It was Michelle Helm's birthday.

A day she dreaded, quite frankly, and rarely celebrated these days. As she lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, she couldn't help but not want to get out of bed today of all days, but she knew she had to call her mother. Even with that bugging her in the back of her head all morning, Michelle tried to go as long as possible to postpone the inevitable. She took a while to figure out her outfit, to make breakfast, to do her breathing exercises and much more before finally exhaling and picking up the phone to dial her number.It rang a few times before she finally heard her mother pick up the other end.

"Hello?" she asked.

"Mom, it's me," Michelle said.

"I was wondering when I'd hear from you. It's almost 3pm you know," her mother said, and Michelle groaned internally. She knew that would be the first thing her mother said to her. Michelle rubbed her forehead with her fingers and shut her eyes tight, already annoyed.

"I know," she said, "I didn't wake up until late, and took a slow start to the morning. Sorry I didn't call you back the other night, I was very tired."

"That's okay," her mother said, "Can I come over and take you out for lunch?"

"Okay," Michelle said, "A little late for lunch, but okay."

"Well, whose fault is that?" her mother asked, laughing so it didn't come off as accusatory, a tactic she'd always used to sneakily judge Michelle without being called on her questionably behavior. After they discussed where to go to eat, the conversation ended, and Michelle mentally prepared herself for the fact that she'd soon be dealing with her mother in person, something that usually left her with a migraine, and this year, sadly, she'd discover it'd be no different.

                                                                                                ***

The door opened, and Lia - understandably - raised an eyebrow and stepped cautiously back as he looked at Beatrice standing in her regular clothes but with the dog head on her shoulders. He hesitated before smirking as she pulled the head off and held it under her arm.

"That's unsettling," he said, "Do you answer the door like that all the time?"

"Only for you," she said, "It's still in excellent shape."

"I can see that," Liam said, as Bea stepped aside so he could, cane in one hand, hobble his way into her loft. He glanced around, taking it all in, as he'd never seen this particular living situation before and was obviously curious how she was living these days. Bea shut the door behind him and followed him into the living room.

"So," he said, turning and looked back at her, "You look nice."

"Thank you, I'm seeing someone later," she said, "That's actually partly why I was hoping you'd meet with me this afternoon. Would you mind helping me do something?"

"You do realize I'm not in top physical condition right now, right?" Liam asked, somewhat shaking his cane at her, and she laughed.

"You don't need to move anything," she said, "I hired people for that. No. I want you to do something else for me. Something very important; this cannot be done without you, in fact."

This piqued Liam's interest, as he cocked his head to the side and raised a brow.

"Okay..." he said, "What are we doing, Bea?"

"We're giving someone a gift."

                                                                                          ***

Celia Helms, a woman who looked like she hadn't aged a day past her college self, as an "artist", and one that neither Michelle nor her father ever particularly understood. This was, honestly, a big reason why they fought a lot, to hear Celia tell it anyway, though Michelle knew she could never trust what came out of her mouth to be the absolute truth. She'd learned that the hard way unfortunately, over the years. Celia looked a lot like her daughter, except was shorter than her, and had a semi unearthly quality about her, almost like a wood elf from some fantasy novel. She dressed in a white lacey top and soft black jeans, her bangs clipped to the side behind her ear so as to keep them out of the way of her giant spectacle clad eyes as she perused the menu.

"I've always wished I could've taken you to Paris," Celia lamented, "But after the hospital bills nearly wiped out our savings, not to mention the payments on tanks and miscellaneous equipment, it just was never financially viable. Sadly, you've had to make due with faux French food from the city."

"Yeah," Michelle said blandly, "A real shame."

"I hope this is okay," Celia said, in a tone that Michelle had come to learn meant 'I'm going to pretend to ask your permission, but I don't want you to tell me I did wrong'; she added, "After all, I chose this place because this is something I've always wanted to give you. Food from another culture."

"It's fine, mom," Michelle said, her own eyes glued to the menu, trying to find something - anything - that wouldn't make her sick later as she said, "How have you been?"

"Exhausted," Celia said, "You wouldn't believe the amount of work I've had to do lately. I've been trying to open a new exhibition hall, but everywhere wants too much, especially in the downtown district. Rest assured, I won't stop until I achieve my goal. You know I'm no quitter."

"Lord do I know," Michelle said.

Celia put her menu down, seemingly having decided on her order, and as they waited for someone to come ask what they wanted, she looked across the table at Michelle. Celia cupped her hands on the table and smiled. Michelle noticed her nails were light pink, manicured, and french tipped. She was jealous her mother got the chance to do nice things like that for herself, when she so often could barely go out for a single day without feeling winded or exhausted.

"Michelle," Celia said, "I'm afraid I have to admit that I found myself struggling to figure out what to get you for your birthday until I stumbled upon something I thought you might like."

With that said, Celia reached to the side of her booth seat and pulled up a box, well wrapped with ribbons, and passed it across the table to Michelle, who graciously took it, a smile on her face, never one to rock the boat when it came to her mother. She just did as she was told, because - as her father had once said - it's just easier. Michelle pulled the bow and the whole thing unraveled, then she carefully undid the tape on the sides and finally unleashed the lid from the top of the box. Staring down inside the box, lid still in her hands, she couldn't feel herself breathing.

"The fuck is this?" Michelle finally blurted out.

"Language! This is a nice restaurant," Celia said, sounding genuinely shocked at her own daughters supposedly 'abhorrent' vocabulary.

"Mom, is this...is this a...fucking ONSIE?" Michelle asked, refusing to even touch it as she glared up from the box to her mother, "Is this a onsie for a baby?? Does this imply what I think it implies?"

"Has to happen eventually," Celia said, "I was just hoping maybe I could jumpstart you into-"

"How dare you," Michelle said under her breath, her ire burning a hole through her heart, "how dare you even suggest that I, someone who can barely manage to keep her own life together on a day to day basis, take care of a fucking baby."

"Okay, I'm sorry, calm down, I just-"

"Do you even understand how hard it is to take care of myself?" Michelle asked, "Not just disability wise, either. I'm an incredibly capable person, but no, just in general. All the little things it takes to make it through a single 24 hour period intact? And now you want me to give you grandchildren? Are you senile?!"

This abrupt change in behavior surprised Celia, and she stopped talking, the look of a scolded child now dancing across her face. Michelle knew this tactic well enough; it was to make her, and any onlookers, think that Celia was in fact the victim, but Michelle knew not to fall for it and she was old enough to not give a shit what onlookers might think anymore.

"God you are so incredibly selfish!" Michelle said, standing up and tugging her tank behind her, "I should've known better than to trust you to, just once, just one time in my entire life, get me a normal birthday present! I don't think, in all the years I've had a birthday, that I've ever been given something meant for me that I enjoyed. You're never going to change."

Michelle stormed out, best as she could, leaving her mother to sit and stew by her lonesome, surely approached by nearby mothers who told her she was in fact in the right and that children 'just never appreciate what we do for them'. Bullshit. Michelle knew it was all bullshit, and yet...and yet she couldn't help but feel the tears stinging in her eyes as she tried to escape and ignore the pain that was breaking through her heart. Every single time she thought that maybe, finally, her mother would know her she would always be wildly disappointed and underwhelmed. It wasn't even worth trying anymore, she had to remember that. She needed to afford a place on her own, because she could no longer risk being financially independent on her mother. It just wasn't worth it.

And she knew just who she could ask.

                                                                                             ***

"I like the taste of squid," Lexi said, popping a piece of butter baked and breaded Calamari in her mouth,"I know it's chewy, but I love the taste, I can't get enough of it."

"It's not bad," Keagan said, "I'm glad you suggested this."

"It's the best Italian place I know of, and they make the best Calamari," Lexi said, sitting on the counter of Keagan's apartment and licking the butter taste from her fingers as Keagan smile, watching her.

Since their evening together, the two had been fairly inseparable, and neither one questioned it. Keagan was, if nothing else, a bit surprised, but happy to have the company and the newfound love. She picked up a piece and walked across the small kitchen and, leaning on her toes, pushed the piece to Lexi's mouth, which she happily ate. After she swallowed it, she put her hands on Keagan's face and, pulling her closer, leaned down and kissed her. As the kiss broke, and their smiles widened to a giggling fit, they heard a knock on the door. Keagan wasn't expecting guests, so she cautiously headed to the door and waited.

"Who is it?" she asked, but no response. Finally she just shrugged and pulled the door open to see Michelle standing there, in the pouring rain, her hair ratty and her clothes soaked to the bone. Keagan stood there, surprised by her appearance, and unsure what to say, and just when she thought she'd found the words, Michelle surprised her yet again by simply hugging her.

After Michelle had showered and was sitting in a fluffy robe on the floor by the heater, eating some of their take out, she relayed the whole situation to them, and both girls were also disgusted by Celia's behavior.

"I just...I keep thinking maybe she'll finally decide to learn about me, but she refuses to do that," Michelle said, "She's like a stubborn child. It's so frustrating."

"Sounds like it," Keagan said.

"You know," Lexi said, crossing her legs on the couch and pushed her hair back into a messy bun, "I know how you feel. My parents are so caught up in their own drama they don't have any time to appreciate me and all the things I do for them, for myself. It's like, after a certain age they just stop learning new things about you, even obvious things, and just decide that how you were at eleven years old? That's how you'll always be."

"Exactly!" Michelle said, putting her mask over her face and breathing in, "I'm so tired of dealing with her. I was kind of hoping, maybe...I could stay with you until I could save money to afford my own new place? Otherwise I'll have to put up with her shit since she pays for my rental home."

"Oh, uh, yeah, I mean, okay," Keagan said, "That shouldn't be a problem. I...I don't have much room, but you could totally-"

"We could all get a place together," Lexi said, surprising both of them.

"What?" Keagan and Michelle both replied, in differing tones.

"I mean, if we all pooled our money together, we could just afford our own place. I know I don't like living with my mom or sister, I would certainly appreciate having a quieter place to study, and Keagan you could totally try and do your web work fulltime, and you probably get disability, right?" she asked, looking at Michelle, who nodded; she continued, "Exactly. Between that, part time jobs, odds and ends sales online, we could totally make it work."

"I...I don't, uh, know how viable that is," Keagan said, "I mean, you and Michelle basically don't know one another, would you even be comfortable with that?" she asked, glancing at Michelle, who merely shrugged.

"Better than living under my mothers thumb," she said softly, and Keagan understood.

But, and Keagan wouldn't admit this, it wasn't Michelle she was worried about. She was just surprised at quickly Lexi had jumped in to suggest the idea of living together. They'd only spent one evening together, and now suddenly the discussion of living together was coming up? And, sure, it was probably more to help Michelle out of a jam, but Keagan was unsure whether or not she was ready for this level of commitment. It frightened her, she couldn't deny.

"Okay," Keagan finally said quietly, continuing to eat dinner.

Lexi made the plans; the three of them would start looking the coming week, and until then Michelle could room with Keagan, she'd just have to go home and get some things first. But that could wait until the next day. Tonight? It was all about destressing, and celebrating what was left of Michelle's birthday, which she greatly appreciated. And it was funny...as soon as her mother was removed from the situation, she felt as though she could breath just a little bit easier.

                                                                                             ***

As Michelle packed her bags the following day, she couldn't help but feel lighter than she had in ages.

She'd need some shirts, jeans, dresses, and of course her medical supplies, but none of that mattered. All that mattered was that things were finally going to be better, and that alone made it easy to deal with. Change was usually frightening, but this change? This was glorious, unabashed joy. As she stuffed a few of her favorite books into a bag, she heard a knock at the front door and thought it was either her mother coming to harass her more, or it was Keagan, early to pick her up. Michelle stood up and, heading down the hall, heard the knock on the door again. She opened the door to her surprise...Leslie.

"Oh," Michelle said, "...what are you doing here? How did you even know my address?"

"You know, there's a lot of information that can be easily accessed if you just know the right people," Leslie said, "I need you to come with me. Something's come up."

"What's happened?" Michelle asked.

"Just get in my car," Leslie said, clearly suppressing a smirk.

Michelle did as she was told, and got into the car. Leslie got into the drivers seat, pulled away and started driving down the road. Michelle looked behind them to make sure they weren't being followed or something else strange, and then, lowering her voice and chewing on her lip said, "I have to be back shortly, I'm moving in with a friend and they're coming to-"

"This shouldn't take long, don't worry," Leslie said, taking a few turns. After a good twenty minutes driving, what Michelle assumed, was rather aimlessly, she began to get irritated but didn't say anything. She knew Leslie wouldn't just screw with her, she barely knew her. So Michelle kept her mouth shut, until suddenly, Leslie pulled over and pulled out a bandana and looked at Michelle.

"You need to wear this," she said, and Michelle scoffed.

"I do?" she asked.

"You really do, trust me," Leslie said, and Michelle - against all better judgement - took the bandana and wrapped it around her eyes, tying it in the back to blind herself. She huffed, crossed her arms and felt the car lurch forward again as Leslie continued toward the still obscured destination. After another few minutes, she felt the car park again and, as she reached up to pull the bandana off, felt Leslie lightly slap her fingers.

"Ow!"

"Do you want to spoil the surprise?" Leslie asked, "Just open the door, I'll come around and guide you."

Michelle opened the car door and waited for Leslie to take her hand, leading her out of the car and across what sounded like a parking lot full of gravel.

"This is ridiculous," Michelle said, half laughing out of nervousness, "Do you work for the mob or something?"

"Public television can certainly feel that way sometimes," Leslie murmured, making them both chuckle.

Michelle heard a door open, and they stepped inside what felt like somewhere air conditioned. Michelle could hear the sound of electronics buzzing around her, and generic upbeat music playing over speakers. Michelle sighed and felt a hand on the back of the blindfold, tugging it off. It took her a moment for her eyes to adjust, and when she had blinked a few times, the first thing she saw in front of her was a woman wearing a postal uniform and carrying a mailbag.

"Uh," Michelle said, as she approached Michelle and handed her a letter.

"Telegram!" she said, "You've been invited to a birthday party!"

"...you're...Postal Patty," Michelle said, suddenly recognizing her from the show.

"Well, kind of a mean thing to call me these days, given the level of my many medications, but yes,"Postal Patty said, "Come with me, you don't want to be late, you're the guest of honor!"

So Michelle, buying into the rouse, followed Postal Patty throughout the venue, until they reached a back room, completely black, with only a singular table with red silk tablecloth over it for her to sit at. Michelle, Leslie and Postal Patty all took their seats and and waited. Michelle wanted to ask what this was all about, but she decided against it; after all, Leslie was right...why ruin the surprise? After what felt like an eternity, the stage lights blasted on, and suddenly Michelle knew exactly where she was.

One of the defunct pizzerias.

And on stage was a doghouse, and Beatrice, in full costume. Sitting atop the doghouse was a small potted plush cactus, with blackness surrounding them, obscuring Liam who was obviously performing as the cactus.

"You know, it's been a while since we've celebrated anything, hasn't it, Liam?" Bea asked, and the cactus nodded.

"It feels like it's been decades!" he said, eliciting quiet laughter from the three women watching.

"But today is different, today we're celebrating! It's a birthday, did you know that? The birthday of a very important, very special young woman," Bea said, "Do you know who I'm talking about?"

"My mom?" Liam asked, and Bea chuckled.

