Tee drifted through the galleries, stopping every few steps to clean, to straighten, to admire. In time, every sculpture, every painting, every bit of art in every gallery eventually got her attention, her care, and her admiration. She didn't think about what she was doing or why she was doing it. It was just the right thing to do. Tama-sensei had drilled that into her until it was part of her, right down to the bone.

She stopped in the middle of the gallery, suddenly aware of her own mistake in thinking that Tama-sensei told her to clean. He hadn't. He'd taught her, but not by telling. No matter how hard she tried, no matter what route she took, she could never find her way to a place in her memory where he told her to do something. Once in a while he suggested she look at something, and once she asked him to teach her, he occasionally told her to consider something, but he'd never actually told her 'clean the galleries'.

Instead, he'd shown her. She didn't know how long she'd stayed in their tiny room, awaiting his return whenever he left. She didn't know how long she'd followed him around the museum, watching him as he set the museum to rights. She knew in a vague sort of way that she must have done so for a long, long time in order to remember it at all, but she didn't know how long. With memory so prone to failure, time became a fluid and fey thing.

She suspected Tama-sensei was no longer in the building. She wasn't sure why. She suspected her PDA had the reason, but a sudden surge of sourceless sadness spiked in her breast, forcing her hand back away from the device. If Tama-sensei was not here now, she needed to be in motion, because she had twice as much cleaning for her to do.

She moved into action once more, her cheeks damp for no reason she could recall.

"Hey, Tee-girl. You been cryin'."

Tee acknowledged X with a nod. Normally she would give him a smile as well, but today she couldn't bring herself to do so. That was unkind of her, but a real nod was better than a fake smile.

Fine, white dust covered the floor in the current gallery. That annoyed her to no end, as it hinted that she hadn't been in this gallery for quite some time. She retrieved her short broom and long handled dustpan from the cart and proceeded to sweep the dust into the pan. After she put the first few dustpans full of powder in the trash bag on the back of her cart, a low whistle of admiration escaped X.

"I gots to aks, How's that janns work, Tee-girl?"

Tee never stopped her dusting; the mess of dust meant she had no time to waste, and she hadn't seen Tama-sensei all night. Perhaps he'd an errand to run, or he'd decided to spend a night with friends. For a moment, she wondered what it would be like to have friends that could leave the museum. She wondered what the world outside the museum was like.

"Tee-girl, you hear me?"

She wondered what it would be like to have friends her own size, who weren't creations of her broken mind's imagination.

"I don't know what you're talking about, X."

X flittered down to hover a foot above the floor. His wings buzzed like an overgrown bee, and the downdraft they created made patterns in the dust, some of them spraying back toward the areas she'd cleaned. Tee frowned at him, glancing pointedly at the grains of dust now lying on the pristine wood. They stood out like an accusation, and X drifted upward, scattering more dust as he did.

"That what I mean. Yo' broom be pushin' air too, Tee, but you not gettin' dust spreadin' like that."

With the disruption of X's wings now safely away from the dust on the floor, Tee went back over the area she'd swept. She didn't speak for a while because she didn't have an answer. Instead, she went about her work, sweeping every grain of dust from the floor. With that done, she pulled an old, often refilled container of oil from her cart. A drawer yielded two supplies of soft rags; one batch ragged and old, with a variety of oft washed stains, the other practically new, having been run through the wash just often enough to soften them.

Carefully moving each bit of mobile furniture from the room, she set a single bright white rag on each chair, table, or wastebasket. That task done, she went back into the empty room and, working on hands and knees, used the older rags to spread a thin coat of wax across the wood of the floor, moving backward the entire time to keep her feet from disturbing what she'd already oiled. As she covered each board with the mineral oil, it gleamed up at her, grateful for the attention. When she'd worked her way through the entire gallery, the floor where she'd started was dry. She went to the chair that belonged on that portion, picked up the clean white cloth from its seat, and started to polish. As she rubbed the oil coated wood, it gleamed up at her, the wood thanking her for all her hard work on its behalf. When the cloth was no longer white, she took it back to the cart, collected the chair, and carefully placed it back in its spot.

"How you do it, Tee? How you make the jawns shine like that?"

This time she understood the question, and with understanding came an answer.

"I love the wood. Like everything, it has beauty within. It senses that love and shows me that beauty."

A low whistle sounded from where she'd last seen the hovering pixie. "You never was one to do things by halves, was you, Tee?"

