august 12th, 2019, 5:19 p.m.

The Smithsonian was eleven minutes from closing time, which meant eleven minutes until Iman could drive home and take a quick nap before Beck picked her up for dinner. It was a weekly thing for them, their Monday night excursions, and yet Beck planned them months head. "The twelfth of August?" he'd said this morning, handing Iman her caffe misto. "Ah. That's sushi at Ryu 87." He hadn't seemed pleased when Iman had rolled her eyes.

Iman sat at the information desk, her posture having devolved from a rigid, straight spine to the point at which she was now, slumping over the clunky keys of the desktop computer. The museum was a fascinating place to be. Whenever the nation's rich, dramatic history wasn't enough to drag awe up into Iman's heart, the droves of people from all over the country and presumably the world covered the slack. She could watch them for hours, making up names and stories for them based on the bags they carried, the clothes they wore, the snippets of conversation she overheard.

Except now the museum was quiet. The sun was setting on her last day employed here—her graduate courses would start up again soon—and the excitement was slowly dying in the pit of her stomach. She dusted her fingers across the keys, listening to the gentle clack of them in her ears.

The museum's front doors swung open; Iman heard the clatter of them reverberate across the marble. She exhaled. Probably another family of four that spent too long eating an early dinner or late lunch and had neglected to check the closing times. There was a whole lot of history you missed if you only had ten minutes to see it all.

A gentle commotion interrupted the museum's relative stillness. The front security guards were barking orders, voices low and stern. "I'll make it quick, sir," said the civilian to which they were speaking. "Undeniably quick. So quick you'll forget I was even here."

Iman recognized the voice immediately. She jolted, the phone receiver falling off its dash and her kitten heels clacking across the marble as she did. She saw his coiling dark hair first and then his face as he looked up; it was Julien, standing at the front of the security gate with one of the guard's hands pushing back against his chest.

Julien's face lit up. "Immy!"

The guard lowered his hand, glancing back at Iman. "You know this psycho?"

Iman sighed. "Unfortunately. Let him through; he can just stay with me."

A flicker of reasonable hesitation passed the guard's face, but he shrugged, letting Julien through with a minuscule pat-down. Julien hurried to the information desk, collapsing over the counter. "Iman," he said, "help me."

She tilted her head. "Are you being followed?"

"No."

"Is it that girl you were running from earlier?"

"No?"

"Then what—"

"Look, I..." Julien hesitated, hopelessness flashing in the near-black of his eyes. Iman tried to remember if his eyelashes had always been this long or if she'd just never been close enough to him to notice. "Is there a records room, somewhere? Somewhere they'd keep censuses and old people's names and stuff. Is there somewhere like that?"

Iman frowned. She wanted to ask what the hell he'd need any of that for, anyway, but she had a feeling she already knew. "The archives?"

Julien nodded with a bit too much enthusiasm. "Yes, yes, those! That would make sense, wouldn't it? That would make sense."

"Jules," said Iman. She leaned forward, placing herself on his eye level and resting her chin on the counter, a few inches from his. He blinked back at her, his two eyes looking like one. "Just who are you looking for?"

She expected a smile to form on his face, but there was none.

"Me," he said. "I'm looking for Julien Morales, alive. I'm looking for Julien Morales, human."

The room was kept quite dark for preservation reasons, but Julien had always fit right in to the dark.

Iman stood by the door, her shoulder leaned against the wall as she watched Julien rifle through the old census papers with gloved hands and a flashlight. Everything about him spoke of ravenous, raw curiosity: the gingerly yet impassioned way he flicked the pages, his sharp vampire's eyes scanning every single inked word, the nonchalant way he gnawed at his bottom lip in apprehension. Iman watched him and she realized just why he'd come here. Not to the museum, but to DC. It was not for her or for anyone else. It was for this.

"I traveled," Iman said.

Julien fumbled with his flashlight. "Whe—when?"

"When as when did I leave here or when as when I traveled to?"

"Both."

Iman slowly leaned off of the wall and came to the wooden table at which Julien sat, pressing her hands to its glimmering, mahogany-polished surface and placing all her weight onto them. "A couple days ago after we had drinks and you dipped. I got in a fight with Beck and I just...I just wasn't feeling great. I went back to 1986 and I saw your yellow door and I saw you."

"Beck yelled at you?" Julien demanded, his eyebrows knitting. "That prick—"

"Don't call him a prick; I deserved it. Besides, you don't know him enough to be calling him a prick."

"I don't gotta know him. I know he yelled at you. I know enough," Julien said, but by the time Iman opened her mouth to protest, Julien had already moved on. "1986...yeah, I remember that. You helped me make cookies."

Iman paused. "Did you eat all of those by yourself?"

Julien was silent.

Iman decided not to comment. Instead, she took in a long breath, breathing in the scent of aging paper and ink and the slight toasty smell of parchment under a bright flashlight. "You asked me if you were happy, in the present. I didn't have an answer then, but now I think I do."

Julien's face fell, like he knew what was coming next. "It's exhausting, Immy," he exhaled. "Everyone else knows exactly who they are, and I have no fucking idea."

"Like the rest of us know, either? There are large swathes of our childhood that other people remember but we don't, and those swathes only get bigger as we get older. None of us have any fucking idea, Julien," Iman said. Julien's eyes widened at her but she wasn't in the mood to be quiet any longer. "So don't exhaust yourself. It doesn't really matter."

"But it does," he replied. "I was someone before I died. Wasn't I?"

"Yes..."

"Then don't I owe it to myself to remember that someone?" Julien said, and shook his head. He flipped the pages of the census underneath him backwards a bit, until he stopped and pointed at a specific line. "There's me. Elias Morales Ruiz, 1919, Memphis. Age 27, unmarried. I didn't go by my first name back then. But that's all, Iman. Just a name and a place in a time I already remember. But what's before that?"

He looked up at her, and Iman was stricken by the subtle crimson hue rimming his eyes, like his frustration was a tangible thing, bleeding into his irises. She swallowed back her fear.

Julien shut the record book with a loud thud that made Iman cringe. "Nothing," he said. He looked at her; the red washed away from his eyes again and Iman felt something in her chest loosen. "I am a ghost."

"That's why you came all the way here? Just to figure all this out?"

Julien shook his head. "Not the only reason, but close enough."

Close enough. Iman wanted, badly, to know what that meant, but her words failed her.

Julien handed the flashlight back to her, moving his hair out of his face. "I bought a house."

Stepping back out into the hall, Iman slipped the flashlight back into its resting place on the hook by the door. Julien followed warily behind her, his hands in his jacket pockets and his shoulders hunched up near his ears.

"You bought a house?" said Iman once they were outside, their voices striking the marble and echoing back at them again.

"I did," said Julien, "but it needs warming."

Iman raised an eyebrow at him, and Julien just grinned sheepishly. "There'll be free food," he said.

"In that case, I'm in. Now get out of here; the museum's closed," Iman said, grabbing his shoulders and shoving him in the direction of the nearest side exit. He skipped forward a bit, seemed to make an obvious move for the doors, and hesitated. Iman watched his back straighten suddenly, as if he'd forgotten something.

Julien turned. "Immy?"

She paused, not sure she wanted to hear whatever came after this. "Yes?"

"Bring your boyfriend, too," he said, frowning. "Unless...I'm a secret?"

Yes, thought Iman.

"No," she said. "Not unless you want to be."

Julien's expression was unreadable, his mouth a straight line. He pivoted on his heel, leather shoes squeaking against the floor, and walked away.