“Ghosting is sounding better and better,” even if it did sound a lot like flying, with all those 'from above' references. He must have been getting desperate if even flying sounded better than traffic. Today seemed as good a day as any to try; it was a day for firsts, after all. “Let me find a place to park; we can always come back for the car later when all this settles down.” He waved a hand at the street in general in all its craziness.

“Bothersome?” He shot her a quizzical look, which was not a particularly dangerous thing to do while driving, since they were only going about two kilometers an hour. “It's not bothersome at all. You don't need to know how to drive, or be able to heal wounds, or have long hair if you don't want to. You don't have to change to fit into my life. You're the one that is making my life here possible. And I like your hair.” He liked that they were a matched set even before they got to their eighties. Length didn't matter much to him; he'd seen enough different kinds of hairstyles that not much shocked him anymore. Her haircut seemed to be one that would be easy to take care of and it suited her face well.

“If it bothers you, I can cut my hair to be shorter than yours. It just likes to grow long when I shift my age, so I would have to keep a pair of scissors handy to keep it short.”

“Oh!” His cry of echoed hers by half of a second. He had found a parking space, she had found a landmark. “If we're kind of close, it will be easy to find the car again at some point.” He slid the old white automobile into the space that had just been vacated by a much newer and much shinier red car.

“There,” the newly wedded unicorn man uttered with finality as he shifted the car into park. “Let's try traveling your way.”

They parked and abandoned the car. There were plenty of people, plenty of witnesses. And it didn't really matter that they saw, it was more important that they not interfere. Once they were air, there was nothing other people could do. But during the change, they were vulnerable.

"Uhm, come here." Maya grabbed Sebastian's hand and pulled him toward the closest alley. Since this was New York and the buildings were all pretty close in, they didn't even have to leave sight of the car. "Whatever you do, don't let go, okay?" Yeah. That would be bad. Not that he couldn't heal from a 50 foot drop, but scraping one's brand new husband off the sidewalk wasn't exactly the wedding day she'd imagined.

Once in the alleyway, alone, hand in hand Maya started swallowing butterflies. "And, try not to panic?" She collected both of Sebastian's warm hands in her own before starting. It was easier to have more of herself pressed up against the person she was changing, but she wanted Sebastian to see and experience as much of the change as he could before his senses were essentially stripped away.

She glanced at his eyes. "You shouldn't have to cut your hair. It's nice." Having said her brave piece she inhaled sharply and was just as quickly a less than opaque version of herself. Sebastian's hands up to the forearm were the same insubstantial mist. Weightless and feelingless except for the lingering touch of Maya's hands. Those still felt solid.

The creeping numbness moved up his arms to the shoulders and moved to meet mid chest before expanding up and down his body until nothing was left. Not even the feeling of the tip of his tail. Maya squeezed Sebastian's hands in hers, the feeling transferring through the nothing. "Here we go." Her voice was no where in particular and sort of everywhere all at the same time.

A breeze that appeared as insubstantial as they were (though that was more substantial than they usually appeared) came and brushed the two ghosted figures along up the side of the buildings until they were just over the tops. From there it would be a straight shot to the Mansion. They would go as the crow flies to Maya's old room. Why Maya's old room? It had a window. It technically still had a few of her things in it. And it was habit.

Sebastian let his new wife lead him into the alleyway. The nervous flutter in his stomach that had kept him company all morning before the ceremony was back. He tried to tell himself that Ghost had done this before; he wasn't going to disappear into nothingness and he wasn't going to be dropped from a mile up. If his snowy haired wife didn't look like she was swallowing just as many butterflies as he was, maybe he could feel a little more confident about what they were about to do.

Don't let go. Don't panic, he repeated her advice to himself. He could do this. If fact he didn't have to do anything other than hold on. Not too terribly difficult, right? Ghost took both his hands. Hers felt cool in comparison to his own; he hoped that his weren't sweating.

>>>"You shouldn't have to cut your hair. It's nice."

Her honeyed eyes met his gaze and she took a deep breath and disappeared. Or rather, became as transparent as a ghost. Sebastian could still feel her hands in his, but the rest of his arms were growing numb. He looked down in surprise as insubstantiality spread up his arms, through his torso and down to his toes and tail. There was a split second when he was aware that he could no longer feel his lungs and heart working, and then his vision disappeared.

