putting up a façade; his mental walls climbing higher as he tried to defend himself against her inevitable attack. Out of all the possibilities that she had considered, Amy guessed which one Caleb thought she would pick. She knew she deserved to be thought of that way, particularly after her behavior in the afternoon. Under his jacket, all his muscles were rigid.

"I want to help you, Caleb. And I am sorry that I didn't want to before." Amy looked contrite.

"Do you mean it?" he asked, shrewdly.

"Yes, I do."

"Oh thank God," he said, and discernibly relaxed in front of her eyes. Caleb shifted as though the concrete block that he had been forced to carry on his back all this while had crumbled to dust.

Hell, that sure was quick, Amy thought. It's not like he has a choice.

Caleb closed his eyes and the scowl that Amy thought was quite permanent, slowly smoothened. He did have a handsomely carved face, framed by his silky hair. She couldn't recall seeing a more attractive nose.

He perched onto a pillow that had fallen onto the floor. "Continue," he said, the corners of his mouth lifting fleetingly. Amy was puzzled by his style but decided to humor him. She lowered down to her knees and rested on the balls of her feet, handing the open spiral notebook to him.

Reflexively, Caleb reached out for it but his fingers couldn't quite touch it and it slid away from his outspread palm and onto the carpet with a dismal thump.

"That never gets old," he muttered and scratched his nose. "Why don't you hold it up for me?"

"Alright," she said, holding it up so that he could see. "I have a few theories. About your um... condition."

"Let's hear them."

Amy explained all three in reverse order so that he would be left with the most positive scenario for last. Her plan was doomed from the start because Caleb Dawson wasn't a cheerful personality. He was ready with comments on each and with the way his arguments were structured, she felt that Caleb had practiced them over and over again in his own head.

"I can testify that you are not hallucinating because I went to my house and heard my Mom asking about me on the phone. I think she had called Principal Staves. So, my body has not returned."

"But if you are my hallucination, wouldn't you just say, hear and see whatever I wanted you to?"

"Point," Caleb said, weighing that possibility. "How about we drive down to my place and you ask my sister, Emma?"

"I can't just drop by you know, asking about her potentially missing brother."

"Fine, tell her you are in my Biology class and ask for notes."

If the real world Caleb was out there somewhere and she wasn't hallucinating, Amy needed proof. If no one had seen him in a while then it was possible that his subconscious or his soul or something was reaching out. It raised more questions than it answered however because then why choose her? Why not someone closer to him or more competent like the police?

"What are you anyway?" Amy asked, throwing a nonchalant glance at him.

"I don't know. I don't want to say ghost because you have some excellent counter-arguments bulleted against the term," he said. "I must say, I am impressed by the effort."

Caleb was regarding her with mistrustful eyes and a slight smirk – as if he was torn between doubting the degree of her seriousness and his own amusement. "Then there are poltergeists, but traditionally they are violent spirits that can throw furniture and other heavier stuff around. I cannot hold a pen."

"Phantoms are gassier I think," Amy wondered out loud.

"Gassy?" Caleb chuckled. "Don't you mean gaseous?"

"I will leave you to figure it out."

Amy considered the terms. She figured he did need a name he identified with, just to keep him occupied. And since she was the more verbose of the two, she took on the responsibility. She didn't like the sound of 'lost soul', 'manifestation' or 'apparition'. 'Phantasms', 'spooks' and 'shades' seemed unnecessary and a bit too British – he didn't seem to possess any awesome supernatural powers as such. He wasn't even that scary.

Amy bit her lower lip. "How about 'spectre'?"

Caleb tasted the word on his tongue. He seemed to like it enough. His eyes were luminous in the soft light of her bedside lamps. They were the color of a still ocean at midnight, with specks of lighter blue interspersed chaotically – like icebergs shining in the moonlight scattered across the dark, frigid waters.

Amy realized that she was staring. She cleared her throat and went on, "Now that we have that settled, we need to locate your body."

"Yes. And quickly. I can't stay like this forever, you understand that right?" Caleb was grave and the helpless edge in his tone returned. His voice was like cut glass. "I need to be with my family."

Of course, Amy knew that he wanted to return to his old life. But she hadn't truly comprehended what a perpetual existence in this state meant for him. He would never touch, feel or taste anything. No one except her would even know of him. The solitude would swallow him whole, and he would be powerless to escape it. She shuddered at the thought.

"I don't ever want your pity. I only need your help," he flared up, misreading her thoughts. This time his voice and expression, were both steady and hard as granite. Amy tried relating to his outburst. It wasn't unlike hers, if she were to be commiserated by a stranger.

"Fine. I get it. Do you want to discuss this further or are you tired?" Amy asked, more for her sake than his. Her knees were aching unpleasantly.

He sighed in response and stretched out on the rug. Weirdly, the pillow under him didn't move as he did so. Caleb put his arms over his eyes and spoke in a voice so low that Amy was sure it was meant for him and not her. "If I am dead, we must find my body. I want to be buried. Otherwise, Mom and Emma will never accept it."

Amy's heart ached for him. She had never been a crier, but she knew how dependent Mrs. Dawson was on her eldest son, ever since her unloving husband had abandoned them. In a small town, gossip was as unavoidable as getting wet in a bath. His sister Emma was a sweet little thing. A wallflower in a house full of folks with queer tendencies.