"No! Our friend Michelle!" Bea said, and then, turning and walking off the stage as the room lit up more, the old animatronics now working on stage, Beatrice strolled up to Michelle and looked down at her, asking, "Today IS your birthday isn't it?"

"Actually, it was yesterday," Michelle said, and Bea shook her head.

"A dog never knows what day it is! After all, we think one year is seven years!" Beatrice said, making them laugh again as she added, "You just can't trust us to gauge time correctly! So, Michelle, what's the one thing you want this birthday more than anything else?"

Everyone looked at Michelle, who had tears rolling down her face, and smiled.

"I already have it now," she said, half laughing.

"Good answer!" Beatrice said, "Friendship IS the best gift!"

And so Michelle spent her birthday with the cast and crew of Beatrice Beagle - which ones they could easily track down on such short notice anyway - and played arcade games with them, and ate cake with them, and it was like, if for just a single day, she was a little girl again. A little girl who's best friend was the woman in the dog costume who didn't even know she was making a difference in her life, only now she did know, and was thrilled to have a purpose again. And after all that had happened, Michelle knew none of it would've been possible if not for the single actions of one man, one person, who couldn't be there that day, and as Michelle shoveled pizza in her mouth and laughed at Beatrice and Liam's tales from the set, she could think only one thing...

"Thank you Marvin Burgis."

Thus proving that even suicide isn't in vain.

These images that flashed before her in the dark on the small television screen were things she hadn't seen in years. Sitting there on the end of her bed, looking into this television screen - the television that had the built in VCR, the only one capable of playing these tapes anymore, lest they be forever locked away - Beatrice couldn't help but feel a pang of remorse for those days gone by. Those days with the people she'd once considered her friends and coworkers, her co-conspirators in creativity. And what should've made her feel better, only made her feel more uneasy, because now, a young woman - a young woman she didn't know except via the osmosis of the television screen from years prior - had rebuilt her shows entire set in her basement, and for some reason...this made Beatrice Burden extremely sad.

                                                                                               ***

"I really wish you'd reconsider," Leslie said as she sat back down at her desk, handing an envelope to Bea, who was seated across from her as she continued, "we'd love to have you back. We'd give you a budget you'd be comfortable with and you would have complete creative control. Corporate sponsorship is the way of the past, gone like the dinosaurs, and even publicly funded groups like ours that provide free entertainment to the lowest of income families can manage to make productions of grandeur out of seemingly very little."

"I appreciate the sentiment, you've always been extremely kind to me," Bea said, smiling as she used one of her nails to undo the envelope, "But I'm fairly comfortable in semi self imposed exile."

She opened the envelope and slid out a card, which she smiled at briefly before opening it to wide eyed surprise.

"Happy?" Leslie asked, smirking as she leaned back in her comfy leather desk chair, arms behind her head.

"Uh...this is extremely generous," Bea said, "I...I don't know that I can accept this."

"Think of it as back payment, for all the money stolen from you in years prior," Leslie said, "I'm doing my best to make things right between you and this station. Now that Nassar is no longer in charge, and we're all doing things my way, I've been doing my best to make amends between everyone he wronged. Turns out it was a lot of people."

"You say that as if it's uncommon for a businessman," Bea said, making Leslie chuckle.

"Well, be that as it may, I hope you like what I've tried to do for you," Leslie said, "And, like I said, if you ever want to come back, you have my number and the station would welcome you with open arms. Most people here thought you get a bad rap. You're a childhood icon, please don't forget that."

Much as she'd like to, even if she wouldn't admit it, she couldn't forget it even if she tried.

                                                                                              ***

Beatrice paced her lofts living room, chewing nervously on her nails.

She had been waiting for a phone call for a few weeks from an event organizer getting together people from public access kids shows, and they'd been trying to get Beatrice on the phone for ages. Eventually she realized she couldn't just ignore them, and so she promised to speak to them tonight. This organizer, her name was Diana, was attempting to make a small convention of sorts, but needless to say, Beatrice wanted nothing to do with it, and ignoring someone was considered rude so she decided she'd just politely decline.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the phone rang and Bea quickly answered it, hoping to get this awkward conversation over with as quickly as possible.

"Hello?" Diana asked, "Miss Beagle?"

"This is Bea," Beatrice said, "How can I help you?"

"I'm so glad we finally get to talk! I've been dying to speak with you for weeks now, and you just seem so unavailable! My name is Diana Riggs, and I am-"

"Miss Riggs, I don't mean to be rude, but I am not interested in whatever it is you're trying to do. I'm sure your intentions are good and that you mean well, but honestly, I just want to be left alone. I hope you understand" Beatrice said, blurting it out, not even letting her finish. When she finally spoke again, the disappointment in her voice was clear as day, even as she tried to hide it.

"I...I understand," Diana said, "I just had to ask, you know how it is. Thank you for at least speaking to me."

"Of course, and thank you for the invitation," Bea said.

"If you change your mind you have my number, and the convention is a week from tomorrow," Diana said, "Everyone would love to see you there, we're all big admirers of you. You're such an icon."

After Bea had hung up, she stood there staring at the phone, tapping her foot on the floor as she chewed on her lip. How could she be an icon, especially when compared to so many others that were still so fondly remembered? It just didn't make sense to her, and the label never really sat well.

                                                                                            ***

Why? Why was Michelle the one who had remembered it as well as she had, and why had she clung to it so desperately for so many years? It just didn't make sense. But after seeing the set remade in the basement, Beatrice couldn't help but feel grateful for her lifelong admiration, because there was one thing Michelle never called her...and that was an 'icon'. Oh sure, she'd said the character of Beatrice had been inspirational, but the word 'icon' had never left her lips, near as she could remember.

But what was she honestly supposed to make of the basement set? Was it just the strange project of a strange lonely young woman with a breathing disorder? Or was there something deeper here that she was missing? Something Michelle had intended to jump out at her? Sure, she appreciated the effort to hell and back, but for some reason, other than Michelle's general love for her work, it didn't make sense to Beatrice why she'd done this.

Maybe the best course of action would be to simply ask her.

After all, time and time again Bea had found that had she just talked to someone things would've turned out a lot better. Communication is kind of strange like that.

                                                                                                    ***

"Am I an icon?"

This sudden question surprised Liam, who jumped a little and dropped his magazine on his lap in the hospital bed. He looked at Beatrice standing in the doorway, before she stepped into the room and took a seat on the chair beside the bed reserved for 'guests', of which she'd been the only one. Liam shook his head and shrugged.

"A simple 'hello' would've sufficed," he said, "Maybe a 'how are you doing? any better?', but I guess not."

"Hello, how are you doing? Any better? Also am I an icon?" Beatrice asked, making Liam laugh and, thusly, wheeze a little. She set her purse on her lap and watched him as he set his magazine down completely now and looked at her, cupping his hands in his lap.

"Yes, but not to the kids like the other shows...Those shows are icons because the kids grow up to remember them fondly, and thus they retain some semblance of relevancy in todays world. But you're not that kind if icon, Bea...you're an icon to the people in the industry," Liam said, shifting and sitting up better, "You're an icon to the creative people who want to do their things on their terms, and damn what 'the suits' might say, or anyone for that matter."

"That's...definitely an answer I didn't expect," Beatrice said, fingering her jangling charm bracelet on her wrist, "but...but what kind of legacy is that to leave?"

"You goin' somewhere?" Liam asked, making her chuckle.

"No," Beatrice replied, shaking her head, "Just thinking about the future. Is that really what I want to go down as? A creative person who inspired other creative people but became a self imposed hermit and burnt her only true venture to the ground for the sake of fighting back against a rabid capitalistic consumer driven culture that only demanded new content as soon as the old got boring?"

"Beatrice," Liam said, grunting a bit as he struggled to sit up straight and glanced at her, "Listen to me, okay? You accomplished something that most people in the entertainment industry never do, no matter how long they work for or how much success they achieve. You created something that people, especially other creative people, really connected with, and then - as if that wasn't enough - you ended it on your own terms because you weren't happy with the outcomes. You publicly fought against the way it was viewed and mishandled, and a lot of that was my fault and I have been so sorry you have no idea, but do you know how many other creative people would kill for the kind of guts you just seem to brazenly have?"

Beatrice smiled and pulled her hair back, tying it up in a messy bun as she leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs, folding her arms.

"I want you to know that I'll forgive you one of these days," she said, "And that I'm very happy you didn't die."

"Which will come first? Your forgiveness or my untimely demise?"

"That remains to be seen," Bea said, making them both laugh.

An icon? Yes. This was something she might be able to work with after all, and she knew just the person to work on it with.

                                                                                              ***

Michelle was standing in her kitchen, eating a bowl of cereal as she stared at the calendar tacked to the fridge. She couldn't help but notice a particular day coming up, one circled in red, October 17th. A day that she hated had to happen yearly. As she groaned and chewed, she heard a knock at the front door. Michelle set her cereal bowl down and pulled her mask back on over her face, tugging her oxygen tank along behind her as she headed to answer whoever it was knocking.

She pulled the front door open to reveal Beatrice, standing on her porch. This, she had to admit, was a surprise. Michelle stepped aside to let Bea enter, which she did, almost happily so. As she got into the living room, she turned quick on her heel and looked at Michelle.

"Having trouble today?" she asked, motioning towards the tank.

"Yeah, some days it's really bad," Michelle said, sounding out of breath.

"Well, that's good because now what I have to say can't take your breath away," Beatrice said, and then after realizing Michelle wasn't laughing, shrugged and added, "Sorry, that was likely in bad taste."

"What are you doing here?" Michelle asked, still somewhat starstruck by her sudden appearance.

"I realized the other day that...the thing I was running from all along wasn't my shame or my fear or my anger, but was my appreciation. I was mad that people appreciated me and what I'd done because I couldn't, so I figured if I wasn't capable of it, then nobody else should be allowed to either. I know it's ridiculous and unfair, and I put myself under my own scrutiny more than anyone else ever put me under, but it's the gods honest truth. Ever since the show went off the air and the whole thing went kaput, I've been told, repeatedly, that I am an icon. I hate that label."

"That must be frustrating, yeah, especially if you don't hold yourself in high esteem," Michelle said, making Bea snap her fingers and point at her.

"Bingo, see, you get it. You...you seem capable of appreciating the Beagle the same way I did," Beatrice said, "...she was my best friend in the whole world, and I simply wanted to share the love and comfort that she gave me with everyone else who never got to experience it, because I didn't want them missing out on her gifts."

Michelle couldn't believe this, Beatrice was spilling her guts to her. This was like a dream come true.

"Then what are you doing here?" Michelle asked.

"You're the only one who didn't call me an icon. I appreciate that. It made your admiration more...real, more believable. Like...like you didn't like what I had done, you liked me specifically. Aside from my parents, maybe Liam, I've rarely felt liked in the world."

"I know what that feels like."

"I'm sure you do, that's why we understand one another," Beatrice said, "Michelle, I want to do something for you. Something I've never thought about asking another person to do. I want to give you all my tapes, and I want you to digitize them so we can release them online for free. I want you to help me create an archive for something we both love. Will you help me?"

Michelle was speechless. She never in a million years could've expected this.

"Can I have a drink of water?" Bea asked, "I'm so thirsty."

"Yeah, there's a dispenser built into the fridge," Michelle said.

Beatrice excused herself and stood up, heading to the kitchen. She found the glasses in the cabinet, pulled a mug and filled it up. As she drank, she tapped at the calendar and looked back into the living room over the couch at Michelle.

"Why's this circled?"

"...it's my birthday," Michelle said.

"Not too happy about it?" Bea asked, walking back to the living room now.

"How...how would this work?" Michelle asked, as Beatrice once again seated herself.

"Well, I'd bring them over to you and we could sit together and watch them, take notes on things I'd like cut out, make some small edits here and there. But you're the only person I'd trust with this kind of project, despite barely knowing you. I just...I can sense you appreciate me, and because of that, I appreciate you. I'd happily pay you, of course, if that's what you're asking."

"That...that wasn't what I was asking, but I can't really turn it down. I am in need of employment..." Michelle said, sounding embarrassed.

"You know, when I was your age, I couldn't see myself doing anything else other than what I wound up doing. Can you honestly say you don't feel the same? Can you see yourself wasting away in some dreadful little office for the next 30 years, toiling away for someone who doesn't give a shit about you while your actual talents go to waste?"

Michelle chewed her lip and shook her head.

"Every job I've tried just...doesn't feel right. I've...I've never really known where it is I should be or what it is I should be doing, but I know it isn't any of the things I've tried, that's for sure," Michelle said, and Bea smiled, leaning forward.

"Because guess what, knowing what you don't want to do is more important than knowing what you want to do, and it's not an insight everyone gets, unfortunately," Bea said, "Help me help you. I know this is weird, I know it's out of the blue, I know we barely know one another but I see potential in you that I saw in myself, and I would never forgive myself if I didn't try and bring it out of you."

Michelle smiled, and tried not to cry. Her idol, a woman she'd long admired her entire life, was sitting in her living room and telling her she believed in her. How things had come to this she couldn't really understand, but they had, and she never felt more thankful.

"I have to go, I have some other errands to run," Beatrice said, standing up and pulling her purse back up over her shoulder as she headed for the door, "But please think about my offer. Interviewers, convention organizers, even Leslie herself - god love her - wanted to heap praise onto me for the things I made, not for the person I was so I can't help but appreciate that you tracked me down for a very personal reason. You liked the things I was saying, not the things I was selling. That means a lot to me."

As she stood in the door, about to exit to the porch, she pulled something out of her purse, along with a pen. She flipped open the little booklet and began scribbling in it before finishing with a flourish and tearing the paper out, handing it to Michelle.

"...this...this is three thousand dollars," Michelle said, staring at the paper, her eyes wide.

"Yes it is," Beatrice said, stuffing her things back into her purse, "Get yourself some new equipment, a new apparatus, something to make life easier. The people who've been abandoned by everyone have to look out for one another."

And then, without even asking, Beatrice leaned in and hugged her. Michelle couldn't breath - even more than she already couldn't - because these were things she never in a million years could've imagined happening. After the hug broke, Michelle watched Beatrice walk to her car, a tiny little hatchback, got in and honked goodbye as she pulled away. Michelle walked back around to her couch and plopped back down, her eyes glued to the check in her hands.

After everything in her life, it wasn't her parents that came through for her.

It was a long forgotten childrens public television host.

And she could appreciate the humor in that.

Everything hurt, his limbs felt heavy and his eyesight was blurred, but Liam knew he was alive. He could tell from the pain that he wasn't dead, because if he were dead, he wouldn't be in pain. He couldn't really move much, but he was able to look to his side and see, sitting in a chair by his bed, a woman reading a book. He coughed a little, and she lowered the book, revealing herself to be Beatrice, who then smiled at him.

"What...are you doing here?" he asked.

"I'm your emergency contact," Bea said, "I guess you never changed that."

"I...I guess not. Sorry to drag you out of your lair," Liam said, groaning as he adjusted himself and felt his body ache.

"Try not to move much, you really did yourself some damage," Bea said, touching his arm and then bringing the blanket up over him more, tucking him in a bit before sitting back and sighing, asking, "...why did you do this? I mean, I figured you missed him, but-"

"This doesn't have much to do with him, as it has to do with you," Liam said, surprising her as he added, "I broke you as a person, and I don't deserve to live if I'm going through life damaging others."

