"This kid, making my heart beat faster." The woman chuckled, drowning the rest of the coffee. "You certainly have grown, Issac."
"Do you know how old I am?" He asked, raising an eyebrow at the woman. "I should believe that I have grown. I am even much taller than you."
"Now don't act smug." She chuckled. "You are still a kid compared to me. Now, do you have any wine?"
"No," Issac said, taking both their cups to the sink. "Please stop stalling, you like to do that a little too much."
"I like keeping the suspense." She winked at Issac washing the cups and keeping them to the side.
"You either tell me or you can go now."
"You are going to let a poor woman walk home alone, in this fog?" The woman asked, grabbing onto the sleeve of his shirt, looking up at him pitifully.
Sighing, Issac took her hand in his, voice growing soft again, "Puppy dog eyes don't work on me. Especially not after I saw you kill a man with a wooden ruler."
"You remember that?" She asked, a nostalgic smile coming on her face. "It felt so nice when I was bashing his head in. But then ... that must have traumatized you as a kid."
"Maybe," Issac said, opening another cupboard and pulled out a paper bag, handing it to her. "Wear these before you go."
"Issac." The woman gasped, grabbing the bag from him and looking inside. "You shouldn't have."
"I have been meaning to give that to you for a while but we never met again after I started working so I kept it for you," Issac said, picking up her dress and faux fur on the ground.
Throwing them onto a couch, he sat on another one himself and looked as she wore the 'little red dress', as it was called, squealing with delight.
"It fits," Issac said, slightly surprised.
"Of course it does." She said, looking at herself in the mirror, front to back. "This is a wonderful present, Issac. Thank you."
She ran to the man and planted a kiss on the side of his cheek before grabbing her purse and running back to the mirror to touch up herself.
"Since you have been such an angel." She said, wiping the smudged make-up away. "I was thinking of doing my job and being a little bit more mysterious, but I will answer your question."
"Really?" Issac asked, handing her a box of tissues that she took gratefully.
"Yup." She said, wiping her lipstick away with the tissue and a liquid from her purse. "Now, this is what I am sure of, the wave happened. Do you remember what you have to do in order to get out of that dimension?"
"Another wave?" He walked to the cupboards, sitting on top of them while staring at Isabell.
"Yes. Now, the reason why I rushed here is because there was no second wave." She explained, pointing her dark lipstick to Issac. "It has been a while and there is still no second wave. Why do you think that is?"
"I don't know."
"Think, Issac." She smiled in the mirror, lips red as blood. "What happened the last time you went to the other dimension?"
Issac paused for a minute, trying to remember but his mind strangely turned up foggy.
"I ... I can't remember anything." He said, frowning. "Why-"
"The effects are starting then." She said, turning to him with a smirk on her face. "Well, what I think are the effects anyway."
"Isabell."
"Ok. Ok." She got to her feet rolling her eyes at him while straightening out her dress. "This is what I suspect, Issac. The dimensions, if you can call it that, are merging together."
She held her hand out to stop the man from speaking, "I know that you must be questioning about those creatures and why they are not here then. I think it is because this is not a complete merge. It is unstable and every second feels like it is fading away."
"So, what is the concern here?" Issac asked, still munching on the biscuits. He stared out the window at the fog clearing slowly. "IF you are right."
She looked at Issac endearingly, putting on her shoes that he arranged beside the couch with her previous clothes. "You are smarter than this, Issac. You know it is never over."
The man sighed, scratching the back of his head, "If this happened once, even though it is faulty, it can happen again."
"Bingo!" She clapped her hands gleefully, getting to her feet. "For something like this to happen, it means that there has to be someone that caused it."
Issac stared at the woman intently, "You have an idea of who that may be, don't you?"
"I have a suspicion." She shrugged nonchalantly, folding her clothes. "But it is best not to jump to conclusions without proper proof."
"Are you going to investigate it by yourself?" Issac pulled out a cloth bag from another cupboard and held it open for the woman to put her clothes into. "I would not recommend that."
"Relax kid." The woman said, pulling a loose thread from the man's shirt, smoothing the area down. "I can take care of myself."
"I know," Issac said, pulling her hand away from him. "But that does not mean you should not be careful."
"Such a worrywart." She teased, pinching his cheeks. "I survived this long didn't I? Besides, this is just a simple investigation. None of that … other stuff."
"If you say so." He said, giving up. "But you do have your distress button don't you?"
She stuck out her tongue to show, what looked like, a piercing at the bottom of her tongue made of a spherical bubble-like material.
"I always got it on me." She grinned, patting his cheek. "I never realised just how tall you have gotten. Compared to that kid I met in his school."
"And yet, you do not look a day older," Issac remarked, looking down at the woman.
"And you know just what to say now." She chuckled, shaking her head. "Where did that cute kid go to now?"
"You never thought I was cute."
"Shhhh." She placed a finger on his lips and went back to her melodramatic show. "I miss that kid who would always cling to me."
"I never clung to you-"
"Allow me to live in my fantasies." She frowned slightly at the man, making her way to the door. "I will be taking my leave now, Issac. Thank you for this lovely dress."
"Just be careful," Issac said a solemn air about him as he walked her out the door to the city which is much more visible now.
"Of course I will be." She patted his chest, smiling brightly. "Oh, you have a skill in making coffee. Next time I come, I am going to ask you to make for me again."
She gave him one last look before turning to the front of her. A look almost filled with regret.
"Sure," Issac said, watching the woman walk into the crowd, bag and purse in hand, heels clicking against the concrete road, until she disappeared.
_____________
Going back into his clinic, Issac locked the door and flopped down on the couch. The woman's perfume still lingering in the room, especially where she laid on the couch.
Comes and goes like the wind. He thought, looking at the table as he spots one of the hairpins she used on her hair laying on the table.
Picking it up, Issac looked over the pin intently. Where does she even get things like this?
_______________
"Dove. Hope." He remembered her saying when he noticed and asked about the bird accessories she always had on whenever they met. It would be as a brooch, a hair clip or even jewellery.
"You don't have hope?" He asked as she took off her shoes and walked into the small stream, letting the cool flowing water tickle her feet.
She picked him up from the park that she told him to wait for her at and took him on a long drive to a small brook hidden in the woods an hour away from the outskirts of the city.
"I don't." She said honestly, earthy brown sundress and matching sunhat blowing in the wind. "Well ... I don't think I do. I keep this around to remind myself that hope exists in the world still."
"Would you ever forget to carry it with you?"
She looked at him, a soft smile on her face, "Never. Hope is ... all that is keeping me alive anymore."
_______________
No matter how hard he tried to remember what else happened that day, Issac could never recall and as the years passed by, he forgot about it, until this moment.
What happened that day again? He thought, suddenly sitting up and trying to remember again but everything was just hazy. Though one thing flashed across his mind, making him try to remember even more.
Ever since that day, she stopped carrying around this comfort of hers.
Ting. Ting. Tingtingtingting.
Issac turned to his table as the noise from his drawer, walking to it.