Archive of Our Own

The whole thing was Niko’s idea.

It all starts that one rainy afternoon, not so long after the Devlin house. The boys are out on a case that Crystal decided to sit out, half because Edwin said something about a magic library, and they don’t really need Crystal’s help for that (Edwin enjoys the task of reading and researching all too much, and who is Crystal anyway to take that from him with her powers), and half because she woke up this morning with a headache and the worst period cramps ever, no memory of a calendar to keep track of and no supplies bought beforehand to handle it in any nice, quick way.

She doesn’t tell the boys about this, of course. Last thing she needs is Mr Edwardian Edwin to start talking about affections of the humors and female hysteria.

So all she is doing is lying on her bed with nothing to do, moping and looking at her blank boring rented ceiling, the sound of the rain hopefully drowning some of the voices in her head.

And that’s when Niko shows up, around three o’clock, carrying boxes of pads and painkillers and a reasonable amount of chocolate, as well as her mom’s particular tea brew for dealing with menstrual cramps, which she proceeds to warm up on Crystal’s kitchen like she owns the place (or any place, for the matter, as Jenny probably would say).

“Alright, I know you said you just wanted to lie down and do nothing for the rest of the day,” Niko says before Crystal can even decide whether she wants to thank her like the goddess she is or kick her out despite of it, “but this is like, the perfect day to lose yourself watching TV. And I just thought it might help you feel better. I’m not sure what you like, but I have a lot of options, and I think movies are one of those things you can have in common with pretty much anyone, even if you don’t know each other all that well. Although now I’m thinking that maybe that’s just me and you’d really like to be left alone, but I just thought—”

“I thought you’d gone out with the boys.”

Crystal blurts out the words without a second thought, rudely so, but still kind of processing the fact that Niko came into her room like a storm of rainbows and hearts bearing everything that Crystal could possibly need on a rainy, moppy, lazy afternoon. She’s also struggling to take in Niko’s presence in of itself—her clothes, her voice and the way she generally talks to Crystal like she enjoys spending time with her, and not like she’s the ugly, angry person that David keeps insisting she was—although she’s getting used to that by now.

Niko’s wearing a cozy pink hoodie that’s very much for the kind of day she just described (just staying at home, watching TV shows, eating chocolate and not thinking about anything), along with a white skirt and black tights that can’t be all that cozy and comfortable, but somehow look good on her, as if she’s just gotten ready to go out. It’s strange, Crystal thinks, how she can go so quickly from being the sad, grieving girl she met on her first week, to the bubbly, happy little thing that amicably discusses cases with Edwin and offers to trade books with him. Crystal can only hope they don’t become too good friends. She likes Niko enough that she’d be sorry to lose her if she begins to treat her like Edwin does.

She realizes, a little too late, that they’ve both been quiet for a while now, staring at each other in complete silence. Niko’s expression is one that she can’t quite decipher—although she wouldn’t need to, when she could just brush her hand against Niko and pretend she didn’t see anything—but she looks a little less bubbly than she did a minute ago. Like that. Halfway between sad and happy.

“I mean…” Crystal clears her throat. Was she rude, just now? Is that why she’s staring at her like that? She was rude, wasn’t she. Her tone was a bit harsh. As if she were annoyed by Niko’s presence. Which she isn’t. “I mean, you love the cases. And the researching and—and that. You could have fun with the guys out there. You don’t have to be stuck here with me.”

“Oh, I know. I just felt bad leaving you all alone. And besides, I like the rain. Kind of. From the inside, mostly. Although I don’t like thunder that much, sometimes.”

She sits on the side of Crystal’s bed carrying her laptop. The bed is small, barely enough for one person, if only if that person happens to be as unfairly short as Crystal is, and Niko doesn’t.

“But I can leave if you want me to. I wouldn’t be bothered, I promise. I just wanted to help you feel better. What kind of movies do you like to watch?”

“I…”

Crystal tries to say something that justifies why that would be a bad idea, why they shouldn’t just sit down on her small, rented bed and scoot over next to each other, watching a movie on a computer like it’s the damn pandemic all over again, and why is she even able to remember that and not remember a thing about her parents, it just fucking beats her. Something that tells Niko that she wants to be alone, without sounding vulnerable but without sounding mean, like I don’t even need this, seriously, the painkillers you gave me are already kicking in, which isn’t even a lie. Something that explains that she’s not bothered by this but also shouldn’t be doing this, that thank you, Niko, but I’m good, and no, no I’m not annoyed by your presence, I’m just me, and I just think, I just realized maybe I’m not a good person to be around, and why are you even being so nice to me, why should you, why would you, what do you know about me.

Instead of any of that, the only thing that comes out of her mouth, nonsensical and completely devoid of context, is the word:

“Eighties.”

She blinks. Niko looks at her.

What?

She’s not sure where the memory comes from. She probably dreamed about it in these last few weeks, sometime between the nightmares of serial killers with an axe. But she remembers remembering this, since before David got into her head again back at the Devlin house. She remembers looking at Charles for the first time and thinking he looked like some actor from an old film, maybe one that she’d watched with her parents. She can’t place it, but it’s there, somewhere, between the memories of David and London and the useless notion of a pandemic that happened.

“You mean, like. Movies set in the eighties? Or movies made in the eighties? Because that encompasses a lot of things.”

“I…” She’s not sure. She sits upright on the bed, frowning at herself. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

She has images in her head of things she might have seen. Stuff that maybe she could recognize if she were to see it again, like the VHS tape at the Devlin’s. She knew she’d seen that before somewhere. She just can’t remember the name of the movie.

Niko’s eyes widen in sympathy as she realizes. “Oh. Right.” She stays quiet for a second or two, awkwardly tapping at the keyboard. Her nails are very short, painted white today. “I could just put up something I like. So you wouldn’t have to think about it too hard. I like old films.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Like the kind my dad had when he was young. We used to watch them together.”

For a while, neither of them say anything. Crystal just stares at her socks and Niko remains silent, and she thinks she somehow managed to bring down the mood for the two of them, and knock down all the positive energy that Niko somehow brought into her room just by walking in.

“I don’t… I don’t even know the names. I’m not sure where it comes from. Maybe if you could look into my brain like I can look into yours you would see faces and posters and you’d recognize the movies, but I don’t.” She curls up tighter against herself, pressing a pillow against her stomach. “I remember more about them than I remember about my fucking parents, though.”

Niko fidgets with the hem of her hoodie. “I always did wonder how that works with amnesia. Like, how do you know how to walk and talk and how to behave around humans when you can’t remember your childhood? And I know you can’t remember anything specific to your own personal life, but would you be able to remember pop culture things, like movies and books? Would you know it if I asked you what anime is? Cause not everyone knows all the pop culture things I know. How would you be able to remember that?”

“I’m pretty sure normal people don’t remember learning to talk either,” Crystal points out.

“I wonder…” Niko whispers to herself, staring blankly at her screen, and then she starts scrolling down through the internet. “Maybe if I gave you a list, you’d be able to recognize some titles. Like a trigger for your memories. Who knows, maybe we’ll find anything that has to do with your family and you’ll be able to recall something about them.”

Crystal opens her mouth and closes it.

Part of her keeps looking at Niko’s painted nails tapping on the keyboard and thinking that this is a bad idea, and also, completely useless. It’s not like she hasn’t spent half of every waking hour, and the sleeping ones as well, trying to recall anything she can about her parents. It’s not like she hasn’t tried to trigger her memories, or reach out to look into David’s brain for the brief seconds she was possessed again.

But even if it’s useless, there’s something about Niko’s kindness that is just. Irresistible. Tempting, as weird as it sounds. Like something forbidden. Something bad. But it isn’t. It’s just Niko. How could that possibly be bad?

So she shrugs. Fuck it. “Okay, sure. We could try.”

“Alright.” Niko is already pulling up a list of movies from Google and calling out names, the only requirement being apparently that all movies were released in the eighties. Which, Crystal can’t even say for sure. Maybe what she’s remembering is just a vibe, and maybe she liked modern movies that were set in the eighties. But Niko seems fine with what she’s doing, asking questions like she’s interviewing her. “Do you or do you not recall watching something called Top Gun?”

“Can’t say I do.”

“When Harry Met Sally?”

“No.”

“Tron?”

“Was that the one with the motorcycles?”

“Could be… What do you say about Gremlins?”

“I think I did watch it…”

“There was also a Batman movie.”

“I know who Batman is, I just don’t know what movie there was of him in the 1980s.”

“Back to the Future? E.T.?”

“No. Wait. No. Maybe?”

“The Never Ending Story?”

“There was a song, right?”

Half of the names mean nothing to Crystal, and those that do feel as obvious as if the saying that the sky is blue. Nothing adds or subtracts to her memory, especially because not even Niko seems to know all of the titles offered by the Internet. She can’t be sure whether it’s the amnesia or she never knew the movies in the first place. Or if David purposefully took a memory of the two of them watching The Exorcist together (which Crystal actually does remember as a cultural phenomenon that existed, and also, Niko’s search tells them that it was released in the seventies, but still. It’s the concept that’s amusing.)

“It does work pretty funny,” Niko says halfway through. “There isn’t a pattern, is there? All in all, it seems pretty random. What do you say about Star Wars?”

Crystal frowns. “Wasn’t that the one with the elf creatures and the gay captain?”

“No, that was—Wait.” Niko looks away from the computer and into Crystal’s eyes like she’s staring at her bare soul. The glow of the screen on her face makes her look a little ghostly, paired with the patting of the rain outside and the squealing of the kettle coming from Crystal’s small kitchen, which tells her that they’ve been at this for a while now. “Crystal, did you just say you don’t remember Star Wars?”

“The tea is—”

“Crystal, answer the question.”

She doesn’t think she’s ever seen Niko look so serious.

“I don’t remember watching it, no. Why? Was it important or something?”

“Was it—Crystal. Crystal, I need you to look at me.”

She does, and she watches as Niko closes her laptop and crosses her legs over Crystal’s bed, hands on her knees and knuckles white. She leans in closer, so close Crystal can smell the flowery scent of her shampoo, feel the beat of her heartbeat tense with anticipation. The squeal of the kettle fades into the background and Crystal feels her cheeks blush, as she presses herself against the wall and avoids looking into Niko’s eyes.

“Listen to me and answer very carefully,” Niko whispers. “Do you know who Luke’s father is.”

“… What.”

Niko’s face lights up like a kid’s on Christmas.

“Oh my god,” she says. “Charles is not gonna believe this.”

