The Space Between

[phinnia]

(Crossposted to drabblemania: starshine).

Claire stared out the window at the rain. It was falling in sheets, thick and wet and miserable, and she hated it fiercely in the way eight-year-olds hate things that prevent them from having fun, like sick or rain or excessive heat indexes or stupid older brothers that sit around reading stupid books. Turning back to the room, she kicked one of her Barbies angrily. Watching Barbie fly through the air was fun, so she did it again.

Ross looked up with a start and rubbed his shin. "Angel, please don't abuse the only brother you have."

"I wanna go outside."

"I want a particle accelerator and an island full of women to do my bidding." he replied laconically, turning a page in his book. "We can't always get what we want, as the Rolling Stones would say."

"Why do you have to use such big stupid words?" she fumed, kicking another Barbie and knocking over the trash can.

"Claire, darling, stop that."

"I wanna go outside." she whined. "Your stupid office is boring."

He sighed, pushing his hair out of his face and dogearing the corner of the page he was reading. "All right, then. Let's go somewhere fun."

"Toys-R-Us?"

"No, no, Ross's Amex card is still recovering from yesterday's beating at F.A.O. Schwartz. Hm." He nudged a pair of sneakers on his feet and picked up his palmtop from where it sat charging silently in the cradle on his desk. "Come along now."

Claire picked up her plastic Hello Kitty purse and dug under Ross's desk for her pink jelly sandals, sliding them on her feet and watching him intently. This was where Ross did that weird thing - pushed buttons on the little computer and then a thing opened up and then they could go somewhere. Yesterday they went to New York. The day before they went to some weird place called Japan, where Ross had some weird stuff he said was called sashimi (that looked like fish; she decided Ross was just using big words again to try and fool her) and she tried something called a california roll, which was really neat, and had seaweed in it. Mom would be so grossed out when she heard. It would be funny. There was lots of Hello Kitty stuff in Japan. That was cool.

Ross pushed some buttons on the palmtop, and a glowing seam began to open in midair, tearing open an empty greyness.

"Have you been to the bathroom?" he asked mildly, pocketing the palmtop and picking up his book.

"Yes." she made a face at him.

"All right then, let's go." He took her hand and stepped carefully into the tear.

* * *

She was expecting a busy city street, and that wasn't what she got at all.

It was like they were standing in the middle of night - an enormous clear blackness, all around, as far as she could see and probably farther again; big white balls of light and smaller brilliant pinpricks that she realized with a start were stars.

Stars.

Mom was gonna freak.

She looked down and saw nothing but more blackness, more stars between her jelly-clad feet. She stamped experimentally on the ground. It didn't look like anything was there, but it felt like something was. Maybe it was glass. Or heavy plastic. It was a little cold, wind was coming from somewhere ... "Where is this?" Things floated by, the nothing seemed to slowly move like that neat revolving restaurant Ross had taken her to that one time.

"It's called nulltime." Ross replied, sitting down on the nothing. "We're effectively between seconds. Caught up in the same field that the guildhall is - moving from place to place, but so fast we can't feel it or see it. There's an algorithm that determines the math. It's a miniclimate - we can breathe in these pockets of nulltime because we're inside something, just like the guildhall is. It's not infinite, but it's pretty damn close. As I recall they inverted a black hole and expanded it, creating something akin to a shell - a time envelope, just like they did with Krikkit. I expect that's where they got the idea."

There he went again, using big words. Claire glared at him for a moment and nodded slowly, peering around.

"You know the coolest thing about nulltime?" Ross continued blithely.

"What?"

"Stuff." he grinned. "You can find all kinds of neat stuff. Nulltime pockets attract lost things. So if you look around, you can pick up all kinds of neat things. Kind of like an Easter egg hunt, except instead of eggs, sometimes you find money. See? Look over there."

Following his pointing finger, Claire picked up a small object and examined it. "Hey, wow. Ten dollars!"

"Keep it." Ross turned back to his book. "See what else you can find. Just don't go far."

* * *

Poking around, Claire discovered he was right.

She found lots and lots of coins, filling her purse with silvery-sliding loose change, and a few small bills - mostly ones. Some sets of keys, which were boring so she left them alone. Lots of other things too - garbage, a remote control, a little heart shaped locket. She picked up a small plastic card and peered at it, but couldn't entirely read all of the words on it, so she trotted over to Ross, who was lying on his stomach with his nose in a book again. Unceremoniously, she dropped the card in the center of the page. "What's that?"

"A Seattle's Best coffee card." He put it in his pocket. "Thank you, darling."

"You said I could keep stuff."

"You don't like coffee."

She had to admit he was right, and went back to looking. "Oooh, look, a Barbie! Ross?"

"What?"

"How come Barbies don't bleed if you take their heads off?"

"Because they're not real."

"Why don't they make one that does?"

"Because that's sick and twisted, angel."

"I wanna make one. When I grow up, I'm gonna figure out how."

"You go ahead and do that."

The next object she found was even more interesting. She prodded it with the legs of the Barbie for a moment, entranced. "Ross, look!"

"What?" Ross glanced up from his book and made a face. "That is not ... Claire Matthews, put that down this instant!"

"It's a finger." she breathed, fascinated. "Wow!"

"That's disgusting! You don't know where it's been, put it down immediately. You are not taking home a finger." He winced. "Gord, I sound like my mother. Let it alone."

Reluctantly, Claire let it drift by, sticking out her lip in a pout before some kind of soggy plastic thing caught her attention. She carefully picked it up - it was filmy and kind of slimy, and smelled weird. "Ross, what's this?"

Ross looked up and nearly choked, making a funny strangled noise. "Put that down!"

"What is it?"

"Put it down!" Ross replied through his fit of coughing.

"But I wanna know what it is!"

"It's a used condom, Claire, leave it alone." For some reason her brother's face was turning red.

"Is that 'cause I don't know where it's been?"

"Yes! For Gord's sakes, that could be mine!"

"You want it back?"

"No! No, just leave it be." He sighed, closing his book with a snap and snatching her hand. "Let's go. I think we've had enough fun."

"What's that for, that thing?" She watched it drift away.

"Never you mind." Ross awkwardly jabbed at some buttons on the little palmtop thing. "Come on. Let's go home and wash up. It's almost lunchtime anyway."

Claire nodded and followed her brother through the rip back into his office, reluctantly allowing herself to be ushered into the bathroom and scrubbed with soap and water. She still didn't understand, but that was normal with Ross. He seemed a little confused himself, he kept muttering things under his breath. Maybe that was what happened when you used all those big words - your brain went funny trying to figure them all out. She decided to ask him about that later - after lunch. And after she counted her money. She almost had enough to buy that Kinex set to make a torture rack for Barbie like she'd seen on TV.