He was in a world of seemingly empty grey space. He couldn't move, see, or smell. Ghost's hands still felt solid in his own, but her touch was the only thing he had left. And her voice. He could hear her, as well. Could he speak, too? Sebastian tried to inhale, to open his mouth to speak, but nothing happened. At least he couldn't feel his stomach any more.

He couldn't tell when they had started floating upwards. It took a few moments for him to grow accustomed to the grey world in which he had been immersed. There were shadowy cloudy shapes that he couldn't quite see and couldn't quite feel, but he knew they were there. One of them was human shaped and floating in front of him. Ghost. There were other shapes flowing quickly past them. Were those buildings? He couldn't tell up from down, or even tell if they were moving through the clouds or whether the clouds were flowing around them. There was a brief moment of feeling like they were twisting through something very small, then suddenly he was himself again.

Feeling flowed back through his nerves as if they had been asleep. His lungs gasped for air as if they hadn't just been air themselves. His head spun, trying to get used to sensory input that was flooding into it again. His stomach didn't feel well at all. The butterflies had metamophed backwards into writhing caterpillars that crawled and twisted in an effort to get out of their gastric prison.

"I think..." talking was not a wise idea. He clamped his mouth shut again. He was still holding Ghost's hands. He wasn't sure if he should let go, but he needed to sit down. Now. So he sat on the floor, still holding onto her, possibly even pulling her down part of the way. He was too busy trying not to throw up or pass out to pay close attention or to think about the effect his sudden sitting might have on someone whose hands he was holding.

Sebastian gasped for air like he was surfacing after a deep dive. He hadn't been holding his breath the whole time, had he? She didn't imagine that was very healthy. And he was dazed from what she could tell. It was always a bit iffy to read people when her senses were changing over to her solid state. She'd had good practice with that in the future though. And Sebastian looked like he was about to...

"I think..." but instead of thinking out loud or even finishing that thought, he pitched downward like his knees went out.

Maya was yanked forward by her hands. "Hwuh!" Well, to his credit, he didn't let go. And he didn't puke on her. But he did pull her off balance while they were still solidifying. It was an important time for Ghost to focus. She normally just let her passengers go so that they would be safe and solid all at once. For Sebastian, she thought she would ease him out of it just as she had eased him into it.

It turned out to be a bad idea.

With the disorientation that went along with changing states of matter, he'd pulled her forward and she had landed squarely against her husband. Their hands, still touching and still solidifying while she fell, slid a fraction of an inch deeper than they should have. They were... in each other. Stuck. Conjoined. The skin was seamless as if they were born hand in hand. It didn't hurt, but it was rather inconvenient to have all her fingers curled into her husband's hands.

Maya hesitated for a moment as the past few seconds replayed in her mind. Bad. This was bad. She pulled back to get a read with her solid eyes on Sebastian's face, but something tugged at her chin. Sebastian's coat jacket pulled up as much as she pulled back. She moved her hand slightly frantic to feel the area, forgetting that she was stuck to Sebastian. She essentially punched herself in the face with his hand in her haste to touch the area.

Her eyes welled up with water as her breathing sped. It was silly, but whenever she panicked, she started to hyperventilate. This... this was bad. How did they fix this?

The rest of the room lay forgotten, barren except for the two single beds and the smiling 4x6 photos of her friends pinned by thumbtacks into the wall by the open door. Anything else of hers left was in the bathroom.

The entire world spun, and Ghost had come for a spin with him. He had only meant to sit, but his disorientation and the downward momentum of his wife's slight weight that he had brought down with him conspired to leave them lying one atop the other on the floor. The ceiling tiles spinning above them were slowing down now, returning to their normal state of stillness. A moment passed while they got their bearings and their breath back.

Ghost tried to pull herself up, but somehow his jacket stuck to her chin. At the same time they reached up to tug it free (Sebastian only half aware that he had started such an action), with clumsy results; their hands didn't work very well considering they were still clasped together. Sebastian tried to loosen his fingers, but they seemed to be stuck.