When the boys get back from the case, they’re still arguing about it. Jenny has already come up twice to complain about the noise, and she’s the only reason as to why the kettle is quiet now. Crystal and Niko are each holding a cup that has managed to go from hellish levels of burning to cold in the while they’ve spent discussing this, never stopping to take a sip. It’s the first time forever that the noise Jenny complains about has no supernatural cause whatsoever.

“What are you two arguing so loud about?” Charles asks, looking amused.

“Important business. Now let us be,” Niko says, kindly so, because she’s Niko. There’s even the faint specter of a smile tugging at Edwin’s lips as he looks at them, and he’s not even bothered by being in the same room as Crystal.

“I was going to tell you we’ve come back with notes and books to continue our research, but I can see that you’re busy,” he tells Niko. “We’ll come back later.”

The important business they’re discussing is in regards to Luke’s father, whoever that is, Crystal’s very foggy memories of eighties films and whatever of those films Niko considers is worth their time. Crystal just wants to watch a movie and find out what was the thing she said that Niko found to be so fascinating, but Niko insists on doing this the right way.

“If we could find the same movies that you used to watch and like so much, maybe we could somehow restore your memories of them. If all you remember about them is that they were made in the eighties, we can’t start with Star Wars. The first one was released in 1977.”

“So what? We didn’t say there were rules for choosing a movie! Maybe that one will bring me some memories too. At worst, it’ll just add context from when I watch the eighties’ one and I actually get to recall something…”

“But we can’t start with that! We should at least try first with one that’s actually from the eighties to see if it works. I mean, that’s what I think is more logical, at least. If the goal is to get your memories back.”

She’s so genuine, Crystal can’t seriously consider denying any of her claims. Even if, predictably, they end up posing their own problem.

“I like the horror ones but I wouldn’t tell you to watch a movie about demons, based on… well, everything. What I think is that you were a romance girl, so maybe I’d go with When Harry Met Sally, but it’s not like I can really know. And if you aren’t a romance girl now, I wouldn’t want to make you watch it.”

“Niko—”

“I don’t know, the goal was supposed to be that you wouldn’t have to think hard about anything, but now I’m worried I’m making it worse. On the other hand, if you do get your memories back from this, that would be great for you! But I’m not sure what you’d like, and I don’t want to give you a bad time.”

“Niko.”

“I always struggled to have fun with these ones here cause I just found them to be a little too sexist. But I guess some people or some girls don’t have that problem? Back to the Future is pretty light and one of my favorites, but most of it happens in the fifties, so the setting’s not—”

“Niko!”

Crystal feels bad about yelling immediately, because Niko actually flinches at it. On the other hand, she’s starting to look so nervous, so worried that she might’ve made Crystal’s miserable day any worse, that Crystal doesn’t think anything could totally convince her otherwise.

Not that that means you shouldn’t try, says a voice in the back of her head, a voice that has been speaking a little too loud ever since she saw David again, ever since she saw the things she might’ve done when she was a different person, a worse person. Somebody that people didn’t like very much, somebody that no one would’ve offered to bring chocolates and tea for, and watch movies with.

Jesus Christ.

So. She takes a deep breath and makes an effort to look into Niko’s eyes.

(Wait, scratch that. She just flinched at that. Doesn’t seem that she likes that. Scratch eye contact from the list of good things you can do.)

“You’re not gonna give me a bad time,” she states. “I’d like to do this. It sounds fun. But also, we do not need to think too hard about this. You know these things better than I do, right? Without the amnesia and all. So you can pick one and I’ll trust you. We’ll see how it goes.”

Niko looks at her (not into her eyes). She swallows. Crystal doesn’t need to touch her to know she seems relieved at the reassurance. “Okay,” she says. “Then maybe… would you like to see one of my favorites, then?”

Crystal smiles. “I’d like that, yes.”

“I mean, I get that it’s not set in the eighties for the most part—but I think it’s more about the vibes, you know?”

“I’m actually not sure,” Niko says, her eyes fixed on the small screen sitting in front of them. Crystal’s bed is way too small for them to be doing this, but Niko hasn’t complained in the full hour they’ve been watching this, and something in the back of Crystal’s mind stops her from suggesting they go to Niko’s bigger room every time she’s about to open her mouth.

“Like, the way the movie is filmed. And the way the characters behave. Marty McFly, mostly. But there is something very eighties to it.”

There is something familiar about the movie, either way. She’s certain she’s seen the faces of the actors somewhere else before, and the DeLorean speaks to her like an abandoned ragdoll she found in the back of a drawer and hadn’t seen since she was four.

Still, she finds herself intrigued by the plot, and unsure about what’ll happen next, as if it’s the first time she’s watching it.

“So, turns out both of his parents were creepy stalkers.”

“Yeah…”

“Oh, they were so made for each other. See, that’s a very eighties thing, isn’t it?”

They stay quiet for a while after that. Crystal expected Niko to be the kind of person who talks a lot during movies, but instead, she sits like she holds a great respect for the industry of cinema, and would consider it a disrespect to the actors and the director if she were to utter a word while the story’s happening.

That’s the first impression, at least. Simultaneously, she doesn’t complain or otherwise show any signs of discontent whenever Crystal comes up with unsolicited commentary during the happening of the film.

“The soundtrack of this movie slaps.”

By the time they’re done with the first Back to the Future movie, Crystal understands enough why it is Niko’s favorite that she doesn’t object when Niko points out that it’s not even that late yet and they could maybe watch the second and the third if she liked it.

“God, he’s such a stereotype, and yet I hate him so fucking much.”

“That’s funny, they thought 2015 was gonna be like that?”

“Those might’ve been the second most stressful 10 minutes of my life.”

“Lorraine’s dress is pretty,” it’s all that Niko says, and only by the end of the second film, as if she’s been holding that comment throughout those now nearly four hours of marathon.

She looks very serious at moments, and then a joke pops out and she’s pressing her lips like a nineteenth-century lady struggling to hide a snicker. Crystal wonders if this was one of the movies she used to watch with her dad, and why it happens to be her favorite out of all the other options. Not that it’s not good, it just doesn’t have anything to do with Niko’s other interests as far as Crystal knows—yaoi, horror and mystery and such.

Jenny knocks on their door a third time when they’re halfway through the third one, interrupting Crystal’s rant about unnecessary romantic plotlines in movies.

“Not that I care, but you guys have been locked up in here for way more time than it can possibly be healthy. So this is just a gentle reminder to stretch your legs and drink water before you die inside my property and I’m forced to explain that to the cops.”

“Thank you, Jenny!” Niko says, a genuine smile pulling at her lips while Crystal rolls her eyes.

They have a pause after that. Crystal is shocked by how long it’s been, considering that the day outside her window looks just as it did when the first movie began. Still dark and still raining. They finish the movie afterwards, both of them refusing to call it a day until their task is complete. Niko breaks her very flexible rules of silence yet again to cheer when Marty McFly finally gets back to the future, and even Crystal indulges in a little applause when the end credits start to roll.

“Okay!” Niko smiles, standing up and stretching her numb limbs. “So. Did this spark any memories?”

Crystal frowns, wondering how much more screen exposure would she be able to take before going blind. “Not really, I think? I mean, not anything concrete, but at least I know something new about myself.”

Something in Niko’s expression seems to light up. “What is it?”

“Apparently, I like to talk during movies.”

It seems that life will go on after that.

The rain stops falling. There will be cases to solve and rent to pay, and noise for Jenny to complain about, but most of it will be ghost/psychic/sprites-related. Crystal’s bed will be small, and the tea will be too hot or too cold, and Niko will keep on being her kind, nice, cute floormate who lives across the hall. Charles will keep on being attractive but safely distant unless Crystal implies she wants otherwise, Edwin will keep on being mean and David will keep on appearing from time to time like the parasite he is.

And Crystal will still be lost and amnesiac and happy to have everything that she has and sad to have lost everything that she doesn’t.

But then, one night, she wakes up not shaking and drenched in cold sweat, but humming alongside a song.

In her mind, only a melody, a name and a few blurred faces.

She blasts open her bedroom door and runs across the hall, banging on Niko’s door and bursting into her anime-filled bedroom without waiting for an answer.

Niko wakes up with a shriek—reasonable enough, as she almost died a week ago and she’s just found out about the existence of ghosts and gained the unsolicited ability to see them. Crystal must look like she’s possessed again as she leans closer to her, half-asleep, and says:

“I remembered something.” Then she blinks away the slumber in her eyes and her body seems to catch up with where it is standing. “Wait. Sorry. What? Am I still dreaming? What am I doing here? Shit, did I just—”

“Something came back?” Niko’s asking, lighting up a bedside table so Crystal can see the huge smile on her face and realize that she’s not screaming anymore. “Crystal, that’s amazing! What did you remember?”

“I’m not… Okay, I’m not really sure, but I think I could come up with a title. And somewhat of a plot. But like, everything in the middle is missing? But there are eighties vibes here too. Oh! And there was a song?”

“You’re remembering music?”

Crystal hums the melody that came to her in a dream like a prophetic vision.

Niko’s shoulders slump in understanding. “Oh.”

“And the name! Yeah! I got the name,” Crystal adds, which is probably unnecessary. “The movie was called Ghostbusters, wasn’t it?”

Before Niko can say anything else, or before Edwin or Charles can come down from the rooftop where they spend their sleepless nights, invoked by the notion of stereotypical representations of ghosts in pop culture, Jenny bursts through Niko’s door, that Crystal apparently closed up, not very quietly, in the middle of her trance.

“What,” she asks through gritted teeth, “the fuck.”

Neither of them really have anything to say to that.

The following day is a regular day filled with mystery and cases and tasks and payment such as most days are now. So Niko doesn’t really get a chance to test her theory on memories and triggers before the night comes.

A proper movie night, if you will.

They change their setting to Niko’s room, because her bed is bigger and more comfortable for two people to lie down with a laptop, even if it does mean they’ll be suffering through the commentary of the Dandelion Sprites throughout all of the Ghostbusters franchise.

Or maybe just the one movie. Crystal’s eyes still hurt when they blink after the Back to the Future marathon.

“So, I can recall the name and some images, and the music for some reason, but I’m not so sure about the plot. Maybe sitting through the entire movie could spark something?”

“I hope so,” Niko says, sitting down next to her with bowls of snacks. “Do you think watching another eighties classic the other day triggered the movie? Or maybe it’s just because you’re surrounded by real life ghosts all the time?”

Crystal shrugs. “Could be either, I suppose.”

Niko grins. “Just another unsolvable mystery for the agency.”

