Ellen stood at her table in the workshop without doing anything.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t or wanted to do anything, but rather that she couldn’t get any rest in her mind to do anything.

It had gone two days since they had held the celebration for them moving into the new house. That had ended with some confessions, and that Ellen had beaten the sense out of Chris. Sure he had been drunk and been the one that had challenged her, but it still didn’t make up for the fact that she had been beating a friend.

At first so had she not felt bad for it at all since it was he that challenged her, but the regrets had started to sneak up at her first the next day. She was a monster, a monster that didn’t hesitate to beat him up.

It would have so much better if she had forced the “perverse princess” to spend some time with him instead, that way so could Alice maybe been taking care of the problem herself. That way she maybe could learn how bad it could be for her to charm all the men around herself.

It hadn’t been only Chris that had been charmed by her little sister, but she had also got a grip of her co-worker Lilly. Which apparently seemed to have a thing for females. And easily explained that she wouldn’t go through the same thing as Chris, all because she wasn’t suicidal.

It hadn’t been that bad with the fight between Ellen and Chris, right? Ellen wasn’t that bad so it would look like a suicidal act to challenge her, right? It couldn’t be that bad. It just couldn’t be that bad, Ellen really wasn’t like that.

Maybe she could get some rest in her mind if she apologised to Chris? Not a simple apologise but a real apologise that could prove that she wasn’t a bad person that could beat a friend without any signs of hesitations at all. But then again, would it really be a good idea to go over to Chris’s shop? What should she do if Sour was there, what should she do then?

Chris wasn’t the only one that Ellen really had hurt during that evening. Sour had confessed his feeling for Ellen, the first one that ever done that. Yet she had right off stomped and pulverised his feelings by rejecting him, without any second thoughts. He really had to hate her for her harsh rejection. Even if he probably tried to cover up his disappointment by acting like the rejection was something he did expect.

She had been really horrible that evening. Enough for it to scare even herself. But nothing good will come out from just let it be.

Ellen stood in front of the door to Chris’s shop. It was hopefully best to start with apologising to Chris, not because she looked lighter at that she had beaten him. But he had helped her so much since they first were thrown out off the mansion, and had even taken her in for jobs so she could learn some more as a cog technician.

With a light sigh, she opened the door and walked in.

“Good day and welcome to my shop.” He was alone in the shop and greeted her has usually before he noticed that it was Ellen.

“Welcome back to my shop Ellen, how can I help you today?” He acted like the beating never had occurred. Not that it could be seen at him, but Ellen had a cut in her eyebrow that hadn’t healed yet.

“I came to apologise for beating you senseless during the celebration.”

Ellen felt better when Chris burst out in laughter at her apologies. Telling her that she didn’t have to apologise for it since he had got tipsy and was the one that started it.

Tipsy wasn’t quite the right word, we had been more like wasted. And it still didn’t justify that she had done what she did. Which she pointed out for him.

“So you want to really show that you are sorry for it. If that’s the case, I have a job offer that I would like some help with.”

It wasn’t so different from normal was, but since he expressed it like that so did it seem like he had understood what she wanted to say.

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Lapin had been working harder after the celebration. Maybe she needed that little push in the form of declaring that Lapin would be Alice’s assistant in front of the others.

She didn’t hesitate as much she did before, almost proving that she could be at the same level as Alice. She was almost already doing a better job at meeting patient’s than Alice did. But of course that could be because she still was feeling emotions, which could be both a blessing and a curse.

If the girl was unlucky so could she end up just like some nurse assistants in Alice old world, silently suffering because they read to much into the patient’s emotions and that they had their own conflicting emotions. Or it was at least as it was said, and there was most probably some truth in it.

Not to mention that Lapin had shown signs of being more tired than usual, which wasn’t good at all.

Alice had looked in the calendar and noticed how booked they actually were. Because of that so was she playing with the thought that she maybe could need to show Lapin how to use the “Angel”. Of course she would let the girl learn it progressive and look over it, very carefully.

“So, are you having good use of that girl?” Lilly walked up to Alice while she looked at the girl talking with a patient that just had been treated.

“Yes, I do really appreciate Lapin’s help.”

Just like Lapin had started to work harder since the celebration, so had Lilly started with a strange attitude.

“Just be careful that that girl doesn’t try to replace you at the clinic.”