"Ghost?" He was going to ask what happened, but she was starting to cry and to gulp air like her own element was going to abandon her.

"Take deep breaths, Maya." His voice was as calm as he could make it. His own dizziness and nausea were forgotten, his own discomfort wasn't the most important thing right now. "Don't panic. We can figure this out." They were stuck together, yes, but exactly how stuck were they?

"Hold still a moment," he turned his head toward his left and brought his left hand clasped in her right one up to his face for inspection. The palms were pressed together, their fingers were interlaced, and their fingertips were glued to the backs of each other's hands at the knuckles where their fingers were connected. Their hands still looked like two hands, except for the edges of where they touched; the skin on their hands grew together at the edges as if they had been born holding hands. The overlap couldn't have been much more than a fifth of a centimeter to still look like two hands. Their thumbs were stuck to each other, but not fused with the rest of their fingers. They still had an opposable thumb, which was always a good thing. The opposite side, on his right, seemed to be much the same as the left.

"It's not so bad. We still have two hands, they're just a little fused." As opposed to completely overlapping; it could have been much worse.

He continued his analysis; Ghost's chin was stuck to his jacket, fused with one layer of the fabric. Their legs seemed to be free of each other, he moved each one experimentally and they moved independently of hers. His pant's legs, however, seemed to have bonded to the floor in several patches.

"Can you kneel at all? Our stomachs aren't stuck are they?"

"Ghost?"

She closed her eyes and the excess moisture dribbled out into her eyelashes. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Not this bad. She didn't mean for it to happen.

"Take deep breaths, Maya."

She obligingly sucked in a shaky breath. And then tried to hold it in so that she wouldn't keep up her frantic rhythm. She worked carefully on relaxing her hands and arms. He had asked. The more she relaxed her body, the tighter her brow knit. She tried very hard to let Sebastian take control of what they had fused. From his fumbling around her chin, she could feel that it was a small area. Much smaller than their hands had been and different since it wasn't Sebastian's flesh she'd gotten stuck to her face.

It wasn't until he'd finished his inspection of their conjoined hands and her chin that Maya realized that she had actually been holding her breath for far too long. Her lips parted and her eyes eked open. "I'm sorry." He didn't seem mad. He didn't even sound worried, but she felt that he should have known better.

Maya sucked in air and tried to find the balance between excessive breath and no breath at all. It bothered her to not have her hands free. It bothered her a lot.

"Can you kneel at all? Our stomachs aren't stuck are they?"

Sebastian brought her back from another fleeting moment of panic. They could work this out. They just had to start working in the right direction one step at a time.

Maya looked down at their middles as far as Sebastian's jacket would allow. She then curled her back to put as much space between them as was possible. She saw the floor peek out through a mess of legs and skirt and shirt.

Except... there was a patch of her hip peeking through her skirt. It seemed that the skirt had sunk in a little as well.

She looked up at Sebastian again and shook her head. No. They weren't stuck together at the waist. And she didn't want to be any time soon. Maya pulled her legs together and put her knees between Sebastian's before leaning her head forward against his coat jacket. The constant tugging at her chin was starting to become bothersome.

>>>"I'm sorry."

“We'll fix it,” he didn't sound worried because he was trying very hard not to sound worried. Panicking wouldn't help either of them. Even though his heart was beating a little faster and he didn't relish the thought of never being able to use his hands or visit the bathroom alone again. It wouldn't turn out that way, but the thought still crossed his mind.

It could have been so much worse. They weren't stuck together at the torso. They hadn't accidentally overlapped any vital organs. They could still move their legs independently. Palms seemed relatively minor compared to what could have happened. He breathed a sigh of relief he hadn't realized he had been holding wen Ghost arched her back and they weren't stuck in the middle.

“That's a good sign,” he added, still trying to sound positive. “Now, do you think if we ghosted again we could get apart? Other wise, we might have to see if we can find something sharp.” And a bucket. Option two was likely to be messy.

Ghost's eyes widened at the suggestion despite the fact that her head now lay against Sebastian's shoulder and he would not see the action. She shook her head a little too fast against her new husband's shoulder. "If we ghost... I don't think it would get better. There is no separation. I could end up taking us both again and risk making things worse. Or I might end up with just your hands and coat. And... then I'd have your hands and you wouldn't..." in theory.

