---------------

It's mid-december & the City Of Goth Haven is blanketed with snow. This is the City's first chance to try out their new winter emergancy plans. For the most part it seemed to worked & the public are greatful. Well, except for one thing: due to budget cuts this has caused a reduction of how much the snow plows will be plowing. They have only been plowing a number of the most vital roads & with this it has been causing some traffic problems.

So, Bus 1265 which is on one of the few Parodipolis-Goth Haven routes is having some problems. They aren't hitting every stop alone the route which has caused a riders to make trek in the snow to where they want to go. One such rider is Catherine Gillespie & she's attempting to get to work. She knew about the reduced plowing but thought they would have plwoed the various routes to where she was heading: Goth Haven City Hall.

Catherine is partially dressed for the weather: She has a pair of black leather & cloth combat boots on. She also has a thicker sock on there then would normally wear. They are making her feet sweat. In fact, her feet were the only part of body was sweating. She is wearing a well worn pair of blue jeans, nothing extra under them. She also had her greying black Hoodie on. The hood was up & her hands were shoved in the jacket's pockets in attempt to keep them warm. Slung over her right shoulder was her olive drag colored messenger bag.

She was only a few blocks away from City Hall & a quick check of her pocket watch she wasn't going to be all much late for work. As she slowly trudging down the street, she hadn't really seen another person since she got off the bus. It was late in the day & most of the businesses had closed early due to the snow. As she walked, there were a few abandonned cars scattered in the street. It was also like she was the sole survior of a snowy apocalypse. But as she past by a bar, she knew she wasn't alone.

As she walked down the street, she started to think about the last time she made her way across a baren wasteland. About her year in a place she's been told is called Comic Book Limbo. About the year of her life that she lost while she was there. The world went on without. Not exactly without her, while in Limbo another Catherine was living her life.

No one seemed notice it wasn't really her but Catherine guessed that was the point. It's was kind of like that episode of Red Dwarf: She had been deemed unworthy of living her life so someone else would take over for her. But she had escaped Limbo & was told that other Catherine had been dealt with. Her though ever so often turn to what that means. Is she dead? In Limbo? Some other Dimension? Was she really the original Catherine or just the model that was brought back by popular demand?

She had made it to the City Hall & turned down a back alleway to go in an employee entrance. She took her hands out of her pockets, the black nail polish was cracked & chipped in places (partly due to the fact from her habit of chewing her fingernails). She began to fishing around her pockets for something. She wasn't finding it so she then started to check her bag. After searching all but two of her pockets, she found it: her ID Card. It was also her key card. She swiped it through the card reader, nothing happened. She swiped it again, this time quicker: nothing. Then tried it slower: nothing. Once more really quickly, once more nothing. The lock was frozen.

Catherine put her card in her jacket pocket & began to blow on the lock trying to warm it up. She also tried to pick off some of the snow & ice. After a few minutes, she pulled out her card again & swiped it through the card reader. It lit up one of the two required lights which would signify entry. On a small screen a question appeared. She wiped away the snow & pressed hard on the keypad to type in her answer, the other light lit up & their was the accompanying buzzing noise. She pulled hard on the door to open it & entered the building.

In that back stairwell, Catherine just there for a few moments just taking in the warmness of it all. Everytime there was some sort of extreme weather, she is thankful for the City Hall's back-up generators & central heating. Before headed on down the stairs, she stamped off some of the snow on her boots. Once all the snow was off, she pushed back her hood & shook out her sandy blond hair which was pulled back into two small ponytails, one on each side of the back of her head. She also restituted her pair of black plastic glasses, they had got a bit crooked on the way over.

Catherine went down a short flight of stairs, through a door & into the main rotundra. She crossed the large room & as she did, she waved over to the Security Guard sitting at his post. He waved back. She was walking in the direction of the Elevators but by past them to take the stairs. Through a door, down three flights of stairs & through another door she was on her floor, Sublevel 3.

As she made her way down the hallway, the sound of her boots make an echoey thump thump sound as she walked down the empty, marble laced hallway. She was also leaving behind vaguely shoe shaped puddles behind her.

As she walked down the hallway, her mind wonders around random thoughts. Some of them relating to her time away. As she passes by Doctor Jones' office, she looks in & the light is off which means he's not there. Catherine let out a small sigh of relief. Jones is a ok boss, good at his godd being the Coroner but he always smells funny. It's mostly workplace ordors mixed with his aftershaved & the smell of his beloved curry which was almost always on his breath. Another thing is his habit of staring at her chest which isn't all his fault since it is at his eye level. But, he could at least be a little less obvious about it. Doctor Jones is also a bit paranoid so he has everything in his control on Sublevel 3 recorded. Since she has left the stairwell, she's past 4 cameras & will go past a dozen or so before she's done for the night.