"Liam that's ridiculous," Bea said, "Don't believe-"

"Just...don't," Liam said, "I'll make sure to take you off my emergency contact."

And with that, Liam rolled over and went to sleep, leaving Beatrice there to watch and wait. She couldn't help but feel like maybe she wasn't the only one who'd gotten hurt by the fallout of the shows end, and perhaps she'd been focusing on herself a bit too much. Sure, Liam had been the thing that brought it all crashing down in a way, but it also never would've been without him, and she often forgot that.

                                                                                             ***

Michelle set her hammer down and stood up, stretching, taking a puff from her inhaler as she stepped back and admired her work. She smiled, feeling good about her progress, and knew that she was, for the most part, done at this point. As she headed up the stairs and into the bathroom to wash her hands and face off, brushing the sawdust off her clothes, she heard a knock at her front door, and went to answer. As she pulled the door open, she saw Delores standing there.

"Oh, hi," Michelle said, "What are you doing here?"

"Can I come in? I have some things to run by you," Delores asked, and Michelle stepped aside, letting Delores in. Delores set her coat and briefcase down before turning around and adjusting her rings on her hand, smiling the whole time.

"What's up?" Michelle asked, grinning  nervously.

"So," Delores started, "how has working for David been going?"

"It's been, not very challenging, thankfully," Michelle said, "I mostly copy things for him, or do course work correction. He's been very accommodating."

"He's been a friend for many years, so I'm glad to hear he hasn't become a worse person," Delores said, "His cousin was very ill for a long time, so I figured he'd know how to work with someone who was also somewhat disabled."

"Thank you, Delores, I really appreciate it," Michelle said.

"Are you taking any courses outside of that, like we talked about?"

"Um, not currently, no, I've...I've been kind of busy with a personal project," Michelle said, rubbing her arm nervously as she walked around the couch and sat down in the loveseat. Delores shrugged and sat down on the couch, setting her briefcase on her lap and popping the lid open.

"Well, I'm here for a very specific reason," Delores said, "I want you to know that I've found something a bit more interesting than just being David's gofer. There's a startup company interested in original streaming content for families and children. You said you wanted to work in entertainment, didn't you?"

"I...did, yes," Michelle said, surprised Delores remembered this.

"Well," Delores said, pulling a manila folder out and unclasping it, sliding out some papers and handing them across to Michelle, adding, "these are their applications, and with my help, they'll absolutely take you. All we have to do is make sure we get it in before they open up to a more public crowd."

"How did you find out about this?" Michelle asked, taking the papers and flipping through them.

"A friend I know who works in entertainment is part of it, her mother is anyway, and she's helping her mother get it off the ground seeing as she's the more tech savvy of the two. When she told me about it, I immediately knew it'd be perfect for you."

Michelle was surprised at Delores's kindness. She'd always been helpful, but between David's part time assistant gig and now this, she was going somewhat above and beyond as an unemployment social worked, for some reason Michelle couldn't even begin to fathom. Sitting there flipping through the papers, she couldn't help but take note of the letterhead at the top, noting the company name: CLEAN. This name struck her as somewhat...straight forward, but Delores had said they were invested in bringing family entertainment and content to children, so it did make some sense.

"Delores, this is...this is a bit overwhelming, but I'm definitely interested," Michelle said, "Could we maybe meet at your office this-"

"Forget my office, meet me at Gayle's, you know that small coffee shop near the office, and we'll plow through these together this weekend, okay? But no later, because as soon as this offer opens up to a more public job searching group, you're not going to have time."

"I understand," Michelle said, smiling, "Thanks, Delores."

"You feeling okay, sweetheart?" Delores asked as she packed her things back up and, clicking the locks back shut on her briefcase, looked at Michelle concernedly, adding, "How's your breathing?"

"I'm okay, Delores, it's just been a...a very strange week, hah. I just need some time to recuperate and relax," Michelle said, "My breathing's been fine. I've just been finishing a personal project and it's taken a lot out of me, physically. I just...I'm not mentally there enough right now to focus on this."

"Completely understandable," Delores said, standing up and heading to the door, putting her hand on Michelle's shoulder, smiling as she said, "...you take care of yourself Puffin, we'll get this done this weekend."

Michelle rose from the couch and followed Delores to the front door, an eyebrow arched, a smirk playing on her lips.

"Puffin?" she asked, "That's an odd term of endearment."

"It's because your hair is so black but the rest of you is so pale, except your eyes. So vibrant, so full of life. You really smash the ridiculous idea that sick people aren't capable of anything," Delores said, standing on the porch and looking at her address plates, picking at them, "These should be replaced, you really shouldn't let them get so worn out."

"Okay, I'll make sure to put it on the list," Michelle said.

The women hugged, and Michelle watched Delores head to her car. As she watched her drive away, Michelle couldn't help but feel like she had an adult in her life who really genuinely cared about her, and now it was time to show an adult she really cared about them. It was time to show Beatrice the basement.

                                                                                              ***

"You sure you don't want to do something?" Lexi asked, pulling her backpack straps up around her shoulders as she and Keagan stood out in the back of the restaurant while Keagan smoked a joint, but Keagan just shook her head.

"Nah, I'll be okay, I have to run some errands anyway," Keagan said, walking Lexi to her car. Lexi pushed her long, perfectly bleach blonde hair back behind her ear and smiling as she looked at the ground in front of them as they walked.

"You know," Lexi said, "You could come over after your errands. Lord knows I got nothing but time."

"Shouldn't you be studying?" Keagan asked, and Lexi shrugged.

"Eh, I'll do it on the weekend," Lexi said, stopping at her car, hand on the roof, her piercing green eyes looking at Keagan, "Come over. I'll order something totally awful in to eat and we'll just hang out. It'll be nice."

"Aren't your mom and sister-"

"She took my sister to another town for the weekend for a Lacrosse game, she's going to root from the stands, which will surely embarrass my sister which is great, because frankly she could stand being taken down a peg," Lexi said, making Keagan laugh.

"So I see, you're all alone and you're creeped out, so you don't want to be alone?" Keagan asked, squeezing the tip of the joint to save it for later before stuffing it in her back pocket of her jeans.

"Puh-lease, I don't get scared. I watch horror movies for fun," Lexi said, "I just thought it'd be cool to do something."

Keagan was rarely invited places by other girls she had been friends with, and to be friends with Lexi often surprised others when they found out that the rather perfect aryan girl with her beautiful alabaster skin and her perfect bright eyes and her perfect blonde hair was friends with the frizzy haired black girl, but Lexi was nothing if not racist. Lexi opened her car door and tossed her backpack on the passenger seat, then leaned on the door, her arms crossed on the top as she rested her chin on her arms and smiled.

"I guess I could come over," Keagan said, "I just need to run a few errands first."

"Great!" Lexi said, "I'll see you soon!"

Lexi got in her car and backed out of the lot, pulling away and honking at Keagan, who headed back inside to clear out her timecard, lock the place up and head to do her errands before going to Lexi's. Keagan first stopped at a drug store and picked up some toothpaste and mouthwash, along with a few packs of tooth whitening gum before heading to a bookstore to return something. She then finally headed to Lexi's. Having never seen the place before, she was humbled by the quaint apartment complex Lexi and her family had been made to move into after losing all their assets, and she parked in the guest parking before heading to the apartment she knew was Lexi's. As she knocked, she could hear Lexi tell her to come in, so she did, only to find the place completely dimmed and only lit by candles.

Keagan stepped inside and shut the door quietly behind her, confused. Was the power out? Nah, couldn't be, because she'd seen the lights on in neighboring apartments. Could they not afford their power bill? As she put her bookbag down and looked around, she couldn't help but feel confused, until she noticed a fire was lit in the faux fireplace, and then Lexi stepped out from the kitchen in a silk bathrobe. Keagan stopped and looked at her, still confused.

"What's going on?" Keagan asked, "Are we gonna hold a satanic ritual?"

"God, if only," Lexi said, approaching Keagan, "No, I just wanted things to be perfect."

"What?" Keagan asked, backing up until Lexi had her pinned against a wall, smiling at her.

Lexi reached up and touched Keagan's face, then ran her soft fingers down to her chin and lifted her face gently, before pressing her own lips against Keagan's, taking her completely by surprise. Keagan didn't fight it, she was much too shocked to fight it, but after the kiss ended, she was still standing there in complete shock.

"Uh..." Keagan said, "Um, what...what is this?"

"What does it seem like?" Lexi asked.

"Seriously?" Keagan asked.

"Are you not-"

"No, I mean, I don't know," Keagan said, "I never...I never really thought about it, I guess, but I...uh..."

"I'm sorry, I just assumed that..."

An awkward quiet fell over the room, and both girls looked at the floor, avoiding shame. Lexi finally walked around to the couch and buried her face in her hands, crying. Keagan finally stirred enough to follow her and sit beside her.

"God, I always do this," Lexi said, "I always meet someone, and then I just...I assume they're like me, and they never are and then I never hear from them again. I've had to change jobs so many times since dad went under because of making this mistake. Heterosexual people, they never have to assume, they just usually ARE correct in their assumptions. But me? God forbid I think someone might be like me."

"I...I didn't even know you were-"

"What? A lesbian?" Lexi asked.

"I just...you're so...perfect, I just assumed you were straight."

"Yeah, you'd be surprised how many guys say the same thing. That's the problem with being a femme queer; they think to be a woman who likes women you have to be this...this weird butch woman who wears combat boots and looks like she lost a fight to a pair of scissors."

Keagan chuckled, which made Lexi smile a little, as she sniffled and wiped her nose on the arm of her silk robe.

"Please don't cry," Keagan said, "I don't want your eye makeup to run, it's not a great look."

"How can I not cry? Look at my life, Keagan, look at the mess that it is," Lexi said.

"I...I know, but I just...your life isn't the only one that's a mess. You should see this friend of mine I'm working on something with," Keagan said, "She's not much better. Nobody our age is doing much better, to be quite honest. Besides, I never said...I wasn't..."

Lexi looked at Keagan, who looked at her hands in her lap.

"I just...I guess I never really thought about it, honestly," Keagan said, "And, like, especially with you, because you're so pretty, how could you like me of all people."

"Don't say that about yourself," Lexi said, "You're the one who's beautiful."

Keagan smiled and looked at Lexi, who reached forward and pushed some of Keagan's hair back, running her hands through it. Keagan shut her eyes and enjoyed this feeling, sighing softly. Lexi edged closer and took Keagan's hand in her free hand, gripping it softly before pressing her lips against Keagan's neck, making Keagan gasp a little.

"Stay here," Lexi whispered, "Just stay with me."

"Well how can I say no really," Keagan said, falling back on the couch as Lexi crawled over her and pinned her wrists over her head to the arms of the couch, chuckling, "Just...don't take it personally if I freeze up, I'm kind of new to this."

"I understand," Lexi said, "Just let me take care of you."

And she did, and she didn't regret it.

                                                                                             ***

Beatrice was exiting her apartment complex, heading out to her car when she heard a car door shut and looked up to see Michelle crossing the street, dragging her wheeling oxygen tank behind her, the tubes from it attached to a mask around her face. Bea stopped and looked at her as she struggled to pull the oxygen tank up onto the curb.

"Miss Burden," Michelle said, "I hope this isn't weird."

"Not any weirder than showing up before," Bea said, smiling slightly, "What can I do for your Miss Helm?"

"I really need to show you something," Michelle said, "Please come with me to see my basement."

"Hah! Uh, forgive me if I'm a tad hesitant to take a near total stranger up on that offer," Bea said, opening her car door before turning back to look at Michelle again, "...Miss Helm, I have some things to do today, would this take long?"

"No, I promise it'll only take a few minutes, but I've spent the last year working on it, and I need to show you," Michelle said.

This piqued Bea's interest.

A half hour drive later they were heading inside Michelle's rented house, with Bea helping her get her oxygen tank up over the porch and over the door threshold, back into the house. From there she followed Michelle to the basement door, which Michelle opened and, after disconnecting the tank and taking a few puffs from her inhaler, began heading down. Beatrice exhaled, shook her head and followed her, unsure what it was exactly she was walking into. As she descended into the dark basement, she could hear Michelle moving, but she couldn't see a blessed thing. Only after Michelle turned the lights on, and her eyes finally adjusted, did Bea raise her hands to her face in shock at what she was looking at.

"Oh my...god," Beatrice said, stepping off the last few steps and further into the basement, "You...built this?"

Michelle nodded, grinning from ear to ear. Beatrice was staring at what boiled down to essentially the main set of her show, recreated in perfect replication down to the very last detail. She walked past all the things Michelle had built, like the small gazebo and the fake plants she'd bought and installed, running her hands over the wooden textures.

"This is..." Beatrice started, then finished, "...insane."

"Wh...what?" Michelle asked, her smile faltering.

"This is insane," Beatrice said, turning back to face her, "Why would you do this?"

"Be...because, because growing up this was the place that felt the most like home to me," Michelle said, "Aside from the hospital, which no child should feel is a home, and my home certainly wasn't a home, but your show...your world, your home...that's the place that gave me that feeling of warmth that a home should give a child. I know it was just a set, but it...it felt real to me."

"...I just...I can't..." Bea said, struggling to find words as her head whipped around at this fever dream of a creation, "...why did you bring me here?"

"Because...because people took it away from you, and I wanted to give it back," Michelle said, "because you, of all people, didn't deserve to have your home ripped from you the way it was. I know it isn't exact, I know it isn't the same, but I did my best to make it like it was, and...and after finding you, I just wanted to show you what you really meant to the world."

Bea looked around again, her breath caught in her chest until she finally looked back at Michelle and started weeping, falling to her knees. This surprised Michelle, who knelt and put her arms around Bea, who pushed her head against Michelle and sobbed.

"Thank you," Bea said, "Thank you, thank you."

"Of course," Michelle replied, "Thank you for giving it to us in the first place. I see now what kind of beauty can come from a place built by multiple people. That's what a real home should be. Nobody should ever feel they don't have a home. Especially a dog."

She wasn't sure how long they stayed there like that, but Michelle was willing to give Beatrice all the time she needed to accept this act of kindness. After all she'd given Michelle - even without knowing it - Michelle had finally repaid the debt.

And she was right, after all.

No dog should be homeless.

The doorbell rang, and Bea sighed, pulling her soaped up arms out of her sink. She wiped them off on the hand towel hanging off the stove and then walked across the loft to the door to answer it. As she tugged the door open, time seemed to slow down, but not for Beatrice, only for the people on the other side of it. This was a moment they'd been dreaming of, and now here it was. Bea smiled at them politely and looked between the two young women.

"Can I help you?" she asked, her voice high, feminine and somewhat nasally.

"My name is Michelle," Michelle said, "and this is Keagan. We're your biggest fans."

This was not the way Beatrice wanted to end her day.

                                                                                             ***

"Hello, please, do come in!" Leslie said, ushering Michelle and Keagan into her office before heading around to the back of her desk and seating herself again. She waited for the girls to sit down before speaking again, polite as she'd always been in her career. She had to be, this was public access after all, and she needed the community to like her, and thusly, like her network. After they'd sat down, she smiled and pushed a bowl on her desk towards them, asking, "Candy?"