So about that breathing thing... she realized again that she'd been holding it in. Or rather, sending it all out in one explanation. Ghost breathed in, the air satiating the burning feeling in her lungs.

"I've never done this before. I should have let you go. I'm sorry. I really don't know what will happen." Wouldn't it just be better to take care of this ... what? More traditionally? With something sharp? Ghost swallowed hard. Something sharp did not sound like fun.

"What do we do?" Her chin was itching around the spot attached to Sebastian's coat. It looked dapper, but it was certainly itchy. Tentatively she tugged at their hands to try to get something near the area.

Option one sounded just as messy, if not more messy than option two. He had just regrown a tail, he didn't really need to spend a couple of months regrowing his hands nor did Ghost need to have the extra hands attached to hers indefinitely. It looked like option two was the better one.

>>>"What do we do?"

“First, we see if we can stand up and move around at all. Then we'll see about getting separated. It seems like surgery would be the easiest way to get things straightened out again. We will heal quickly, but it might still hurt.” It would still hurt, actually. There was no might about it, really.

“The amount of the overlap isn't very large, really, and there doesn't seem to be anything vital that has been crossed. That's a very good thing.”

He was trying to sound reassuring, but he was distracted by the cool healing that was starting to tingle somewhere around Ghost's lungs.

“You're supposed to be breathing,” he scolded gently.

Ghost moved their hands back to her chin and tugged at the fabric. It seemed fairly well stuck under a layer of skin. It looked like if she yanked it really hard she'd have what essentially would looked like a bad scrape.

“Try tearing the fabric so you can get loose. That will make moving easier.” If she could tear it, the fabric was fairly sturdy. It was too bad they didn't already have that sharp tool in hand.

“First, we see if we can stand up and move around at all." In words... this sounded quite logical. In practice it proved to be a bit more difficult. Ghost managed to get to her knees before she was tugging at anything that didn't belong to her. "If I relax my arms and let you take lead, do you think you could carry me?"

The prospect of one of them walking backward and staying close while shuffling around was seeming less and less pleasant. She was pretty sure bending her arm behind her back and legs would be easier for both parties.

Mutual surgery on their wedding day. Wonderful. "Think we'll still be able to go dancing?" She was breathing. Honest. It just didn't occur to her that not breathing wouldn't keep the later hurt at bay.

He suggested she tear the fabric, but... it didn't seem all that feasible even if she had all her fingers. "Do you know where the infirmary is? It's on the first floor. They will have sharp things... and maybe something for numbing." Yeah. Not fun. She tried to cooperate until they made their feet. She could steer if he could do the heavy lifting.

While Ghost somehow managed to get to her knees, Sebastian managed to sit up. His pant legs were still attached to the carpet in a few patches, so once Ghost had found her balance, he manipulated one of their hands to tug at them until they ripped free. Little patches of grey wool were left behind and his pants were a little more breezy than before, but he was free to stand up now. With some slight pushing and pulling and leaning against each other, they were finally able to stand up.

"Of course we can still go dancing. We could still dance now, like this. Though, finding the infirmary first is probably more practical. I think I can carry you if we can figure out..." Dancing... that was a thought. "Try this," Sebastian lifted his left arm over her head. "Now turn, that way," he indicated with his head. The jacket would make that awkward, but it should still work. He lowered his arm on the other side over her body. Now Ghost was facing away from him, arms crisscrossed over her chest. "Now, step over your bottom arm, so I can get my arm beneath your knees."

Again, the manipulations were difficult, but they managed. With an arm behind Ghost's back, connected to her arm across her chest and one under her knees, connected to hers by her side, it was relatively easy to carry her. Even though she was a little taller than he was, she was much lighter which made carrying her a breeze once they had gotten themselves situated.

"There, now we just have to..." Sebastian winced as something tugged hard on his tail. His forward momentum toward the door was halted only slightly as his tail pulled free from it's bonds a split second later. He turned and looked over his shoulder as best he could. There was a handful of bristly white hairs still stuck to the floor. He pouted at the tip of his tail, which now had a rather large bald spot on the tip and not enough scraggly hairs left to cover it up.