Since she's been back & when there hasn't been anything to do she's been watching the other Catherine doing her job. In the videos, she seen how people could mistake that woman for her. But there were other things that were off about her. Things that should have tipped people off.

Catherine pushes open the large black plastic doors & enters the Morgue's sparsely furnished waiting room. The beat up old couch, the couple of miss matched leather chair. The coffee table with it's massively out of date magazines laid out a top of it, the sadly looking green ficus which was now wrapped in a few strands of lights & the few posters on the walls which haven't changed since she started working there. Catherine walked through the second set of double black plastic doors & there on a stool sat Chuck. He was using one of the examining tables as a work surface, he was doing some paper work.

"I'm here!" she said.

Chuck looked up from his paper work & smiled. "Cool."

"Yes. It's that way outside, too." Catherine said with a smirk & a laugh.

Chuck laughed a bit then looked Catherine over & then asked "That's what you wore out in the snow?"

"Yeah. So?"

"Don't you have any winter gear?"

"Yeah. But it's in storage & I didn't really feel like getitng out. But I luckily still had a pair of work boots out which have worked out pretty well a snow boots. The rest I can just push through & try to attempt to ignore."

"How is it out there?"

"Ok. Not a lot of traffic or people around. Kind of ghost town out there."

"I'd ask how driving was but you don't drive."

"Well, not legally but there are cars & buses scattered around on the streets. It's almost like the rapture happened."

Chuck had to thing about that for a second but then said. "Ok. How's the ice?"

"It's there."

"You don't know?"

"Not really. I almost slipped a few times on the way over. But I'd think that it would be what you'd think what with the cold, then warmer temps that start to melt stuff but then freeze once more when the new cold front comes in."

There was few brief moments of silence & then Chuck said. "Ok. Well, today has been a real slow day. Not much has come in, I doubt much will come in over night what with the raptured ghost town we have out there." Chuck said with a smirk on his face.

"It's ok. I'm prepared. I got some Nog, a few cookies, my iPod is filled with christmas cheer. Plus, I have come prepared with holiday audio visual entertainment." Catherine said & then paused to get something from his bag.

"These!" Catherine said as she pulled out a few DVDs'.

"Santa Claus..." Chuck read one of the titles & then was interupted by Catherine.

"The Mexican holiday classic where Santa fights a Devil among other things." She said with excitedly.

"Santa Claus versus The Martians..." Chuck read.

"Or How Santa Claus brought Christmas to Mars." She said equally excitedly.

There were a few moments of silence between the two of them. Catherine saw Chuck check his watch a few times.

"If you have to leave: Go. I'll be ok."

"Ok." Chuck said.

"But I'm not sure how easily you'll make it home. It would almost be safer for you to stay here for the night. If you do, I promise to try to keep the noise down."

"No. That's alright. I've got some friends how live near by that I don't think they'd mind if I crashed on their couch for a night. Plus, I've had to bale on friend of mine who lives near by a few times. We've gotten into watching Pagen Idol together &..."

"You've haven't been?" Catherine interjected.

"yeah. This year has been really good."

"I wouldn't really know. Haven't been watching it myself."

"You should. I think you'd get a real kick out of it."

"I've tuned in for the first couple of weeks to see the really horrible people try out & then I might near the end, just to see who won. But the stuff in the middle have really held my interest."

Chuck checks his watch once more. "I need to get out of here. If I can't get a hold one of my friends I might need to get a hotal room & that might be hard at this time of night."

Catherine had a comment she could have said but didn't. So, she said "Ok. See you later."

Chuck went & got his stuff. With a wave, he was gone.

It was a bit odd coming back to work after being gone for that year. Catherine felt different & knew that they had had time appart but no one else seemed to feel that way. There was a year of experiances that happened between them that she had no memory of. Mostly because they never happened with her. They happened with that other Catherine. She thought that Chuck might of picked up on the fact that she had been gone but he's never said anything about it. There has only been one person who has said something about her being gone that wasn't involved in the disapperance. That person was her grandfather. He said he started to pick up on it shortly after she was replaced. He even confronted the other Catherine about it which caused her to break & cry. Catherine has also seen that because when your grandfather is in prison they also record everything.

Catherine goes to the small office to take off her coat & bag. Then comes back over the examining table that Chuck had paperwork spread out on. She pulled up the stool he was using, she pulled her iPod out of her pocket. She put in her earbuds, set her Holiday playlist on random. It started off with some Roger Whittaker & she set off to work. She'd play one of the DVDs' later on, she was going to be there all night.

---------------

THE END

---------------

Footnote: This story is basically an updated version of a story I did with Catherine last year which was entitled "A Year without Chrismahannaqwanza". I think this one is a bit longer then the previous story. This story is also picking up plot points from the "Chad & Ronnie: Fugitives" storyline, mostly from the Interlude portion of that storyline.