"No thank you, I'm diabetic," Keagan said, and Michelle looked at her.

"You never told me that," she said.

"It never came up," Keagan replied, shrugging.

"No bother, just an offer," Leslie said, pulling the bowl back, "So...I guess I should state the obvious right away...you're looking for Beatrice, right?"

"Yes," Michelle said, "I've been searching for her, or anything related to her for years. She has virtually no web presence."

"Not surprising. She paid some people to wipe most of everything they could from the internet about her," Leslie said, surprising them; she leaned back and propped her feet up on the desk, feeling comfortable with these young women before continuing, adding, "You're not the first ones to come looking for her, obviously. A few stragglers have come in over the years, but once they hit so many dead ends, they knew to give it up. It isn't even that she would've been hard to find, it's more that she didn't want to be found, and actively worked towards erasing any trace of herself - and thusly the show - from every plane of existence."

"Why did she-" Keagan started, but Leslie shook her head.

"I really have no concrete reason. I know the business with the pizzeria didn't make her happy, and I know that she really disliked the man who ran the place when that deal was put into place. She blamed Liam for all of that, and the two drifted apart as he took over the more business aspect of the whole thing. She saw him as grifting her creativity, shilling out her pain for cash."

"That had to hurt," Michelle said.

"It hurt her tremendously," Leslie said, "and once the whole shebang fell apart, Bea did her best to erase the entirety of it. She pulled all the tapes so it couldn't be rerun, she bought out all remaining merchandise - including the stuff from the pizzeria - so it couldn't circulate and she packed everything away in a storage unit. She cut ties with everyone, except me, which she sends me holiday cards and came to my baby shower."

"That's nice of her to stay in touch," Michelle said and Leslie nodded, smiling sweetly.

"I think she saw how much I respected her love of the work itself, far more than her love of the money it brought her," Leslie said, "I admired her morals on the capitalistic bullshit that came with selling your art, especially when your art is so deeply entwined with your personal feelings and isn't just something you're trying to deliberately make money off of. She appreciated that."

"She sounds so...very disciplined," Keagan said.

"She is, which is why it isn't unusual for people to come in searching for her," Leslie said, "She inspired a lot of young artists with her beliefs once they found out about them, and that's why they want to seek her out. I just assumed that's why you two are here."

"We're not artists," Keagan said, "I'm just interested in lost media."

"Ah, and you?" Leslie asked, turning to Michelle.

A hush fell over the room as Michelle debated opening up, and really explaining her complex emotions tied to Beatrice, a woman she's never met, and the beagle she represented. She took a few deep breaths, batted her eyes a few times, pulled her inhaler out and took a few puffs before exhaling again and began speaking, her nails tapping on the old oak arm of the chair.

"I almost died as a little girl," Michelle said, "I was in and out of the hospital a lot, and my parents...they fought a lot, and I fell by the wayside. They just...they didn't have the time or energy to expend on me when they could barely deal with their own problems. Because of this, I spent most of my time awake in the hospital, attached to various breathing apparatuses, watching TV, and mostly Beatrice Beagle. She gave me hope, she was always so sunny and bright and...and she made me not feel alone. She made me feel like I was cared for, even if it was by a stranger in a dog costume."

Nobody spoke, but Leslie opened her desk drawer and pulled out a small packet of kleenex, tearing it open and dabbing at her eyes.

"When the show ended, I felt like I lost my only friend in the world. I was so alone. But...but she inspired me to not give up and to always have hope and to always keep going no matter how bad things got. I'm not looking for her for any other reason than to thank her for what she gave me. A will to live."

"I'm going to write something down on this piece of paper," Leslie said, after wiping the tears from her face and composing herself once again, "you aren't going to say how you got it, and you aren't to ask me for anything else. I have never, in all my years of meeting people trying to find her, given anybody this information, but after what you've told me, I don't know how I can't help you."

She finished writing, capped her pen, folded the paper neatly and slid it across the desk. Keagan picked it up and looked at without unfolding it, her lip quivering.

"What...is it?" she asked.

"It's Beatrices address," Leslie said, "and if you see her, if you actually speak to her, please be as candid with her as you were with me. It'll benefit you."

"Why are you giving us this? Doesn't this invade her privacy?" Keagan asked and Leslie leaned back in her chair and smiled, pushing some hair from her eyes.

"Because someone has to tell that woman how wonderful she is," Leslie said, "So maybe she'll finally start believing it."

                                                                                               ***

"...how...how did you find me?" Beatrice asked, still standing tucked halfway behind the opened door, as if she expected them to hurt her in some way for some reason.

"Got lucky," Michelle said, not at all eager to sell Leslie up the creak, "can we come in?"

"...I...I'm not interested in visitors. If you're seeking autographs or something of that nature, I don't-"

"Miss Beagle, please, just let me speak to you," Michelle said as Bea started to shut the door, "You saved my life."

The door stopped closing, and she opened it back up cautiously, peering at the two young, clearly trustworthy women, and then sighed, shook her head and opened the door.

"Come in," she said, "But don't expect much."

The inside of her apartment loft surprised them. Elegant, chic, and yet somehow stuck in the 40s. Soft jazz played from the old record players horn and the artwork on the walls were mostly paintings, though none they recognized whatsoever. She had bookshelves filled to the brim with books on any and everything you could imagine, and her lampshades were beautiful and looked hand crafted. As the girls took a seat on the couch, Bea looked at them, hands on her hips and chewed her lip.

"I suppose I should offer you something to drink," she said.

"You don't have to," Keagan said, "We're okay."

"You have to excuse me, I...I rarely have visitors, especially ones I'm not expecting," Bea said, "In fact I spent a good few years ensuring that would never happen, and yet every once in a while someone still manages to find me. Seems, in this day and age, one can't disappear completely. Anonymity is dead, long live omnipresence."

"Miss..." Michelle started, and Bea smiled as she seated herself across from them on an old stool.

"Burden," she said, "My last name is Burden, but call me Beagle if you so wish."

This made the girls giggle.

"Miss Burden, you're...you're what kept me going. When I was a little girl, I was in the hospital, I suffer from severe bronchitis and COPD, or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. I spent a lot of time attached to breathing apparatuses of one kind or another, and today I still use inhalers and oxygen tanks regularly. But the one thing I did like having in the hospital was you. You were on the TV almost every day, reruns, and then your regular new shows when those aired. My parents didn't visit a lot, and I didn't really have any friends, so you were pretty much all I had, and you kept my spirits up and made me not as scared as I probably would've been."

They watched for any sign in Beatrice's face of how she felt, but nothing came. She was stone faced. This made them feel somewhat uncomfortable, and Keagan and Michelle exchanged a brief nervous glance before Michelle started again.

"When the show ended, I...I felt like I'd lost the only person to ever guide me and teach me anything. I've spent my life following your ideals, your beliefs, or I guess, those of Beatrice Beagles, I guess I should say, because-"

"No, they're my ideals and beliefs. I am Beatrice. We are one. Please do not separate us," Bea said, surprising them as she crossed her legs, "Please, go on."

"I...I mean there's not much else to tell. That was it. I have some old episodes still taped that I've digitized, but I didn't know you worked so hard to erase it all. If I'd known that, I would've done the same, if that's what you wanted," Michelle said, "I didn't know how badly you wanted to vanish."

"I didn't want to vanish," Bea said, surprising them yet again, "The world wanted me to vanish, because I refused to play their game. Liam and his...his stunt with the pizzeria chain, that was a hump we never got over. As time wore on, I didn't feel as much like a person as I did a mascot. I knew, deep down, that to the network, I was there to get kids to ask their parents to take them to the pizzeria, not because I was imparting wisdom to young children who needed to be guided. They robbed me of my integrity by co-opting the most important personality I had and bastardizing it to be nothing more than another corporate excuse for creativity."

"I'm so sorry that happened," Michelle said quietly, pulling her handkerchief from her coat pocket and putting it to her mouth, coughing violently into it.

"So I figured if the world didn't want me the way I was, then I didn't want them to have any part of me," Bea said, continuing, looking her nails, her voice wavering a little, "they don't deserve people who care about their work if they don't respect the work itself. If they didn't want Beatrice Beagle for who she was, she didn't want them either. I try to refrain from using bad language, but really, what the fuck does a dog have to do with pizza anyway? Nobody was ever capable of explaining that to me."

The girls laughed and nodded, which made Beatrice smirk as she continued.

"I have to say, I'm not happy to have visitors, but it is refreshing for it to be for a good reason for once, because it means at least I made it through to one person for what I said, not what I sold," Bea said, "that almost makes it all worthwhile."

Just then she heard the oven beep and excused herself to get up and head into the kitchenette. As they waited, Michelle using her inhaler again, Keagan looked to the side table by the couch they were seated on and noticed the picture of Bea as a young girl and her dog, sharing an ice cream cone. She picked it up tenderly, her mouth slightly agape.

"Look at this," she whispered, pushing it into Michelle's lap, adding, "The dog. That's her. That's the beagle. She made the character after her dog. No wonder it was so personal to her."

"Would you care for some food?" Beatrice asked, coming back in with an oven mitt on one hand, "I made some chicken, if you're interested."

"Was this your dog?" Keagan asked, and Bea didn't respond, but she took the photo and looked at it for a few moments before exhaling and sitting back down.

"That was Beatrice," she said, "Beatrice wasn't my real name. I adopted it as a moniker once she was gone. A testament to the long lasting love a friend such as a dog can give you. I molded and crafted the suit after her, with the help of a friend. It was in memory of her, to keep her spirit alive. That's all I wanted. I'd known her, nobody else had, but everyone deserved to have the same happiness she gave me. That's why I brought her to the world, only to have the world not appreciate her for anything other than her child friendly appearance and ability to market to the young audience."

"I bet there's others out there who appreciated her the way we did," Keagan said.

"Perhaps," Bea said, "But I don't do it anymore. The costume is put away for good. Beatrice is retired. Put down a second time. Do you have any idea what it's like to lose your best friend twice in a lifetime? It destroys a person."

Michelle started crying, not even afraid of what Bea would think.

"...thank you for proving to me that what I did had a purpose, made a difference," Bea said, "because by the end, it really felt like it hadn't."

The girls stayed and had a bite to eat, discussed the legacy of the show a bit more and, when the time to leave came, Beatrice was seemingly enjoying their company and somewhat sad to see them off. As Keagan stood in the hall, pulling her jacket on and Michelle wheezed her way through her handkerchief, Beatrice excused herself momentarily. When she came back to the door, she had a tape in her hand.

"I want you to have this," Bea said, "You need it more than me."

She pushed the tape into Michelle's hands and smiled at them, before saying goodbye and shutting her door. Despite her kindness, and surprising openness, they couldn't help but notice she locked the door once it was shut. Likely force of habit more than anything else, but they couldn't ignore it either way. Keagan dropped Michelle off and then headed to work, leaving Michelle to watch the tape by herself. As she settled into her living room, she popped the tape into the VCR and sat back to see what she'd been given. After a bit of static, and then a title screen with production codes - clearly cut from broadcast but used for the networks cataloguing - passed by, the title screen for the show came on and the intro jingle started.

She watched throughout the entire show, a rather mundane episode about not much in particular, but come the end of the episode, Beatrice did her usual farewell before saying she had some birthdays to read off from children who'd written in. As she read the names and gave sweet little birthday wishes to each and every one, Michelle finally realized why she'd given her this tape in particular.

"And this letter comes from Michelle Helm, and it's her 9th birthday," Beatrice said, "She's written in to say that it would mean the world to her if I would visit her for her birthday, but seeing as I cannot do that, I figure the best I can do is say Happy Birthday, Michelle. You are a beautiful, intelligent young lady and I am happy you exist. I hope you have the best birthday you can have, and realize that every day you're here is a special day."

This finally broke Michelle, and she started crying, but for the first time in a long time, they were tears of joy. Michelle stood up, clutching her Bea doll to her chest, and walked over to the basement door. She opened it, headed down the stairs and pulled the light string, brightening the room. She smiled at her work and knew she was on the right path.

It was a good day.

She'd have to remember to send Leslie Swann a gift basket.

She could hear the paws scratching at the door, and she knew that Beatrice had to go out. So, heaving herself out of bed, still in her cloud covered pajamas, Amelia Burden headed downstairs, Beatrice by her side. Together they raced down the steps to the living room to find her parents sitting in the kitchen - her mother reading the newspaper while her father cooked and made coffee - and Amelia pulled the handle on the sliding glass door leading to the backyard so she and Beatrice could rush out together. Beatrice did her business while Amelia sat on the picnic table benchseat and let the morning sun warm her. It was another beautiful summer day out here, and she had nothing expected of her except to enjoy it.

As Amelia and Beatrice came back in, she took a seat at the table and Beatrice sat right beside her on the floor. Her mother, Gloria, set the paper down and smiled at Amelia as her father, Gordon, came and poured more coffee into Gloria's mug before heading back to the stove to work on his eggs. Gloria sipped her coffee carefully before looking back at Amelia.

"Any plans?" she asked, and Amelia nodded.

"I think we're gonna go down to the library and get some books," Amelia said.

"They let Bea into the library?" Gordon asked, and Amelia nodded.

"They don't mind, they love her down there," she said, smiling happily at the dog lying on the floor beside her feet. After breakfast, Amelia pulled on her overalls and her clogs and, Bea by her side, headed down to the small local library. Beatrice never wore a leash, she never had to, as Amelia knew she never wandered far from her side. Beatrice was an extremely well behaved dog. Entering the library, the librarian behind the desk smiled and waved at them as the usual guests they were, and then they set upon finding books. Amelia got a mystery book, always a fan of mysteries, and then a whole slew of books on the arts, be it dance, acting or painting. Amelia had always been drawn to the arts, thanks to her fathers painting work.

Once they were back home, Bea and Amelia holed themselves up in Amelia's bedroom on the floor and Amelia read through the books one at a time for Bea to follow along with, while she shared her string cheeses with her. It didn't matter that Bea couldn't understand what Amelia was saying, Amelia didn't care, because she had all she wanted in the world; friendship and literature. What more could a little girl ask for, really?

                                                                                             ***

"Miss Burden?" the man asked, still standing there, "Would you like a moment?"

She nodded, wiping at the tears on her face.

                                                                                              ***

Beatrice didn't seem to understand that Amelia wasn't going back to the house with her parents. Standing there in her dorm at the college, her father dropping the last box on the floor, Beatrice looked from one member of the family to the other, head cocked to the side, ears perked slightly up. She whined a little, which caught Amelia's attention, and she knelt down to stroke her head.

"She'll be in good hands," Gloria said, "You know we love her sweetheart, you won't have to worry about her."

"I know, it's just going to be weird not having my best friend here," Amelia said, "Bea's been with me for as long as I can remember. I can't imagine not having her around. That life seems completely inconceivable to me."

Gordon touched Gloria's shoulder and, after they patted Amelia on the back, they left her alone with Beatrice momentarily so she could say goodbye to her best friend. Amelia ran her hands behind Bea's ears and scratched lightly.

"This isn't goodbye, I'm going to come home for the holidays and stuff and see you and mom and dad," Amelia said, "But I have to do this in order to be an adult, I hope you understand and don't forever hate me for it. You know I love you Beatrice, you know you're the best dog and greatest friend anyone could ever ask for."