There was it going again. Lilly had started to question everything she could about Lapin, like she did suspect Lapin for working with a second thought in mind. Which Alice found unbelievable stupid. Most because Lapin was a really honest girl. So it had to be pure lies that Lilly tried to spread by some unknown reason. Since it was first at the celebration that Alice had declared that she truly would make Lapin her assistant, so could it could be something as stupid like jealousy. In that case so would it mean that Lilly disliked that Alice picked up an assistant while Lilly didn’t.

“I find it very difficult to believe something like that.” Alice said it right out, like many other times the last two days when Lilly had started the idiotic conversations like that.

“I hope you don’t make a mistake that will ruin you. And don’t forget that I have warned you.”

Just like Alice was sure that It was all lies, so did Lilly seem to believe in her obvious and stupid lies.

“What are you talking about?”

Lapin had finished her talk with the patient and walked up to them for joining their conversation.

“We ain’t talking about anything special.”

Alice tried to avoid that Lapin found out about the conversation. Since she felt emotions in differences from Alice, so could she get hurt by “that woman’s” lies. And there could be a chance that it would lead to her leaving the clinic with a broken heart. Alice couldn’t allow that to happen when she wanted Lapin’s help.

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Ellen followed Chris to the job that he wanted some help with. By what he had said so was it a small hotel that wanted to have a bunch of gears installed, which didn’t sound that bad. Until she saw the hotel that was. Only by looking at the outside of the”hotel” it looked like it could collapse any given second, may the inside look better.

The outside looked really bad and the inside did look just as bad. The walls and everything else there looked like it would break by the bare touch of even a little girl.

“Please don’t touch anything Ellen.” Just like Ellen so didn’t Chris seem to have any high thoughts about the “hotel” either.

A man that reminded Ellen about Santa Claus was sitting in the reception. If Santa had gone from a fat, alcoholic to a teeth-less anorexia old fart. His long white hair was messy and his face was worn out enough to give innocent babies nightmares and leave it scarred for life.

That man was the one owning the hotel. Showing Ellen and Chris around he explained what he wanted for gears to get installed. Especially pointing out that they only could take a few rooms at the time when they installed it, he still needed to be able to have rooms that customers could live in. As if he thought that they didn’t have realise it already. Did the man think they were stupid?

The man leads them to the rooms where they would start and asked them to look over the rooms and give a plan of how long it would take to get the gears installed.

He did at least leave them alone when they were about to do the planning, explaining that he couldn’t hold their hand since he needed to sit in the reception.

“How much of this work falls upon us Chris? Will we only install gears, or will we also repair the walls after we are done?”

Not even Chris could have been stupid enough to accept that they would repair the walls after the installation, right? Not that it would have been hard to restore to its “former glory”, it would only be to throw the planks up again and nail it at the place. Without any sense at all.

“We will only install the gears. There are repairmen from another place that will take care of the walls.”

“Good, it would have been feeling bad to put makeup at an old decayed corpse.” Ellen let out a relieved sigh.

Chris let out a laugh and explained that it still was a job, even if it was at an antique building like this. And he had taken the job offer, so he had to make sure that it got done. But he also felt for the poor people that would need to do the other parts.

“I thought it wasn’t legal to revive old corpses.”

Ellen still found it hard that they would be working in a hotel this old. If it shouldn’t be that she agreed to the work as an apology for beating Chris, so would she have considered if she really should do this work.

The job would have so much easier if “Santa” should have been satisfied with having the light giving gears at the wall instead of at the roof in the middle of the room. Because of that so would they be forced to even pull down some of the planks in the roof.

As it wasn’t enough that they would need to measure out where they would put every gear, the cogs in the roof would also be forcing them to work in uncomfortable working height. The work would be some pain, but as Chris said so was it still a job. And he had also warned her when she first started the studies to cog technician, the jobs wouldn’t always be easy.

“Santa” did seem to be very displeased when they told him the plan of how long the work would take, yet he accepted it. He had probably been hoped that it would take a shorter time. Ellen thought that it wasn't that much time, so it was probably only about that he would have loved to use the room even during the time that they were working. In other words so was he just greedy and wanted to be able to rent out the rooms the whole time. Not that he even seemed to rent out many rooms to start with.

Since Alice and Ellen moved in their house so had it become a habit that both of them talked about their works during the evening. Criticizing their works and co-workers, or praise their co-workers if they felt like doing that.

In only a few days it became a very special time together, even enough that Ellen started to really enjoyed the time that she listened to the “spoiled princess’s” stories.

