The door was a lot more menacing than she remembered; she could almost see twisted faces in the patterns of the knots in the wood. She was almost afraid to touch it for fear of one of them biting her, though she knew that was insane. The door hadn't changed at all, just her perception of it. She was about to do one of the most nerve-wracking things a young girl can do: ask a guy out for the first time.

She'd spent nearly a week trying to work up the nerve to even talk to him, and she now had to ask him out. For real. Before she lost her nerve again, which would necessitate it being soon.

*'His judgement cometh, and right soon too.'* she thought morbidly to herself. *Well, that's what ya get for watching 'Shawshank' three times in one month.*

Sighing with a quavering lungful of air, she calmed herself as much as she could and, with an unsteady hand, knocked on the door. As soon as her hand hit the wood, however, she let out a yelp and jerked her fist back, staring at her injured knuckle. A small line of vermillion trickled its way down the back of her hand. This didn't bode well at all, she thought to herself as she sat and tried to remove the rather large splinter jutting halfway out of the fleshy membrane in between her middle and ring finger.

After biting back tears of pain and a slight feeling of nausea, she managed to yank the offending shard from her hand. The thin thread of blood widened only a little and the initial pain factor had reduced to a very small sting.

Well, she didn't want to face Jono in anything less than perfect form, so a second later, a sound akin to that of shredding paper reverberated through the curiously empty mansion. A brand new Paige stood in the husk of the old, contemplating the fast approaching fork in the road. There she stood, heart thumping so hard she thought it might burst out of her chest like one of those aliens Jubilee was so fond of, or simply stop altogether, trying to decide whether to make what was probably considered to be a fairly insignificant decision on this particular road. But it didn't feel insignificant. It felt very significant.

She'd faced Emplate, the Phalanx, an enraged and frightened Penance, Omega Red, and a troop of faeries. How could her own teammate scare her this much? Maybe because she knew how to handle react to those situations. Because with them she wasn't putting herself out there, trustingly, vulnerable, with a good chance of getting stepped on. Just like-- no. She wasn't going to go there right now. Or ever again. That was the past and one stupid, selfish... *bastard* who couldn't get past his own ego.

But how could she be an effective leader to the team if she couldn't even decide whether or not to ask out a guy she had a huge crush on?

*Paige, get ahold of yerself, gal! You've had this argument goin' on for months. It's not goin' to stop, either, 'till you do somethin' 'bout it. So get in there and just DO it!*

Chin set in determination, she took the first step forward, toward her destiny, whatever it may be. But she couldn't take the second one. Not because she had started second-guessing herself again, or because she simply lost her nerve. It was because she couldn't move her feet. She glanced down in surprise to find her own husked skin with an iron grip on her ankles. When she tried to shake it off it responded by starting to slither its way up the rest of her body.

She tried ineffectively to rip free of it, but the stuff was stronger than it had been when she initially ripped it off. She inhaled a breath to yell for help when the skin reached her head and wrapped itself around her mouth, the bridge of her nose, and her forehead. Off balance and trying to move somewhere, anywhere, she ended up knocking herself onto her stomach. Recovering from the shock of the fall and attempting to overcome her growing terror and claustrophobia, she found herself with a rather intimidating view of the door. It might've been her imagination at this point, but she could swear that the thing was smiling at her. The kind of smile that you see on the face of that friend of your father's who's too drunk to go home and you're standing there in your oversized t-shirt and not much else, all ready for bed. The kind of predatory leer of a man who's not in full posession of his faculties and knows your dad is passed out on the couch and no one else is home. That door made Paige feel terror on a level she never knew existed.

Then the light caught her attention. It emanated a razor-sharp line from under the malicious door, so bright it turned the midday sunshine pouring in through the picture windows into a moonless midnight. It slashed through the stale air to leave a slice of its being across her forehead. And it was growing brighter.

Without warning the door flew open, revealing a raging inferno within and one dark figure silhouetteed against the firey maw. He hadn't changed in the slightest, yet somehow his presence was pure, unadulterated evil.

She tried to scream against the once organic bandages that tied her as she was sucked by some invisible force headlong into the doorway, to the shadowed form of Jonothan Starsmore, to her destiny, whatever it may be.

The slam of the door was the last sound heard in the empty house.

Paige awoke in a tangle of sweaty sheets, uncomfortably hot and sticky in the early morning sunshine that splashed her room with color. She lay in her bed for a while, readjusting to reality and supressing the urge to throw up. She could hear the soothing sounds of some song on her radio, turned on last night to help her
sleep.

"...and if I'm wasting all your time
"this time
"maybe you never learned to take
"and if I'm hanging on to your shade
"I guess I'm way beyond the pale..."

She absorbed herself in the music, trying to get the soft tinkling of the piano to sooth her raw nerves.

"...and southern men can grow gold
"can grow pertty
"blood can be pertty
"like a delicate man
"copper to steel to a hinge that is faltered
"that lets you in lets you in lets you in
"something's just keeping you numb..."

Finally feeling her pounding heart returning to normal, Paige managed to untangle herself from the sheets and slide out of bed. She walked over to the other side of the room, tripping over the open copy of 'Macbeth' laying on her floor, and switched the radio off just as the lady was singing "...happy for you and I'm sure that I hate you..."

She then turned and surveyed the alien-esque landscape that served as her room. Someday she'd clean it, but today just wasn't someday. Today was never someday.