Tee forced herself to remain in motion. She never took her eyes from the gleaming wood she'd just polished, never took her attention from the hands that worked the polishing rag around and around in tiny circles. The luscious honey of the wood danced its endless dance with the sweet caramel of its grain, and the oil atop elevated that dance to a ballet of breathtaking beauty.

Her imaginary friend, the construct her broken mind had created to help her cope with her recalcitrant and malfunctioning memory, had hinted at her past, maybe a sign she was healing. On the other hand, maybe it was a sign she would start making up a past for herself, much as she made up friends from figments and pigments and canvas and stone and old, dead wood.

Step by step, chair by chair, table by table, Tee worked her way through the room. Eventually she came to the end of the room. Her pixie shadow was still hovering above her, occasionally pointing out where the floor shone less brightly. Once the floor shone like a pool of liquid amber, she moved on to the walls, polishing the fixtures, the cases, and the occasional frame. She paused after each display to properly appreciate it. When she did, the colors brightened, the metal shone, and the grain of the wood deepened.

The last display was a relatively recent work, included more because of its beauty, style, and subject matter than monetary value. The frame was old oak inset with intricate brass scrollwork. Tee polished the wood and the metal, then looked over her handiwork, admiring the play of light and shadow. An ugly gash cut through the gleam of brass on the right side of the frame. Tee drifted closer. The gash was more than a smudge or an imperfect polishing. The copper and the wood around it had been dented, almost as if a hard metal edge had bumped into the frame.

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She returned to her cart and brought back the container of polish and a new rag. With the patience of someone with no real concept of time, she set to work polishing. As she worked, she hummed a wordless little tune she'd often heard Tama-sensei sing to himself while he worked. She missed him, and idly wondered how long he would be out. He'd taught her many things, most of which she didn't even realize she knew until the moment she needed to know them.

A low whistle sounded from above her head. She glanced up, and only Tama-sensei's never-ending training kept her hands moving, her mouth shut. Hovering in the air above her, X had his arms wrapped around another Pixie. Where X had skin the color of soot, the newcomer had skin the color of bronze, with black, shiny hair spilling off his shoulders in long, looping curls. So many things about the scene struck her as odd that she didn't know where to start.

The least was that the pixie embracing X was most certainly male. His dress was long and full, and his shoes were exquisitely fashionable. However, he was wearing nothing beneath his dress, and he was hovering directly above Tee's head, and as he hovered his gender and his reaction to X's embrace were obvious.

The second strange thing was the way he embraced X. Tee wasn't sure about other people, but she thought there might be something wrong with a figment of her imagination embracing another figment so intensely.

The final oddity was the most profound. Her hallucinations were multiplying. Of course, if X was her damaged mind's way of giving her memory, the new pixie might be the way it was going to reintroduce her to physical affection, or maybe fashion. Possibly both, given the appearance and actions of the new pixie.

Of course, both pixies stared at her, X beaming with pride as his effeminate partner looked on with wide eyes. Before Tee could decide to do anything, the new pixie swept down upon her, speaking as he came.

"How are you doing this, chica of the cleaning?"

Tee just blinked at the apparition. For the life of her, she could not think of a single thing that would make sense to say to a figment of her imagination. She settled for staring quietly at the new pixie, one eyebrow raised slightly.

"My X! Our chica, she is broken worse than the ever!"

The cross-dressing pixie's accent was wrong. Tee had no idea how she knew a Spanish accent shouldn't sound quite the way his did, but she knew. She tilted her head to the side, turning a bit in an attempt to get a better view of the pixie. He, of course, spun in place to face her. She took this as another sign that he was simply another part of her fragmented consciousness trying to reassert itself. Her hands never stopped their gentle massage of the picture frame, nor did her mouth stop crooning the gentle, slightly off-key lullaby.

When she turned back to pay proper attention to the frame, the new arrival darted in, throwing his arms about the side of her neck. He wailed as he did so, a sound of pure hysterical anguish that only gradually resolved into words.

"Oh, our poor chica of great stature! We have not done the healing of the mind correctly, and your voice, she is gone forever from this world! Ricardo cannot forgive himself for this. I... I shall not go unpunished in this. I shall... I shall... I shall give up my shoes!"

With that he darted back, tearing his shoes from his hovering feet as he did.