"That's attractive," he groaned. "Alright, let's go." Door knob; thank gods for tails, even if they were bald and ugly now.

"Of course we can still go dancing. We could still dance now, like this... If they'd had the pluck. Somehow dancing now just didn't seem like fun. Though this way no one could attempt to cut in. Maya followed Sebastian's instructions and sort of ended up in a chair of their arms. It wasn't so bad. They were going to get this all straightened out.

He hesitated with the pull of his tail and then worried about it being attractive. He really didn't seem to be worried about all this. Well, besides the lack of proper tail hair.

Ghost guided him the shortest way possible to the infirmary. Unfortunately that meant they went through the kitchen, one of the busiest hubs of the Mansion. She'd be getting questions about it from all angles... except... she wouldn't be here to hear them until this weekend, officially.

When they came to the Infirmary door, Ghost knocked with her foot. Her shoe tapping sounded rather like knuckles would. When DocProf showed at the door, a Unicorn holding a Ghost was not something he expected to see.

"Can I uh... help you?"

Ghost smiled and tried to ask in the most calm and reliable voice she possessed. "Do you have a scalpel? We're stuck." If Sebastian could pretend to be cheerful, she could too.

She didn't blame the good doctor for the look on his face.

Carrying Ghost through the mansion was almost like carrying her across the threshold like grooms often did on their wedding days. The tradition was a little off in their case, though; more for an emergency than for any part of tradition. They did earn some strange looks from people who wouldn't realize that it was an emergency and probably just thought that some strange unicorn man was trying to abscond with their resident air manipulator.

At the door to the infirmary Ghost knocked with her shoe and an older gentleman answered their summons. The unicorn man was certain that they made an odd sight in the hallway with their matching white hair and their odd pretzel like pose. Still, this was a mutant school. Surely the man must have seen something stranger than them at some point in his career.

Ghost was really picking up on the cheerfulness. He couldn't tell if she really meant it, or whether she was putting on an act for one or both of the healers in the room.

Sebastian nodded seriously, “We've determined that surgery would be the best option. If we could borrow a surgical knife, I'll have us separated and healed up again in no time.”

The doctor opened his mouth, closed it again, opened it, and finally said, “I can't let you do that. Even a healer shouldn't be operating on himself. Especially not one who can't even use his hands properly.”

The immortal frowned at the doctor, “I think I can handle...”

“No.” The old doctor made that sound very final. Sebastian stopped in the middle of his sentence. Confound it all! He'd never needed a doctor a day in his life. And now... well the man did have a point about how difficult it would be to operate on a melded hand with a hand that was itself melded.

DocProf continued, “Carry her in here, if you would please. Thank you, young man. Now, have either of you ever had any allergic reactions to any local anesthetics, like lidocaine? We'll numb those hands of yours and then have you separated in no time.”

Young? Hardly. Sebastian shook his head. No allergic reactions. However, “My body neutralizes the effects of drugs very quickly. I'm not sure how that will affect Ghost while we are connected.”

“...If we could borrow a surgical knife, I'll have us separated and healed up again in no time.”

Really? If turning around weren't such a hassle Ghost would be giving him the incredulous eye. He wanted to do it? Really? She nodded as much as Sebastian's jacket would allow. Not that Sebastian hadn't saved her life and all, but... he didn't even have usable hands. No way was he taking a sharpened anything to her lily white flesh without an opposable thumb.

“I think I can handle...”

Whether it was DocProf's sharp “No” or the attempted kick Ghost aimed somewhere behind her, she didn't know; but Sebastian seemed to finally start to think better of his surgery plans. It wasn't just himself that he was planning to slide open! She wrinkled her nose at no one in particular and was no where near as cheery as she had been moments ago. Clearly, that had been for show.

At DocProf's instruction, Sebastian brought her in to the infirmary and they began the dance of the arms and legs. "I didn't do it on purpose, you know." And that came out a little sullen.

"You never do. At least, I hope you never do." He sounded far too amused for Ghost's tastes, a fact that only made her feel more farouche.