Correction: today wasn't the someday she would clean her room. Today was the someday that she was going to tell Jono how she felt. She didn't care that he and Penance were involved, though she didn't understand how involved you could be with someone you couldn't touch without having your hands sliced off. But to each their own. He probably just liked redheads.

Everyone had already had their breakfast by the time she'd gotten back from her jog. Well, everyone except the person now slurping the milk out of a bowl that had probably once contained Cheerios.

Angelo looked up as she came in, a small dribble of milk sliding down his pallid face to drip off the end of his chin and end up back in his bowl. He sheepishly swallowed what he had in his mouth and then wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand, making a slight scraping noise as his skin rubbed over the stubble he hadn't shaved in a week. He then gave her a very polite smile and gestured to a chair while saying "Hola, chica. Saw you jogging this morning. Don't think I ever really appreciated the view from the front porch so much." His polite smile turned into a joking smirk, which she returned and sank into the seat next to him.

"Glad you enjoyed it, Ange," she said with a seductive purr, "because you know I did it all for you."

Angelo's face went puzzlingly blank for a minute before he shook himself out of it and fired off some witty remark. The rest of breakfast remained uneventful, with Paige stressed about her upcoming meeting with Jono and trying not to show it. And Angelo had been acting a bit strangely around her ever since she had told him about her crush the week before. Probably just getting over the shock that she actually liked Jono, of all people. Sometimes even she couldn't believe it.
~~~~~~~~


The scene was eerily familiar. There was the door, standing there in all it's wooden might, mocking her as she stood, indecisive before it. She closed her eyes, thinking this through one final time. If she went through that door, there would be no turning back. No way to undo her actions or unsay her words, no matter how much she might want to.

On the other hand, even if he said no she'd still feel a sense of relief knowing how he felt. And there was nothing to say they couldn't be friends. Sure, it might be a little awkward at first, but she really didn't think he hated her. Besides, the sooner she was rejected the sooner she could get over him and move on with her life.

She opened her eyes and looked at the door. That's all it was; a door. Not some demonic hellion bent on causing her misery, it was an inanimate object that couldn't hurt her in the slightest. She knocked on it without recieving a splinter, a bruised knuckle, or any form of pain. She waited breathlessly for any sort of
response from below.

~Who is it?~

"It's--" Her voice faltered. She cleared it angrily and started again. "It's Paige, Jono. Can I come in?"

There was a short pause that was just long enough to make her wonder if he'd heard her. She still wasn't sure how limited his telepathy was.

~Sure, come on down.~ she finally heard.

She reached out a shaking hand and gripped the cool metal doorknob. The door swung open, revealing the staircase that led down to the dark room. She caught a faint musty smell, a mixture of man and old socks. She slowly descended the creaking staircase, closing the door behind her, then gripping the small railing so she could find her way until her eyes adjusted to the dark. As she got closer to the bottom she could see a soft flickering light, she assumed from his television. She also saw used bottles of varying kinds of cola, dirty socks, and enough Sega games to start his own arcade strewn about on the floor. The socks and games were probably his, the bottles were most likely added to make his room seem more at
home, since he didn't eat or drink.

As she reached the bottom of the stairs she finally saw him. He was sitting on his couch looking over at her, an unreadable expression on his face. The musky smell was stronger down here, but not overpowering. Almost pleasant in a foreign sort of way.

"Hi." It was all she could think of to say. Her mind was as clear as Monet's complexion, but it was also as empty as the RC Cola bottle at her feet.

~Hi.~ he replied.

"Hi." she said reflexively.

~Hi.~ he said again, though she thought she could almost detect a small thread of amusement in the thought.

"Hi. Shit." She covered her face with her hands. Why couldn't she say anything else, dammit?

~Hi shit, yerself.~ The comment got a laugh out of her, but not a very long one. If she laughed too long it might get hysterical.

"Okay." She felt ready. "Hi." She smaked herself on the forehead. "Ah'm not goin' to say that anymore!" she informed him, her accent slipping.

~Okay.~

"Uhhhh... Nice room!" she grasped at anything to say, just so she wouldn't drop this in his lap.

~Thanks. If I'd 'have known yer were comin' I've picked up a bit.~

"Oh, 's okay. It's noce to know I'm not the only slob on campus." *Oh, way to go, Guthrie, just insult him!* But he didn't seem to mind the comment. In fact, the skin around his eyes crinkled in, what she assumed, was a smile.

~Glad t' know yer don't mind. Me folks were never too impressed with me decoratin' skills.~

She laughed at that. He was actually developing a sense of humor! But she had to do this now. If they got into a big discussion she'd loose her nerve and this would continue on forever.

"Um, Jono, the reason I came down here was to..." Oh nonononono, she made eye-contact, bad thing! Don't mind it, just keep going. "To ask you something." Oh he was so gorgeous! Sitting there on that beat up old couch, bathed in flickering white light from the TV in front of him, he looked positively ethereal.

~Go ahead.~

That brown shock of hair was really distracting. He had the kind of hair that was meant to have fingers run through it. She almost asked him what kind of conditioner he used but caught herself in time.

"I just wanted to know if," Now or never. "If you'd like to go out. With me. Sometime. You can say no, too, it's okay."

She did it. Ohmigod, she actually did it. She couldn't believe that she'd actually done it. And judging from the look on Jono's face, he couldn't believe it, either.

Paige stood frozen in front of him, wanting more than anything to run up those stairs and not hear his reply. But she couldn't. She needed to know his answer. So there she stood, pulse racing in her ears, awaiting his judgement.