"Is Alex in Wonderland your full name?" Nikki asked.

Lexi said nothing for a long moment, slowly processing the question, then straightened a little bit, looked over Nikki's shoulder, then at her.  "No.  No, no, no.  My full name...is Alexis Andrea Victoria Margaret Corinne Crane."  She pressed her lips together in an expression of pride.  "I have enough names for a..."  A what?  She'd forgotten.  Sir William had said something amusing about that, but she'd lost it.  Stupid pink cloud.  She was happy that Dr. Zheng was being replaced by this little gothic pixie; at least they could probably dance together.  And juice would be nice.  Yes.  Lexi turned toward the kitchen mid-pause, and went to the refrigerator.  "I want some juice."  She stared into the fridge for a moment, focusing on the pitcher she wanted, then grabbed it with both hands, as if it were trying to move away from her, and hauled it out onto the counter.

Nikki watched her as the pitcher wobbled and weaved as if it and Lexi were opposed ends of a magnet.  She put her sketchpad back in my bag and got up to help.  "Where are the glasses?"

"I don't know...a box.  Some box.  Somewhere..."

There was a glass in the sink, so Nikki washed it out and poured some orange juice for her.  Lexi was returning the pitcher to the fridge when Ian and the new doctor came back into the kitchen.  "This place is amazing, Poppet," the new doctor said.  He was about Lexi's height, but fat.  He was an all-over kind of fat, rather than just being beergutted, and looked like he'd have played football in high school simply by merit of being dense and hard to knock down because he certainly couldn't run far.  "You're gonna--oh, hello," the doctor said upon seeing Lexi.  "I'm Edward.  Edward Sharp."

"Doctor Sharp," Ian said.

Lexi stared at them both, slowly putting it together in her mind.  "Mister Doctor...Edward Sharp," Lexi said.  She said each word carefully, turning it into a little cadence.  She began repeating, "Mist-er Doc-tor Ed-ward Sharp" to herself.

Zheng returned to the kitchen with a briefcase and collected his journal.  "Are we all set, then?" he asked.

Lexi drained her glass of juice and banged it on the counter, irritated by the very sight of him.  She wobbled a little off-balance when she did so, and had to put a hand out to steady herself.  "I'm...going back upstairs now.  I'm tired."  She added something about the door not hitting Zheng in the ass on his way out, but she had turned on her heel and gone through the secret door that led to her room before realizing that she'd forgotten to say it out loud.

She stayed in her room for another hour or so, to avoid seeing Dr. Zheng again.  The new doctor came up to check on her, but thanks to the pink clouds she didn't remember much of that conversation.  Suddenly she was back in the kitchen, eating a cheesecake from the inside out (she scooped the middle out methodically, turning it into a cheesecake ring), and Nicole (who wanted to be called Nikki) was asking her if she wanted to eat.  There had been grocery shopping, and there were bags all over the counter.  Good.  Supplies to last them through the coming storm.

"No," she said.  "Not a bit.  I've hardly eaten all day.  A little here, a little there.  I shall waste away to nothing if I keep this up."  Lexi spread her arms and tilted her head back, looking up at the ceiling.  She frowned.  "There are cracks in the ceiling," she said, as if they had appeared just to irritate her and were somehow Doctor Edward and Nicole's fault.  Doctor Edward and Nicole.  Sounded like a name for a punk band.  She started to lose her balance then, and flapped her arms to keep from falling.

"It's still a nice house," Nikki said.

"It has its moments," she replied, not looking down.  The pink cloud had receded in the past hour, and she felt better.  Hopefully they wouldn't ask her to take another one.

"I could get you a cherry cheese danish, if you want."

"Oh, stitch that," she said, still looking at the ceiling.  "I don't need a silly danish, or a pecan spinwheel either.  I am not hungry," Lexi said.  "But cats are hungry.  It's time to feed cats."  She wandered over to the sink, looked into it for a long moment, then squatted so suddenly it looked as if she'd dropped into a hole.  A bag crackled, the unmistakable sound of a pet food bag, and brought all six cats at a run

"Fuck me," Nikki said, momentarily losing any semblance of professionalism.  Lexi smiled to herself, liking Nikki better instantly.  "You have more cats than I thought."

Lexi laughed.  "I am the Queen of the Cats," she said in a regal voice that didn't go at all with her skimpy clothing.  She looked down at the cats with a pleased smile on her face, the ghost of the sunshine smile she had flashed earlier.

"What are their names?"