“Lilly has become very strange. She took her freedom today too to grab me behind, again.”

Alice didn’t seem to understand that Lilly seemed to try hitting at her. Or at least Ellen thought she tried to hit at her sister, especially since it seemed to have started after the celebration when she had expressed her love for the “princess”.

“She maybe tries to gather some material for the evening when she haves her own time.”

Of course Alice didn’t understand what Ellen wanted to have said. She was strangely innocent for being a “pervert princess”, if it wasn’t that she only acted like she didn’t understand.

“It was only a childish act by her, so what material would she be able to gather from that?”

It could also be that Alice was far too stupid to understand what was going on. May she never had met a pervert. That meant it could end really bad for her if she wasn’t understanding simple things like that.

Ellen explained how the hotel looked like. The pain that the hotel was about to fall apart, yet they would do the job. The pain that they need to take down a lot of planks and then working in an uncomfortable working height.

Alice couldn’t say much about it but tried to show that she pitied her sister. For being a girl that couldn’t feel emotions so was she a very gentle girl that seemed to still care about her sister.

“The owner of the hotel is looking like “Santa-gone-bad”, and with that so do I really mean BAD as old food.”

Ellen tried to draw up a picture of how bad that man looked, of course she had some space to make it worse. Which she also took.

“Santa, it makes me thinking about those times we celebrated Christmas.”

Ellen could clearly see the connection Alice made. They really looked forward to Santa visiting them when they were young children. It had been a time they were really happy, so many good memories. Both together with Jack and their mother.

“Yes, the times we celebrated it all together. We both together with Jack and mom.”

Ellen let out a light sigh. They had been a wonderful time, but it was only during times they did celebrate it together as a whole family. Then one year so had the world turned at them.

Their mother had gone out to do something during Christmas morning. But she never did come back, instead so had it came a man closer to the evening to talk with Jack.

“Your mother won’t come back anymore.”

Jack did his best to explain to the young girls that their mother had been involved in an accident while she was out. She didn’t survive, so she would never come home again.

The girls were protected from the suffering of the funeral, by being left at home. Just like they was protected more from suffering by that they stopped to celebrate Christmas. All because Jack loved them and wanted to protect them by whole his heart.

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Now, as more matured women, so did both Ellen and Alice question his decision. They couldn’t understand the decision he had made, not even if he once expressed that it only was to protect them.

As it was now, they would actually have wanted to go to the funeral. Neither of them could now remember their mothers face, and no one of them felt that they had given her a real farewell.

Ellen let out a heavy sigh.

She was at the hotel again and helped Chris, which made her feel that she wanted to question how smart Chris was.

She had brought the practice plates that she once got from Jack, only to try a thing. Just as she had expected so was it easy to put the plates in place and then simply set up the cogs so it fitted, marking up which cog should be where. Then remove it all, drill and set them up. It was so much simpler than to measure out where every cog should be.

Chris had praised her for deaf ears. That solution was so simple that even a child could have thought about it, so how could it be that he hadn’t thought about it?

“This is really great, things seem to go quickly thanks to you.”

He could stop it right there, she didn’t want to hear something about it. The idea had been so simple, so just please stop it.

“Do you think we will need to ask the owner about keys to the other rooms?”

Ellen didn’t hope that they would be standing still without anything to do, if they should surpass their time plan.

“I don’t think that will be necessary. But I think there won’t be any need for us to work over.”

That did sound good. It was another thing that Ellen could appreciate, not working over. Get the possibility to get home so she could make some food for both her and Alice.

One room was done and another room was almost done. It was only to put the gears in place, the gears that they would get first the next day. So in other words so was there nothing more they could do in that room for the moment.

Walking through the hallway to reach the next room she noticed a face that she hadn’t seen for a while.

“Taija, are you here?”

Taija had been walking quickly, almost running to get past them. But stopped when Ellen asked. “Good day Ellen, I didn’t see you.”

It was an obvious lie. Ellen saw her before she noticed it was Taija. She had all off sudden picked up her pace as if she tried to escape. Not to mention that she seemed to be uncomfortable with talking to Ellen.

“What are you doing here?”

Ellen was curious. This wasn’t really the place where she expected to see someone like Taija.

They had just got down the planks they needed in another room when it was about time to end.

“How big possibility do you think it is that “Santa” will come and look over the work after we left?” Ellen was slightly tidying up the room and put everything in neat piles.

“I don’t know, but I think there at least is a possibility that he will come and check.”

