Archive of Our Own ^beta

It starts with a haunting.

The season has barely begun when Terri comes down to breakfast pale as a ghost. Her eyes are red rimmed. She’s shaking. Altogether it seems a little much for 7am and Lupe doesn’t take a lot of interest until the fretful whispers are too hard to ignore.

“It was otherworldly,” Terri tells some of the more devout second-stringers. “It sounded so far away, wailing, like...”

The end of the sentence doesn’t come. Terri just crosses herself, and Lupe sighs and keeps eating.

Esti catches her eye from across the table. Esti came down earlier than Lupe, who tries to linger upstairs for a last few minutes of solitude, because there’s no reprieve from the entire team once the day starts.

“Ghost,” Esti says, raising her eyebrows meaningfully.

Shirley launches into a comprehensive retell of two times she heard a noise that might have been said ghost, or it might have been a mouse eating the wall, except that she’s not overly familiar with ghosts nor mice, and wishes to keep it that way.

“I didn’t hear anything,” Ana chimes in. “But I’m less...” - she crosses herself - “than she is.” She tips her head in Terri’s direction. Terri still looks rattled.

Lupe huffs and tries to block it out, but the subject won’t go away.

About a week later, Terri is even more distressed. “This is an old house,” she’s saying worriedly. “Maybe it needs an exorcism. Lupe, did you hear a growl?”

Terri turns wide eyes beseechingly in her direction. Lupe coughs on her cereal. “No?”

Terri looks undeterred. “Jess,” she tries, “Jess, did you hear anything?”

Jess is shovelling cereal into her mouth. “Nope,” Jess remarks around her spoon.

Lupe isn’t surprised by the succinct dismissal. She lets her eyes linger on Jess, admiring her… succinctness.

“Maybe it’s from the attic,” Terri wonders. “Helen? Ruth! Did you hear anything? I can’t take this any longer!”

Lupe can’t take this any longer, either, but she doesn’t feel compelled to make a big announcement about it.

Luckily, the ghost shuts up for a few days, and the subject drops for nearly a week.

Until.

Next time, Terri looks gaunt. “She’s terrified,” Ana says, snorting at her own pun. Her laughter stops when Beverly arrives, her mouth in a line that Lupe already doesn’t like.

“Ladies,” Bev says politely, before focusing her attention on Lupe and asking for a moment alone. Lupe's hackles rise immediately. “Miss García, would you be amenable to a trade?”

Lupe’s heart stops. Already? God, she knew the odds were against her, but – her mind is racing, and Jess’s eyes find hers from across the room, a lighthouse beacon for Lupe’s chaotic thoughts.

“Mrs. Cobell is inconsolable,” Bev says tiredly. “She will not rest, literally, another night in that room.”

Lupe lets out a slow breath. “So I’ll be roommates with Ana?”

“No,” Bev says flatly. “You and Miss González will move.”

Lupe sighs. “But Terri speaks – ”

“Mrs. Cobell is in no state for further disruption.”  Bev’s tone is final.

“Fine,” Lupe says.

And it is fine, at first.

*

Lupe is not the most superstitious, and it's not the ghosts from home anyway. Still, the prospect makes her uneasy, on top of being resentful at being pushed around. She’s even more sour from the way Terri swooped into Lupe’s old room, reclining dreamily at the bay window that has been Lupe’s prime glowering spot.

Maybe this was Terri’s plan all along, Lupe speculates grumpily. Terri has always been jealous of that window seat.

But Lupe tries to make the best of it. Esti asked for the bed near the vanity, and Lupe didn’t resist, because why would Lupe need a vanity, and because Lupe pretends she doesn’t know the truth: Esti is terrified of Terri’s old bed.

Lupe tries to be reassuring. Ana never heard anything, Jess and Greta never heard anything. Lupe and Esti never heard anything! Shirley heard mice, but who hasn’t?

Esti scoffs petulantly and points out that Terri heard something. Wailing. Growling. Scratching.

Mice, Lupe snaps, because she doesn’t want to think about it, and she falls asleep to avoid more arguments.

*

The first night, nothing.

The second night, nothing. But it’s late once she and Jess get back from the bar, and she sleeps like a log, so who knows.

The third night, she lies awake in the darkness, but there’s nothing.

The fourth night, Lupe is woken by muffled giggles and footsteps in the hall, hurried and laughing, and she huffs and rolls over, trying to resettle. At least she and Jess are quiet when they sneak out. It’s in the name, for fuck’s sake.

Lupe is just about to drift off when she hears a sigh.

She bolts awake.

Disembodied, sure.

A hint of a groan.

But –

Lupe furrows her brow.

There’s a gasp, so it’s lucky Lupe has pressed her ear to the wall, so she can catch the noise. It ends with a muffled cry.

It’s definitely not a mouse.

And it’s almost definitely not a ghost.

*

The next day, Lupe corners Jess after practice.

“Uhhhh,” Lupe starts articulately. “Were you... Okay? Last night. I heard some… Noises?”

Jess glances across, working at a toothpick. “Oh? Scary noises?”

“Wasn’t scared,” Lupe manages, maintaining eye contact somehow.

Jess hums, gazing at Lupe thoughtfully. “Did it... bother you?”

“I didn’t mind,” Lupe croaks.

Jess’s mouth twitches. “How did you feel?”

Well, that –

The spark of heat, a wondering that tipped into certainty – the flood of hunger that took her breath away –

Jess’s expression clears into a smirk, like she can read the truth on Lupe’s face. She leans in close. “Hey, did you know,” Jess muses, “if you press a glass to a wall, you hear better?”

Lupe tries to reply, but she’s forgotten what, and also how.

“Especially when Mr. District Attorney is on,” Jess adds. “Works even better then.”

Jess tips her cap and saunters off, and Lupe’s stomach flips like she’s in freefall. That sounds like an invitation. Maybe even a plan. When Esti and Maybelle are downstairs at the radio, and Lupe is alone -

This might be even better than the bay window.