Sali already had her key in the ornate wrought-iron lock. Had she not already today, she looked like she might actually have a heart attack. 

"That's not funny," she told him flatly, breaking the lock over and pushing the gate open. Kicking the latch into place at the bottom so that it remained open with a single fluid motion that seemed as if she'd done it a thousand times. 

She was several steps through the gate before she looked back over her shoulder and realized that he was, in fact, not joking... not at all. 

"No," she chirped in disbelief. "Nooo..." she chuckled awkwardly before all the colour faded from her face, "Oh for fuck's sake." 

"I didn't... I don't... seriously?" she asked more to the SKY than to him. "Would it... um... FUCK!" 

With a heavy sigh, she veritably melted on the spot. "At the risk of doing the thing that Harvey says I should never do... Would you like to come in? Or...? I mean... I understand either way. I'm sorry. I didn't know... or I wouldn't have..." Breathing softly, she shook her head, "As if today could get WORSE." 

Shaking her head, Sali moved to unlock the door and held it open. "I... um... still have your piano?" It was all she could do not to literally die of confusion, embarrassment, and sheer disbelief. 

Slowly walking toward the house, Sullivan took the chance to drag his fingers along the wrought iron gate as he passed through it. The yard was still the same, though the trees and shrubbery had grown exponentially. It was as he'd always wanted it to be. Smiling, he twirled around, looking at the beauty and life of it all.

"This is how I saw this place... Of course, with me and Matty living here... And Evie." He shrugged. "I suppose it's bittersweet that Matty still lives here in a sort." Smiling as he turned to look at her, he walked passed her and through the open door. "Oh! It's had a few changes done I see..." He paused in the main room.

"Please tell me the guest bath is still the old clawfoot tub?" He spun around, smiling happily.

"And is the piano where it was left? In the large study?" He began down the hallway toward his oldest of favorite rooms. Where he'd lost and found himself on multiple occasions.

"I'd truly love to see your composition and play it for you on the piano..."

Sali chuckled, happy that it seemed to give him some small amount of solace. "Yes. It was in foreclosure when I found it. The previous owner did some 'updating'... some good, lots bad. I've been spending my days off restoring her." She followed him quietly down the hall. 

"I had to drag the claw foot out of the basement, actually. But she's back where she belongs now. Although, I don't get to use her as much as I'd like. The fucking boiler is a hellion now." 

As they walked, Sully would notice places where she'd peeled back the garish wallpaper to reveal the old layers underneath. Some rooms still smelled of turpentine or fresh paint. The colours were a little different... fresher, but still fitting... at least in the rooms she'd had time to 'renovate'. The halls were decorated with plumes of fresh flowers that dotted the house like swatches of sunlight in a dark room.

"I kept the piano in the study... although the room itself is a bit rearranged, I'm sure. The greenhouse is completely refurbished... that was my first project, actually," she giggled softly, "And... let's see... the canopy bed, the sonograph and gramophone... books... all the books. Most of the trunks are still in the attic. I didn't have the heart to auction them... or the jewellery. Despite my dad's pressure. Umm... The Stradivarius has its own humidifier in the 'study'... but I box mounted the Vicente in a glass safe." Counting on her fingers, Sali did her best to list off all the things she could remember feeling important... hoping she hadn't missed or auctioned anything of terribly sentimental value. 

Pushing open the door to the study, Sully was shocked. The desk, the bookshelves, his baby grand... all precisely where he'd left them. Although the telltale scratches on the floor told him they'd not always been so. Off to one side, his miniature tesla coils were arranged atop a small table... in a pattern that seemed to look suspiciously musical. Along the far wall, a line of phonographs, gramophones, and record players dotted a long cabinet, with rows upon rows of tins, tapes, and records shelved above and below... painstakingly organized and labelled.

Sali smiled as she watched him eye them all. "The box ones are portable... helps me capture soundbites of that little 'orchestra' you seem so fond of," she winked at him playfully. "And sometimes I use them as sound reels for the... oh yeeeah... I installed a film screen upstairs for my cinematograph. We should do a movie night sometime. I just know you'd love it."  

Slipping past him, she flipped on the lights which still flickered with an old amber glow. "I'm still working on the circuitry. Had to dig the original fixtures out of the back dumpster. Who the fuck throws away TIFFANY??" Shaking her head, she slipped a few tins into several of the phonographs before sliding a LARGE case from beneath the desk. Grinning like the Cheshire cat, she opened it to reveal a beautiful beast of a Cremona in beautiful maple. "This... is my prized possession," she beamed, "She's the only thing I own that's been with me longer than 'my' heart." Humming softly, Sali checked her bow, adding a little resin before sliding over to a singular high-backed chair that haunted the gaping empty floor at the far end of the study. 

Nestling the instrument between her knees, she beamed at Sully, "I have a couple of pieces I'd be happy to show you. But... um... make yourself at home? I'll be here when you're ready." She couldn't help but chuckle at the absurdity of it all. 

"The Stradivarius, the Vicente, and -MY- babies!" He was practically gushing with excitement and emotion. "The Stradivarius was Jackie's violin... My first wife. She was gunned down in Vegas much like you were, but she died in my arms with nothing I could do..."