She got to her feet and plopped on her bed. Using her elbows to support her head, Amy lay down on her front. Her face hovered above his – just over the corner of the bed. Amy's hair had mutinied again, and russet locks fell towards his arm. If he were normal, they would tickle him. Instead, the tips of the strands curled imperceptibly away from his forearm.

"Caleb, I don't want you to dwell on that from the start. I won't lie, it is possible. We really don't know anything about – about all of this right now," Amy said, trying to console him without giving him false hope. It was hard.

He puffed out his cheeks. His eyes blinked uncertainly at her, his pupils softer in the orange glow. Caleb shakily raised his hand.

Amy realized that he wanted to tuck a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. She was as unsure about this little physical gesture as he appeared to be in his shy hesitation. But she allowed him to do it anyway. In truth, she was mesmerized by his beautiful face – so vulnerable and conflicted – staring up at her with emotions and fears that he couldn't express.

And so, Caleb was the first amongst them to give in to the inexorably doomed impulse to touch the other. Amy's pulse quickened as his fingers inched closer to her ear. She felt an achingly slow, alien sensation burn the delicate flesh near the tip of her ear. It kept growing till the burn reached an almost unbearable pitch. But exactly then the infuriating, invisible forces triggered and – Caleb's fingers did not touch Amy.

He slowly brought his hand back next to his side, but he didn't seem to want to. His face was hard with justifiable anger. Caleb just couldn't touch her; couldn't touch anything. He turned his head away from her. Amy marveled at the firm line of his jaw.

Caleb swallowed.

"Thank you. For agreeing to help me," he said, his voice soft, deep.

An actual thank you from one of the biggest jerks on the planet? Amy thought haughtily. She wanted to tease him badly but she refrained, not wanting to ruin the moment. He was the asshole, not her. But the tête-à-tête had turned in a severe direction and there was only so much mushy-mushy she could take on in a single night. The least you could do is look at me, punk.

"I am not doing this for free, you moron. You will need to pony up for all the time and resources I am investing in you," Amy said, amused.

Caleb turned his head to look at her, grinning. And just like that, all the trepidation from their 'moment' broke. He was relaxing in her presence.

"Well, I think it is your solemn duty as a fellow human being to help me. Demanding payment is impertinent to the nature of your good deed."

"Ha, so not falling for that Dawson. I want sushi in the poshest Japanese restaurant in Atlanta."

"I don't think Umi's a fair trade-off." Caleb pouted.

"Am I not trying to save your life?"

"I am not going to watch the oysters squirm away from my hand while you stuff your face," he said, looking adorable with his gleaming, playful eyes and lopsided grin. "We go only after everything is... normal again. Deal?"

"Deal," Amy said, smiling slightly.

All this talk. What if there is no way to save him? Her innate cynicism lunged and sunk its poisonous fangs into her thoughts. She didn't want to think about that. If she was going to do this for Caleb, she had to be all in.

"We need a plan," Amy said, rubbing her hands together, but the melatonin in her system was kicking in. She struggled to keep her eyes open, her eyelids were just too heavy. Closing them she murmured sleepily, "We need to shortlist all the people you interacted with the night of the school carnival. We need to ask them questions. Then, we will visit all the places you can remember going to. I will make the notes and you float around prettily –"

"Hey!"

"What is the last thing you remember from that night?" she asked, voicing her thoughts. Amy tried to control the self-satisfied smirk that appeared on her lips. It was fun provoking him.

"I remember bumping into you, talking to a few people. There was this woman..."

Amy yawned. She was aware that she looked like a bear fresh out of hibernation when she did that and sounded just as loud – but that wasn't going to stop her because an appealing stranger was the unfortunate onlooker.

Caleb was regarding her intently, letting his words die down. Amy wished he would stop looking at her like that. He is so capricious, she thought drowsily. He was the first person in ages whose actions she couldn't read with quite the level of accuracy she was used to. Deep inside her, she recognized the primal warning signs. The faint ringing of colonial bells from Sirencester's town centre, when enemy soldiers were near.

But there was no turning back now. There were two unlikely players in this game. Oblivious children, unsure of what they were up against.

"I think you should sleep," Caleb sighed, heavily. He stood up and put his knee on the other side of the bed –

"Woah, what do you think you are doing?" Amy jerked from her languor, pointing at him and a slow laugh bubbled from inside her. "You think you can be nice for one second and I will let you in my bed?"

He looked totally dumbfounded. "I've never been refused before. And I can't sleep."

"Oh," Amy blushed. Of course, Caleb had slept with other girls. Just because she was the only one he could interact with right now didn't mean his past had ceased to exist.

She didn't have the energy for this. Wait, did he say he can't sleep?

"Well, you were never a bothersome invisible spectre before either so I guess there is a first time for everything," Amy mumbled, dismissively. Some things could wait till the morning.

And thus began the series of nights that Caleb Dawson spent on Amelia Irvine's bedroom floor.

✧

A/N: After a rollercoaster of a day, our two main characters have finally turned in for the night. Well, at least one of them has. What do you think Caleb did while Amy snored obliviously? Funny answers only, please 🙈