That was a good question.  Nikki was proving to be much nicer than Zheng, or Mister Doctor Edward.  Lexi squatted and began introducing her to her cats.  Nikki squatted too, and started getting cat fur on her dark clothes.  Eddie came back in with four more bags of groceries, looked at them, at the cats, raised his eyebrows, and went back out again.  "This is Amy-Ann," Lexi said, indicating the tortie who had inspected Nikki earlier.  "The grey tabby next to her is Teague, and the big Maine coon," the cat whom Nikki had seen sitting on the rail, "is Nance.  Teague and Nance are--were--Ren's cats."  Her voice cracked a little.  Lexi touched the corner of her eye with a finger, dabbing at a tear Nikki couldn't see.  "Mirror is the white cat with the mismatched eyes, Audrey is the longhaired calico, and this..." Lexi stood up, held out her arms, and the last cat in line, a long-haired black cat, jumped right up into her arms.  "This is Malice," she said.  "Malice is my familiar," she added with a grin.

Nikki looked into the cat's pale green eyes for a long moment.  "She's pretty," she said finally.

Lexi hummed in agreement and let the cat jump to the floor.  "You look uncomfortable," she said. 

"I was in California a few days ago.  My body's still adjusting to the weather."  Nikki tried not to glance at Lexi's thighs and feet as the other woman was wearing only an oversized yellow T-shirt and matching panties, but failed.  In the glance she noticed a tremendous keloid scar running up Lexi's right shin.  It was straight, like a surgical scar, but the area on both sides was stippled by irregular pockmarks.  "Aren't you cold?"

"Yep.  Freezing.  You?"

"The house is creeping me out a little bit, too."

"It'll do that.  Wait till it gets dark out.  It's haunted, you know.  Oh, and some of the wiring is bad.  Mice, I think."

Nikki grabbed the first grocery bag close to her and started putting the cold things in the refrigerator.  "I'll bet the lights in the room with the fucking canopy bed don't work."

"How'd you know?  Oh, Mister Doctor Edward must've told you.  Is he really a doctor?  I don't think he is.  I don't think any of them are.  Or were.  I just wonder too much, too many things."  Her mind changed the subject.  "I hope it snows more.  I like snow."

"I don't."

"Not even to look at?"

Nikki shrugged.  "Only to look at."

Lexi handed her a can of frozen orange juice.  "I like being cold.  It's easy to warm up when you're cold, and it feels good."

"I prefer to stay comfortable.  Then I don't require relief."

"Relief, whatever.  I just like the changes in scenery."

Eddie came back with more bags of groceries.  "Did I interrupt?" he said.  "Heard you talking all the way out at the door."

"We were talking about you," Lexi said suddenly.  "We've figured out your little ruse, and it's not going to work, not for a minute."  After delivering this nugget, she turned on her heel and disappeared into the depths of the house once again.  She wanted to see what Mister Doctor Edward and Nikki drove.  That would tell her a lot about who they were.

She went outside, putting boots on but not bothering with pants (a nice side effect of the pink clouds was that they seemed to keep her warm as well), and cleaned the snow off of it.  The snow was really starting to come down now, but Lexi saw that their car was a brand-new Lincoln Town Car, silver.  It was a better choice than a Cadillac, anyway.  It had all-season tires instead of snows on it, too, so it'd be nigh-undriveable until the snowplow came.  She'd have to loan them one of her trucks if they wanted to go anywhere.  If they weren't as annoying as Zheng, she wouldn't mind doing that, either.

Marion was outside, too.  Lexi saw her go into the garage, a faint glow in the dark that disappeared through the rickety door.  She followed, peering through the door and expecting to see the ghost sitting behind the wheel of her old car, but Marion had disappeared from sight.  For a moment Lexi wondered where she could have gotten to as the garage had no back door, but duh, ghosts could vanish at will, it wasn't strange at all.  Assuming you didn't count the ghost herself as strange, of course.

The wind had picked up, whooshing through the leafless trees with a mournful moan.  Lexi could hear the upper branches clicking together as they swayed.  The falling snow obscured the sky completely.  She stood in front of the garage and let some of it melt on her face.  Yes, it was going to be a hell of a snow.

Back inside, Lexi left her boots by the door (tracking snow across the foyer's marble floor would just lead to a slip and fall) and bounced back upstairs.  She tumbled into bed for a few minutes to warm up, which was one of the best parts about going out and getting cold and wet in the first place.  That, and warm, hot baths.