Radioactive

Erin could have pressed Holtzmann.

She could have asked what was really going on.

Why all Holtzmann had to show for 7 hours work was a probably unusable desk.

But Erin had never been good at staring contests, and staring at Holtzmann for too long hurt her eyes. It hurt her head. Made her feel jumbled and mushy inside her brain, so she relented.

"The uh, the space blanket. Right. I'll just. I'll get it. Then. Shall I?"

Holtzmann supposed that Erin didn't really want an answer, so she gently pushed the screwdriver into the palm of her hand and twisted it. It tickled. She bit her lip.

Erin returned with the small packet. The engineer jumped up.

"Roof? Roof." She bounded up the stairs, wishing there were more than 3 storeys of stairs between her and the roof. 300 would be nice. She could run faster than Gilbert.

When she reached the roof she wished she hadn't run. Gilbert probably wouldn't even have spoken on the way up, anyway. At least it gave her time to think of a plan.

Distraction. Holtzmann excelled in distraction. But how, though? She doubted a simple dance could fix this. She'd fucked up. Oh boy, had she ever fucked up.
---
It was all Abby's fault, she decided. When she first met Abby, Jillian was a (13 year old) college student at the least prestigious school in the country, possibly the world.

The only university, though, where blowing things up "accidentally on purpose" every day was allowed. She didn't even have to write anything down. She'd told them things mapped out better in her head. They'd just been happy that someone who could actually be considered a scientist with a future had chosen their school.

Plus she paid in advance, which did tend to get people's attention.

Abby wasn't even going to that university. She was hunting for Erin. Looking in every science college she could think of. This one had been an obvious no, but Abby went anyway. In the middle of an empty lecture hall, Abby realized that she had lost Erin.

So it was coincidence and dumb luck that brought them together. Neither of them really drank. How strange, then, that they met in a bar.

Jillian remembered it clearly. Abby had been all but sobbing into her drink. Holtzmann really felt for her, so she bought her three drinks and tried to not care.

It didn't work. Somehow she wound up sitting next to her at the bar. Abby's head was on her shoulder. She figured her shirt would be a viable contestant in a wet T-shirt competition. There didn't seem to be anything in between the drink buying and the shoulder crying. Suddenly it was just happening.

Jillian patted Abby on the back. She wondered if they were friends now. She wondered if this is what friendship was like. She dismissed the idea.

People's clothing would be a lot damper.

Suddenly Abby was telling her about Erin. Her best friend. Holtzmann listened. Abby had pitied Erin when she first moved to the school. (Jillian didn't think this was a healthy start to the friendship, but hey ho- who was she to judge? She'd never had a friend in her life.) She'd seen the looks and heard the giggles. She didn't get involved.

Then one day she did. She heard someone taunt the kid: "ghost girl, ghost girl, ghosty ghosty ghost girl" and she hovered until everyone had left. Except, apparently, Erin Gilbert, who was crying loudly into her own plaid shirt and chewing her knuckles.

Ghosts brought them together, so how fitting that it should also tear them so roughly apart. Abby would be lying if she'd said she hadn't noticed Erin changing. Her plaid shirts became dull colored tweed jackets. The band tees she wore were replaced by ridiculous blouses. Jeans became matching skirts and canvas sneakers tiny little heeled shoes. Erin said she was growing up.

Jillian thought that she would quite like young teenage Erin. She wouldn't say so. Not yet.

It took a long time for Erin to grow up. Sleeves grew longer. She stopped chewing her knuckles. Her eyes became sad and lifeless. Everything was changing. Abby wanted it to stay the same. She'd lost her temper, screamed at Erin, told her she'd never be anything but a stupid ghost girl. She'd even sang the stupid rhyme.

Erin left. Abby waited.

Abby waited two weeks, without leaving her room. She waited till graduation. She ventured over to Erin's moms house, two states away. Nothing. Erin's mom knew she'd gone, but Erin did not tell her where. Some college somewhere. And so she began a nationwide hunt for her friend. She did not find her.

Instead, she found Jillian. Jillian who told her that this school was pretty likely to let her work on her theories and give her a lab. A soon-to-be infamous scientist would still be a well known scientist. Jillian who skipped classes (and yet still somehow managed to graduate top of the class, without doing any work whatsoever) to build Abby's ideas. When she took them to her, Abby had liked it. Eventually she just didn't go back to class.

In return, Abby gave her supposedly horrifying stories about Erin ("she'd probably go mad if she knew I told you") that made Jillian desperately want to meet her.

Before she'd even met Jillian, the engineer knew more about her than anyone else. But when Abby told the story of how Erin had been so nervous the first time her boyfriend had missed her that she puked all down his shirt and a bit in his mouth, Jillian asked her to stop.

She wasn't sure why. She still wasn't. She just knew that Abby had caused this whole situation.