Beatrice barked and wagged her tail, making Amelia throw her arms around the dog, squeezing a bit, fighting back the tears. She promised she'd see her again, and she kept true to that promise. A year later, during summer break, Amelia came home and as she got out of her car and headed up the walkway, she could see Beatrice standing on the couch against the front window, yapping excitedly, so happy to see Amelia come home, even if only for a bit.

That summer was great fun, as Amelia and Bea fell right back into the same relationship they'd had since they were young girl and pup respectively. Running in the fields surrounding the house, exploring and playing fetch, lounging inside when it rained and listening to old jazz records, and Amelia always sneaking Bea an extra little treat here and there. Their friendship was a testament to the truth that distance, nor time, could destroy a connection as deep as theirs.

                                                                                               ***

Amelia entered the small room, its counters littered with metallic surgical instruments and the stench of less. She shut the door softly behind her and then looked at the slab table in front of her, centered in the middle of the room, completely unsure of what to even say.

How does one say goodbye to someone they aren't ready to lose?

                                                                                                ***

Amelia would've preferred literally any other kind of news to the kind she had received that Sunday morning. Drinking her tea and reading a book on bird watching, her landline rang only once before she scrambled to answer it, expecting a callback from a local theatre she'd auditioned for earlier that week. But it wasn't the man she'd auditioned for, no, it was her mother, and her voice was shaky. Immediately, without her mother even saying the news, Amelia knew something was wrong.

And as soon as the words left Gloria's lips, Amelia crumpled to the floor and curled into a ball of weeping pain and writhing grief. She immediately told her professors she had to go home for an emergency in the family, packed her car that afternoon and was on the road in no time. When she arrived, Bea was lying in Amelia's bed, but wasn't out of it enough to keep her tail from wagging like crazy upon seeing her. Amelia knew she didn't have much time, and that this was something she herself was going to have to do, so after spending an hour or so with her in her childhood bedroom, she loaded Beatrice up in the car and headed off to the vet.

She knew Beatrice wouldn't be coming back.

It had spread so rapidly, and Bea was full of tumors. There was nothing that could be done except put her to sleep, to end her suffering. But now, standing in this small sterile room, seeing her best and oldest friend lying on a table preparing to, likely unknowingly, face oblivion, Amelia couldn't conjure anything to say. She couldn't muster any words in her throat, and instead, she just stood there and held her paw. The doctor came back in, before realizing he'd left the shot in the other room and excused himself to go get it, giving Amelia one last chance to say something to Bea. She reached up with her other hand and stroked between the dogs eyes gently, forcing herself to smile.

"You're okay," Amelia whispered, "You're okay. You aren't alone. I wouldn't let you be alone, you never let me be alone."

And before she knew it, Beatrice was gone. Amelia went to the local courthouse the following week and legally changed her name to Beatrice, before going back and finishing college, majoring in theatre. Though she lacked most of the resolve to really try, and none of her auditions ever lead anywhere. After a while, Bea simply gave up and instead attempted her hand at writing, which didn't really go anywhere either. And then, a year after her dogs death, she had an idea. She set about going to the library, as she had as a child, and taking it upon herself to learn sewing and costume design. Within a few months, she had the suit and the head made, and the very first time she put it on, standing and looking at herself in the mirror, she finally knew what she was meant to do.

                                                                                                 ***

"I have to be honest with you," the station manager said, "I don't understand the appeal."

"That's because you're not 5," Liam said, "Trust me, this is the next big thing. Beatrice is determined to make this thing work."

"...how about we make a deal?" the station manager said, leaning forward and cupping his hands on the desk, "I am a part owner in a local chain pizzeria, and it doesn't really have proper theming. We want to really make it a bigger place, make a mark with it, so how about you let us use the characters you have to do that, and you get to make your show?"

Liam looked at Bea, who glared at him, and bit his lip. He thought momentarily before turning back to face the station manager and asked if they could have a few moments. He happily obliged, and left the two alone in the room. Bea crossed her arms and looked away as Liam stood up and paced.

"Look, as long as we aren't outright promoting it on the show, it shouldn't matter much, right? As long as we aren't blatant advertising, then-"

"It doesn't have to be blatant to be wrong," Bea said, "This is an incredibly personal creation, and you're willing to shell it out to a pizzeria for a shot at fame on a puppet show. You can't even begin to imagine what the character of Beatrice means to me."

"Bea, she's a dog," Liam said, "She's not even real. You made her up."

Bea didn't respond to this. Liam didn't know the origin, he didn't even know how intertwined the character of Beatrice had become to the newly minted Beatrice herself, and perhaps if she'd spoken about this in depth, Liam would've understood, and he wouldn't have somehow cajoled her into going along with the station managers plan. Maybe if she'd dug out the photo albums, brimming with imagery of young Bea and her namesake pup, Liam would get it. Maybe if she'd spoken, he would've listened. But she didn't, and he didn't, and the whole thing went off anyway.

As time went on, Beatrice grew to dislike what the creation represented, because in the back of her mind - despite her original intentions with the creation of the character to sift through her own life and help kids grow with their own - she couldn't help but remember she was really just there to hawk pizza. This only became more exacerbated when the animatronics were added to the pizzeria, and the whole thing was fused like some sort of horrible manufactured and poorly engineered Frankenstein; this bastardization of what Beatrice was meant to mean made her sick, and before long she loathed putting the head over her own. She wanted nothing but to be as far removed from Beatrice as she could be.

And it was all Liam's fault, at least that's how she saw it, because if there was one thing Beatrice was never good at, it was taking blame for things.

And 13 years after Liam met Bea in that alley after the show, Bea pulled the plug on the whole thing, and the pizzeria collapsed simply because of changing tastes in family entertainment for the decade. Soon enough, nothing existed of Beatrice Beagle, except for the memory it left in the head of one little girl, one little girl Bea never knew existed, named Michelle Helm.

                                                                                               ***

"Are you sure you don't want anything else to drink?" the dark haired, indian woman asked as she stood in Bea's kitchenette and poured a glass of wine.

"No thank you, I don't drink much," Bea replied, "And if you're trying to get me sloshed to get into my pants, rest assured, I'm asexual, so that won't happen."

This made the indian woman laugh, as she brought herself and her drink back to the couch to sit back down. This was their third date, Bea and the womans - whose name was Amad - after having met a few months ago in a crafts store Bea frequented. Bea had dated men and women in the past, but these days she leaned primarily to women when dating, mostly because as Liam had proved, men couldn't be trusted. Amad sipped her wine and smiled at Bea.

"You don't have to worry," Amad said, "I'm certainly not one to pressure anyone into anything, so you have nothing to fear. Honestly, at my age, sex doesn't interest me all that much anymore as it is. I'd much prefer spending time with someone and talking."

Bea smiled a little, feeling happy Amad understood and respected her.

"I love your apartment, it's so...old fashioned," Amad said, "Record player, oil paintings, the stained glass lamps."

"Those are Tiffany's," Bea said, "They came from my father. He's big into class."

"Well, he has good taste then," Amad said, "It's nice to see things people consider relics still be considered important. It's nice to know that the old things are never really gone, it makes you feel like perhaps immortality isn't impossible on some basic conceptual level."

"I've always believed in immortality, or at least certain ideas surrounding it," Bea said, turning to Amad, continuing she added, "Like...like how if you really love something, you'll always remember it, and therefore it can never really die, because if it can't be forgotten, it won't fade away. It'll always live on in some way through you, vicariously."

"I like that, that's beautiful," Amad said, "What is your stance on something like reincarnation?"

"I don't rule it out, and for those who hope it's real I hope it is for their sake, but I certainly wouldn't want to personally have it happen to me," Bea said, "I've had enough suffering for one life, and not nearly enough love."

This made Amad said, and she set her wine glass on the coffee table before running her fingertips on Bea's face and smiled at her, their eyes locking.

"I can fix that for you," Amad said, leaning in to kiss her. Beatrice didn't stop her. While they kissed, she heard her answering machine pick up, and it was Liam once again. Bea tried to block it out, but halfway through, she interrupted the kiss and unplugged the phone before coming back to the couch and continuing the romance.

                                                                                           ***

Liam hung up the phone slowly, trying to not take it personally. She'd always been a rather private person, and he knew he'd been dumb to even try and call her. Instead, he stood up, straightened his tie and walked into his bathroom. Liam opened his medicine cabinet, pulled out his prescribed sleeping pills and went into the bedroom where he sat on the bed and, after a few minutes of trying hard to untwist the cap, finally opened the bottle and - with a glass of water - downed the whole thing. He then laid down on the bed and shut his eyes, folding his hands on his chest. He couldn't help but think of Bea, and all the things he wish he could've said to her before he'd leave this world, but it didn't matter now. He'd be gone soon.

He felt something roll down into the center of the bed and push against his hip, and he smiled. It was Marvin's urn.

At least he didn't have to go alone.

"I like your hair," Michelle said, making Keagan smile as she ran her hands through her hair.

"Thanks, it's one of my better assets, quite frankly," Keagan said, going back to stirring her coffee with her stirrer as Michelle pushed her fork into her salad and dug around for a bite. Neither one spoke again for a few moments, but finally Keagan took a sip from her cup and then looked at Michelle.

"This is weird, isn't it?" she asked, and Michelle nodded, pushing lettuce attempting to escape back into her mouth.

"It's very weird," she replied, chewing.

"How did you, I mean if you don't mind me asking, get those episodes you showed me?" Keagan asked, and Michelle finished eating, then sighed, pushing her salad bowl away.

"I recorded them on VHS back when I had the chance. I wish I had more, but I only managed to get a handful of them," Michelle said, "Sometimes, if I was too sick to see it that day, I'd have a nurse in the hospital record it for me so I could watch it when I woke up."

"Hospital?" Keagan asked.

"I was in the hospital a lot as a kid," Michelle said, "I have serious bronchitis and lung problems. I have an oxygen tank at home that I use fairly regularly, and I can't do much without getting too winded, or it could make me faint."

"Jeez, I'm so sorry."

"It's just part of my life, you know how it is, you get used to things," Michelle replied, looking out the window they were sitting by and smiling as she added, "But having the show made everything seem alright. Made everything seem like....like I would be okay, because I always had someone there for me even if my parents weren't. Beatrice was always there, always ready to teach me something new."

"People become extremely attached to media in ways that don't make sense," Keagan said, "at least not to others, and I think it's beautiful that we manage to connect to fictional things so deeply. In fact, I seem to be able to connect to fictional characters far better than real people these days, it feels like."

"You think it says something about the human brain?" Michelle asked.

"I think it says that we're so very desperate to be understood that we cling to even the smallest examples of fake people understanding us, that we can relate to. So many people aren't understood by the people they so deeply wish they were understood by, that when we find a fictional character who seems to 'get us', we feel lucky. We feel as if they were made just for us, you know?"

"I know."

The girls stopped and Michelle pulled her bowl back to her, continuing to eat her salad as Keagan sipped on her coffee. They'd agreed to meet here at this little bistro downtown, to finally maybe formulate a plan on how to find Beatrice using the knowledge that they had accrued, but most of the conversation thus far had been primarily about their own connections to the show, to Bea, and to media in general. Keagan told Michelle all about her love for lost media, and her quest to unearth as much of it as she could, and Michelle told Keagan all about her adoration for Beatrice and why she was so very determined to track her down.

"So," Keagan asked, "How do you propose we go about this?"

                                                                                                   ***

"Thank you for shopping with us, have a nice day," the young checkout woman said as she dropped the change into the older womans hands. The older woman, dressed in a very long raincoat and a scarf, her blonde hair tucked neatly into a dark blue beanie, took her change and grabbed her bags before heading out to the parking lot. She put her things into the trunk of her car, got in and started the engine, then began backing out when she noticed she'd almost hit a woman - completely oblivious to her surroundings due to walking while looking at her cell phone - and her young child. The woman immediately began approaching her window, shouting.

"Don't you ever look where you're driving?!" she yelled, rapping her knuckles on the window of the car, "You could've easily killed us! You should be more aware of your surroundings when you're in a vehicle!"

She couldn't take it. She started slamming her fists into her steering wheel and screaming, looking the woman right in her face through the window.

"Leave me the fuck alone!" she shouted, loud enough for passerbys to hear. This seemed to work well enough, as the woman and her child quickly turned heel and rushed away. She collected herself, backed out of the parking lot, and headed towards her next errand.

                                                                                                 ***

"Liam told me he'd met her at a show she did downtown. Perhaps she still frequents local theatre," Keagan said, "We could just go down there and see."

"How would we know? She wore a costume," Michelle said, "We never saw what her face looked like. Unless he's got a photo he's willing to lend you, I don't think that's going to do the trick."

"Oh...yeah, you're right. Dammit," Keagan stirred her coffee again and thought, chewing on her lip, "How about...well, no, I don't want to bother him anymore than we already have."

"Sounded like the poor guy's been through the ringer lately, so that's probably the right choice," Michelle replied, before adding, "...damn, how do you find someone who doesn't want to be found?"

"Wait, you have those episodes recorded right? In the end credits of shows, they always say where they're filmed at, what sound stage, what studio. Maybe we freeze frame it, figure out where they shot it and then go there for more information?"

"That's...not a bad idea, actually," Michelle said, "We could go back to my place and I could load it up so we can screenshot it."

A plan now coming together, the girls seemed happy, and it felt like things were starting to look up.

                                                                                                   ***

"I'm sorry, we don't know where it is," the drycleaner said, "It's...it's somewhere in here, but we can't find it at the moment. I know this is probably extremely upsetting, but please just be patient and I'll call you immediately when we find it."

"How do you lose clothes?! Your entire business is based around clothing!" the woman shouted, clearly agitated as she rubbed her hands against her face, "Okay, okay, I'm sorry. It's a mistake, I know you didn't mean it."

"We really don't, you've been coming here for years, you know we rarely have mistakes like this," the drycleaner said, "Tell you what, next cleaning is on the house, okay? Does that sweeten the deal?"

"It does ease the pain a little, yes," she replied, smiling for the first time that day, "Alright Gino, just...please find it. It was very important to me."

She stumbled back through the door, hearing the little bell ring overhead, and stopped on the sidewalk as a couple walked by with a large dog on a leash. The dog stopped and tried to smell her hands, then licked them gently. She smiled at this, then looked up at the couple.

"He seems very sweet," she said, "What's his name?"

"Corky," the woman holding the leash said, "He's usually scared of strangers, I'm surprised to see him act like this."

"Dogs have always liked me," the woman said, "I used to have a dog myself, so he probably can sense that. They can sense a lot of things people can't. That's why when you see footage of haunted houses with pets in them, they can always see the ghosts, they stare at the walls, because they can see things we can't. They're brilliant, loving animals."

She knelt down and stroked Corky's face, scruffing his ears a bit and smiling at him.

"You're a good boy, Corky," she said, "Thank you for the kisses."

After the couple led Corky away, she got back into her car and, fighting back tears, started up again to head on home. Her day was done, and it was time to relax, destress and have something to eat.

                                                                                                 ***

"Leslie Swann Studios," Keagan read, squinting her eyes as she leaned as close to the television as she could, "Jesus it's in such small print and it's such an old recording, it was kind of hard to make out but that's what it says. Goddamn my eyes hurt now."