She says it casually, like it’s just a joke between friends, but the comment hits Crystal harder than it should’ve. Because this is how it was supposed to be, wasn’t it? She was supposed to be nothing more than a case to solve, just like Niko was. The boys should be the ones performing experiments on Crystal’s brain, seeing the way her mind reacts to possible audiovisual triggers and collecting data based on it. They should be the ones doing this, helping her out, having movie nights with her. She doesn’t understand why it upsets her that they aren’t, or why she can’t help but feel that she’d rather have Niko be the detective in charge of her case.

For some reason, it just feels easier spending time with her.

She supposes it has to do with the fact that she’s alive. When all is said and done, Charles is still a ghost, and Edwin’s still—yeah, he’s still a ghost.

Crystal doesn’t realize she’s been staring until Niko sits back to let the movie start and looks her in the eye with a frown. “What is it? Do I have something in my face?”

“I… No, sorry. There’s nothing,” she says. And then, “I like your sweater.”

Niko gives her one of her brightest grins. She’s wearing the green sweater that she had the other day when they were researching into the Devlin house, alongside green leggings and socks. She starts fidgeting with her necklace, which has a pendant shaped like a mushroom. “Oh, thank you,” she says.

And something in Crystal’s chest flutters.

It’s harder to focus for this one film.

Crystal doesn’t wanna say it is the setting, but that’s probably what it is.

She sinks into Niko’s big, fluffy, pink pillows that smell of flowery shampoo and makes an effort to stare at the screen and not at the girl with the mushroom necklace sitting right next to her. It’s harder this time, half because Niko is destroying her flexible rule of not speaking and half because of the particular reason that forces her into this decision.

“Okay,” Niko says, not even ten minutes into the movie, “maybe this one is actually sexist.”

One of the Sprites from Niko’s jar (Crystal can’t be bothered to learn their names) yells something about how this is such a basic movie and how the two of them are just so fucking stupid. Crystal ignores both their voices and her own thoughts, which are now screaming at her to drown these things.

“Now I’m not even trying to remember my past,” she tells Niko instead. “I’m just trying to remember why the hell would I ever sit through this thing.”

“No, no, it’s good,” Niko claims, immediately jumping to its defense. “It is good. It’s funny. It’s iconic. It’s just… old.”

Crystal scoffs. “Back to the Future was old, and it didn’t make me want to punch a man’s face every two seconds like this movie does.”

“To be fair, we’re not sure you ever watched it. You just recalled the facts about the movie that are common pop culture knowledge.”

Crystal shrugs and puts a chip in her mouth. “I guess.”

She gets why the franchise was so iconic, despite herself. The music and the outfits and the car. She also doesn’t think she’d be watching it if Niko wasn’t with her.

“It’s weird,” Niko says suddenly.

“What part?”

“That you remember a vibe without being familiar with some of the aspects of pop culture that made up the vibe almost entirely.” She’s the one looking at Crystal now, as if she were a science project for school. Crystal appreciates her being so considerate as if not to take out a notebook and start writing down notes like Edwin would.

The character that she effectively recognizes as being interpreted by a Bill Murray makes another joke about women. Crystal takes a deep breath of the flower scent of Niko’s room.

“I just don’t get this humor,” she mutters, frustrated.

“Maybe because you’re so fucking boring!” yells one of the Sprites.

She ignores them.

Ghostbusters gets a lot better once they’re past the first twenty minutes and Sigourney Weaver makes an appearance. Crystal freezes with her hand in the bowl of chips.

“Oh my god, she is gorgeous.”

“She is, right?” She hears Niko’s smile in her voice without looking at her. “She’s really beautiful. You remember Alien?”

“I meant more along the lines of, hot and breathtaking, but yeah, I guess that doesn’t rule out beautiful either,” Crystal says. “And yeah, I do remember Alien. That is why I never suggested watching it.”

She notices Niko staring at her again, out of the corner of her eye. Probably coming up with more theories and collecting information on the way her mind works. She keeps her eyes on the screen, finally met with something in this film that is enough to distract her from the sight of Niko sitting next to her.

That is, until Sigourney’s character makes a joke (and she is way funnier than Bill Murray’s character in just a couple of lines), and she gets the sound of Niko’s laugh. She thinks that’s something she should’ve gotten used to that sound by now, because Niko is generally a very happy person, but for some reason, it hits her differently when she hears it this time.

“See, she’s funny.”

What’s definitely funny is when the ghosts (gross and small and of a sickly green, Crystal thinks they’re called poltergeists instead of ghosts) start appearing. Niko laughs again at the slime and the mists and the spirit’s big teeth, and Crystal laughs as well, as she can’t help but compare the representation to her real life experiences.

“We probably shouldn’t tell the boys about this,” Niko chuckles.

“I don’t know, I kind of wanna see the look on Edwin’s face when he sees it,” Crystal says shifting in her seat. “God, this movie is just gross all over.”

“But it’s funny.”

“It is a little bit funny,” she acknowledges. If only because Niko believes so.

They also agree on the fact that they can’t seem to be able to look anywhere else when the female lead is on screen. Crystal only dares to do so to look at Niko staring at her, and then goes back to Sigourney and her curls. And her clothes. And her beautiful eyes. And the cello she’s always carrying around during half of the movie. And then back to Niko.

“I wonder if I ever played an instrument,” she whispers to herself.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Despite everything, she finds herself dancing along with Niko once the theme song pops up.

The whole thing is, all in all, very unexpected.

The fact that there is someone being unapologetically kind to Crystal, even if that someone happens to be Niko and Crystal really should be getting used to it. The fact that she just burst into Crystal’s room and established a tradition of movie nights for the weeks to come and that they’re still doing it. The fact that she isn’t annoyed by Crystal’s commentary and that she’s doing this either because she enjoys spending time with Crystal, even when she’s mean, or because she wants to help Crystal recover her memories.

So. Anyways. Kindness. Niko. Movies. Overall. Unexpected.

What is even more unexpected, however, is the reaction this elicits from their other fellow, however illegal, and however unliving, tenants.

“So what exactly is the purpose of this?”

They’re walking back to Jenny’s shop after another light case and an afternoon of research, and Niko had the idea of attempting small talk with the socially inept Edwardian ghost who’s spent a bunch of decades trapped in hell and the other bunch being invisible. Which is pretty unusual, and then again, unexpected, as most instances of small talk eventually evolve into professional talks of cases, boring talks about supernatural lore and ghost facts or depressing talks about someone’s past, whether they can remember it or not.

Niko is probably the only person that might lead to a different result, but when being paired with Edwin, it becomes a difficult task.

“We’re trying to trigger some of Crystal’s memories,” she tells him. “I read somewhere that memories are very linked to specific sensorial experiences, so I thought maybe the act of actually watching the movies could help to recover something that she lost. I mean, she already knows that she was into this kind of stuff before David happened, so we know there’s a connection there to be explored—”

“I don’t think it’s gonna work,” Edwin says.

His sassy, matter-of-factly, good-detective voice alone is enough for Crystal to roll her eyes at him, before he actually gets to make his point out loud.

“Why?” Niko asks.

“What you’re describing could be true for specific cases of amnesia that are the result of natural causes. If I’m right, that is not the case with Crystal. David physically took her memories. They were reaped from the root, so to speak. They’re not buried. They can’t be awakened, because they’re not there.”

“You know I’m walking right behind you, right?” Crystal says.

She doesn’t expect him to respond, but she is taken aback when she realizes what he’s looking at instead. Niko has just stopped walking and is standing on the side of the road, looking suddenly very upset.

She stays quiet for a second or two, staring at a blank space with her hands on her pockets, like she’s clenching her fists.

“Okay, but you don’t know that,” she blurts out the words like she’s vomiting them. “Like, for sure. It could help. Maybe.”

Edwin gives her a puzzled look. Charles exchanges glances with Crystal behind him. “It could help as much as anything could, Niko. We have no reason to think it—”

“You don’t really know that,” Niko insists. Her voice is as loud as it can be without actually yelling. “She remembered some stuff the other day. Some movie. It was helping. She was…”

Very suddenly, she shuts up, and Crystal notices with surprise that her eyes have turned glassy.

“Niko, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

She approaches her, glaring at Edwin and mouthing something along the lines of What the fuck did you do now? but he’s looking at her like she should be the one to know. Also like he’s very confused and feeling very sorry and wants to apologize but won’t do it because he’s Edwin and also because this is just weird.

Speaking of unexpected.

Niko doesn’t move or speak again for a few minutes, until her eyes meet Crystal’s and then they go down again with a sudden movement, like they can’t face her gaze right now.

“I’m fine!” she says, in a high pitched voice, forcing a smile. She then looks up in Edwin’s direction. “Yeah, I just… I just hope that you’re wrong.”

She proceeds to pretty much run the rest of the walk, getting far away from all three of them, and then disappearing inside the butcher shop. Edwin looks back at Crystal and then at Charles, opening and closing his mouth multiple times.

“I didn’t… I wasn’t…”

“That was strange,” Crystal acknowledges, before she can actually get any angry and start yelling at him for upsetting Niko. Cause Edwin’s eccentricities have never bothered her, and the comment was actually pretty normal for him, or just for a person in that situation, to make. Not particularly mean or bitchy at all. If anything, it seems the problem is something happening with Niko herself.

She realizes she pretty much just saw Edwin and Niko having a fight, and that’s the thing that sticks with her the most afterwards. Rather than Edwin’s statement that Niko’s idea cannot help her.

“It’s alright, mate,” Charles says, also seeming pretty lost at this. He looks back at Crystal, who just nods at him.

“I’ll talk to her,” she says, and runs up inside the shop, where Jenny glares at her from behind the counter without saying a word.

Niko isn’t in her bedroom when Crystal comes in without knocking, but already locked up in the bathroom with the hot water on. After a whole ten or fifteen minutes of meaningless waiting (Jesus Christ, Niko is gonna kill the environment all by herself), Crystal knocks on the door to tell her she’ll be going out to buy some ramen down the corner store.

“Okay!” Niko yells back over the sound of the shower, sounding like she’s smiling and happy and not about to cry over the idea of not being helpful to Crystal.

When she gets back, however, Niko is nowhere to be seen, and the only occupant of her bedroom is Charles, who is skimming through Niko’s manga collection like he’s never seen one before. Which maybe he hasn’t, who knows. In what year was manga introduced to British audiences anyway?

“She went out with Edwin,” he tells her when he sees her standing on Niko’s door with more boxes of snacks that she should let herself purchase with the rent she’s paying. “He said something about needing help with a case, but I think he just wanted to be alone with her so he could apologize. In that weird Edwin way of his.”

“Oh,” is all that Crystal manages to say, trying not to sound too disappointed.