Chris seemed to be pleased that Ellen thought about that. If he was like some other customers so was there a big chance that he would come and check. But of course so had no of the other customers been that old and worn out, so he could be a totally different case than all the others.

“Do you think that Taija lied to me, Chris?”

They had left the hotel and was on their way home. Ellen couldn’t let go of the thought, she was a little worried about Taija. She said that she had been visited a friend at that hotel, but it didn’t really felt like it was true. She had after all first tried to avoid Ellen, and acted very uncomfortable while talking with Ellen. Then she had left very quick when she got the chance. Even if it would have something to do with her fiancé so wouldn’t she act like that, right?

“Maybe, maybe not.”

That answer didn’t help at all with the question, but it did show that it was no use to ask Chris about it. He was clearly not interested to talk about it at all.

Ellen continued to think about it. If Taija had problems Ellen would like to help her. Taija had after all done much for both her and Alice. So it was almost her responsibility to help her. No matter how much or little she actually could do for her.

“See you tomorrow.” They had reached the point where they walked separate ways.

First now Ellen reacted that it had started to get dark. It was something magical when the sky got it’s Scarlett colour. It gave off a calming, almost smothering feeling.

It was by moment like that Ellen almost envied her sister. It had to be wonderful to not being able to feel emotions. No chance to feel lost, worries or powerless. It had to be really wonderful.

If Ellen also had lost that ability, so maybe she could think something out during this situation. Instead of only being split between the feeling of being powerless and worried if she was wrong on it. Maybe there wasn’t anything going on with Taija, maybe she only had visited a friend.

Ellen let out a sigh and continued her walk home.

It should have been so much easier if she would have got someone to talk with that about.

Why had both Jack and Jill left? It would have been so much better if she could talk with one of them.

Jack could have given her advice and points from an adult point of view. And even being the only one that really could make all Ellen’s worried disappear in an instant, not to mention that he would have understood her.

Of course it would have been just as fine if she could have talked with Jill. She might not be as old and wise like Jack, but it was possible to speak openly with her on a different level than with Jack.

There was no chance that Ellen could talk with Alice about it. Not only was she blessed with not feeling emotions, but it was at the same time a curse. She would never understand Ellen’s worries, not to mention that it should feel wrong toward Taija. She had after all felt uncomfortable with Ellen, so there was no hesitation that she would feel even worse with Alice.

Once again she longed for Jack.

Everything would have been so much better if he only could have been there. If he only had been there during the celebration, so wouldn’t it have ended as it did. He would have been the one that would have protected Alice as the hero he was. He would have given Ellen a chance to fall in love with him all over again. Couldn’t it have been Jack that she saw at the hotel instead of Taija? She could have been so much happier then. Even if he wouldn’t have been to come home yet, so could she at least have got some answers to the questions she had.

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Lapin was still working really hard, but she was still showing signs of being tired. Now worse than before.

Could it be so bad that she had found out about Lilly’s lies? Which of course still hadn’t stopped yet. She went on nagging about that Lapin could have second thoughts while working at the clinic.

Alice still thought of it as pure lies, and even if it wouldn’t be a lie so wouldn’t Lapin be able to steal the work. The thing that did most of the work was the “Angel”, and it wasn’t an easy machine to copy. She had even asked her beloved sister about it once when she complained at Lilly’s bad attitude toward the girl. Which off even Ellen agreed that it was a bad behaviour.

Alice had shown Lapin how to use the machine the day earlier and was now supervising Lapin using it. The poor girl was visibly worried, but she did still use it right. All she needed was that Alice looked over her in case something would happen.

It wouldn’t be surprising if she made any mistakes, she looked tired earlier and it was even worse now. Lapin looked so tired that it almost was a wonder that the girl still was awake. If something was going on so did Alice have to find it out before something could go really bad. But that question had to be asked behind on the opposite side of the door from Lilly. Otherwise so would there be a risk that it would come to no end with Lilly’s bad attitude. So it was not only to save Alice from hearing it more, but it was also hopefully a way to save Lapin from it.

“Am I doing anything wrong miss Alice?”

Alice had been far gone in her thoughts, so Lapin got worried that she had done something wrong. “No, I was just thinking. But we can look it over one more time.”