"Leslie Swann Studios?" Michelle asked, quickly typing away into her browser and hitting 'search'; she scrolled a bit before finding something, "here we go, Leslie Swann Studios, downtown, here's the address right here. Public Access Television, she's the current owner and president, we could easily make an appointment to speak to her."

"Really? That's an option?"

"Well it says studio tour, but I'm sure if I asked to speak to her specifically I could finagle that," Michelle said, opening her e-mail and copy/pasting Leslie's address into the to field, before looking up at Keagan and asking, "...do we really wanna do this? What if all she wants is to be left alone?"

"That coming from you?"

"I know, it's weird, but...I want to meet her more than anyone else, but what if we're violating her space? Didn't Liam say she was, like, heartbroken over losing control of her lifes work and how it'd been treated? What if she just doesn't want to see anyone ever?"

"Well, she should've thought of that before she became a public icon," Keagan said, "Once you're in that line of work you basically forfeit all rights to privacy."

Keagan sat on the couch beside Michelle, and together they cobbled together a little e-mail to Leslie Swann. After they hit send, they got some Chinese food delivered and spent the evening just watching television and eating, waiting for a response. Finally, right as Keagan was getting her jacket on the head to work, a response blipped into Michelle's inbox.

"She says to come down tomorrow," Michelle said, "3pm."

"Well then let's get this party started," Keagan said, grinning.

The hunt was on.

                                                                                               ***

The door to her apartment opened, and the woman entered, dropping her grocery bags on her counter before heading into the living room to take off her coat and scarf. She hung them up neatly on the rack against the wall and then headed back to the kitchen to put her groceries away when she heard something fall. She turned to see a framed photo on the ground. She sighed and walked over, picking it up, reminding herself internally to get a new frame. This had been happening for months because the standee on the back had been broken for ages, and it wobbled, constantly falling off the table.

She held the photo in her hands and she smiled. There she was, younger and vibrant, her dog sitting right there by her side, the two of them licking a Vanilla ice cream cone. Her absolute favorite photo of her now deceased dog. She sat on the couch and continued looking at the photo, and ran her fingertips down the glass in the frame. The dog had been gone for a number of years by this point, she was used to the loneliness, but she still missed her incredibly so. But despite being deceased, the dog had lived on. After all, she'd modeled the costume after her.

The phone rang and voicemail picked it up. Liam spoke.

"Bea, it's Liam. Um, thank you for your message, it's....been hard lately, for me, and now that he's gone, I...I guess I just wanted to hear a familiar voice. Anyway, you don't have to call me if you don't want to, but I'd sure like to hear from you. I miss you. Everyone does. Bye."

Beatrice looked back at the photo and shook her head, pulling the frame to her chest and starting to cry. She'd never really dealt with loss well, and her grief had, over time, eaten up the majority of what was left inside of her emotionally. She just couldn't handle it anymore. Where had all the years gone? Where had her creativity died? Where had her drive diminished to? She no longer wanted to do anything, but doing nothing was also just as equally bad. She felt stuck. Bea stood up and placed the photo on the table again, then went back to the kitchen to start cooking dinner.

That night she had a nice dream, though. She dreamt she and her dog were together again, playing in a field, the field near her house where she'd grown up, and she was a little girl once more. God how she longed to feel her fingers running through that dogs fur, feel the warmth of its body pressed against hers as they slept in front of the fireplace during the winter, hear its bark when she came home from school every day. God how she missed that dog.

God how she missed Beatrice Beagle.

The sound of the dial clicking as she rolled through the channels, flipping past each one until finally landing on the one she was searching for, that was a sound she carried with her throughout the rest of her life. Even after getting home from the hospital, she tuned into the new episodes of Beatrice Beagle every Saturday morning, like clockwork. She'd hold her stuffed Beatrice that she'd gotten at the pizzeria gift shop, and she'd laugh and smile and sing along with the characters who had kept her company lo those many lonesome months in her hospital room as she struggled to breath properly. Her oxygen tank beside her, her tubes in her nose, Michelle couldn't be happier every Saturday morning than she was, and it was good too, because the brightness and the songs distracted from the screaming that went on behind her.

God, when had things gotten to be this way? When had things gotten to be that television was the only form of escape for little Michelle? All she knew was she was grateful for it. Beatrice was the doting mother she wished she could have, even if she only knew her and could feel her love emanating from the screen of a television once a week (or daily in reruns). Beatrice's warms words of wisdom became pieces of advice to live by, things that Michelle followed to a hilt in her day to day life, even as a little girl. She didn't have much choice, it wasn't as if her parents were going to give her anything like that. Sometimes Michelle would throw a big blanket over the television and herself, to try and keep the sounds of screaming and crying from creeping into the perfected puppet world she was immersed in. It only worked to a certain extent, and Beatrice's show only lasted a finite amount of time for each episode, after which the credits rolled and Michelle was once again thrust back into the world of familial misery.

But Beatrice...god how Beatrice saved her life, even moreso than the oxygen tank.

                                                                                                  ***

The closest Michelle ever got to meeting Beatrice was the animatronics at the pizzeria.

Oh sure, they had people in full character costumes walking around, but they weren't Beatrice, even Michelle knew this, because despite looking like her, they didn't sound like her. Beatrice was nothing without her soft wilting voice, and this was the key difference. But on the stage? During the showtimes? That was Beatrice, visually and audio wise. The thing about the people from Beatrice Beagle is they never did shows. They never ever did live performances. They never even did public appearances, so this was the only way Michelle could ever manage to get even remotely close to meeting her hero, and she took it in stride.

One night, while the pizzeria was preparing to close down and her parents were, likely, arguing in another part of the restaurant, Michelle snuck backstage during the downtime for the animatronics, and as she stood gazing up at this enormous robotic Beatrice, she couldn't help but feel safer than she ever had in her entire life. Michelle threw her arms around it and squeezed it tight, crying against its fur, wishing she could just stay here.

The plush doll she took home was a nice substitute, but nothing ever matched the animatronics, and that's why, ever since those days, Michelle had spent countless hours scouring the internet for any information on them. Often times things like these come up at auction, but she never once ran across any of them, and it broke her heart. All she wanted was a Beatrice all her own, a guard dog for her heart.

                                                                                                    ***

Sitting on her couch, her mask tightly on her face, Michelle continued searching for the animatronics online. This was her day off, and she'd spent most of it right there on the couch since it was raining outside. She didn't feel good enough to go downstairs into the basement and work on her project, so instead she was taking it kind of easy. As she clicked through to yet another site selling off pieces from now defunct business - be they theme parks, restaurants or schools - her landline rang. She glanced over her shoulder at it and sighed. She knew exactly who it was, even before the machine picked up.

"Michelle, it's your mother. Call me back when you get this, I'd like to talk to you about something regarding your father, thank you."

The message lasted a measly 15 seconds, and Michelle had absolutely no intention of calling her back tonight, or anytime soon really. The way she saw it, her parents could deal with one another themselves, because she'd already put up with more than enough. She turned her attention back to the webpage loading in front of her and sighed, typing into the search field "Beatrice Beagle".

Nothing, as always, came up.

                                                                                                  ***

The banging had started again.

Curling up under her blanket in her closet, squeezing her plush Beatrice to her chest tightly, Michelle knew that they'd never hit one another or break anything. It was always slamming doors and foot stomping. She hated it, though, the context didn't make it any less horrible to be around. She shut her eyes and cried against Beatrices head, wishing she could be anywhere else, especially at the pizzeria right then. When her father finally left that night, he didn't come back, and from that point on it was only Michelle and her mom. Not that this made things any better, her mother didn't become anymore open with her than she had been before, but at least the fighting stopped. No more screaming was worth the change, and Michelle took it for what it was.

She only saw her father a few times a year after that, and one of those times was for her 11th birthday, when he insisted he take her to the last remaining pizzeria that was about to shut down that coming week, for, as he put it, "old times sake". The way Michelle saw it, though, was that in order to do something for old times sake, you had to have enjoyed the old times enough to want to relive them, and aside from being at and loving the pizzeria, she didn't. Sitting at the table, eating greasy pizza that was nowhere near as good as childhood her had once thought it was, her father loosened his tie and leaned across the table, cupping his hands in an almost prayer like act of forgiveness.

"You know it wasn't about you, right?" he asked her, "I mean, your health issues didn't make things any better, but...but it was never about you."

"I know," Michelle said, picking pepperoni out of her braces, "I know that."

She knew it, sure, but she barely believed it. He and mom only seemed to fight when it came to the fact of her health. That always appeared to be the catalyst for their fights, even if he didn't want to openly cop to it. Michelle set her pizza down and looked around the restaurant, at its aging and poorly maintained technology, and realized that once this place shut down, the only place she'd ever really felt safe at as a child would be gone, and this made her want to hide and cry. She wiped her nose on her sleeve and sighed.

"Dad?" she asked, and he finished chewing, wiping his mouth with his napking.

"Yeah?" he asked, mouth still half full of pizza.

"...what happens to all this stuff when they shut down?"

"I don't really know, honestly," her dad said, "I guess they probably sell it at discount prices to whoever is the highest bidder, or maybe break it down and repurpose it all."

"So they're going to tear the animatronics apart?" Michelle asked, the fear of what was about to befall her beloved icons evident in her voice. He shrugged and scratched his forehead, clearly unsure if whether what he said was even remotely true or not. That had just been what he figured, that everything got recycled in the tech world because it was so expensive to rebuild it from scratch.

"I don't know, Shell, I really don't," he replied, "I'm not in this business, I have no idea what they do with all this stuff."

Seemed like no matter where she was, something was always tearing down the things she wanted to stick around, and she was completely incapable of stopping it from happening.

                                                                                                 ***

"You know," Michelle said, on the phone with her mother the following morning as she poured cereal into her bowl, "I don't really care whether dad wants to see me or not. I'm busy, I'm working now, so he'll have to see me when I have time."

"And where are you working?" her mother asked, always needing to know each and every detail.

"I'm an assistant," Michelle said, sitting down and eating her cereal dry, "I have to go. I'm going to be late for work."

With that, she hung up, but she was also lying. She wasn't going to be late for work, she'd called in sick. She was sick too, it wasn't a lie, she was having trouble breathing that day, and really needed to take it easy. Thankfully David understood her medical condition, and didn't make any issue of it. She was beginning to appreciate David more and more, and was growing grateful that she'd lucked out being told to meet him. As she scooped up a bunch of cereal into her mouth, her doorbell rang, and she rolled her eyes as she stood up to answer it, only to find - much to her surprise - Delores standing there.

"Hello!" Delores said, pushing her way in, cheerful as always.

"What...what are you doing here?" Michelle attempted to mumble, trying to keep cereal from following out from between her lips. Delores strolled inside, set her purse and coat down on the couch and turned around, looking at Michelle.

"I hope you don't think of this as an invasion of your privacy," she said, "I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

"It's...fine," Michelle said, even though it was so very clearly not fine, "Um...can I get you anything?"

"Oh goodness no, I'm only stopping by on my way to work, I just wanted to check in on you and make sure you were doing well. David told me you weren't feeling well, so I thought I'd drop in and see how you were doing."

"Oh, um, I mean, yeah...my...my breathing isn't super great right now and my chest has felt tight," Michelle said, "But, you know, I have my tanks and stuff, and as long as I take it easy I should be okay."

Delores leaned against the couch and sighed, shaking her head.

"I'm sorry, maybe me coming here was inappropriate," she said, "I just...I worry about you because of your health. I know I shouldn't, I know we barely know one another and that I just help you find employment, but, I can't help it. Nobody should have to feel scared when they're sick."

Something inside of Michelle warmed at hearing this. It had been a long time since someone had been so unashamedly kind towards her, especially in regards to her health. She knew Delores was nice, she'd always been nice, but this was a whole other level. Delores sighed and looked at Michelle.

"Well, I guess I should get going. I'm glad you're doing okay," she said, gathering up her coat and her purse.

"Um, do you...want to go get something to eat?" Michelle asked as she approached the door, making Delores stop and turn to face her.

"That would be delightful, yes," she said happily.

There was something about Delores that Michelle had never been able to grasp exactly, but she was beginning to think it was the same warmth that she felt coming from Beatrice. That same comfort and safety she had radiating off of her that made Michelle feel like she was actually okay around her, and that Delores - like Beatrice - would never do anything to hurt her. Sitting in a pancake house a few miles away shortly after, Delores told Michelle all about herself, and they shared a lot of laughs. It was the first Saturday morning Michelle had spent in ages not watching Beatrice Beagle reruns, and she didn't regret it for a second.

                                                                                                ***

Michelle could remember when the final episode aired, and she cried all the way through it. She was never going to see Beatrice again, and she knew this. Her parents, fighting as usual in the kitchen, were confused when they saw her run to her room, sobbing, clutching her Beatrice doll to her chest, and thought she was crying because of their argument. They would never have, in a million years, guessed it was because her favorite show, her only comfort in this world among all the pain and anger and sickness, had just been taken away from her.

It's amazing sometimes, Michelle would later think, how very little parents can actually know about their children.

Liam Grearson was sitting at a table by the window, sipping his coffee, bundled up against the oncoming storm when he heard the bell over the door ring. He glanced in that direction and spotted a young black woman enter, a scarf dangling around her neck, a backpack on her shoulders. She seemed to scan the cafe momentarily until her eyes met Liam's, and he nodded. She smiled and began approaching his table, seating herself.

"It's freezing out there," Keagan said, "It's the middle of March but it's still like it's winter."

"Winters are getting longer and colder everywhere," Liam said, taking another sip of his coffee, letting the flavor rest on his tongue, savoring it, before he opened his eyes again and noticed Keagan had pulled out a tape recorder.

"You don't...mind, do you?" she asked, motioning to the device, "I'd like to put it up on the site."

"...no, not at all, it's fine," Liam said, "So what exactly do you want me to say?"

"I have no idea, honestly," Keagan said, "Anything, really, would be appreciated. I'd love to hear some stuff about the production, your relationship to Marvin - I mean, if you're, you know, comfortable going into all that - or even, like...Beatrice herself? Because nobody knows anything about her."

"Believe me," Liam said, leaning back in his chair, "That's exactly how she wants it."

This caught Keagan's attention, and she settled in, prepared to hear a story.

"So," Liam continued, "I guess I should tell you about how I met Beatrice."

                                                                                               ***

Liam Grearson was 19 years old, and attempting to live his dream of acting. He'd loved the theatre ever since he'd been a little boy, and the only thing he'd ever really wanted was to perform for people. He didn't care what the material was (so long as it wasn't absolute trash) and he wasn't picky, he merely did anything he could get his hands on, but lately things hadn't been going so well. Offers had all dried up, going to people much more handsome than he was, theatre boys willing to do the things that Liam wasn't willing to do in order to land the parts he so desired. So he began searching for work elsewhere, only to find it in the most unexpected place.

"You have to see this to believe it," his roommate at the time, a young woman named Hazel, told him, "It's this totally surreal thing, it's unlike anything you've seen on stage, I guarantee it."

"I still don't really understand what it is," Liam said as she dragged him up the street in the frigid fall weather to the small unknown theatre.

"I've been back like eight times already, just trust me," Hazel said, and Liam did.