“You have any idea what got her so upset?”

“Not really, no.”

Neither of them say anything for a while, and then she sits down on Niko’s bed, picking up one of the manga that she or Charles left on her nightstand.

“He didn’t mean it with malice, you know. That’s just how he is. He didn’t mean to make her feel bad.”

“Right.”

“For what it’s worth, I think it’s nice. What you two are doing. And I think that’s really what matters. I believe it can help you, even if he doesn’t think the same.”

Crystal doesn’t know how to respond to that.

When she wakes up, she’s still on Niko’s bed and there’s a copy of the first volume of Yuri on Ice open over her chest. Charles is nowhere to be seen. Niko is gently nudging her awake, sitting beside her, and the alarm clock on her nightstand tells her it’s about half past midnight.

For some inexplicable reason, the sight of Niko leaning against her in a dimly lit room, right after waking up from a dream she can’t remember but that she knows wasn’t one of the usual nightmares, makes her cheeks blush.

“Shit,” she says, attempting to sit up. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep here.”

“It’s okay. It’s just late, so I thought you might wanna go back to your room.”

Crystal has half a second to think about why those words feel particularly harmful to her, even if they couldn’t possibly be, because this is Niko we’re talking about, before she takes in the sight of the girl herself. She seems… moderately happy now, which almost translates to melancholic in Niko’s book.

“I came looking for you,” she says.

Niko just looks at her.

“Charles said you were with Edwin. You were… you were out for a while. You seemed upset.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” she reassures her. “We talked it through. Not many people do that, but I do, and Edwin did it too, so it was fine.”

Crystal can only nod, unconvinced. “Okay…”

“I think it’s weird how people avoid talking so much,” Niko adds, suddenly. “It’s so much easier than being angry all the time. I can’t take it, knowing somebody is angry at me.”

She trails off, and her eyes start wandering across the room, as if looking for something to focus on. They eventually fall on the manga on Crystal’s lap and she reaches out to grab it, but stops at the last moment, as if she finds such proximity to be a violation of something.

Crystal just grabs the manga and hands it over to her.

They stay like that in complete silence for a while, before Niko manages to articulate anything more.

“I’m sorry I got so upset.”

She doesn’t sound any different from her usual self, if only on the lower end of her spectrum of happiness. But still calm. Still serene. Even if something behind her eyes makes it look like she’s about to start crying anytime now.

“Edwin didn’t deserve it, me running off like that. Or you. I felt bad. I guess I just really wanted to help you. But I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be making this about me.”

“You’re not,” Crystal says. “You are helping me. And either way I’m having a great time here with you.”

Niko doesn’t meet her eyes, but that’s normal. That’s not what makes Crystal’s heart feel like it weighs. It’s the way Niko pulls away from her, all the while she claims to care for her. Like pushing herself away is part of the care.

“I just feel like I’m being selfish,” she says in a low voice. “Like I feel better out of helping people feel better, but maybe in doing that I’m ignoring what you really need or want. Like maybe I happened to help you in the process but I shouldn’t get the credit for that. And maybe I’m just keeping you close because…”

“Because what?”

She sees Niko’s hands gripping at the sheets, her knuckles white. “Because I’m selfish. And maybe you don’t actually wanna be here with me. Maybe you’re annoyed. And I shouldn’t be keeping you.”

Crystal hesitates for only a second, before placing a hand on Niko’s shoulder and pulling her closer.

There is a mild reaction to this, as Niko looks up in surprise, taken aback by the contact, and her cheeks turn visibly red in contrast with her white hair. Crystal does not have the time to think too much about it.

“Listen to me,” she says, trying not to grit her teeth. “You’re not keeping me. You’re not selfish. You are actually helping me and I lov—” She stops. Not sure what she was about to say. Goes on. “I am so grateful for that. And I am not annoyed, truly. I like… I like being here with you. You are genuinely kind.”

She lets the words hang in the silence for a while, and so does Niko. They just stare at each other for a second, and there’s something in Niko’s face that Crystal can’t comprehend, and she pulls her hand away before she starts to do so. She’s not gonna read into Niko’s thoughts. Just not like that.

Niko takes a deep breath. “Thank you,” she says, softly. “I mean, I know I probably shouldn’t thank you, because you’re just being honest and you’re being… my friend.”

And oh, does that word hit Crystal like a fucking wrecking ball.

“Yes,” she says nevertheless.

“Still. Thank you. Actually. I mean it.”

Silence hangs between them again, for a while.

Crystal clears her throat, running a hand through her curls, all messy after she just woke up. “So, um. I don’t really wanna go to bed right now. I’m still hungry and I brought… I brought snacks.” She holds them up. They’re sitting beside the bed, still waiting for them. “And if you… if you’re not tired, I’d like to keep doing… our thing.”

A smile tugs at Niko’s lips. “Yesterday I had plans for what I wanted to watch today. Now I’m thinking that maybe it’s too sad.”

“Hey, whatever you think it’s nice,” Crystal says. “We’ll make the most of it even if it’s bad. And it’s likely I’ll have no idea what the movie is about.”

So they get the ramen and they get comfortable and Niko pulls up E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial on her laptop.

It is sad, actually. But just as Crystal discovers she’s the type of person who talks during films, she’s also the type of person who doesn’t cry during movies.

Jesus Christ, David was right. She is such a bitch.

Niko, however, is a different case.

She’s already hugging a cushion by the beginning of the movie, expressing her sympathy and her sadness when the extra-terrestrial is abandoned and accidentally gets trapped on Earth. She spends the rest of the film marveling about how cute E.T. is and how beautiful and sweet his relationship with the boy is. Crystal agrees that at least she’d let them keep the E.T. if he turned out to be real (which honestly, is not totally impossible) and showed up on the alley in the back of the shop the next day, and that she’d help Niko hide him from Jenny so that he could be safe.

When Niko starts crying, she does it so quietly that Crystal doesn’t notice until she has to look away from the screen so as to keep her reputation intact. She sees her, all tight-pressed lips and red eyes, tears rolling down her cheeks and her nails digging into her arms as she wraps them tighter around herself. Her eyes are fixed on the screen, looking like every fiber of her body is attempting to push back sobs.

Crystal looks down at her hands.

Quietly, she slides one over the sheets, moving in the general direction of Niko. Her pinky touches the back of Niko’s hand and Niko lets out the slightest gasp of surprise.

Still looking at the movie, she wraps her finger around Crystal’s.

She breaks into full sobbing after that for what’s left of the film. Crystal passes her a box of tissues.

None of them say a word of that.

“You guys know there is a couch in the back room, right?” Jenny tells them the next morning, after a full five minutes of watching them in silence with a pained expression on her face.

Crystal can’t say she blames her. She caught a look of herself in the mirror right after waking up: all baggy eyes and unkept hair and the face of a woman who has been coexisting with ghosts and demons and nightmares of both for one too many days. She’s currently attempting to recover some of the missing sleep by resting her head on Jenny’s table, using her arms as a pillow and wondering if this is what it felt like to go to school.

Niko’s weariness expresses itself differently. She’s just staring at a blank space like she’s in a trance, her face and her hair still perfect, the only sign of her brain needing to shut down being the smudged purple nail polish all around her fingertips.

Crystal watches her from a space between her arms. Niko blinks herself awake at the sound of Jenny’s voice. “Sorry, what?”

“Like, a couch. And a coffee table. You know, a place where you can actually watch movies in a comfortable position. Instead of lying on your bed with a computer like if we were in a pandemic.”

“Oh,” Niko says. “You meant the movie nights. I thought you meant… this.” She points at the general direction of Crystal and herself.

“Please,” Jenny scoffs. “I was a teenager once. I know better than to waste my time on a lost cause such as whatever’s going on with your sleep schedules.”

“How old even are you?” Crystal asks, stifling a yawn. “And, more importantly, is the couch included in our payment?”

Jenny places both hands on the counter, like she does when she’s about to go on a rant of reasonable duration about how her two teenage tenants are ruining her peaceful existence in ways she didn’t think were possible (not a direct quote, but close enough).

“First off, what payment, exactly? Because I can tell you, it’s not included in coins. And second—” she holds up a finger, “it depends on the mood of your landlord. Which is currently just empathetic enough that her back is hurting just from watching you two slouch like this.”

Niko yawns. “How did you know we were watching movies at three a.m.?”

“You don’t look high enough or generally extroverted enough for the alternative,” Jenny simply states.

“Fair. We weren’t too loud, were we?”

“You were singing the Ghostbusters theme.”

Crystal cringes at the way she says it. She wonders if this is how it feels when a mother is angry at you.

“Sorry,” Niko says with a wince of sympathy. “Did you like it at least?”

“Not at three a.m., I didn’t.” There is a moment of silence, during which she seems satisfied with entertaining herself with her cleaver and a bunch of meat. “I’m also not very big on comedies, if I’m being honest. Especially when it comes to old films.”

Crystal sits up in her chair. “Me neither,” she says. “What do you like?”

She can see Niko also straightening up, taking an interest.

For all answer, Jenny holds up her meat cleaver, with that creepy half-smile of hers. “Take a guess.”

Niko gulps. “The Shining?” When Crystal looks at her, she shakes her head. “We shouldn’t be adding that one to the list. It’s about a father who goes crazy in an isolated hotel and tries to kill his wife and son, and it’s all too…”

“Too close to home, yeah,” Crystal agrees. She actually remembers enough about that movie’s plot to recall that it’s nothing she’s not familiar enough with already. She’s still having nightmares about the Devlin house loop.

Jenny apparently decides not to question that weird exchange and keeps chopping meat. “You’re doing like, a movie marathon, right? Of old films?”

“Yeah.”

She stays quiet for a while again. “Have you gotten to Jaws yet?”

“Oh!” Niko sits up with a jolt, suddenly awake. “No, we haven’t. But…” Her smile falters as she turns to Crystal. “I looked it up before. It’s not from the eighties. It’s mid-seventies. It doesn’t fit the criteria.”

Jenny frowns. “Why? Are you having an eighties-specific movie marathon?”

“Kind of,” Crystal says. The name Jaws is somewhat familiar to her, in a way that feels actually normal. Like maybe she did hear of it before but never got to watch it. It can’t be as bad as not knowing who Luke’s father is. “Was that the one about the shark?”

Niko’s eyes widen in joy and she claps her hands with glee. “Yes! Do you remember it? That’s great! Do you think it was the marathon or did you know it beforehand? Maybe we should try with the music, see if it works like Ghostbusters. It has a very distinctive theme…”

“You’ve never seen Jaws?” Jenny asks.

