A/N: So... I've been hiding on the fail-boat. At any rate, after finishing "Cotton and Textile" I didn't know what to write...

Yes, this will have more than one chapter. Let's see if I can do another romantic comedy.

Also, the first two lines are not my concept. The actual line is something along the lines of "Bring him back from the dead, he says. He'll be good, he says. He won't turn into a giant killer monster-rabbit thing, he says. He says!" From the anime "Ghost Stories" owned by ADV, I think. Also, "The Prestige" is copyright to Christopher Priest and whatever company owns rights.

Bring him back from the dead, he says. He’ll be good, he promises, he says. So what did I do? Naturally, I brought him back. And of course, he broke all of his promises. He always broke all of his promises, so what was I expecting?

“Hello, sweetheart,” he said, yawning. He was covered in dirt and rain-water, his nice white shirt muddy and his dress slacks smudged with grass. “Miss me?”

At first, I was dumbstruck. How? How did this happen? It had just been a stupid charm from that New Age store on Pearl Street. It had just been a few words and a prayer. I just wanted him to be happy in the afterlife. I thought that was what he meant. Apparently, it wasn’t.

“Wow. Hi. Um… Come in? Do you want something to drink?”

“Sure. I’m starved. You know, being in a box for… what… Three months? Pain in the ass. And everywhere else, actually. Got any Advil?”

“Uh, yeah.” I followed him in a daze. He knew where my bathroom was, of course. Being dead doesn’t make you forget things, apparently. “So… how’ve you been?”

“Great. A little bored, you know. I’m glad you got my messages.”

“How couldn’t I? You trashed my kitchen and my couch.”

“I was worried you wouldn’t be able to read it. It was hard to write with what little control I had on the pen.”

“Knife,” I reminded him dimly. He had done the typical ghost things, writing in mirrors and salt, but when I didn’t do anything, he had taken a kitchen knife and carved up my sofa. COME AND GET ME. I’LL BE NICER, I PROMISE, all over my corduroy upholstery.

He nodded, “I see you got a new couch. Nice color. Goes well with the curtains.”

“Yeah…”

“You were never very-color coordinated. Guess I did you a favor.”

“Actually, Matt did that for me.”

“Matt?”

I met his eyes, “Yeah. My new-boyfriend.”

He looked hurt, “Oh, come on, Lisa. I’ve been dead three months. You can’t stay faithful for three months?”

“We’ve only been dating for a week…”

“Lisa…” He put his hand under my chin and tilted my head up, looking deeply into my eyes. His hand was dirty, flecked with dried mud. I tried to look away, but I couldn’t.

My mouth opened and closed like a fish. “I… I… I’ll break up with him.”

“That’s a good girl. Now, about your Advil…”

“Bathroom.” I pointed down the hall, “And you can take a shower. I think I may have some of your clothes left over…”

While he was in the shower, I rooted through my closet for his old pajamas, pants and shirts, but it took me longer than it should have. Lilly, my cat, sat on my bed looking confused and purring low. How was it my cat knew how I was feeling better than I did?

He looked perfect as always when he came out of the shower, mud-free and gorgeous, a towel wrapped around his waist like he was trying to pretend I hadn’t seen him naked before. How did he manage to stay so good looking? Didn’t dead bodies bloat up? Where the hell did the scars go? How did he get his organs back? Last time I saw him, alive, I think, he had a steering wheel in the stomach and a face full of glass. The morticians did a good job of making sure his face wasn’t a mess for the open casket funeral, but there wasn’t much they could do about all the internal bleeding.

“What..?” He asked me, grinning slightly, “What’s wrong?”

“Here,” I handed him a pair of pajamas, “Here you go.”

“Thanks.” He went back into the bathroom and changed. I was trying to get through the overwhelming shock to find any real emotion. I should have been scared, but for some reason, I wasn’t. I still trusted him, after all. When he came back out, in his tank-top and baggy flannel pants, I wanted to cry, but something stopped me.

This had been us. We had been all domestic bliss and internal chaos three months ago. But three months ago he wasn’t dead. Wasn’t a ghost. Zombie. Whatever he was. He’d been my boyfriend, and then been my ex-boyfriend, because he was always a dumb jerkass, and liked to show off in his shiny car like he lived in a Beach Boy’s song. I always said that it would get him killed, and I was right.

“Are you alright?” He asked me, tilting my head up again. It used to be such a familiar gesture, and I eventually learned to run away from it. There were two outcomes to him tilting my head. One, he would kiss me. Two, he would commit a random act of being a jerk, like spitting at me. This was different. This was getting a good look at me.

“I’m… just…”

“Aren’t you happy that I’m back?”

“Well, yes, I am, but…”

“Don’t you still want to get married?”

I felt sick to my stomach. “Um…” I had honestly almost forgotten about that. I don’t know how, but I had. Matt said it was steps of dealing with an emotional crisis. I had gone into denial, or something. Well, I couldn’t be in denial now, could I?

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“No. No, I mean yes. I mean no… I mean… Damn it. Where have you been? Have you had an identical twin this whole time and just switched off and the days you didn’t love me were…”

“Oh please. Leave Christopher Nolan’s plots out of this.”

“Actually, it was Christopher Priest’s plotline but…”

“I don’t have a twin, or a doppelganger, or clones, or the ability to Astro-project, or anything like that.”

“Then… Where the hell have you been for all this time? I saw you die! You were dead, dead, and dead by the time they got me to the emergency room.”

“What did you go for?”

“What? What did I go for? Maybe for being in a big fiery car wreck caused by my stupid boyfriend?”

“Yeah, but… You look fine.”

“I broke some ribs and my nose.”

“Power of a seatbelt, huh?”

“And I was in the back.”

“You were, weren’t you?”

“Yes. I was. You never answered my question. Where the hell have you been?”

He grinned at me, his soft green eyes like the pine-trees outside. “I’ve been hanging out in the afterlife. Have you missed me?”

I wanted to tell him that he was being a complete idiot, and that he should have been more careful with us, and especially with himself, in more ways than one. And I had missed him. I had cried myself to sleep for a week after getting over the shock of his death.

“Yes.”

“Come on. You look tired. Sorry about that. I probably woke you up. It was a pain to dig out of so much dirt. But it’s only eleven, right?”

“Yeah.”

He kissed me softly, and I felt chilled to the bone. I wanted him to get out of my apartment. But what could I do? I was the one who brought him back from the dead, and now I would have to keep him here. Trying to explain to all of my friends that my boyfriend, who had died of internal hemorrhaging and was declared dead within the hour of the car wreck, was actually doing fine, would be impossible.

“Come on,” he whispered in my ear, and picked me up with a grunt, carrying me to my bed. I just lay stupid in his arms, a dead weight. He placed me so gently against the blankets and then turned off the light. I was freezing the whole night through, no matter how much I hogged the covers.