They seated themselves, a small but thoroughly packed crowd surrounding them, and only after a bit did the lights finally dim and the curtain rose. A dog house was sitting on the stage, and next to it, in a full body dog suit, like a theme park mascot, was a adult sized Beagle. Instantly, Liam was hooked. Quiet music, not somber but uplifting, played in the background (clearly something that was on a loop on a CD player nearby, not being performed live), and Beatrice turned to face the crowd.

"We only live so long," she said, "And yet we feel so much more than you do. We know so much more than you do. We experience life on a grander more intense scale in a shorter amount of time. When you collapse seven years into one year, it's guaranteed to assume that life speeds up. Everything comes faster, everything feels stronger, and everything's over quicker."

Beatrice leaned against the doghouse and looked down at her bowl. She sighed and folded her arms.

"And then, we're replaced. You don't replace other members of your family. You don't get new grandparents when the old ones die. And while so many might claim that dogs aren't replaceable, that all you're doing is bringing another new friend home, we know that's bullshit. You miss the companionship, not the dog. You replace us for selfish reasons, not out of grief. We know this, and yet...we love you still the same. With the same ferocity that we always would've, because we're forgiving, loyal and understanding creatures."

Liam's jaw had dropped. Hazel wasn't wrong, this was unlike anything he'd ever seen before on the stage, and he was so thankful he had allowed her to drag him down here. After the show ended, Liam waited as Hazel went to the coffee house a few blocks down to wait for him. Liam wanted to meet the woman who had created this character, this magnificently deep and human like dog. When she finally exited out the back, she was surprised to find him waiting there. He almost didn't recognize her, until he noticed the dog head under her arm.

"Hey," Liam said, "I'm...I wanted to congratulate you."

"...oh," she replied, her voice low, her eyes flighty.

She had light skin and strawberry blonde hair, not exactly curly but bouncy; her face was adorned with freckles, and her eyes were home to the longest pair of natural lashes Liam had ever seen. She was so very the opposite of what he expected. He expected theatre girls, especially weird ones, to be quirky and boisterous, loud and obnoxious, but Beatrice...she was intensely reserved.

"Well, thank...thank you," she said, shaking his hand, "um...thank you for coming, I'm glad you enjoyed it."

"You just...you speak so eloquently, and with such depth, it was really something else," Liam said, walking alongside her now down the street, presumably to her car.

"I'm always surprised to find people on the other side of the curtain every time it parts. I always expect it to be empty, even after the sold out shows for the last few weeks," Bea said, "Can you hold this?"

She handed the head off to Liam, who looked at it. It was so expertly crafted, so intricately detailed. He was surprised, he'd never seen anything like this this well done before. He watched as she opened up a junky old beaten up car and began loading her things into the trunk. After a bit she turned and he gave the head back to her.

"Um, listen, would you like to meet sometime again, and, I don't know, discuss ideas for projects?" he asked.

"You're not an agent are you?" she asked, sounding cautious.

"Hah! No, thank god no. No, I'm just another theatre dork, looking to do what you're doing, honestly," Liam said, and this made her smile. She agreed to meet him again, and they exchanged phone numbers. Liam was so excited for whatever the future might hold that night that he barely slept, and he'd barely sleep for the rest of the time he knew her.

                                                                                                     ***

"The thing about Beatrice that you need to understand," Liam said, now leaning forward and cupping his mug tightly with his hands, "is that she doesn't...god, how do I put this...Beatrice isn't just a woman who created this thing that was bastardized. She really IS the Beagle. It's...it's not a character to her."

"What does that mean?" Keagan asked, probing a bit further, licking her coffee off her lips.

"Phew, um," Liam scratched his forehead with his pinky, "Beatrice was the most intense person I ever knew, which doesn't make sense because she was so quiet and collected. Intensity, when you think of it in a person as a trait, you think they're explosive and adventurous, but Beatrice wasn't like that. Everything was calculated to her. She didn't act on something without it being planned to perfection, beat by beat. That's what I admired most about her, was the fact that she...she was so dedicated to what she did. That's why I hate myself for meeting her, because...I ruined her life."

"What?" Keagan asked, surprised by this admission, "How could you have-"

"Because I'm the one who told her to take it wider," Liam said.

                                                                                                        ***

The last day Liam Grearson saw Beatrice was a week after the show wrapped indefinitely. The set still hadn't been broken down, and Bea was sitting on the reinforced foam wall next to the doghouse. She was in full costume, and the lights were low in the studio. Liam opened the door, coming back to pick up a few things he'd left the night before when he had been here with a few cast members partying when he noticed Bea sitting by herself. He shoved his pockets into his coat pockets and walked across the room, plopping himself down on the wall beside her.

"Everything's gonna be okay," Liam said.

"Do you know what it's like to watch something you love die twice?" Beatrice asked, pulling the dog head off her own and looking into its eyes, her hair still up in a messy bun, her glasses sliding off her face, "...something you...you never wanted to lose in the first place, but now you've lost it twice?"

"I'm not sure I understand," Liam said softly.

"...nobody would," Bea said, "...why did this happen?"

"The place went bankrupt, chains aren't bringing in money anymore, and so-"

"No, not that. Why did I allow you to trick me into selling it all to hawk some food?" she asked, sounding angry, an emotion he rarely heard her display, "...you turned something personal into...into a mascot. She wasn't a mascot, she was Beatrice. You bastardized her for the money."

"For you!" Liam said, "I did it for you! So you could go on and do something else! So you...you wouldn't be stuck doing this for years in the same dingy little unknown downtown theatre holes! You have so much talent, Bea! You just need to-"

"I liked what I was doing!" Beatrice said, standing up, her eyes emptier than they'd ever been before, "I was happy doing what I was doing! Then you showed up and ruined all of it!"

He didn't know how to react to that. Bea got out of the costume, now standing in just her leotard on the set, and slung the whole thing over her shoulder, the head under her arm as it had always been when not on her shoulders, and then she turned and walked out. Liam didn't follow her. He waited a bit, but she never came back. And they never spoke again.

                                                                                                  ***

"She wouldn't take my calls," Liam said, "She wouldn't talk to me, no matter what I did, so I just...I gave her her space."

"You loved her," Keagan said quietly.

"In a way, like a child, yeah. Even though we were about the same age, she...she was so much younger than me in so many ways. She has the brain of a six year old, she never grew up, really, and she's able to connect to children. I betrayed what she held most dear, and the only right thing to do was let her go. She was my best friend for a long time, but she wasn't wrong, I'd sold the whole thing under so we could hopefully make something more out of our lives afterwards, but that's the thing about Beatrice that I never once considered...she never needed more. She was fine playing that dog for as long as she lived."

"Jeez," Keagan said, her tape stopping. She took it out of the recorder and flipped it over, sliding it back in and starting again, "So...where is she now?"

"Far as I know, she could be anywhere. But, and I hesitate to show you this but I feel like I should, she did send me this after Marvin died," Liam said, pulling his cell phone from his pocket and, opening up his e-mail, pulled up an unlisted Youtube video. It was only a mere 45 seconds long, but it loaded instantly. It was her, Beatrice, in the suit, sitting in what looked like a childs room.

"Hello Liam," she said, "I know we haven't spoken in ages, and this likely isn't the most direct method of communication, but it's what I feel most comfortable with. I want you to know I am thinking of you in these hard times. Marvin was a good friend to all of us. I miss you, and I hope you are well. I hope you don't take this too hard."

And with that, the video cut to black. Keagan was beside herself, she couldn't believe what she'd just seen. She handed the phone back to Liam and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

"I know," Liam said, commenting on her reaction, "She has that effect on people."

"I need you to help me find her," Keagan said.

"I don't even know how," Liam said.

"This woman needs to be spoken to," Keagan said, "She needs to understand the impact she had that she might be unaware of."

"I'm not disagreeing, I just have no idea where she could be," Liam said.

"Well," Keagan stated, "Everyone leaves a paper trail. We just need to find it."

                                                                                                ***

Keagan got home late that night, and then went to work. When she got off of work, she had only one thing on her mind. She stayed up late into the early morning, working on Liam's audio and cutting their conversation into something worthy listening to, but she didn't post it to the site like she'd claimed. Instead Keagan opened an e-mail and addressed it to Michelle, then added the audio as an attachment. She knew only one other person would truly appreciate what this was, and she was happy to have that person to share it with.

When she woke up the following afternoon, she had a one sentence e-mail response from Michelle, which read: "This is so sad. I wish I knew what happened to her."

Keagan responded back with a similarly simplistic message: "I'm working on it. Maybe we should meet."

That little red flashing light on her answering machine, something she rarely took pleasure in seeing, made Keagan nervous. It was usually reserved for bad news of one form or another from her parents, or yet another IT job turning her down after numerous interviews, likely because of her skin color. These were the breaks being a young, black woman in a predominantly white world (in general, but even of technology). She braced herself for whatever was about to play over the speakers as her finger hovered on the button and finally pressed "play", but nothing could've prepared her for what actually came out of her machine.

"You knew nothing about Marvin, or his life, and yet here you are proudly proclaiming his death like news instead of a personal loss for those who knew him," the voice said, clearly furious, "This wasn't an event for that should've been used for click throughs, he wasn't even famous enough for that sort of thing, and your immediate publication is abhorrent, quite frankly. Maybe think twice before you do this again."

Keagan sat on the arm of the couch in her apartments tiny living room, rubbing her face in frustration. She'd always tried to be so careful when doing her work, but occasionally it was bound to happen that she'd upset someone one way or another. Seemed no matter what she did, work or just existing, being a black woman made her irritate others, and this was so very unfair. But there was not much she could do but soldier on, and know she was better.

She didn't erase the message.

                                                                                                   ***

"Excuse me?" a voice asked, making Delores look up from her desk, stopping mid sentence scrawl.

"Yes?"

"There's someone here without an appointment," the man said, before stepping aside and allowing Michelle to present herself, looking timid as ever. Delores smiled and nodded, letting the intern know he could be on his way. Michelle pulled up a chair and seated herself, her hands wringing themselves.

"What are you doing here? We just met the other week," Delores said, then added, while checking her watch, "Hell, likely hasn't even been a week. Is everything okay?"

"I...I want to work in entertainment," Michelle said, "Do you have, like, any jobs in entertainment?"

"Well, do you have any skills that would help you in that field?" Delores asked.

"Um, I mean, I do a lot of work around my house, painting and hammering and stuff, I...I could build sets, maybe," Michelle said, embarrassed that, once again, she'd forgotten that, in fact, no, she didn't have any skills. None that would benefit her in gaining employment, anyway. Delores cupped her hands and sighed, smiling.

"Michelle, sweetheart, you know I'd love to help you find something, so maybe meet me halfway and do me a favor. Maybe take a course in media, something that could then help you access that field of work. I'll even help you, I'll pay for it."

This surprised Michelle, and this surprise apparently wasn't noticed by Delores, who couldn't help but laugh as she started to flip through her roladex and find an address, name and number she could copy down onto an index card for Michelle.

"I'm a helpful person, Michelle, otherwise I wouldn't work in a business dedicated to helping people help themselves," Delores said, "Take this information and meet this friend of mine, he runs a creative writing workshop, but he also has his hands in many other things. He'll be able to help you find your place, and, as I said, don't worry about payment, he'll charge me if he has to."

"...th...thank you," Michelle said, stuttering as she leaned across the desk and took the index card, slipping it into her bookbag. She looked back at Delores, who was watching her ever closely, her eyes wide and brimming with an emotion that Michelle somehow knew but couldn't recognize. After a few seconds, Delores smiled and told Michelle to let her know how it turned out, and that was that. Soon Michelle was back out the door and into the world, ready to try something new.

                                                                                               ***

"I'm so sick of it," Keagan said, eating from a leftover carton of misordered fries as she and her co-worker, Lexi, sat at a table together during their break; she wiped her salt and grease covered hands on her pants and continued, "like, I apply, I get nothing, and I can totally tell it's my race that's factoring in because when they call me to schedule an interview, they don't know I'm black, so they sound pretty interested in having a woman on their team, likely as a model example of 'progressiveness', but then when they see I'm black, all that enthusiasm is just gone, man."

"That's bullshit," Lexi said, parting her gorgeous blonde hair from her eyes and taking a handful of fries, shoveling them into her mouth, "I really shouldn't be eating this, this job is the worst, it's going to make me gain so much weight."

"Please, like you'd look bad even if you did," Keagan said, making Lexi smirk. She had a point, after all, Lexi was stunning, and wasn't the kind of woman you'd normally see working in what most of society considered 'low wage slave work', but because her father had been arrested on tax evasion and they'd lost all their money, it had befallen Lexi to help now earn money for her mother and little sister, while still trying to attend college for her physics degree. She was tall and lithe, had a jaw structure that mirrored any woman on a fashion show catwalk, and had piercing green eyes. Keagen was quite the opposite; not short, but shorter than Lexi certainly, with her frizzy black hair and large brown eyes.

"Well, at least you know there'll always be a place for you, among the fry lords," Lexi said, making Keagan laugh. Certainly, she had to admit that being a part of the late night shift team had its upsides, like all the excess food and, of course, the company of Lexi, who Keagan felt a little bad about liking more than she probably should.

"What are you doing this weekend?" Keagan asked, licking the hot salt from her fingertips.

"I'm actually going to spend most of this weekend holed up in what my mom calls my bedroom but I call a hovel, and try and catch up on some of the coursework I've been neglecting lately," Lexi said, "You're free to come by if you want, but it won't be very fun, I assure you."

"I think I'll pass, thanks," Keagan said, sighing as she glanced out the window at the darkness outside. She couldn't get the phone message off her mind. She knew exactly who it was too, thanks to her recently brief but spectacular obsession with Beatrice Beagle. It was Liam Grearson, the man who played Beatrice's Cactus. In fact, she recognized his voice instantly thanks to the few clips she'd managed to scrounge up in her search. But she'd never heard him be that mad at anyone on the show, despite playing a fairly cantankerous character.

So his tone had certainly unnerved her.

                                                                                                ***

Liam Grearson had only gotten more bitter over the years, since the show had gone off the air.

He'd never been this way during its production, so this change of attitude made even himself confused, let alone the few people from the cast he was still in steady contact with, like Marvin. The last time he'd seen Marvin Burgis had been a whole month before he'd unceremoniously shot himself in the head, at a deli between their respective houses where they often met for lunch. They were the only two who were in regular contact with one another these days, most of the rest of the cast had splintered off, and Beatrice herself? Nobody had heard from her in years. It was almost like she'd been a figment of their imagination, the way she so easily vanished into thin air. But Marvin and Liam paid no mind to that, they didn't even discuss the show when they had lunch together. To the two of them, that was a period of their life that they'd been hostage for, and now were meeting as POW's after being rescued by the gracious hand of cancellation.

Now, sitting alone at this deli, Liam couldn't help but feel like everyone who saw him here regularly could tell something was missing from the picture, that thing being Marvin. The two had been such a mainstay in the deli, together, that seeing only one of them almost made anyone who'd ever noticed them, and now noticed this change, immediately aware something had changed. It wasn't like Liam was going to stand up and give them all an explanation for why Marvin wasn't here anymore, or where he'd gone to (it was, after all, nobodies business but his and Marvin's alone, as he saw it), but he also didn't like being judged by their eyes and the sad looks on their faces. Liam set his menu down and folded his hands together, waiting for his waitress to bring his sandwich. The same thing he'd always ordered with Marvin, and it wasn't like Marvin wasn't here. He was. He was just in a jar across from him now, and ashes don't need to eat.