She wears a look of absolute horror that is only masked by the usual harshness of her voice, as if she’s desperately trying to remind herself that she does not care for these kids’ private lives and somehow failing at it. Apparently, Jaws crosses a line.

Something else comes up in the back of Crystal’s mind, a little detail, another sort of memory. She hopes to be right about the movie. “I’m not too big on horror,” she says.

Jenny looks down at the meat looking completely resigned to this tragic life of hers, mumbles an “Okay” and goes back to chopping an animal’s tissue.

Crystal turns back to Niko. “We could try it out.”

“I thought you said you weren’t big on horror.”

“Yeah, but… it’s another movie that I don’t really know. And it would probably make Jenny happy.” It would make me happy. I am enjoying the activity. But I already told you that yesterday, and we were both being vulnerable there, and I don’t wanna abuse that, or maybe you’ll think I’m annoying.

She sees Jenny out of the corner of her eye, pressing her lips and taking deep breaths through her nose, pretending that she doesn’t care about it.

“But would it really help you if it doesn’t fit the eighties vibes?” Niko insists. “I really don’t wanna waste your time.”

“We don’t really know what helps me or not. I don’t even really know what movies I used to watch before. We don’t need a set of rules for this.”

Suddenly, Crystal notices the worried, anxious look on Niko’s face, and thinks back to their conversation from last night. She wonders if Niko is thinking about that too, about being selfish and taking up Crystal’s time by doing something that won’t help her or otherwise serve any purpose to her. Alright. That’s not good. Rephrase.

“Look, I don’t really mind if we break the rules,” she says. “I mean, I like doing this anyway, and sometimes when it does help me it happens in ways that you couldn’t predict. I wouldn’t be wasting my time. Besides,” she adds, “I kind of wanna see the shark.”

Niko smiles a little, but she keeps on fidgeting with her fingers, peeling at the uneven nail polish and looking a bit anxious. “Are you sure?”

Crystal nods.

Friday afternoon is filled with spirits and fairies and mysteries and the likes, so when night falls, the couch and the table are all the more appreciated than they were hypothetically in the morning.

Jenny’s presence hovering over them and stealing their popcorn is less so, but Crystal is too surprised by the sight of her to even think to comment on it, and Niko is too polite to do so even if she were bothered.

“Don’t say anything,” Jenny tells them anyway. “I had a rough day.”

“And watching people get dismembered and eaten by a shark would solve the roughness of that day?” Niko asks.

“I told you, don’t say anything.”

Despite her politeness, Niko looks like she’s struggling not to be nosey when faced with such a demand, but given how hers and Jenny’s last talk regarding personal life and romantic relationships went, she seems willing to remain quiet.

Crystal is not making such promises.

“Sorry, what did you say about dismembering?”

She finds out soon enough anyway, and promptly slides the popcorn bowl in Jenny’s direction. She can’t imagine eating now, but she also can’t imagine chopping off raw animal tissues every day and selling them as food and your hands smelling like blood all the time.

It takes her a little longer to start complaining about this one, but only because the movie is so damn slow.

“This isn’t slow. It’s well-paced. Is she gonna be like this through the entire thing?” Jenny looks over Crystal’s shoulder and exchanges glances with Niko, who seems too interested in the morbid images on-screen to care to take sides.

“I just said, they have whatever’s coming for them,” Crystal argues. “They deserve it for being stupid.”

“Not the townspeople,” Niko says. “They are being deceived by a stupid system which refuses to prioritize the safety of its people over—”

“Listen, if you’re both gonna be like this, I can just get back to the business that I have,” Jenny says, rolling her eyes, and she sounds so very sorry when she says it, like she genuinely wanted to watch people get dismembered by a shark in order for her day to suck a little less, that Crystal feels absolute remorse.

“Sorry!” Niko says immediately. “We won’t. We promise. We’ll be as quiet as if this were actually a movie theatre, won’t we, Crystal?”

She has that weird, mischievous smile of hers as she looks at her, and Crystal can only smile back. Then, she gets hit with the memory of making out with David in a movie theatre and throwing popcorn at the innocent bystanders who shushed them while the movie was happening. First, her smile fades at the reminder (this wasn’t exactly what she had in mind when they started the experiment), and then, she feels her cheeks blush, because she’s thinking about making out with someone while there’s a movie going on, and Niko is sitting right next to her.

Okay, well, that means nothing. Jenny is also sitting next to her, and Crystal’s not about to start making out with her.

Why should she be making it out with anyone in the first place, people are being eaten right in front of her—

David’s lingering, haunting presence in the back of her mind does have some benefits, since she actually keeps her mouth shut for most of the movie, to Jenny’s delight. She still can’t help but flinch every time the music threatens with having the shark show up on-screen, even if it rarely follows through with that promise. Halfway though, she thinks she’s just gotten hit by another memory, but the music doesn’t sound that original anyway (it’s one note and another one and then the first note and then the second note and that just escalating for all of eternity), so she supposes she must be imagining it. She also can’t help but be a little weirded out by how she’s watching something that will most certainly traumatize her into staying a good ten feet away from the shore for the rest of her life while seated between the two bravest women she knows. There’s Miss Jenny “Butcher-Shop-and-Murder-Docs” Green on one side and Miss Niko “I-know-what-cannibals-call-human-meat” Sasaki on the other. Who can compete with that, honestly.

Then, an hour or so afterwards, Niko passes an arm over her lap to reach for the popcorn, and even though the music begins early to warn them of what’s about to happen, both her and Crystal still jump when the shark makes another near-appearance. Niko makes a sound like a shriek and nearly throws off the whole popcorn bowl, one hand just barely catching it and the other gripping hard on Crystal’s arm.

“Sorry,” she says with a small voice. “Caught me off guard.”

Crystal stays frozen. Jenny gives them both a pointed look.

Niko looks down and notices the fact that she’s holding on to Crystal like her life depends on it and backs away. Crystal wonders if Niko’s blushing as hard as she is but it’s kind of difficult to see it in the dark. Rather than blushing, she seems to be pressing her lips, like there’s something she’s desperate to get out of her chest but for some reason she just can’t.

Jenny makes a sound like a disappointed hum. Then, unexpectedly, she gets up. “Well, look at the time. Some of us have a job to get up to at seven a.m.”

She picks up one piece of popcorn, as if just to be petty, and leaves, casting one glance over her shoulder in Crystal’s direction before walking off. For the life of her, Crystal can’t figure out what that’s supposed to mean.

They spend a few minutes in silence, watching as the characters make a plan to capture the shark for what feels like the fifth time in what they’ve seen of the movie so far, until Niko blurts out, “I like the photography.”

Crystal feels the corners of her mouth going up. “What do you like about it?”

“It feels so real. I can smell the ocean from here. Touch the sand. The clothes are wrinkled like clothes would be and not like an actor’s costume.” She shrugs, hugging her knees and tapping her fingers. She’s got her nails blue tonight. “And the shark. I know it’s not even remotely real but it feels like it.”

“You’re not usually much of a commenter,” Crystal points out. She adds a little forced laugh at the end of it, because even though she doesn’t find it funny per se, she finds it cute, in a way, and she doesn’t want Niko to think she’s being a bother by doing the same thing that Crystal’s been doing for some nights in a row now.

“You’re usually not this quiet,” Niko says. “You’re not scared of the shark, are you?” There’s a beat of silence. “What are you thinking about?”

Crystal looks down at Niko’s blue fingernails and thinks of the grip on her arm, and her hands meeting in the popcorn bowl. She thinks of the glint in Niko’s eyes when she talks about movies and the memory of kissing David in the middle of a movie theatre. She thinks about demons and ghosts and the lighthouse leapers and how she’s most definitely not going back near the beach for a while, but that maybe Niko would like to do it, because she likes those pieces of sea glass, and if that happens she might be willing to walk beside her and listen while she talks to her about colors.

“I…” she begins, and then immediately trails off. “I was thinking about Charles,” she says.

Niko isn’t smiling right now, but as soon as Crystal says that, something somber crosses through her face, like she just dropped a smile. She looks back at the screen and she seems to get it. Crystal understands being afraid of the shark, but the main guy seems more scared of the water than anything else.

“Yeah,” Niko agrees. “We probably shouldn’t show him this one either.”

She seems saddened by the perspective, or something about it. Crystal probably shouldn’t read too much into it. They’re talking about Charles’s death of all things, what is there not to be sad about?

Yet, she feels the need to add. Just in case. So that she knows.

“I kind of like when it’s just us.” Silence. “You and me.”

Silence again. Blush is creeping up her neck. She realizes she’s been digging her nails into her palms and the only way she finds to stop herself is to stuff her mouth with popcorn. And then she looks. She just needs to see if Niko knows.

Niko isn’t looking at her either. She’s staring at the screen with her eyes wide open, the blue light shining upon her face in a way that makes Crystal think about the sprites inside of her. She wonders if there’s still something left in her body. Or maybe the lights and the colors are just hers.

Suddenly, she blurts out, “Are you in love with Charles?”

It comes out in a way that Crystal can’t tell whether she sounds curious or resentful or happy or bitter. She doesn’t sound like she did when they found Jenny’s letters, for one. At that moment, she looked like she was reading a mystery novel and had just read the paragraph that had got her hooked on the story. Now, she looks just the same as she did two seconds ago. As if she were watching a movie about people getting eaten by a shark and had just gotten to the most gory bit of it.

Crystal finds herself stumbling with words.

“I’m… I’m not in love,” she manages, although she realizes how very much not convinced she sounds. “Or I don’t think so, at least. Shit, I don’t… I don’t know.” That’s not what she means. That is one hundred percent not what she means. “There’s nothing going on right now between me and Charles. It just doesn’t seem like the time, or the place. Or the person, who knows.” Silence. Niko doesn’t break it. Crystal sighs. “Me or him,” she adds in a small voice. “Maybe it’s me.”

“Why do you say that?”

The movie theatre. And the man in the subway and the wallet. And the cars on the street. And the fact that, despite all of that, David’s presence and voice and laugh still feels like poison going down her ears, the fact that she’ll never stop seeing him as a demon and a monster after what he did to her, nevermind how much of a bitch or a good time she was before. Maybe David had to be a monster. Maybe that was the only way he could match her.

She groans. How could she possibly begin to make sense of any of this?

“Nothing,” she says.

“But why?”

“Nothing! Just stupid, self-loathing bullshit that David’s planting into my head, or something. I don’t know.” She throws her hands in the air, nearly dropping the bowl that, at this point, has gone through more than Edwin has. Niko steadies it before they lose all their remaining popcorn supply, and Crystal sighs. “I like Charles, I guess. But it just feels… it feels wrong. Like, I guess it’d be fine if I were in love, but I’m not.”

