A/N: Yooo. Due to the alignment of the stars and certain weather conditions, this story is trucking along slowly with updates. You have been warned.

The Impossible Basement

Part One

The first time she saw him was on the subway.

Normally, like every sane denizen of Boston, Jane Tillman didn't pay attention to the people on the T (as everyone called the train). She plugged in her headphones and ignored the fact that the rest of the world existed, popping back to life only just before her stop. She didn't like to read and half the time her phone didn't have a signal, so she couldn't stalk people on Facebook or check Twitter. When she didn't feel like staring at the floor and when she actually managed to get a seat, an amazing feat on the Green Line, she would pull out a little notebook and a mechanical pencil, and start to sketch.

Once upon a time, Jane's dream was to become a successful artist. It didn't work out. At all. But she still drew and when inspiration hit, her fingers would curl, clench, and drum, until she pulled out a piece of paper and let it all out. Sometimes she didn't even realize she was doing it. She could be in the middle of a conversation and the next thing she knew, her fingers were covered in charcoal and there were smudges on her cheeks. Blinking at the strain in her eyes, and finding herself staring at a mostly finished piece. Mostly finished… because there was always something wrong with it, something that was just... off

But this man, this weird man, caught her attention immediately after she climbed onto the train. The smell of oil and exhaust didn't even have time to drift away. With the skilled eyes of an artist, she took him in.

The first thing that she noticed was the bow tie. It was a deep red, almost maroon… no, burgundy…with a texture akin to velvet. Next was the jacket, a tweed contraption, almost the color of the presents her little niece leaves in her diapers. Dark pants, rolled up just a hair too high to be fashionable, settling well above black leather boots. A shirt tinged with a bit of pink, more mauve-ish actually.

Jane's eyes traveled back up to the floppy brown hair that spilled over his tall forehead like a waterfall, parted to the side to expose his eyes, eyes that had noticed her staring. He gave her a wide goofy grin. That's when she realized that she had just stopped in the middle of the train without take a seat.

Blushing, she slipped into a chair next to the door, across the aisle from the strange man. Was he a professor? No, too young, she reasoned. Probably a hipster.

A second later, she had her notebook out, quickly sketching him as he stared out the window like a little boy who had never been on a subway before. Her lines were horrible because of the shaking of the wheels on the tracks, but she promised herself she would make a better version later. She stole quick glances of him, trying to remember how his right cheek crinkled when he grinned.

A small black spider scuttled across her hand. Jumping, flailing a little, Jane flung the spider away. She didn't see where it landed.

When she looked back over at the man, he was gone.

The second time, well, she thought it was the second time, she had been at the hospital later that same day.

She was visiting with Ashley during her weekly chemo treatment. Jane saw how strong Ash was being, but still the drugs were taking their toll. Her beautiful blonde hair, which Jane had always been secretly a little jealous of, was now dull and thinning. Jane had never said anything, but Ash had obviously noticed since she started to wear hats wherever she went. In June.

It was just weird to see her best friend like this. The girl who took hiking trips with her family every summer, who was captain of her cross-country team. She just wasn't the same anymore. She was a diminished version of the Ash she knew. She was frail, and weak. Ash was so thin now that she was starting to resemble Jane, who had always been smaller than her friend. "String bean" her older brother Marshall had so eloquently dubbed her when they were kids.

"Stupid piece of…" She trailed off as she punched the selection 'D1' into the vending machine again. The aged buttons only finally cooperated after she pressed so hard her fingers throbbed. She ignored the shaking in her hands as the coil spun slowly and her change clattered loudly in the slot below. Weird wasn't the right word for what was happening to Ash.

Scary was.

But admitting that would be as good as admitting the lymphoma was serious. Something that couldn't be solved. She watched as the candy bar slowly came to a stop, still caught at the top of the vending machine. She swore under her breath and tapped the glass screen. It didn't move. And then without warning she was swearing loudly, battering her palm against the glass wildly. She grabbed the edges of the machine and managed to shake it even with her small frame.

The snack finally thunked to the bottom and she let out a shaky breath. Only when a nurse walked by did she realize just how unhinged she must have looked, verbally and physically abusing the dilapidated machine for a seventy-five cent candy bar.

It might be time to admit that things were getting serious, even if she wasn't ready for it.

She dodged the angry glance from the nurse at the desk and headed back down the hall. Ash was finished for the day, the nurses having come in moments before Jane went to get a snack to unhook her from the meds. It had never gotten any easier for Jane, the needles, or the blood. Jane turned green at the sight of either of them. So now at the start and finish of the chemo sessions, she carefully excused herself from the room. Killing a few minutes until she was sure the danger of seeing a long sharp spindle passing through Ash's arm had passed.

She was still cringing at the thought when something large and black skittered across the hall.

It was big, too big. Especially for a hospital. She saw it disappear into a room nearby before she could identify it. She was intrigued enough to follow, maybe she had imagined it, and she certainly wasn't in a hurry to get back. But before she could enter the room, a surgeon came running up behind her, grabbing her shoulders and pulling her back.

"What…?"

But he wasn't listening. His eyes were darting around the room. His light brown hair poked out of his scrub cap like he had put it on in a hurry or like he didn't know how to put it on at all.

"Is there something in there?" she asked, anxious. "It sort of looked like a rat."

He jumped, as if he had only just remembered she was there. Spinning around, she couldn't see much of his face from behind the mask that covered his mouth and nose.

"Oh, hello." His eyes were grinning. "It's alright. I'm the Doctor."

"Yeah…" She frowned. "I gathered."

"Oh…" He looked briefly disappointed. "Right. Right. Because of the-" He gestured vaguely around his face and then clapped his hands together. "Anyway. I'll just…check this out. Best keep it between us though. No one likes a rat problem." Before she could agree, he had darted back into the room, pulling some kind of flashlight from his pocket. "Ah, thanks for the snack." He snatched the Snickers out of her hand and winked before shutting the door.

She stood, stunned, staring at the door for a moment. But there was something that had nagged at her memory. Something about his shoes. Black laced boots. What kind of doctor wore boots to work?