The gall of that girl, the audacity to think she had any right to print about Marvin's death as if anyone but a few random weirdos on the internet would even understand who he was, or why he did what he did. It wasn't like Beatrice Beagle had been a show that had widespread critical acclaim, a heavily well regarded darling of the Thursday night lineup. It had been a kids show, generally used to sell the viewing children on insisting their parents take them to the pizza place it was so shamelessly made for.

Yet...he couldn't help but feel a tad thankful that those few 'weirdos', as he so kindly put it, did in fact remember Marvin, and took a moment to mourn his life. His waitress set his plate with his sandwich down in front of him, and looked at him.

"Need anything else, Liam?" she asked.

"I'm okay, thanks," Liam replied, reminding himself to tip her generously before he left, before picking up his sandwich and preparing to take a bite before stopping, cutting it in half, putting the other half on a napkin and sliding it across the table, where it sat in front of Marvin's urn. He knew it couldn't be eaten. It was just a habit, and habits are the hardest thing to break.

                                                                                                   ***

"Delores sent you?" the man asked, sitting on his desk as Michelle sat in front of him, nodding almost apologetically, as if she were somehow stealing his time by doing what Delores had told her to do.

"Yes, I...I'm not sure why, because what you do, what you teach, that...that isn't something I'm looking into doing. I was more interested in set building, set dressing, that sort of thing," Michelle said, "I like working with my hands."

"And people who write things don't?" the man, whom Michelle had learned since showing up at his office unannounced, was named David, asked, definitely with a tone suggesting that he was joking with her; he continued, "I can see what I have for you to do around here, if you'd like, but I can't guarantee it'll be anything worthwhile or even enough to be considered employment. I suppose, in the meantime, you can work for me directly, be my assistant."

"Do you need an assistant?" Michelle asked.

"Not really, but I'm trying to do you a favor via Delores doing one for you," David said, "So if you want to stop going to her office and being sent to interviews for jobs you don't really even want that you can't even really do, then why not take the offer? I can pay you fairly well for doing next to nothing."

Michelle considered this. It would make her mother, on the rare occasion they spoke once a month, stop asking her about her employment, and it would also give Michelle something to do besides sit around and mope. Besides, David had a point, she was tired of winding up in jobs where she was forced to stand for hours at a kiosk in a mall trying to hawk shoddy electronics only seen on late night television infomercials. She smiled at David and agreed to take the job, which seemed to make him happy. Michelle figured she should call Delores and thank her for the suggestion and the help, but she also figured she might just know because David might tell her, they seemed to be close enough friends after all.

Michelle left the office that evening and headed home, thinking about her project in the basement. She would need to work on it for longer periods of time in her off hours now that she had employment, and she should likely stock up on materials too. She'd been running out of nails for a while now, but only hadn't bought more because she preferred to use the money she had for more "important" things, like groceries. So, Michelle stopped by the local hardware on the way home and bought a few boxes of nails, along with treating herself to a new hammer that felt better in her hands, thanks to its softer handle grip.

When she got home, she immediately checked her e-mail and noticed a response from Keagan, something she hadn't really expected. So opened the e-mail to find it had a file attached to it, and all Keagan had written with it was, "you aren't going to believe this".

Why she was sending this to Michelle, when they'd never even met, didn't make much sense, but perhaps Keagan simply enjoyed - much like Michelle did - the fact that they both knew about Beatrice Beagle. So Michelle pulled out her headphones, attached them to her laptop and downloaded the file, then opened it and listened. It was a re-recording of the message Liam had left for Keagan, and, much like Keagan had herself, Michelle too instantly recognized his voice, along with the ire in it. After the message ended, she didn't really know what to think, until a moment later when a new e-mail flew into her inbox, again from Keagan, again with a file attachment and a single sentence that read, "you aren't going to believe this either."

It was another voicemail from Liam, but much different.

                                                                                                     ***

when Keagan got off work that night, she drove Lexi home and then went home to make dinner. While she waited for her water to boil, she checked her cell phone and saw no response to her earlier e-mail to Michelle, so she walked into the living room to plug her phone in to charge when she spotted yet another blinking light on her answering machine. She pressed play, only to hear Liam's voice once again flood the room over her speakers, but this time...this was different. This was almost...jovial.

"I'd like to apologize for the message I left the other day," Liam said, in a voice far closer to his role on the show than his previous message, "I'd actually like to talk to you, if you're interested. I think I could help maybe give you more insight into Marvin, and the show. I looked into what you do, with lost media, and I think we could help one another out if you're interested. Give me a call please."

He left his number and Keagan jotted it down on her palm, then leaned against her couch.

What a weird few days it had been, she thought.

That's when she heard her water boiling over, swore loudly, and raced to the kitchen to save her dinner.

                                                                                                ***

That night, lying in bed with her tubes in her nose, breathing in best she could, Michelle replayed the second message Liam had left Keagan repeatedly. She listened to his voice, a voice she hadn't heard anything new in for years, and shut her eyes. Michelle smiled to herself and let Liam's voice carry her off to sleep.

When she was finally taken home from the hospital, she asked her mother if she could get a cactus, something her mother didn't understand but reluctantly agreed to nonetheless. She and Michelle visited the garden section of their local superstore, and Michelle picked out a cactus that most closely resembled Liam's character on the show, and named it after him. She kept it on her desk in her bedroom for years, and even now, it was seated in its pot on her current desk by her bed.

Now with this new voice, it was almost as if Liam had never left, unlike Beatrice.

And she was so grateful for it.

Michelle Helm, arguably, didn't have much to look forward to each day in the hospital.

Aside from the treatments that often took her out of her room and into a different, yet vaguely identical room, she didn't have much that lifted her spirits. She never had visitors, and she often was alone for long stretches of time, doing what little homework she could stomach to do on her own. But every day at exactly noon, she knew she could flip the television that was bolted to the ceiling at the end of her bed to Channel 3, and she'd be greeted by the familiar face of her only real friend...Beatrice Beagle.

Despite Michelle being almost ten now, and Beatrice Beagle having always been skewered towards a younger demographic, she still tuned in because it was the only thing that managed to continually brighten her spirits in these sad times. Beatrice Beagle was a kids show full of songs, puppetry and the lead herself, a large anthropomorphic beagle, who was always eager to help others and was kind to a fault. This was the sort of person Michelle wanted not only to be, but also to have around her. In a world so seemingly fraught with endless cruelty, Michelle craved kindness and niceties.

Perhaps that's why the news of Marvin Burgis's suicide hit Michelle so hard when she came upon it one afternoon.

"Star of forgotten childrens television show 'Beatrice Beagle' dies in apparent suicide" was all the headline read, and it had a picture of Marvin Burgis, the man who had played the ever friendly neighbor to Beatrice. Sitting there, staring at this photo - the only photo she'd ever seen of him - Michelle couldn't help but feel like someone close to her had died. Which was an odd thing to feel, she had to admit, considering she never felt that way when her father had keeled over months prior.

                                                                                          ***

"Miss Helm?" the voice asked, bringing her back to the moment. The voice belonged to the woman sitting across the table from her, an older woman with big hair and a lot of jewelry on who was smiling at her; she continued, "I was going to ask if you'd been looking for work since we last spoke."

"Uh, y-yes," Michelle said, handing her a handful of papers clipped together, which the woman happily took and quickly thumbed through.

"Lots of applications here," the woman said, "Seems you've been busy. Anyone called back or e-mailed you yet?"

"No, not yet," Michelle said, looking down at her hands in her lap, playing with her press on nails.

"Well, don't get discouraged. Somebody will, it just takes time," the woman said, filing the applications into a manila folder and sliding it into her desk drawer before cupping her hands on the tabletop and leaning on it, lowering her voice, "...is everything else okay with you right now Miss Helm? You seem distracted. How's your health been?"

"It's been, you know...okayish," Michelle said, embarrassed to discuss this with someone in the unemployment office. She never could understand why this woman seemed so interested in her personal life.

"Well, just monitor your health and keep on trying, I'm sure something will turn around eventually," the woman said, smiling at her as she began wrapping their meeting up. Afterwards, Michelle walked down the stairs of the unemployment office and headed across the street to the pharmacy, needing a refill on her medications. She stood in the dental hygiene aisle as she waited for them to be filled, closely examining every type of new toothpaste she had never seen. Once her medications were filled and bagged, she headed back to where she'd parked her electric bike, climbed aboard and started the motor, heading home.

By the time Michelle Helm got home, it had just started pouring, and she was grateful for having avoided getting soaked. She hung her coat and trapper hat up on the coatrack by the door and then headed to the kitchenette. She made a cup of coco and took out a small piece of cheesecake she'd kept in the freezer before sitting in front of a long vertical mirror leaned against the wall in the living room and watched herself eat and drink, never once saying a word. Afterwards she sat and continued to stare at herself, almost as if waiting for her reflection to do something.

After a while, she finally stood up and went to take a shower. Once out of the shower, she sat on her bed and played the same record she'd had since she was a little girl - one which featured original songs by the cast of Beatrice Beagle that was only given away as promotional item at the pizzeria - while she painted her nails and ate from a large tub of black licorice she kept by her bedside. For all intents and purposes, Michelle Helms was not a well woman, but she was trying at least.

                                                                                            ***

The last job Michelle had held was selling high powered juicers at a small booth in the mall.

It hadn't paid a lot, and it wasn't all that glamorous, but it was a job and she had always been told to be "appreciative of those who would hire a cripple", even if she wasn't outwardly physically disabled.

Standing behind this little booth, Michelle would people watch; stare down the couples sitting at the food court enjoying lunch, or watch the groups of pre-teen girls huddled around the fountain gabbing with all their friends. She liked people when they weren't involved with her. She enjoyed studying them from afar, like she was a biologist deep in the jungle, taking notes on a species she didn't understand.

During her lunch breaks, she would sit out back by the dumpsters and eat soft pretzels while watching her digitally transferred episodes of Beatrice Beagle on her phone, until one day when a few other employees came out for a smoking break and found her doing this, and thusly made so much fun of her that she quit that very day.

She kept a juicer for collateral.

These days, when she wasn't sitting at home with tubes in her nose so she could breath, Michelle was often working on her project in her basement, or rather, the basement that was in the house she (or her mother, actually, but she tried to forget that as often as possible) was renting for her. It took a lot of time, a lot of power tools and materials, but she was going to see it through to the end. Sometimes she'd get so tired and overworked by her own project she'd almost faint and would wind up crashing on the couch for a few hours, breathing apparatus hooked up while she made smoothies in her stolen juicer and watched kids shows on PBS.

Michelle still had the occasional doctors appointment to check in on her health, make sure her oxygen levels were adequate, and get refills for things, but for the most part, she didn't go to the doctor often. Not like she had as a child, anyway. It was just another way to pass the time, or at the very least that's how she saw it, and while she acted cordial during these routine and extremely mundane visits, she couldn't help but be thinking how unfair it was that she had to be doing this at all. So many other people didn't have to do this, and that frustrated her. The audacity of those people, with their 'clean bill of health'. Made her want to wretch.

And then came the day she turned on her laptop and saw the headline on the top of a news aggregator.

""Star of forgotten childrens television show 'Beatrice Beagle' dies in apparent suicide". Marvin Burgis's face front and center. Sitting there, staring at the photo of a man she'd never met yet somehow felt she knew deeply was...unsettling. Michelle wanted to cry. Instead, she began to furiously do research into Marvin Burgis, but - as always was the case when researching anything Beatrice Beagle related - she came up with virtually nothing. Nothing except the same old things that always cropped up; old ratty commercials that were barely viewable through the television fuzz and an occasional mention when the pizzeria inevitably popped up on another list article about "10 unknown defunct chain restaurants". Nobody ever mentioned the show, nobody ever mentioned the mascot, nobody ever mentioned Beatrice. It was always only the pizzeria, and for a long time this complete lack of utter acknowledgement began to make Michelle question from time to time whether or not she'd simply imagined the whole thing.

Until the day Marvin Burgis died, and that article finally, after all this time, finally mentioned something of note:

"He was most known for playing the role of the kind neighbor Mr. Buckler on the Saturday morning kids show Beatrice Beagle. Nobody from the show has commented as of yet on this."

Nobody from the show may have commented yet on what had happened, but someone had written this article, and someone had remembered the show. Michelle scrolled back up to see the name of the person who wrote this piece up was, and was granted her wish.

The name read simply "Keagan Stills".

                                                                                               ***

Keagan Stills was a 22 year old black woman who, during the night, worked at a local fast food place.

But in her spare time, she dedicated her waking hours to drudging up whatever she could about lost media. Keagan had always been fascinated with media, but especially the concept of lost media. How could anything recorded go missing? It just seemed impossible to comprehend. Isn't the whole concept of recording something for the sake of posterity? So that we, collectively, remember it? Didn't seem right that something of that nature would up and vanish. But a few years ago, Keagan ran across some information in regards to a virtually unknown Saturday morning kids show called Beatrice Beagle, and was hooked instantly.

Sadly, as Keagan knew full well by this point, becoming obsessed with something that was virtually unknown and universally forgotten, it made it hard to find anything in regards to it. She scoured the internet, occasionally finding clips and whatnot, until she finally came across an interview with a local theatre in Chicago where Marvin Burgis was performing in a play, and the interviewer had asked him about his role in Beatrice Beagle. He laughed it off, talked briefly about it, and that's when Keagan knew she had an opportunity to find out more. So she tracked down Marvin Burgis and they spoke on the phone a few times. But that had been years ago. She hadn't heard from him since by the time he'd took his own life, and still...having to write that report hurt deep inside.

But when she read through the comments posted to her article, she saw one that caught her eye.

Who was this Michelle Helm? Why did she seem to know exactly what Keagan knew about the show? And how could they work together to track down more? Turns out Marvins suicide would be a rather warped blessing in disguise.

                                                                                                ***

"How's your breathing?" her doctor asked, sitting in front of her, looking over her chart.

"It's okay. Sometimes it's labored, like if I exercise or do something physical, but it's mostly okay. Though I've started using the tank more in general," Michelle replied, "Is that bad? To rely that heavily on it?"

"No, not at all, whatever makes you feel better," her doctor replied, setting the chart down and looking at her, smiling, he added; "What are you doing that's so physically demanding, if you're not working, might I ask?"

"I'm...building something," Michelle said, almost smiling, "um, it's a personal project. But yeah, it takes a lot of effort to saw wood and hammer stuff, so. But I make sure to take breaks, and I make sure to get my tanks refilled and stuff."

"Good, good, that's good to know that you're taking it seriously," her doctor replied.

As Michelle exited the doctors office and back out onto the street, where her electric bike was parked, she received an e-mail from malarky@lostandfound.net and opened it only to discover it was from Keagan. She hadn't expected the person who wrote the article to actually reach out to her and make contact, but she did, and as Michelle's eyes hovered over the text, skimming it carefully, she couldn't believe what she was reading.

"My name is Keagan Stills. I'm contacting you because of a comment you left on an article I posted. We should talk. I've also been looking for people who know about Beatrice Beagle, and if you'd like to, I think we could work together to find out more, possibly. Here's my phone number, and here's my work schedule. I'd like to meet you, Michelle. I think we could find Beatrice."

All that time people watching, Michelle thought, and it finally paid off.