Niko stays quiet for a second, actually looking at her now. “Do you love him as a friend?”

“Maybe. I guess.” Crystal shrugs. “I guess I could use a friend right now, more than a boyfriend.”

There’s another moment of silence, and then Niko reaches for the remote and presses pause. She sits back with her hands on her knees, leaning a little forward.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “For asking. And I’m sorry about what happened to you. You didn’t deserve that.”

She looks like she’s holding back a bunch of feelings like those she blurted out on the E.T. night. Half of Crystal thinks that she better not be, because she’s slowly starting to hate that look of guilt in Niko’s eyes. The other half thinks that she might as well, because she has a nice voice to listen to, even when she’s wrong. That only opens up the door for an argument, and that means listening to her more.

(Stupid Edwin with his stupid arguments, is he actually rubbing off on her in the worst way possible?)

Crystal can only sigh.

“It’s okay. That you asked, I mean. I don’t mind.” She looks back at her hands and the popcorn and then back at Niko’s blue fingernails and the blue light of the screen and the movie that’s still frozen. She takes a deep breath. She can do this. She needs to know this. “Speaking of questions—”

“I’m actually really offended by this movie,” Niko cuts her off, eyes fixated on the still screen. “More than I am by Ghostbusters.”

Crystal frowns. “You are?”

“In Ghostbusters it was just the jokes. Here, it’s the stereotype. I hate that they’re painting the shark as a bloodthirsty murderer and a monster that terrorizes humans when in reality less than 10% of them are likely to attack unless unprovoked. It is a great movie and I’m glad that it exists but most of shark prejudices come from this place specifically, so I would like to say—”

A bunch of things.

She has a bunch of things she’d like to say.

And Crystal finds herself curled up on the edge of the couch, very cozy between a couple of cushions and finishing their popcorn as Niko keeps on ranting about shark facts. Speaking of stereotypes, she grins to herself, but she doesn’t really mind that, or the frozen screen right in front of them that is probably meant to stay like that for all eternity. Niko really does have a nice voice to listen to.

They don’t finish their first seventies movie until at least half past three a.m.

And Crystal still doesn’t know who Luke’s father is.

For some reason, the full weight of it doesn’t hit her until she wakes up in the morning and finds herself alone, in a bedroom, no dead boys hovering over her head and no pretty girl talking to her about old movies.

Alone, with her thoughts. Her own thoughts, for a change.

She thinks she must’ve dreamed with the sound of Niko’s voice, which makes sense because of how much they were talking yesterday, and also makes sense because she wakes up feeling all warm and fuzzy and cozy and—

And her thoughts. And the liberty to process them. And more specifically, her feelings. That were being felt. Yesterday. Niko’s hand. And blush. And nails. And Charles. And very much not Charles.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Fuck, indeed,” Jenny says, humorless.

Crystal groans between her arms where she’s made a pillow for her head on the butcher shop’s counter.

Jenny sighs, although she sounds more like she’s picturing the possibilities of something happening between her two tenants and the drama that represents for the rest of her days, rather than being sympathetic to Crystal’s very real struggle.

“You’re in deep, kid.”

“I know that now,” Crystal groans.

She can’t say she didn’t before. But she most certainly didn’t know everything until now.

Fucking shark and fucking jumpscares and fucking Niko’s hand on her arm.

She tries to think, rationally, that this one can’t be any worse than the demon.

Of course, that’s not what she’s afraid of.

“It’s time,” Niko says the following night with the widest smile on her face, holding the remote like it’s an axe.

Crystal makes an uncharacteristic effort on her part and actually tries to smile back in a poor attempt to behave somewhat normally. But what even is normal for a girl who can see dead people and who has made out with a demon in the past? Fucking Niko’s smile too. Fucking everything.

“Since we came so far in this process that we finally broke our eighties rule last night, I believe you are finally ready for the ultimate seventies movie. The movie that changed cinema. The movie that changed soundtracks.”

Crystal chuckles. She hopes she’s not blushing. “You’re… You’re goofing around, aren’t you?”

“A bit.” Niko’s smile goes down an inch. A more normal smile rather than the goofy one. They’re both pretty smiles. “But it really is a great movie. Unless you don’t like it, of course. That would be okay. I don’t know what Charles would say, though.”

“Because this movie was not only apparently revolutionary, it was also released when Charles was a kid?”

“Probably.” Niko sits down next to her and starts looking through the streaming services on Jenny’s TV that she’s apparently paying with their money. “He probably knows who Luke’s father is. Unfair advantage on his part, and mine, if you ask me. You’re gonna be leveled with us now.”

The screen goes black before the movie starts, and Niko sits back with a smirk. Crystal doesn’t even notice the first title card until a burst of orchestral music starts playing all of a sudden and the movie title shows up on the screen in bright yellow, the color of Niko’s nail polish tonight. An opening crawl which just screams “old film” starts rolling on the screen and Crystal sighs. She can’t remember this particular old film but she knows that’s supposed to be significant.

Some people with blasters show up and some robots in a spaceship are being attacked and music keeps playing as some knight dude with a cape and a helmet shows up. Crystal notices Niko hasn’t taken her eyes off her since the movie began.

“You’re watching me closely,” she points out, looking everywhere but her.

“I wanna see your reaction for this one,” Niko says. She looks at the screen briefly, where a pretty girl with her hair up in two buns is shooting at some soldiers with a blaster. “Or maybe I just like watching you.”

Crystal can feel her eyes on the back of her head. She doesn’t react. Neither to that, or to the apparent many, many things in this movie Niko’s expecting her to react to. At least, until the ship reaches an actual planet with actual people.

“Oh, so that’s Luke. Is that one his father?”

Niko shakes her head with a smirk.

“Are you listening to the music?” Niko asks.

“I am. It’s not the Ghostbusters theme or anything, but… Should I be remembering more?”

“It’s okay if you haven’t,” she adds quickly. “I just thought you might. You know, cause it’s… recognizable.”

“Not for me, I guess,” Crystal says with a sigh.

This movie has a good amount of music between silences. But Crystal does keep her mouth shut in those moments, so she can’t say she’s not enjoying it. Even if it’s apparently the first time in her life she’s listening to John Williams.

Charles shows up about the same time as the old wizard man does, walking into the room with a bunch of ancient-looking texts in his hands, which Crystal can only guess Edwin is making him go through for a case or something. He doesn’t look very pleased with the task but his mouth goes up forming a grin as soon as he sees what’s happening on the screen in front of them.

“No way,” he says. “You two are watching New Hope?”

“Crystal doesn’t remember Star Wars,” Niko says for an explanation.

Charles frowns and then gives Crystal a very accusatory look that makes her feel embarrassed in a way that Niko doesn’t. The dead boy remembering things that she doesn’t kind of crosses a line in terms of that.

“You’re kidding me.”

Crystal shrugs. “Apparently David wanted to have my memories of all the trilogy.”

“Oh, it’s more than a trilogy,” Niko tells her quickly.

“Wait, really? Is it?” Charles seems confused by that but not too worried about it. “Anyway, I think that’s kind of cool. Getting to experience them for the first time again.”

“Well, I literally can’t remember what the big deal about them is, so.” Crystal lifts her hands in an exasperated gesture. The movie’s been good so far, if only a little slow, and she doesn’t really see what the big deal with Luke is. He seems kind of a brat. Niko says he’s meant to be the same age as them. “The robot’s cute,  I guess.”

“The robot’s really cute,” Charles smiles. They stay like that for a second in silence, the music filling the moment again. “Is it alright if I sit down with you two? I haven’t watched these films in years. Edwin isn’t really the sci-fi type.”

Crystal opens up her mouth but stops herself as soon as she realizes she was about to say no. Just, no. Like the bitch and the good time David says she was. Why would she not let Charles watch a movie with them?

But then she sees Niko’s face and it looks like she gets it. Like she’s thinking about the same thing as her. I like it when it’s just the two of us.

For that purpose, it’s really inconvenient that Charles has a puppy smile and kitten eyes and sunshine energy, and that Niko is looking at Crystal again like she wants her to be the one to answer. And that Charles has just told them that this is a movie he hasn’t seen since he was a kid, since he was a living kid, and that he likes it a lot and he thinks that the little blue robot is really cute.

They always have all the other nights, Crystal thinks to herself.

“Yeah, sure,” she says. “You can sit.”

She tries to catch Niko’s expression but she’s staring at the screen now. She does have a smile on her face, briefly directed at Charles, but the weird thing is, Crystal kind of wants her to be annoyed.

Luke and the old man go to a cantina where aliens are playing soft jazz in order to find another young man who can take them in a ship across space, and he doesn’t look like a brat.

“That’s hot,” Crystal says as soon as the space pirate shoots someone in the face. “Wait, have I seen him before?”

Niko perks up, eyes shining. “Have you?”

“He wore a hat. He looked older in that one. He was also… Wait, Indiana Jones! That was the name!”

“You’re remembering again!” Niko exclaims with a smile. Next to her, Charles is frowning and giving them a judgemental look.

“You don’t remember Star Wars but you do remember Indiana Jones?”

“Indiana Jones is cool,” Niko says defensively, shifting to get a clear look at him.

“I mean, sure it is,” he says. “But we’re talking Star Wars here. You really can’t compare.”

Crystal still doesn’t get what the big deal is. Even if she just got such a pretty good look at Harrison Ford’s ass that it managed to break her amnesia and remind her that the guy is called Harrison Ford.

“Crystal, what do you think?” Niko asks excitedly. “You remember enough to compare?”

“I… vaguely remember those movies being boring as fuck,” she replies, unsure.

“He shoots nazis in that one.”

“Oh.”

The way she says it, like it reinforces her first thoughts on him, makes Niko laugh. The sound of it is better than the music.

“She’s hot,” Niko says the next time the princess shows up on camera.

“She’s been in handcuffs this entire time,” Crystal replies, rolling her eyes.

The look Niko gives her suggests that she could say a lot more about hot people and handcuffs than she’s saying. Crystal feels her cheek heat for the hundredth time this week. “I just love her hair. And her courage. And how involved she’s with politics.”

“Now, that’s hot,” Crystal agrees. “Almost as much as punching nazis.”

Charles frowns like he does whenever Edwin’s talking. Like he’s now completely lost in someone else’s thought process but finds it very amusing. “I’m starting to get why I wasn’t invited to these things.”

“Hey, we’re not keeping you,” Crystal teases him, and Niko laughs again, nodding in agreement.

