This is my addition to the B/K fan base because let's be honest, there aren't enough Bart/Kitty stories out there. Footnotes for Bartimaeus will make an appearance later on, let me get my sea legs first!

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or the Bartimaeus trilogy. All I have is a computer and a dodgy internet connection.

Kitty

Why?

Kitty closed her eyes, and a tear began to form between the lids. Why was she doing this again? He was dead, D-E-A-D. Dead. It was all done. Over. So why couldn't she just move on? Lord knows everyone else had. Not that anyone else had ever really given more than a passing thought to fate of the spirit hidden behind the martyred magician.

Nathaniel's funeral had been exactly two months ago; a large event with endless speeches and weeping crowds spilling out of St. Paul's cathedral. She'd gone, she'd cried with the masses, and she was over it. Kitty had only known the guy properly for about two hours as it was.

Kitty shook her head dismissively and opened her eyes again, swiping away a stray teardrop on her cheek. No. She wouldn't cry over this. What good did that ever do anyone? With a new resolve, Kitty pushed herself out of the plush armchair she had dropped into, absorbed in memories that distracted her from what she was about to do. She grabbed a slightly-used chalk stub from amongst the mess of diagrams on the coffee table (pentacle after pentacle, drawn again and again until every line was burned into her retinas) and made her way over to the cleared space in the centre of the floor. The hardwood floorboards shone where Kitty had scrubbed away years of filth.

Sliding to her knees, Kitty hesitated for a moment, and then began to trace the lines of the pentacle. Knowing the pattern so well, her hands fell into an automatic movement, and her mind drifted again.

Bartimaeus didn't get a funeral. After all, he was a filthy demon. Cruel and emotionless. Slandered and enslaved by magicians. Who cares if he was dead. ("Dead?" Who said those creatures were alive in the first place?) There were plenty more where he came from. Even many who were better, undoubtably. Bitter thoughts filled her head. She hated magicians, hated them!

But Kitty was one of them. Her hand faltered for a moment in the centre of a spiraling curve.

Why, oh why, was she doing this? All that had kept her going these last two months was the fact that she didn't know. What if Bartimaeus had survived? When she hadn't summoned him, there was always the possibility that he still lived. A faint smile lifted the corners of her mouth at the memory of the Other Place, and even with all of it - the sheer charisma and overwhelming power of that boy with the ageless face. Even now, as she was drawing the pentacle, he could be in the Other Place, waiting.

She shook her head again. No, not waiting. Not alive.

"He's dead. He's dead." Kitty muttered to herself. Better not to hope at all, and be surprised, than let herself believe that he could have survived.

It was a good enough plan in theory, but that tiny glimmer of hope just wouldn't go away. She wished it would. If Kitty summoned him, and he didn't come, if he was dead, the only drive she had had since the incident two months ago would be gone. The only sense of something better, something more, would be gone. Could she keep going without it?

Stupid. Stupid Bartimaeus. Why did this have to happen? Why did she ever even meet him? Couldn't he look after himself? Of course he could. But for some reason Kitty couldn't let him. She allowed herself to imagine for a moment how much easier, simpler, her life would be if the djinni had just kidnapped her and left it at that - no life altering conversations or moralistic discussions. Easier, simpler. But not the same. Really, what if he was dead?

"Stop it," Kitty whispered tossing the stump of chalk aside and surveying the freshly-drawn pentacle with a new conviction. "Either he's alive, or he's been dead for two months and I should be long over it!" Almost shouting now.

She stepped into the pentacle, at the centre of the intricate lines and loops, doubt clouding her mind. She was so distracted she almost forgot to leave a large gap in the chalk line, so he wouldn't be trapped. If he came.

Kitty drew in a deep breath.

And began the summoning.

Bartimaeus

Never before had I found the other place boring - mind numbingly boring - and believe me, I'd been there a long time. Think, longer than the history of your solar system, long time. Don't believe me? Your loss. Oh, to be so utterly ignorant of the greater spirits around you. Namely, me.

Why was I so bored? The answer was, I didn't really know. The only time I ever, ever remembered wanting to get out of the Other Place, back to Earth, was when Ptolemy gave me his last gift. He saved me, and there was nothing I could do about it. Oh how I fought and I fought, my essence spreading and stretching until I almost lost myself in the past lives of the other spirits of the Other Place. They thought I was mad. I'm not entirely convinced that I wasn't, at least a little bit.

Don't get me wrong, this was definitely not about Nathaniel. A djinni of my level doesn't get all emotional over every magician that dismisses me during a tricky situation. (Not that that happens very often). Besides, that boy was plain obnoxious for most of the time I knew him, apart from one small moment, right there at the end. No, this is definitely not because of him.

But i'm getting off topic

My essence stretched out. If I was human i'm pretty sure a few joints would have popped satisfactorily. It always amazed me how quickly the Other Place could heal. It could only have been a few weeks since the whole Nathaniel trauma, Earth time.

A few weeks. That's turning out to be quite a long time in the Other Place, for me.

I might never be summoned again, I was presumed dead.

That's what every one of us here dreams of, of course. An eternity, uninterrupted, never confined to the painful restraints of a physical form. Forever drifting, remembering, sharing memories, pictures. As long as the magicians believed I was dead, it would be time for me to start living in the proverbial heaven. As long as they thought I was dead.

Kitty. Kitty would think I was dead.

Why did that thought bother me so much? I'd never even had a second thought about the welfare of a human. Then again, I had really only known magicians before...and judging from the evidence, magicians and commoners were almost different species.

But still, why wouldn't Kitty get out of my head. Her stupid, human face. It was nothing special; frowning on the back of the golem, misshapen and lumped here in the Other Place ... glowing with a strange aura back on Earth.

Stop now.

This ... boredom, was ruining my moment of triumph. I should have been happy, overjoyed, beyond words! I might never have to go back.

Never find out what happened after I left.

Why did I care what happened on Earth? It's nothing to do with me! Never will be anything to do with me again, if all goes to plan. Isn't this what I wanted? The ideal, perfect plan.

It was all irrelevant anyway, because I was never going back.

...

An incessant tugging in my essence. A summoning.

Oh, the irony.

Was it-

I stifled that thought before it started. It wasn't.

But what if it was...her.

I was so deep in thought I barely even felt the pain of my essence being compressed down to a single point. I slipped into my most comfortable guise. Ptolemy.

My heart began pounding in my chest, well, Ptolemy's. It had to be Kitty. It had to be. No one else would ever dream that a magician would waste their final breath freeing a spirit. No one that immediately occurred to me - and that, of course, is saying something.

The Other Place vanished, a room melted into view around me.

Along with a face I had never thought I'd see again.

"Hello, Bartimaeus." His voice was calm, utterly composed.

Correction. A face I'd hoped I'd never see again.

Review. Seriously, it makes all the difference to update speed (gives me some serious motivation), and pointers/criticisms etc. are actually really useful, and all that jazz.

See you soon ;)