ghost.

For having grown up in Eureka, the town's ability to band together for the same event, year after year, with no signs of fatigue, had always impressed Will. He liked his neighbors well enough, of course—what few he had—and he understood, even before assuming the position of sheriff, that there was a sense of camaraderie among Eureka residents. They generally looked out for one another, and they actively enjoyed one another's company. He'd always found it curious...but charming.

This sort of merriment and sense of community seemed to increase tenfold around the winter holidays. There was always something to do, and thus, something Will was somewhat expected to attend. Some of it he enjoyed, most of it he didn't care one way or the other about. The annual Christmas tree lighting in the town square was generally not something his presence was required or even requested at, but still, he had not missed a Christmas tree lighting in some years.

Eureka's mild temperatures didn't call for more than a light jacket, the pockets of which held Will's hands so he wasn't forced to figure something else to do with them. He ambled casually down the street, admiring the large tree primed for its big night, an onslaught of sounds and sights and smells hitting his senses. The crowds were beginning to pick up, many people clasping mulled wines or warm ciders or hot chocolates, and he looked around with newly piqued interest at where to obtain one of his own.

Spotting an all-too-familiar head of flaxen curls pinned atop a small frame, his breath hitched. He was almost surprised at how easy it was to recognize her, even in the throngs of people. He tried to casually scan the area surrounding her, looking for any sign of companionship—he had no intention of interrupting her. But she appeared to be alone, waiting for something from the food trucks absentmindedly, and he felt emboldened—as he often did with her.

He let his foot fall from the curb, glancing both ways quickly before letting himself jog slowly over toward her.

"Wake up feeling festive today, did we?" He chimed playfully, a soft, wry smirk playing on his lips.

Tabitha scoffed and feigned offense to his guess that she had a filing cabinet in her home – something that was only untrue because Stevie Nicks would undoubtedly get into it and eat her paperwork. “I have an office, thank you very much,” she replied, shooting him a look, although her eyes crinkled when she broke character and smirked. “And yes, it has a filing cabinet. With locks,” she added. She paused a moment, and felt the need to end with: “So I guess you can add me to your list of strange things.” 

Will’s admission, the sincerity of it, took Tabitha by surprise, and her hand stilled where she was filling out the date. She didn’t look up, but listened and considered his words, feeling acutely the similarity between them she hadn’t given much thought to before. She bit down on her lip and quickly debated the idea of sharing any personal side of herself before letting out a soft sigh and finally looking up at him. “I actually don’t know many married people either. My parents, of course, and Annie, my – my best friend … just got married. And of course you want to think it’ll be lifelong and work out, but …” Tabitha trailed off, looking for the right words. “You see a lot of selfishness in people, when you’re constantly looking to uncover dirty laundry. And sometimes you wonder if it’s worth it, really, when people seem programmed to just hurt each other.” She paused, keenly aware of how much she’d just said, and shoved a hand into her back pocket for lack of anything better to do. 

“Maybe we’re not getting the best sample to draw from,” she admitted after a beat, color flooding her cheeks. “I’m sure there are plenty of happily married people out there somewhere. They’re just not the ones keeping me in business.” Another pause, and Tabitha cleared her throat. “But I’m sure I’m just preaching to the choir,” she said. “I mean, I bet you see all sorts in here, anyway, so I’m not telling you anything new.”

-

Will nodded, impressed, though realizing it was condescending, stopped slowly. He knew Tabitha had a lot of business because of how frequently he saw her in the station; it only made sense she’d have her own space from which to work. As she continued, then, a wry smile tugged at the corner of Will’s lips, her admission granting a trickle of amusement to work its way through him at her choice of words. Tabitha was a very strange thing, yes. One he found, especially after recent events, that he enjoyed. He decided against dwelling too long on this fact, lest she suspect anything about him was amiss. Will was not an innately sensitive person, but there was something about being around Tabitha that forced him to reckon with the idea that maybe, there was more of a fragility to him than he’d imagined. 

But the delicacy of the subject at hand, the way he watched Tabitha slow while she spoke, consideration filling her tone—it caused Will to soften. He considered his own words quite carefully. “Well, I mean—if there’s one thing I’ve learned in this job, it’s that people can surprise you. The world looks the way it does for you because the world you’re in is full of shitty people. But there’s other worlds where people are gonna run into the burning building or stop for the duckling crossings. There’s people that wanna change things for the better, in whatever way. And there’s bound to be marriages that work out, statistically.” He thought about it for a moment, watching Tabitha’s face carefully as he spoke. Gamely, he added, “I hope your friend is one of those. Mostly because I don’t want to deal with the paperwork if I have to arrest you for murdering her husband.” 