He looked at the guitar, "The Vicente? Well, there's a reason that tugged on your heart. It's, It was Matty's." He smiled.

"And this baby!" he pointed to the piano. "Oh this girl followed me -everywhere-. Nary matter the price it cost, she came with me... Except to my grave. She'd never follow there. Too good for death." He walked over and inspected the baby grand. "I see you've kept regular maintenance on her. Thank you..."

"Oh!" he turned and chuckled, pointing at the mini-Teslas. "I assume you've played with them and learned they can hum at different frequencies?" He smirked, pulling the seat out and sitting before the piano...

"When's the last time it was tuned?" he asked, but didn't wait for an answer and immediately just pressed down on a beautifully gloomy minor chord, then continuing to play a song in the key...

As he finished and brought himself back to the world around him, he turned and blinked. "My apologies, I often loose myself in this seat for hours." Sullivan chuckled and smiled at her. "Shall we play? I'll follow your lead, unless you'd like to show me your composition now?"

Salena didn't seem to mind at all. In fact, the expression in her eyes nearly begged him not to stop. "Please," she said breathlessly, "You never have to apologize for that. Really. You're welcome to play to your heart's content." Her smile saddened a little, "In fact, I'll be grateful for it.  Truth be told, I'll be quite sad to see her go." 

"I've done all the maintenance myself. And, yes. I use the teslas quite often, actually," she chuckled softly, "The mesh well with my strings." 

Tilting her head to one side she wrinkled her nose in ill-disguised nervousness and excitement, "I've never had anyone to play with before. I'm not sure I know how. It's just been me and the house for so long. ... the rooms sing, you know... I'm sure you know. That's where my inspiration comes from. Here... let me show you. ... you can fall in if you want... or not. Whatever you want." 

Straightening, she pulled the bow across the strings with a smile, the house echoing the sound in a way he'd never heard. "This one is my newest. It sounds like... the fireplace and the floorboards." She nodded shyly to the room around them as she dove into a sweetly moving melody that shook the ghosts from the walls of the study and Sully's heart. 

Closing her eyes, she swayed to the waltz, losing herself in the flow of the song... her fingers tiptoeing across the fretless spruce like forbidden footsteps across the bridge between worlds. 

HOW did she do that?? 

The way her body moved with the feel of the music, the way her eyes fluttered and squinched... that wasn't the face of someone playing a memorized piece. It was flowing from her... THROUGH HER. What was she?? 

As the song faded to a wavering close, Sali's mismatched eyes opened to an expression that was... nothing like what she'd prepared for. The wind hissed out of her lungs as she instinctively hugged her cello. "I'm... so... sorry. It was bad, wasn't it? Did I do something wrong?" she asked, hiding her face behind the neck of the instrument, "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Sullivan, tears along his cheeks, smiled. "Child, how could you ever think that was anything but... Perfect?"

Wiping his face, he smiled more. "Where did you find that? Or hear it? It's so hauntingly familiar... Here, let me show you. This was the first thing I did for Matty when I finally set down on this seat for the first time in years... A composition based off of Pachelbel's Cannon."

He turned slowly and situated his fingers, taking a deep breath and starting. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he longed for his lost love, twice over. It came more so as he realized he was playing it for her heart yet again... So much so that his fingers locked on him and he choked... He -NEVER- choked while playing... But he stopped mid-way through the song and his head smashed into the ivory beneath him as he crumpled.

"I'm sorry..." he whispered out, pained and almost inaudible. "I...I can't." He stood and lowered the cover to the keys. "Please forgive me..." Without even glancing in her direction he quickly left the room, and she'd hear the door to the house open and slam behind him...

Sullivan made it a few steps out of the house before turning around and looking at it, then straight up at the sky...

"IS THIS SOME SICK, FUCKING JOKE TO YOU!" he screamed out between sobs, angry and tormented at the same time. "WHY!?"

He had to have appeared insane to anyone looking on as he threw his arms around in the air while screaming, his hair flopping about his head and giving him a disheveled appearance (minus the crisp and expensive black suit of course). "FUCK YOU! FUCK ALL OF YOU!" he yelled again before grabbing a glass bottle from out of the yard and turning, releasing it as he swung his arm... The glass shattered against the wrought iron gate and sprinkled out into the road before Sullivan finally settled and found himself crumpled to the ground.

"It's not fair..." he sobbed almost silently. "I was dead... I was at peace. Why did I have to come back?" Laying in the dirt, he rolled over onto his back and stared up at the sky. Inhaling slowly, and exhaling even slower, he slowed himself down and spoke softly... "Get yourself together, Sullivan. Nothing you can do about it all now. Hell, she's been gone for, well, however fucking many years I've been dead. Can't very well change that. It sucks, but it will get better. And if not, there's always the heroin again, right? No, wrong... I can't fall down that path again. Matty would hate me if she knew I fell back down." Sighing and shaking his head, he started to chuckle. "I can hear her now..."

Pushing himself up onto his shoulders, he looked at Salena who had come to join him, waiting for her to speak.

