Elsewhere ...

TOUCH

1.

Ben and Lacey Ellis were back once again in an office together sitting next to one another on the visitor side of an office desk as they are about to get going on yet another consultation to move forward in exploring options and possibilities in regard to beginning a family. The feeling and mood have been becoming one of hopelessness though all is not lost, not yet anyhow.

Many couples as far into a relationship as Ben and Lacey are, who are invested in the family unit, would be well along the path to achieving or expanding their goal but for Ben and Lacey themselves it is a difficult struggle to even get onto that path.

Adoption is a possibility but more a last resort for if there is any way for them to conceive their own child then that would like to be explored first. Positivity can only go so far though the presence of positivity in general is something far better than anything negativity has to offer so believing they will get to where they want to go can go a long way towards getting onto that path they so desperately want to be on. Patience, however, as is hope, is running thin.

Little can they know that as they sit and discuss test results and options on this occasion that a certain force is at work. There is an unseen dark presence, a dark force, something, someone whose intentions are not all positive if at all positive, and this force is not only at work, but it is up and walking about within the very office that their discussion is taking place within. This force in this moment is invisible to a degree but if one knew it was present then they may know what to look for.

One sign of an ominous presence is that of a thin shadow which moves freely around the office floor and walls behind where Ben and Lacey sit. There is no reaction to the moving shadow but there is a different reaction of sorts, a reaction to the presence, more specifically Lacey's reaction or reactions, something that can only go so far to adding to or contributing to a possible detection of ... something.

Indeed, there is no reaction to the movement of the shadow but there is reaction to some degree of what it is creating the shadow for Lacey feels a sudden chill that makes her shiver and this distracts her attention a number of times away from the ongoing conversation. Ben inquires as to if she is alright then he feels that chill in her as he takes her hand to hold in his own. There most definitely is coldness. Lacey's hand is so very cold to the touch.

Then there is an unexplainable feeling she has that all eyes are on her, not so much her husbands or the consultants but eyes that aren't seen, that can't be seen but certainly felt. Such a horrible feeling this is, horrible to the point that it becomes claustrophobic and many other things too. What really sets things off in this office setting is a sensation, a touch, a sensation of a touch.

Lacey jumps up out of her seat and turns, immediately searching the room with her eyes for something that isn't there, but it is there, she knows for sure something is there. Every fiber within her tells her that there is something else, someone else within the room. Ben moves to be at her side.

'What is it, honey? Everything alright?'

'No, everything is not alright. There is someone else in here with us.'

Looking around, Ben is confused. 'There is only you, me and the doctor in here, honey.'

'There is someone else here with us ... I know it ... and don't call me honey.'

'Alright ... though ... I'm pretty sure there are only the three of us ...'

'Don't ...' she throws her husband a look he has never seen in her before, '... he touched me; put his hand right on my shoulder.'

'He ...?' Ben inquires before once again having a look around the room and fearing that perhaps his wife is displaying signs of stress.

At this point the consultant, sensing the tension in this moment as being more than something that a couple may go through attempting to start a family, suggests that Ben and Lacey should take some time to digest what had been discussed on this day and a time and date is suggested for a follow up appointment.

Maybe the want to have a child of her own and the potential stress that can come with not having things go her way is taking a toll as such is suggested to her. This suggestion is one Lacey would not agree with in the slightest, she doesn't want to hear it as for she knows ... she knows ... something.

The weeks pass and soon those initial strange goings on are forgotten about for Ben and Lacey are on their way in more ways than one as in a few appointments time it is confirmed that they indeed are on the path they so badly wanted to be on. They are pregnant, treatment or no treatment, they are pregnant.

This should be a joyous moment with a joyous time to come though Lacey soon returns to being on edge, perhaps all the more so with each passing week and she remains so all during term and for some time to come after, and she worsens with each passing day.

Deterioration, physical and mental, a check is kept as often as it can be, for mum and child. A daughter is what baby is to be and until that day her arrival comes and for many more after, there is big time over protection right from the off as well as a horrible sense of foreboding, but family it is to be, happy or not, feeling at ease or not, together or not ... maybe that doctor's appointment has been forgotten too soon ...

Long before any preparation for the birth of a child can come, there is change and as it goes for Ben and Lacey Ellis, no one could have foreseen the change that would come their way ... well almost no one.

On a television screen somewhere close a news broadcaster teases the air. A thirty something Jeffrey Flinch in all his obnoxious glory is surely annoying some and entertaining others, both on screen and off, flawlessly fitting in with a certain kind of ... mood. He will one day attract attention which will end his life. At this point in time, a certain Johanna Appleby is a little ways off from becoming a broadcast journalist, a career that will put her onto a certain kind of goings on.