It wasn’t that Will was an enigma. It was that there was a distinct ease with which she had fallen into physical intimacy with him. It was that it was entirely too easy to connect with him, that it felt safe to do so, even. It was that the nearly ever-present search for red flags subsided with Will Bailey. That was the mystery. That she could feel so comfortable.  

Even now, when he was assisting Deb in busting her chops and slowing her down. 

“Packing up and starting over gets old,” she countered, thinking of each move she’d made as a child, each attempt to cultivate a new friend group, with no real sense of permanence. Making Eureka home had started out of stubbornness, a resolution to make a place her own. Her sense of home had been hard won, if a little arbitrary in the beginning.

She narrowed her eyes in response to his defense of Deb, who in all likelihood was just another person working just another job. “Eventually doesn’t always cut it,” she said evenly, glancing to the side of the room where the older woman had wandered off to. “Eventually can make things late. Too late, even.” 

With another, softer sigh, Tabitha gave a small shrug of her shoulders and pulled her purse forward, rummaging through it for a spare pen. “Actually, it’s the same as last time. I tried to follow up with the DEA and they said that I didn’t fill the paperwork out correctly so they threw out the request. Which,” she said, pointing a finger in the air to punctuate the point she was about to make. “Which I never do. I always have my paperwork in order. So it was complete bullshit. Either they lost the form and didn’t want to admit it, or Deb fucked something up.” She cocked her head to the side and considered each possibility. “They’re equally likely, so it’s anyone’s guess what really happened.”

“Actually,” she added after a beat, “I haven’t had a cheating spouse in a while. I guess I’m overdue, wouldn’t you think? Maybe some double-life action in there too. A little weird, really, how much of that is going on in a city like this. You think there’s any reason for the trend or are married people just assholes?”

-

Will let his eyes fall over Tabitha curiously, her words, per usual, hinting vaguely at something meaningful without actually touching it. This is how the pair of them operated: the hollow gesture of familiarity without the commitment to it. This wasn’t a judgment, of course—this was how they both preferred it—but occasionally, Will’s curiosity began its incessant gnaw. He found that the more Tabitha was around, the more interested he was in her, in the parts of her, the pieces of her life that he didn’t see. He wondered, then, what she knew about packing up, moving on, resettling. He knew she was new to town, because he knew most of the people in town, and word traveled quickly among them. Beyond that, however, Tabitha’s life was elusive, a mystery he didn’t have the privilege or right to solve. He knew enough about her so that they may exist with one another comfortably. And he knew, arguably most importantly, that she hated Deb. This was anecdotal, but it formed a good portion of their daily interactions. 

“Oh, I wouldn’t dare to question the meticulousness of your paperwork,” he offered seriously. “You seem like someone that has a filing cabinet at home. Am I far off the mark in that assumption? I don’t feel as though I am, but...” He shrugged softly with one shoulder. “Stranger things have happened.” 

He pondered. “I don’t actually know many married people,” he admitted softly. “At least not intimately enough to know what type of person they are.” In truth, while he was well-known due to his position in town and thus was aware of most of the people living within it, Will truly knew very few people; those he did, he kept at a healthy distance. He didn’t consider himself innately anti-social, but he hadn’t ever been raised with a plethora of company, and found he preferred that existence. It was safe, in whatever pathetic way a grown man could be. “I always sort of operate on t he assumption that people are...you know. Existing. I won’t say doing their best, because we both know that’s largely not the case, but...” he drifted off, scratching his beard absentmindedly with the back of his knuckles. “I think there’s something to be said for being willing to get married, at least. Though people do tend to like an excuse to have a large party.”

Sometimes, Tabitha thought she must have erred in a previous life to have to deal with the likes of Deb. The woman, all but her nemesis, never answered Tabitha’s requests correctly the first time, and seemed to intentionally slow down her efforts when it was Tabitha who was making a request. And it wasn’t as if Deb had a right to be this annoying – it wasn’t just ego propelling Tabitha to ask for this information, it was federally required to be available to the public if they asked for it. 

So when Deb made yet another mistake, Tabitha counted to five in her head before slowly letting out a breath, trying her hardest to rein in her irritation. She opened her mouth to repeat her request for information yet again, and abruptly closed it when sheriff Will Bailey walked toward them. Will Bailey, in charge of the Eureka police force. Will Bailey, the gatekeeper of the information she was looking for. And also: Will Bailey, the man who’d lain in her bed, who’d touched her intimately, who had bought her drinks over a game of pool. Will Bailey, the man she’d not called despite her own assurances she would. Tabitha blinked, and schooled her features into a mask of neutrality.

