Just outside of the light blue bathroom door, in one of the maze-like Gatsby diner’s many booths, Ash sat across from Gray. While Gray held the Gatsby menu in his hands Ash was leaning back in the booth, staring at the hanging light above them as it burned little white dots into his field of vision.

  “They’re charging five whole hours for a burger here,” Gray spoke up, his eyes still glued to the menu. “Six hours if you want bacon.”

  Ash didn’t respond as he continued his staring contest with the gently swaying bulb hanging above them.

  “You think we can just do three hours each if we split one?” He asked, putting the menu back down, a small smile on his face. When Ash just kept staring above him at the light, his smile faded as he sighed, resting one of his elbows on the table as he propped up his head with one hand.

  “Doesn’t that hurt?” Gray finally asked.

  “I’ll let you know when it does.” Ash finally responded

  Gray shifted in his seat, leaning back into the cushy booth as he moved his hands to the warm safety of his jacket pockets. “It gets easier, you know,” he paused for a moment, “this job.” He looked off to the sea of tables to his left where a small winding trail of ice weaved its way around the chairs and off into the distance. “Well, maybe it doesn’t really get easier.” he corrected himself. “It just at least doesn’t get harder.”

  Gray scooted himself out of the booth and hopped onto his feet, staring back at Ash who was still looking up at the barely moving little sun. “Do you think it’s a job you still want to do?”

  Ash closed his eyes, still seeing the bright dots clouding his vision even with his eyelids in the way. “I don’t know.” He brought his hands up and rubbed his closed eyes gently, watching the little pinholes dance in his light blighted vision. “I really don’t know.”

  “Well, you’re still in your trial period until Vandal gets back, so you don’t have to know right now.” With his hands in his pockets, Gray turned towards the light blue bathroom door, still slightly ajar with its plaque laying discarded on the ground. He took one step towards it before turning his head back to look at Ash again. “I secured an exit for Ren and Abbey,” he looked back towards the snaking trail of ice again, “so our original mission here is done.”

  As Ash didn’t acknowledge him, he closed the distance between the booth and the bathroom door again, putting one hand on its light blue surface. “I’ve still got a job to do though now that I’m here, and I think you’d feel better if it was your job too.” Ash slowly opened his eyes as he saw the small white dots in his vision clearing one by one until he could easily see Gray waiting in front of the door.

  “I still don’t know if it really should be yet,” Ash put his hands on the table as he pushed himself out of the booth, “but I’ll give the rest of this trial a shot.”

  -/- -/- -/-

  Ash found himself back in the blue checkered bathroom looking exactly the same as he left it, complete with the Abbey-wide hole in the wall. “So was Abbey right about this room being important?” Ash asked while he approached the gap, peering inside to see the toilets still encased in thick crags of ice. He backed off of the wall, not exactly trusting of the area after his first encounter with it.

  “Abbey’s methods are a little…,” Gray looked at the gap as well, “rough, but she has a pretty good sense about these things.” He walked over to the rusted sink in the corner before leaning against the wall near it. “I don’t exactly know how Betty died, but I do know that it was in this room.”

  “How can you tell?” Ash did think the room felt a little colder than the rest of the diner, but he wasn’t sure if that had to do with Gray’s soulbond or not.

  “Doors mean a lot in soul streams, especially if they’re locked and need a key.” The key in question was still sitting inside the door’s keyhole with its heavy looking keychain dangling from its edge. “I ran into Betty once when I was searching through the diner for you three, but she ran off the moment she poured me a cup of that biohazard.”

  “The coffee isn’t that bad.” Ash tried to defend it just a little.

  “I know what kind of beer you usually drink,” Gray shot him a stare as he remembered the taste of that malt on the roof, “so I’m not counting your tongue’s opinion. It’s also not the point I’m trying to make.” Gray slowly walked past Ash over to the bathroom door. “Whenever she’d make contact with someone in the diner she’d leave right after, running right back to where she felt the most safe.” Gray reached around the door’s edge and grasped the bathroom’s key before deftly pulling it from its destined lock.

  “Here? The bathroom?” Ash glanced around the rest of the room, but he didn’t notice anything that stood out besides the giant hole in the wall. “Is there another secret room behind one of the walls?”

  “There might be,” Gray stared at the key in his hand as gently wiggled the keychain around, “but that won’t matter, because this one room is all we need.” Gray grabbed the golden knob jutting out from the door before he pulled it back, shutting the door tight. With the key in his other hand, he locked the door from this side with a loud and satisfying click. After locking the door, Gray turned back around before tossing the key into the air towards Ash. He caught it with both hands with little effort, the keychain still weighing as much as he remembered.

  “Hold onto that, I get the feeling you’re the one who’s supposed to have it.”

  Ash’s fist closed around the middle of the key as he held it a little tighter. “She gave me the bathroom key last time I saw her, but it feels like a lot has happened since then.”

  “Did she say anything else?”

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  “Gatsby apparently counts how many toilet paper squares customers use.” Ash took notice of the toilet paper that Abbey had unfurled earlier that was now strewn across the floor.

  “And the diner can also count its customers on one hand, what else?" Gray slowly walked over to the gap in the wall and placed a hand on its crumbling edge.

  “After she disappeared,” Ash stared at the key in his hand as he recounted the events, “I could hear her in here apologizing over and over again.”

  Ash could hear Gray sigh as he said something barely over his breath. “Checks out…” Gray took one step into the Abbey sized doorway again, one hand still holding onto the side of the wall as he turned back to look at Ash. Underneath the bathroom’s gentle white light he could see a small glimmer of gold on Gray’s wrist, barely hidden by the bulk of his jacket sleeves. “The door is locked up tight again, so she’ll be back before you know it. This’ll be your chance to see if you’re any better at breaking the news to people than I am.”