Ghost shook her head in response to the anesthetic question. She didn't know. She'd never really been to a hospital outside of her birth and her younger sister's birth. Neither involved anesthesia for herself. The head shaking movement tugged at Sebastian's coat and the skin on her chin was starting to turn pink from all the pulling. She was not looking forward to all the chopping that the healers seemed keen to experience.

She frowned at Sebastian from her seat next to him on the gurney. This was one case where she was a bit nervous for his healing to kick in. Not even anesthetics would help for long it seemed.

DocProf started with something simple, after he had gathered a sampling of utensils he reached out toward Ghost's face. She couldn't help it. She cringed and closed her eyes almost as if expecting a blow. Instead, after a brief moment of sawing, the coat fell away from her chin. There was still a tuft of wool poking out, but it was a step in the right direction.

She opened one eye and then the next before commandeering a set of hands to feel her little tuft of wool beard.

"Ready?"

DocProf was fetching several small vials from his refrigerator. There were several hermetically sealed syringes ready on his rolling table. Just waiting to be used. Ghost looked at the floor. She didn't have to watch did she?

Sebastian hadn't realized that their relationship had progressed to the non-verbal form of communication that wives so often liked to use; the subtle kick in the shin, the elbow in the side, the stomp on the toe, or the more uncommon heel in the hip that Ghost had just employed. They were acting like they were married already, which they were, lest anyone forget.

Okay, so it wasn't a good idea to perform the surgery himself. It was just that, when you did something to yourself it seemed so much less painful than when someone else did it to you. It was liker a sliver, if one dealt with it oneself it was so much better than if someone else tried to help; though, this was no sliver they were dealing with now. He would cooperate. It didn't mean he had to like it.

He listened to the exchange between the doctor and Ghost. The old healer made it sound like Sebastian's aeromancer wife had been in the infirmary before, perhaps even more than once. She must be very accident prone indeed, considering she needed two healers looking after her. Sebastian was not as amused as the doctor at the idea of Ghost getting into all this mischief; he was more grumpy than anything else.

He wasn't sure he trusted this doctor. What if he didn't do a good job? He could only have maybe thirty or forty years of experience. What could he possibly have learned in that short a time? He didn't like putting either of their lives in his hands, or their hands in his for that matter. There was no alternative, though. He would just have to trust that the doctor could separate them, restore their hands to their normal states, and keep the process as painless as possible.

"Let's just get this over with."

Sebastian watched with a scrutinizing gaze everything the doctor did to prepare. Hands washed and gloved, tools prepared, syringes of anesthetics at the ready, mask, goggles, a covering to go over the two patients, and a dozen other small things.

The doctor certainly could feel the unicorn man watching him, how could he not? "I'll need both of you to lay down for this." They obliged, arms crossed over their chests or by their side, still hand in hand. The doctor pulled the cover over them like a father tucking in his two children for the night.

Sebastian couldn't see anything from this angle, unless he craned his neck and even then the view was not stellar. This sucked, he decided. Especially the part about feeling helpless. He hated that. And he hated doctors, too. He would avoid them like the plague for the rest of his life if he could help it.

A sharp prick announced that the doctor had injected his numbing agents. Instantly Sebastian's hand tingled with cold as his body raced to heal the little wound caused by the needle and started its battle against the drug that had entered there. The numbness was fighting back the cold, pushing its feeling of nothing through his hand and up past his wrist. It wouldn't win the war, but the drugs were winning the battle for now. It was almost like Ghosting, this numbness, but this time he couldn't feel Ghost's hand in his own even though he knew it was there.

The unicorn shifter finally gave up trying to see and leaned back to stare at the ceiling. He would try and content himself with keeping track of the advances his own wayward healing ability was making against the drug that was supposed to be helping. The ceiling tiles stared back at him, emotionless and as numb as his hand. He really wished he could see better what the doctor was doing, but it would probably only distract him to have Sebastian giving him medical advice while he performed surgery. Maybe a distraction for himself and Ghost would be better than lying here just waiting for the pain to hit.

"Why do you not like to be called Maya?"

Was that a twinge of icy pain in his fingertips? Not yet.