“Rude much?” Charles grins. “I agree with Niko, actually. I had such a crush on Carrie Fisher when this came out. I cried like a baby the day she died.”

Crystal blinks. “Wait, she’s dead?”

“Oh, shit—”

Edwin walks into the living room sometime after eleven p.m., going through his notebook with an urgent look, phasing through the walls instead of bothering to use the door.

“Charles, I was looking for you,” he says, even though he doesn’t even look up to confirm his presence. “Do you know where I put my—What is this?”

Charles smiles at him, though Crystal can see him subtly pushing the books he was probably supposed to read behind the couch so that Edwin doesn’t see them. “It’s a movie, mate. They made those before the twentieth century, I think.”

Edwin gives him a glare. “I assure you, I know perfectly well what a movie is.” He looks around the room, his gaze briefly landing on the two living girls currently spending time with his best mate, and Crystal thinks he’s giving her that look of disdain again, but to his credit, he looks away almost immediately. “I simply do not recognize this one.”

Suddenly, Niko gasps, covering her mouth with her hands. She looks at Edwin, then at Crystal, then back at Edwin. “Oh my god. There’s two of them.”

“Two what?” Crystal asks, at the same time as Charles. Niko only turns to him.

“Crystal and Edwin,” she responds. “They don’t know…”

Right. Because this movie is apparently a mandatory watch for every human being ever that has walked this Earth after the year of 1977, and only Crystal and Edwin are exempt from it because she’s amnesiac and he was born at least seventy years earlier. So Crystal is a criminal and Edwin is the only being who kind of understands her predicament. Great.

“Is this about Luke’s father?” she asks Niko. “That old dude already said it. He was a Jedi who was killed by Darth Vader.”

Charles’s eyes widen, and he shares a look with Niko. “Oh my god,” he agrees. “They don’t know.”

Edwin gives him a tired sigh, exhibiting a feeling that, sadly, Crystal feels like she shares. “Charles, I must say, I do not understand what the purpose of this—”

“Sit down with us,” Charles blurts out.

Edwin blinks at the suddenness of it. “What?”

“Mate, please,” he insists, tapping at the space between him and Niko, “just sit down with us and watch the movie. I’ll let you know what’s already happened, just watch the rest of it. I swear I’ll never ask you for anything ever again, but right now, you need to see this.”

He now finds himself on the receiving end of that Edwin look he usually reserves for Crystal. “That is a questionable statement,” Edwin says. “Considering that we have all eternity for you to continue to ask me for things.”

“Give it fifty years or so,” Charles acknowledges.

That is apparently a lot coming from him, because Edwin sighs and takes one look at the screen. “Perhaps I can sit through one science fiction movie.”

“Two,” Charles counters. “At least.”

“Two? Charles, what could possibly—”

“Please, Edwin?” Niko intervenes. She clasps her hands together, abusing the power she knows she was given by some sort of god who saw how much Edwin seemed to despise Crystal and decided to give him an adorable, irresistible human friend who is also a bit of a freak in the best way possible, and also recently a master manipulator. “Could you stay and see?”

“Come on,” Crystal says to him. “Don’t you dare say no to those faces.”

Edwin stares at the three of them like he can’t believe it. Then, he sighs.

“Fine. Only the two movies.”

“They’re not just two,” Crystal hears Niko whispering to Charles as Edwin sits on the edge of the couch next to him, forcing all three of them to shift.

“He’ll be hooked by the beginning of the second,” Charles responds in a low voice. “Just you watch.”

Edwin either doesn’t hear them or just pretends not to. Because, as Crystal said, he really can’t say no to those faces.

“This is highly illogical.”

“It’s a movie, mate.”

“It should still have some set of rules for this!” Edwin exclaims, pointing with his hands at the screen with an exasperated gesture. “I have read books. I am familiar with fiction. There is a certain sense to the structure of the story. This shouldn’t be too different.”

“It’s just the Force, Edwin,” Charles all but begs him, looking one second from ripping someone’s hair out. “You have to trust the Force.”

“That would make it a sort of religion. That does not explain why the Force listens to Luke when he’s about to blow up the Death Star, and it does not explain why he continues to hallucinate Obi-Wan’s presence unless he’s suffering from some sort of illness—”

“Oh my god,” Crystal sighs, throwing her head back over the couch. “And I thought I was annoying.”

“You’re not annoying,” Niko tells her. “And neither’s Edwin. You guys just have different perspectives.”

Crystal debates what she says next for about two full seconds, before deciding that Edwin needs to face reality and a couple more things, and loudly proclaiming, “Not on Harrison Ford’s attractive, we do not.”

Edwin blushes as hard as a pale, sickly looking ghost can. “I simply pointed out that the buttons in his collar—”

“—are the sign of a man who’s a complete and total slut, we get it, Edwin, it’s fine.”

Edwin remains quiet this time instead of immediately cutting off the assumptions, so Crystal assumes that they must be doing something right in leading him on his way to acceptance.

“So what did you think of it?” Niko asks, excitedly. “Besides that.”

Crystal turns to her. “You think Jenny would let us keep an Artoo besides an E.T.?”

“Wait, you guys watched E.T. without me?”

They keep the marathon going for the rest of the night until they finish the whole trilogy. Crystal’s already invested enough that she’s willing to sit through four more hours of sci-fi, and despite his protests, Edwin seems too involved as well now to quit the movie night even after they’re done with his promised two films. The protests themselves also don’t keep him from enjoying other aspects of the movie.

“I must say,” he says within the first ten minutes of the second, “I appreciate how determined and resourceful Princess Leia is as a politician. She is a very appealing character to watch.”

Crystal sighs. “She does have great hair, I’ll give you that.”

“I like that they’re such good friends,” Niko says, honestly. “With Leia, and Han, and Chewbacca. It’s just nice to see how strong a bond like that can be.”

Crystal doesn’t take her eyes off her for a good chunk of the movie. She wonders if she’d be willing to hold her hand again were the boys not sitting here right next to them. She wonders if the movie might get scary at some point, enough that Niko will be holding her arm and they’ll be willing to pass it off as an accident. Seems like a stupid thing to be thinking about.

The two of them stare at the screen in utter and complete silence, while Luke keeps yelling and crying.

Charles and Niko are very visibly covering their mouths to muffle snickers.

Edwin is the first one to come out of his shock and force himself to speak.

“No,” he says.

“That’s not possible,” Crystal manages.

“That is… highly unlikely.”

“He is dead,” Crystal says loudly enough to probably wake up Jenny. “The old man said he was dead. Niko, did the old man fucking lie to us—”

“It simply makes no sense!” Edwin yells.

“He just cut off his hand! He’s lying! He’s a liar!”

“This is clearly a last moment decision made by the director to add more tension to the story, and not in any way a logical way to approach Darth Vader’s character.”

“But he killed his father!” Crystal screams.

“He was his father,” Niko says, as if just to throw some salt into the wound.

“It comes out of nowhere!” Edwin insists.

“That’s how it ends?!”

Crystal wants to throw something at the screen. Edwin looks like he’s finding himself on the rare occasion of agreeing with her. Niko looks like she might burst from joy. Charles looks a little too pleased with himself.

“So,” he says, “do you wanna see the next movie?”

“Yes!” Crystal and Edwin yell.

They get through the last one without much trouble. Crystal is too upset by the ending of Empire Strikes Back and too invested in what happens next to justify being as annoying as she usually is with any ounce of dignity.

She does make a couple of comments regarding the alien puppets and the romantic subplots and she was his sister, what the FUCK, but mostly, she keeps to herself.

Edwin also stays quiet for most of the movie, only speaking if Charles or Niko give him an explicit opening to do so. Charles himself makes a bunch of remarks about the Skywalker plotline surrounding Luke and his father, and Crystal senses a bit more venom in the words than she would’ve expected. At some point, she turns to look at him and finds him sitting on the back of the couch, with his arms around Edwin’s shoulders, and his hand on Edwin’s. Edwin is very still, caressing the back of his hand with his thumb.

Feeling overly polite, Crystal doesn’t comment on that either.

“The Ewoks look so huggable,” Niko says at some point, “I just want one of them as a plushie.”

Both her and Charles cheer like crazy when the Death Star gets blown up again. Crystal swaps looks with Edwin and the two of them indulge them with a polite applause. They can’t stop being the bitter half of the friend group, after all. How else would they balance out Niko and Charles’s pure sunshine.

(The thought makes Crystal go through a certain realization regarding Charles and Niko and heart-shaped sunglasses and herself, but she doesn’t have the time to unpack all that now.)

Near the end of the movie, when the characters are celebrating and Charles is smiling, Niko shifts closer to her and whispers close to her ear, as if she doesn’t want the boys to hear. “Memories?”

It takes Crystal aback, because she notices she hasn’t been thinking about that for a while now. She looks at the screen, listens to the music, turns to see the boys and Niko, the space around her filling up too much of her brain to leave any room for any more images to resurface.

“Some,” she says.

Not the old ones, and not what Niko was asking about, but it makes her happy, so that’s more than enough for now.

Niko smiles. She stares at her in silence for a second or two. Then, slowly, she reaches out to grab her hand while looking away.

Crystal wraps her fingers around her hand, holding her tightly.

That night, before bed, Crystal writes down Ewok plushie next to Lorraine’s dress and saves up the note on her bedside drawer. She also reminds herself that she needs to ask Niko when her birthday is at some point.

Edwin wants to watch Indiana Jones.

The words archeology and ancient history are enough to make him interested, and Charles is so euphoric by the notion of Edwin willingly choosing to sit through more movies from his time that he refuses to leave the girls alone until they agree to it. Niko doesn’t need to be persuaded, with how much she loves the activity and the movie themselves and spending time with her friends. Crystal swallows back a comment on how this was initially just a two of them thing, because it’s so nice to see her happy.

Besides, she’s stopped caring about the memories long ago. It’s so much more than that now.

What should it matter if it’s just the two of them, or them with the boys? What should it matter if it’s this friend group that she’s come to love, or this one girl that she’s… well, the same.

The sight of Edwin being excited by a Hollywood, eighties movie, plus Harrison Ford in his prime, that should be enough.

Surprisingly enough, it doesn’t seem like Niko can say the same.

She falls asleep within the second half hour of the movie, her head falling limply on Crystal’s shoulder. Crystal doesn’t even have the time to react, afraid to wake her up if she moves even an inch or breathes the wrong way, before she shifts her position to be more comfortable and ends up laying her head on Crystal’s lap.