"To the..." Ricardo choked on the words, but forced them out on the second try, "to the incinerator with them!"

The thought of the little pixie burning shoes that someone had obviously taken such pains to create drew Tee's gaze around like it was on a string.

"No!" she shouted. Ricardo stopped, frozen in midair by her shout. An eye blink later he started to fall, catching himself near Tee's knee level. Slowly, as if trying not to spook her, he hovered up to her eye level once more.

"Chica of caring for the art of the museum, do you tell Ricardo he should not sacrifice his shoes?"

Tee considered her choice of words for a moment before speaking. When she spoke, she did so carefully, worried that the new pixie might take something amiss and harm himself. She had no idea what that would do to her mind. "You shouldn't hurt yourself... or your shoes just because I can't think of anything useful to say."

The cross-dressing pixie hovered in front of her for a long breath. He stared into her eyes, almost as if he were trying to tell if she were lying. Whatever the little Fae saw in her, it satisfied him. A smile slid slowly across his face, and he darted up to join X by the ceiling.

"Our little chica, did you ever think she would grow so fine, my X?'

X rolled his eyes theatrically, but he smiled as well. Fortunately for Tee's state of mind, X wore pants today rather than the kilt he sometimes sported. Unfortunately, he wore them in a 'street' style that let the waistband sag to below his buns in the back. Before she became terminally embarrassed by the reactions the two obviously caused in each other, Tee glanced away.

When she looked away, she noticed the cause of all the white dust. New molding wrapped around the top of the room, and the top foot or so of the wall had been replastered and repainted. Someone other than Tee might not notice, but the museum was her home, and caring for it was her calling. The frame she'd been working on lost in her impenetrable memory, Tee focused herself on the intricate designs worked into the new molding.

At first glance, she thought the artwork might be some form of bas relief Celtic knot work, but as she looked closer, Tee noticed that the pattern was all wrong. It resembled something else, something she knew she'd seen, but that too was lost in the depths of her recalcitrant memory. Lights glinted from tiny chips of crystal and glass that were worked into the pattern. Those chips teased at Tee, pushed her to try and remember where she'd seen patterns like the bas relief she was looking at before.

With glacial slowness she sank into a trance state, her awareness of everything but the pattern before her dwindling until all that existed in the world were the endless lines and angles of the molding. Her gaze ran from one end of the room to the other, taking in each and every twist and turn in the bas relief, noting each sparkle and glitter of the crystal and metal incorporated into the upper edge of the room.

Had she not been watching so intently she would have missed it. Just as her gaze flowed across it, one of tiny fragments of reflective glass moved. Her attention focused on that single glimmer of light, daring it to move again while she watched. Her breathing slowed further, and in a distant way she became aware of her heartbeat dropping to a slow, rhythmic thud every few seconds.

Deep within the recesses of her own mind Tee felt an echoing gulf where something ought to reside. Without knowing how, she knew that the void within her was the cause of her memory loss. Even as that realization struck her, she felt the insight about her condition sliding toward the edge of the pit. She clutched at the knowledge, desperate to keep the tiny sliver of self-awareness. If the fragile memory slipped away from her, she would once more wander, trapped in an endless now.

An eternity and a moment later, light glinted from the lens Tee stared at. Her attention wavered, and...

Tee looked around the gallery. This one hadn't been cleaned today. There were a few scraps of paper near the waste baskets, and one of the displays had a smudge on the glass. Oddest of all, she stood cordoned off from the rest of the room by a square of temporary barricade ribbons. Careful not to disturb them, she bent double to sneak beneath the barrier. Free of the restraint, she turned to see what had been cordoned off. A small temporary plaque indicated the area was in use by a performance artist. She had obviously gone home for the evening, so Tee collected her cart from within the fenced off area and finished cleaning the room.

Sooner than she thought possible, she moved into the next room. Fine, white dust covered the floor here. That annoyed her to no end.

Deja Vu slid through her mind, disappearing into the maw of the void within her.

"Tee girl, don't do that to us again!" X's voice was ragged with worry, edged with a very real threat of violence to whatever was threatening her. That only made sense; her broken mind knew she would need a protector who remembered who was a threat and who was not. Now he hovered inches from her face, the intensity of his gaze pinning her to the spot, pushing her for an answer to his demand.

"I am sorry, X-sempai. I will not do that in the future, if you will tell me but one thing."

"Name it, Tee girl"

"What is it that I have done?"