“Oh, did I scare you?”

Even in his disheveled and flustered state, he rolled his eyes. “No, I just go leaping about from ledges all the time…” Honestly. What kind of a question was that? He knew that Lindsay wouldn’t purposefully cause him to fall off the ledge to his—well, not death, but possible dismemberment. Chuh. He normally wouldn’t have been so snappish with the poor girl (after all, she had to deal with Pete on a daily basis), but he could not deal with ridiculous questions when his heart was still racing and his hands were shaking.

“I'm sorry. I was only saying hello. Are you, um.. you're alright, aren't you?”

“Well, hello.” He set to smoothing his clothes and hair to rights, but it would take him a few minutes to actually calm down. “I’ll be okay.” For now, anyway. In the long run, it looked doubtful. His problems had been mostly abstract for the past few years, but now, with his birthday looming like an unwelcome visitor, he was starting to get panicky and jumpy and paranoid. The paranoid thing wasn’t new… but it was becoming more pronounced. “It’s not your fault,” he said, slightly grudgingly, as she appologised again.

Bending, he picked up his bag from its place on the floor. “What brings you out here?” he asked. Without Pete, he added silently. It seemed to him like they did everything together, all the time, always, forever. It wasn’t often that he saw her by herself; granted, lately he had been holed up in his dorm by himself, so… perhaps that wasn’t accurate. However, he was not going to pass up an opportunity to pry. If they were having relationship problems, he was interested in hearing about it. It wasn’t often that he got to tell Nat the gossip.

“Myself, I usually come out here when I want to think in peace… or be alone… avoid some people,” he said, in what he thought was a casual manner. And this was true, actually, though he meant it as a lead in to her spilling all her secrets so that he could, in turn, tell Nat. Who, as a matter of fact, would probably tell Pete. Speaking of thinking about his problems in peace, he added (completely off subject), “Do you think becoming a ghost is worth it? Or do you think they actually wish they had moved on to the afterlife, or whatever?” The thought had occurred to him earlier, and there had been no one around to ask.