  “Huh?” Ash’s attention on the gold shine got ripped away as he looked back at Gray's still smiling face. “What am I supposed to do in here, and where are you going?”

  “I’ve still got a little cleaning left to do on this side of the wall, so I’m leaving the more important job to you this time.” Gray slipped between the wide cracks, stopping after he reached the other side to call back out to Ash. “You’ll know what to do when it happens. The depths of your souls are different, but at least on the surface, they still look the same.” Before Ash could ask him another followup question, a gust of frigid air blew through the gap, stinging his exposed skin with newfound cold. The hole that Abbey quickly made was soon sealed with the same ice that Ash had seen before, leaving him alone in the blue tiled bathroom with the door still locked.

  Ash’s grip on the key was ironclad as he looked over to the sink he first investigated when he came here last time. To his surprise, the mirror that he couldn’t wipe clear looked significantly less foggy from here. He walked over to the sink, key still in hand, as he looked at his own reflection dead on. He turned his own face from side to side, noting bags under his eyes that he didn’t remember having, but it had actually been a long time since he’d stared at his reflection.

  However, when he rubbed under his eyes under his own watchful gaze he noticed something in the mirror he hadn’t seen before. Ash could see this room’s lone seat from the mirror since it was directly across from the sink, and perched on top of the throne was none other than Gatsby's only waitress. He saw her orange uniform curled into a ball as she had her knees drawn into her chest, head down and out as her arms looped around her black leggings.

  “Betty…,” his voice was quiet, almost hushed. He almost didn’t want to take his eyes off of her in the mirror, afraid that if he did she’d suddenly vanish again. Her arms tightened as she reacted to his voice, even with how quietly he spoke.

  “I’m sorry,” she spoke through her huddled mass of limbs muffling her voice. “I’ll get back to work soon.” Her voice was small, smaller than it was earlier when she was talking through the door. Ash felt his fingers clench around the key he was holding as he stared at her image in the mirror, watching her slowly tremble.

  “You don’t have to, Betty.” He talked without turning around, hoping she wouldn’t disappear again finally. “You can just stay right there.” Ash looked down at the key in his hand and lifted it up to feel the weight of the heavy keychain. The key felt even heavier than before, making his wrist twitch the longer he held onto it, but he couldn’t find the strength to let it go just yet. “You don’t have to leave this room anymore, and you don’t have to beg people from off the street to come in anymore,” He finally turned around to see her huddled form on top of the white seat with her black shoes clinging to the edge as if falling off meant certain death.

  “You don’t have to do any of that anymore.” He took two steps forward, closing some of the distance and hoping she’d stay here to talk.

  “Gatsby will,” she paused, tripping over her words even though she only choked out two of them. “Gatsby…” her tiny voice was barely over a whisper, but Ash could hear a small whimper that stopped her from talking any further.

  Ash didn’t take another step yet, he simply watched her shaking on that little seat.

  As he thought about what to do next they both heard a heavy thump against the door, followed by a thunderous pounding that threatened to knock the door off its hinges.

  “There’s a paying customer in here!” Ash answered the noise. “You can wait your turn!” Ash looked back at Betty and saw her head slowly raise from her legs. Red puffy bags wrapped her sunken eyes as she could barely hold eye contact with him, but Ash did his best to give her a smile.

  “No one’s dragging you out of here, Betty, you’re safe to sit for as long as you want.” Ash looked back at the key weighing heavily in his hand before he grabbed the cumbersome keychain with the other. The two were held together by a single shabby link, and with just a little effort from both hands, Ash snapped the heavy slab right off the back of the key.

  He took another few steps, finally closing the rest of the distance between himself and the shaking waitress. Standing over her like this didn’t feel quite right, so with the key still in one hand, he knelt down so he could match her scared gaze with what he hoped was a comforting one.

  “Here,” he held out the key, now free from the weight he held in his other hand, “if you take this back, you can make sure no one else can get in here.”

  Brown eyes surrounded by red bags stared back at him, the rest of her face obscured by her huddled legs close to her chest. A single hand reached out across the space between them as she grabbed the key, her arm nearly flying backwards with how light it was versus how heavy a lift she clearly expected. Her fingers clutched it tightly as her legs finally came down to let her black shoes meet the blue floor tiles with a quiet clack.

  Ash stepped back as he stood up again, still holding onto the keychain with his other hand, not feeling like letting it go just yet.

  With a little more breathing room, Betty stood up, holding the key close to her apron as she looked like she was forcing her lips to smile. Her other free hand wiped at her already red and sensitive eyes as she started to speak again “Thank you…” Her eyes closed, looking a little softer this time even with their puffy marring.

  “It’s your key,” he replied, “I was just borrowing it for a little bit.”

  She nodded, a small smile on her face that was much warmer than the one he first saw in the middle of the diner; inside her soul stream and otherwise. As Ash struggled to find the next thing to say, he had a feeling coming from deep inside, from his soul, that he didn’t need to say anything more.

  With her eyes closed, and fleeting warmth surrounding her, the diner’s one and only waitress slowly faded from sight. In the spot where she once stood was the key that Ash handed to her, floating in midair as if she was still here clutching it tightly. In a sudden flash of red flame, the key was engulfed in a small, but warm blaze. The little ball of fire floated there in front of him, burning brightly, casting its warmth and light all over the room, and against Ash.

  Ash reached out with his free hand as his other still held onto the discarded weight. His right hand hovered right in front of the flame, palm outstretched, with the nine pointed star on the back of his hand staring right back at him. For just a moment, he could feel the fire’s warmth from head to toe, right before it flickered and waned to just a few smouldering embers.

  The embers persisted for just a few moments more, long enough to keep the newfound heat coursing through his veins, until finally, even those burned away, leaving Ash standing there still warm, but alone.