Sali wasn't Matty... as much as she genuinely wished that she was in that moment. She just wasn't. 

There was nothing she could do. Nothing she could say. She'd fucked everything up somehow. She didn't even know how. She just knew that she had. She wasn't supposed to be alive. She wasn't supposed to be here. She just... wasn't supposed to BE... at all. And the helplessness of that fact was painfully clear as she saw it mirrored in his blue eyes as she tiptoed down the porch steps. 

She should have known better than to invite him in. What was she thinking?? OF COURSE, it would end this way? There was no other way for it to go. How selfish could she possibly be for needing him to stay? What kind of horrible MONSTER did she have to be to put him through this?

She still hadn't changed. She'd been so distracted by him that everything slipped her mind completely. Barefoot, she tiptoed to him, her blouse and sleeves dancing in the gentle breezes, playing peekaboo with her patchwork stitches. Kneeling next to him, she was quite for a long moment. At a loss for words. Something she was sure his Matty would NEVER have been. When words finally clawed their way breathlessly from her lips, they wouldn't form. 

"I... I wish...." there was nothing to express it. Words didn't exist for this. Tears streaming down her face, she simply crumpled down to hug him tightly; her petite frame shivering as her chest heaved against him. She wouldn't let it make a sound. She had no right to. But she was sobbing all the same. 

"No..." he offered softly...

"No, no..."

He wrapped one arm around her so he didn't fall to the ground.

"I'm sorry. Please don't think any of this is your fault. I'm actually really happy to have gotten to come and get this out now... I feel much better if I'm honest. Yes, I'm still angry at whatever being thinks me being alive...ish... is funny, but that isn't your fault. Never be sorry for the life you've been given. You are supposed to be here, and Matty saw to it herself. In a sense." He smiled, pressing lips to her forehead.

Standing, he helped her to her feet.

"Come now, let us take you inside and get you changed out of these clothes. I'd truthfully like to see the cinema room you spoke of. And... And if it wouldn't be too much trouble. I mean, if you'd allow..."

He lifted her chin.

"Would it be unsavory of me to ask to stay here until it is time for me to go? And hopefully, you'll come with me when I do? I think you'd love my macabre family, and I know they'd love you." He closed his eyes, half expecting a no, that he probably shouldn't stay. He'd probably just keep her up with wailing and lamenting anyway... So much so that she'd grow to hate him, and he was certain he couldn't handle that. It would metaphorically -KILL- him if Matty's heart, Salena's heart, hated him.

"Besides, you remind me so much of the reasons I fell in love with Matty AND Jules. And then, there are these parts of you that are equally the Jekyll to my Hyde... That is this part of Salena that I believe I could fall for. However, I'd hate to put that on you currently so, let me get my mind straight over a few days, and then I will get to work on your dosages to fix you up."

Pausing to look at her, his eyes a sparkly blue mixture of sorrow and hope.

"Does that strike well with you?"

Salena shook her head, her fingers closing around his wrist like a vice grip. "Stay." It was hard and final... equally a plea and a command. 

And as she realized it... her grip loosened as her tone softened, "Please, stay. It's... I know... you..." she huffed softly, "I may be an awful person... and I understand if you hate me for it... or even just for what I am... but I... I'm..." Tears welled in her eyes again as she choked on her words, "I'm so tired of being lonely alone. At least... at least this way we could be lonely and miserable together for a little while." 

Her gaze fell to her bare toes as she whispered softly, "You make me not wanna die so much. ... even if it's just because I can't. ... and it's not the same as WANTING To live... but it's something. And I... I think maybe I could get there one day. And I've never had that... EVER." 

She was bare and raw as she looked back up at him, "I think I'd rather crawl into your grave in your place than let you leave. And I know that makes me a despicable, selfish, loathsome fucking monster... but... I... I just..." 

Her fingers wiggled up his forearm as she searched for the words, making his wrist a symphony of sensation that no one else she knew could possibly understand. 

"It doesn't make you a monster at all, it just makes you... Human." He smiled at her, reaching for her hand as it played itself up his arm like it was the neck of her cello in the most begging and pleading of emotions. Neither of them wanted to be lonely alone. Misery loved company... It only made sense that they would want to wallow together and feel more human in the fact that they longed for someone aside from themselves.

Holding her tightly, he rested his head on top of hers...

"I'm glad I make you want to die less... You make me feel as if I could live again if that makes any sense. I know we've literally just met, and I know it's partially because of the heart inside of you feeling familiar with me... But, Matty is gone, all but a memory and a few organs. Her spirit lives on, and that's inside of YOU. So, it's you that I want to live, and it's you that I can find myself wanting to carry on for. I'll fight to stay alive until I can leave again, so long as you do the same. Fight, and live, so long that you desire life and all of it's fancies."

"I think that in our misery, we will come to find more than just a little comfort in one another. Come, let's go inside. Show me this cinema room you've created."

Sullivan picked her up in his arms and carried her up the steps of the porch, back across the threshold of her...his...their? THE home. Shutting the door behind him, Sullivan could only wish that there were no more rude awakenings... He was certain they'd both had enough of those for a lifetime...