“I thought that Indiana Jones was cool?” Charles mocks her, from the edge of the couch where he’s sprawled. Despite how pleased he is at Edwin’s excitement, he doesn’t seem too happy about the movies themselves, specifically its treatment of Eastern cultures. He keeps most of it to himself, though, not wanting to bother Edwin, who seems to be having a decent time.

“Shhh,” Crystal hisses. “You’re gonna wake her up.”

She remains absolutely still for the rest of the movie, trying to focus on Harrison Ford and not the way Niko’s body moves as she breathes against hers. She can’t focus on what’s happening, she doesn’t know the actors names, and she couldn’t care less about this thing that Edwin’s enjoying on the screen. She can’t move or breathe. It’s ridiculous. It’s nice. It’s Niko.

She wakes up when there’s about twenty minutes left to the movie and yawns, not looking phased in the slightest by the position she’s in. “Did I miss the whole story?”

“Most of it,” Edwin says. “We apologize for not waking you up, but you did look very peaceful.”

Niko doesn’t seem to really listen to him.

“Oh, that’s good,” she says, settling back on Crystal’s lap and continues to watch from there. “That’s good.”

Crystal’s chest might explode from just how much she’s holding her breath.

“So,” Crystal announces, walking into Niko’s bedroom a bit sheepishly the following night at ten p.m., “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom will have to wait til tomorrow.”

Niko sits up from where she’s slouching on her bed, looking through her laptop because Jenny claimed the TV for the night, and honestly, a girl deserves to watch some murder documentaries alone, and Crystal and Niko kind of owe her.

“Edwin and Charles are out on a case?” Niko asks.

Crystal hesitates for a second. “I’m honestly not sure it’s case-related, but I thought it’d be rude to ask. Anyways, I didn’t think you’d wanna watch it without him.”

“I think that’d be rude,” Niko says. She doesn’t mention how much the two of them haven’t been taking part in cases, or not-cases these past few weeks, or how much Charles and Edwin have been going off on their own, which Crystal thinks must be taking a lot of restraint from her. Niko Sasaki, who loves love. “So, it’s just us. Again.”

“Yeah,” Crystal nods. She tries very hard not to think about the way that Niko says it, just us. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t. It doesn’t.

There’s a moment of silence and Niko starts tapping at the keyboard.

“I want to watch a romance,” she says. “What do you think?”

“Totally,” Crystal says, a little quickly. “Yeah. I’m down.”

“But it’s one I wanna see. Like, I don’t know if it has anything to do with your memories. It’s just one that I really like. Would you be okay with that?”

There’s something else that she’s asking but she’s not saying there, but Crystal sees right through it. She doesn’t need to touch her to do that. “Of course I would. It’s not selfish if you show me a thing that you like. I love it when you do that.”

Niko seems visibly relaxed at that, and she turns her attention back to her laptop. “Okay, then. Want me to bring some snacks and you start to get comfortable?”

She does, and as Niko gets up to get the ramen, she gets a look at the movie she picked up. There’s a picture from a pair of actors she doesn’t recognize, with funny names and the title Say Anything.

“It’s one of my mom’s favorites,” Niko calls from her little kitchen. “My dad hated it, but he always sat through the entire thing because she liked it so much.”

“Did you… I mean, did you end up reading the letters she sent?”

“I did.” There’s a pause, in which Crystal can only hear the sound of the microwave filling up the pink space in Niko’s bedroom, which Crystal had been starting to miss. “I think I’m gonna reply to them tomorrow morning.”

“You are?” Crystal smiles. “Niko, that’s amazing.”

“I’m not entirely sure yet. But I know I’m lucky to have her. And then at least I won’t be wondering for how much longer I can keep silent while she writes to me.” There’s another pause, a bit longer. Niko doesn’t speak again until she comes back with the cups of ramen. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For encouraging me to read them.”

“Niko, I hardly did anything. You can take the credit for that,” Crystal tells her. “You’re really brave for doing all of that on your own.”

She regrets her choice of words almost immediately, because now, after saying how brave Niko is, she can’t stop thinking about all the ways she isn’t. But Niko stays quiet, just like she did after just us. And Crystal thinks that she loves to hear about her family just as much as she loves to hear about the movies she likes.

Anything. Niko could just say anything and she would love it.

Still silent, she presses play.

John Cusack and Joan Cusack and the other actors with normal names and presumably normal parents are all great. The movie is very nice. Very eighties. Crystal doesn’t really have much to say about it.

It’s about a guy who falls in love with a girl right after they’ve graduated high school. All in all, they’re doing a lot better than Crystal, who fell in love with a demon and who can’t say for sure whether she ever actually finished school. The movie is about love and doubts and growing up and splitting apart and getting back together. And maybe a bit about parents, but Crystal knows even less about that.

She wonders what Niko’s mother likes about it so much. What Niko does. 

She’s so used to the sounds in her head, to the voices, to every touch turning into shapes inside her mind, but now, she only sees a blank space.

A blank space, like a curtain, and Niko behind it.

“You’re quiet tonight.”

She hadn’t noticed. She hadn’t noticed how much space the white curtain was taking up in her mind, including whatever part of the brain that makes a person form words and sentences. She didn’t mean not to be a bitch. She didn’t mean to feel guilty.

“Sorry,” she says. “I guess I didn’t wanna bother you.”

For a change, she adds, bitterly, in her head. Not now. Not with your mom’s favorite film.

Niko’s eyes are fixed on her. The movie keeps going in front of them and she doesn’t seem to care anymore. “Are you thinking about something? Are you remembering things?”

She asks it with such hope, Crystal feels almost disappointed with herself.

Almost.

“Honestly,” she says, “I’m not sure I’ve been thinking about my memories at all these last couple of nights.”

It feels like a confession. Like she’s baring herself to Niko right now. But when she turns to look at her, Niko’s eyes are sad.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, Niko—”

“No, I’m… I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help. I really wanted to.”

She speaks softly, as if not to make a big deal out of it. As if to show that she’s not incredibly sad or depressed by this notion, but truly regrets the thing she’s talking about. As if to make the apology about Crystal and not about herself.

It doesn’t work, because Crystal sees what little sadness Niko’s eyes are willing to show, and she fears that she might drown on them.

“But you did,” she tells her, shifting to sit right in front of her, to stare into her eyes. “Niko, you did. Don’t you see? It’s not about the memories.” A pause. “Hasn’t been for a while now.”

She reaches out to hold Niko’s hands (her nail polish is black tonight) and for a moment, she forgets to be careful. Her fingertips itch when they meet with thoughts and memories, and they flow across Crystal’s before she can get herself to stop. She’s never viewed her power as such a delicate and dangerous thing, but this is Niko’s mind. It’s not hers to touch.

“Look, sometimes… sometimes things come back. A song, or a face, or something, but it isn’t really about that. I’m not… Well, I remembered the ghost song.”

“Ghostbusters,” Niko tells her.

“Yeah, that. And I remembered some other things. I remembered that sometimes I would go out with David and we would go to the movies and I would make out with him during the whole thing because it didn’t matter what we did. We didn’t make plans for each other. It was all so superficial… And I remembered… I remembered Harrison Ford because…”

“Because he was hot,” Niko says, nodding.

“Yeah, that. And then I also remembered some other actors I like.” Moment of silence. “And some other actresses.”

Sits very still. Waits for a reaction from Niko. Doesn’t get any. She’s listening. She’s just listening.

Crystal coughs. “But anyway, we weren’t talking about that. We were talking about how you make activities for me and I make activities for you. And they’re just excuses, you know. They’re superficial. But they’re also based on these things that you love. And you talk to me, and I don’t need to make out with you during the whole film even though I really want to because I just love the sound of your voice so much.”

Something happens in Niko’s face. The movie keeps happening beside them. The actors are making out on screen.

“You do?”

“I do.” She’s not sure which one Niko is asking about but the answer’s the same. “And I didn’t wanna talk tonight because I remembered I used to be such a bitch. And I don’t wanna be a bitch to you. I don’t wanna be annoying. Not while you’re showing me these, these beautiful or ugly things that you love.”

A song is playing. Crystal can’t remember the name but she doesn’t think it has anything to do with the demon amnesia. It probably has to do with the way Niko keeps staring at her, and with the smile that just started tugging from her lips, and with the touch of her thumb as she strokes the back of Crystal’s hands.

Then, she lets go of them, and Crystal’s heart stops for a moment.

Then, Niko holds her by the face, pulls her closely and kisses her.

It’s soft, at first, just like all of Niko’s. Soft and gentle and delicate, with a soft and gentle and delicate song playing in the background. Just like the movies. Niko pulls apart for a bit and speaks against her mouth.

“You’re not annoying,” she whispers. “You’re the opposite of annoying.”

The next kiss isn’t so soft. It’s quiet in the midst of the music, but it’s also wanting and longing, the kind of thing she could probably tell you she learned in one of her books. A kiss that screams, I love love and then a kiss that screams I want this, I want this, I want this.

It takes Crystal a while to notice that these are thoughts, and that she’s seeing them all flow as Niko gives them to her, time and time again. It takes her longer to worry about how she’s reacting, lost in that sea of wants and desires flowing in both of their minds. She’s kissing her back. She’s kissing Niko. She’s kissing Niko, and it’s better than the movies.

Niko pulls away again.

“Are you in love with me?” she whispers.

“I think so,” Crystal says, out of breath.

A sound like a chuckle escapes Niko’s lips.

“You love the sound of my voice?”

“I do.”

“Good,” Niko’s face is blushed and warm against Crystal’s. “Cause I love the sound of your voice too. You can say anything, and I’ll love whatever you say.”

She says that and she laughs again, like she’s said the funniest fucking thing ever, and Crystal laughs too, honestly, genuinely, nevermind she has no idea what she’s laughing about. The two of them stay in silence for a while, as Peter Gabriel keeps playing behind them.

“Even then, can we kiss for a while now?” Niko asks, suddenly. “Cause I think I’ve been waiting to do that for a long time.”

Crystal feels the widest smile growing on her face. “Me too.”

She doesn’t think of David, or the movies, or even the song when Niko kisses her, time and time again. It’s just kisses. It’s just love. It’s just Niko and Niko’s thoughts. It’s everything. It’s the music that keeps playing in Crystal’s head long after the song’s over in the movie.

“Wanna pause it?” Crystal asks, although she’s struggling to care about that at the moment.

“It’s okay. We can rewind it later.” Niko smiles between kisses. “You’re hating it, aren’t you?”

“Who cares,” Crystal laughs. “It’s not about the movie.”

Niko gives her that mischievous smile of hers. “I know,” she says. Like the princess and Harrison Ford.

Crystal kisses her on the lips again.

Jenny is gonna be thrilled when she finds out.