The mask broke almost as soon as he spoke, his half joke spurring Tabitha to let out a snort. “Absolutely not,” she replied automatically, settling easily into the roles now assigned to them – those of colleagues at odds. “First of all, you’re not leaving. I know your type. You’ll be here just as long as I will,” she asserted confidently. If Tabitha was right – and she most certainly was – they were cut from the same cloth, too stubborn to leave a position or a place before their time. “Second of all, she will not be all I have, because I don’t have her to begin with. I’m in here once a month, minimum, and each time it’s like it’s the first time she’s ever heard of a FOIA request.” Tabitha put a hand on her hip and levelled him with a pointed stare. 

“If I didn’t know better, Sheriff, I’d think you were trying to keep information from me.”

-

It was odd to be standing before Tabitha in the context they now existed within, though not for reasons Will might have initially thought. They had been their most vulnerable selves with one another, soft flesh and longing, but any of the expected accompanying awkwardness was absent entirely. The only thing Will found himself feeling as he stood before her, gaze lingering perhaps a bit too long on her lips for only a moment, was a sense ease—ease with the concept of Tabitha being a reliable facet of his life, in whatever way she would always be around. 

“I could leave,” he countered quietly, though she was correct in assuming that would not be the case. His father had died years ago; nothing was keeping him here, in theory. And yet, here he was. He could cite any number of reasons—the rapport he’d built with the citizens of Eureka, or the fact that he owned land. But Will was a creature of habit, and, worse, a creature of comfort. He’d grown up here. What else did the world have to offer him that he couldn’t have right here? 

Shaking his head, then, as if to dislodge that line of thinking entirely and to simultaneously rebuke Tabitha’s words, he shifted his weight from one foot to another. “Not for nothing, but she gets it eventually,” he reasoned, although this was more to rile Tabitha up than it was to defend Deb. FOIA requests were generally as straightforward as they came, but Deb was frequently tripped up on the appropriate paperwork for any given situation, and she also—which was no secret to anyone in the department or to the woman herself—was terrified of Tabitha. This was generally how Will came to know her, and grow familiar with her, and...

Well, sleep with her. 

He backed up to survey the cubbies beneath the counter, grasping for the FOIA form and pulling it out, setting it down in front of Tabitha. “You know the drill,” he offered with a wry smirk. Watching as she leaned over to begin working diligently, he admired her penmanship, then added, “Am I allowed to ask what this is for? I can never remember. I just typically assume it’s a cheating spouse, if I’m honest.”

Will Bailey was not a romantic creature.

It had never been imparted him him, the softness by which some people were able to live their lives. He hadn’t ever learned how to lead with anything other than a curious mind, rife with suspicion. It made him a good cop, but a lousy lover; his last serious relationship had been in his early thirties, with a woman too kindhearted to realize that she was far, far too good for him. When she realized he wasn’t going to propose, she packed up shop; the last he’d heard, she was up in Oregon with two kids. He felt nothing but the dull ache of foregone happiness for her, like a phantom limb. 

He bided his time now with flings—trysts, he thought of them as. It would start as drinks, maybe dinner, and end in her bed, and he would leave, and maybe she’d ask him back, but sometimes not. That was the extent of his love life, and it was something for which he didn’t really have the sense to long for something better.  He was happy with his life, in whatever definition happiness held for him at this point. He long doubted someone might come along and skew that perception.

Tabitha Smalls was an entity within said life that served, at equal measures, as both a thorn in his side and the brightest part of his day, depending on what she was doing. Their last interaction had left him with a lingering warmth, a sweet taste still settled on his tongue, and he was disappointed—although not at all surprised—when a few weeks had passed since. He knew that, given the nature of their paths as they often convened, and given the size of their shared town, he would see her at some point. 

He didn’t know that point would be today.

He recognized her voice at the front desk from his office, a wry grin crossing his lips as he scanned over a document; he quickly forgot what he was reading, sitting back and listening to Tabitha’s thin veneer of patience melt into something more akin to annoyance. Deb was a good clerk, but she wasn’t the most adept at handling requests that were even remotely involved, and Tabitha’s FOIA request fell within that category. Will grinned as he came to stand, crossing his office and emerging. When Tabitha caught sight of him, her face remained neutral, which was both impressive and disappointing. “I’ve got it, Deb,” he offered placidly, coming to the front counter casually. He pressed the heels of his palms into the edge, leaning into a bit, and looked down at Tabitha expectantly as Deb scuffled off to her desk. When he was sure she was out of earshot, he raised a brow at Tabitha.

“You should be nicer to her. Someday I won’t be here, and she’ll be all you have.”