Just as Alice had thought, so wasn’t it necessary. But it was better to look an extra time, mostly since she asked while she had a patient in the room. So it was best to look to calm down possible worries that the patient could have got when Lapin asked. It was one of those tricks that Alice had noticed helped very well to calm many worried patients when Lapin was unsure, check it and tell that it’s right. Then before using it, check one more time.

The treatment went just as smoothly as always and Lapin helped the patient out in the waiting room. It was one of those that still was feeling kind of well after the treatment. It had become more and more common of those that searched the treatment. Alice had tried to find out why, but didn’t have much to go with except for their demons. Which was more strange looking than most of the others, but also less in comparison with other patients.

“Is there anything happening Lapin?”

Lapin had just come into the room again and closed the door behind herself, looking surprised at Alice for the sudden question.

“Since the patient was feeling well so was I going in here again to empty the machine.” She spoke in panic and looked horrific worried as she began to explain all from why she talked with the patient as she did, and to why she decided to walk in and empty the “Angel” before the patient had left.

“I was more wondering how you are feeling, you seem to have been really tired lately.”

Lapin had jumped to conclusions that Alice was talking about the treatment and got worried that she had done something wrong. She had a really cute behaviour, almost that it could be interesting to tease her and see how she reacted.

“I see.” Lapin let out a relieved sigh and took a deep breath.

She calmly explains that she didn’t sleep well there she lived for the moment, so she was spending much of spare time to search for a new place. And she thought that she was at her way to find something, so she would soon be able to sleep well again soon. That so she could do her very best at the clinic.

Alice offered her to live in their house until she got the other place, but she declined it right off. She was very thankful for the offer but it wasn’t necessary since it should be better very soon.

Thankfully that It wasn’t anything really bad and that it was almost solved, Alice dropped the subject and helped her emptying the “Angel”.

“Good day.” To Alice surprise so was Taija standing in front of the counter when she and Lapin walked out from the room, greeting with a careful voice.

“Good day Taija, can we help you with something?”

It had been quite some time since Alice last saw Taija and couldn’t help to wonder why she had come to the clinic. She had left all of sudden and had not come back until now.

“She will be my assistant from today and forward.”

Of course Lilly had to be there too, couldn’t she be hiding in her room a little longer.

Assistant, had Lilly been that jealous at Alice for picking Lapin as an assistant so she had decided to pick in Taija for help? If that was the case, she seriously was a childish person. But in that case so would Alice show her how an adult would behave.

“I see, then I welcome you to the clinic Taija.”

Lapin followed up at Alice greeting and also gave a shy curtsy.

Not very surprisingly so was there a lot of whispering between Lilly and Taija. And it would probably only be more of it now on.

“What do you think they whispering about?” Lapin was clearly curious about it, but avoided to ask them about it as an advice from Alice. Alice could only hope that it wasn’t anything bad they were talking about, and that Lilly didn’t try to pull Taija along in that bad behaviour.

In the best case so was Taija only asking for advice about her fiancé, which hopefully wouldn’t bring any problems to the clinic.

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“Are you sure you didn’t overdo it when you pulled the information out of her?”

“No.”

Chris cared about Taija at all the day before. But today he talked much more about her. Sure it could be because of that Ellen took her freedom and pulled Taija into one of the rooms they worked in, questioning her. Slowly pulling out the information that Taija had withholding from her, which turned out to be worse than Ellen had been worried about.

Not only did Taija found out that her fiancé cheated at her time after time, even pointing it out for her father to get some support. But since he was important for a big business deal so didn’t he care much about it and blamed Taija for not being good enough for him. She wasn’t good enough for a man that she didn’t even love in the first place and only was forced into “loving” by her own father, because of a business deal.

The fiancé had also tried to make her change her whole life and tried to keep her locked up in their house. When that hadn’t been possible so had her father made sure that the fiancé meets Taija’s sister from another town, which happily could find herself live with that man for her father’s sake.

Taija got thrown out of the family right at the spot when her sister arrived and had since then been taking temporary works to be able living at that cheap hotel.

“Do you think that she could get a job from that woman?”

“A job, I think so. In best case a real home too.”

Ellen had suggested that she would make contact with Lilly. Taija had probably worked together with Lilly earlier. On second thought Ellen wasn’t sure, Taija had been gone for most of the day while she worked at the mansion. It could have been that she helped Lilly, right?

“Otherwise I might be able to offer her a place in our house.”

Ellen hadn’t done it from the beginning since it would probably only be a bother to have a third person in the house. But was ready to let Taija live there if it was necessary, only to help her since she had helped them so much already.