Cycles [A Charlie & Elizabeth AU]

Chapter 1- An Inconvenient Visitor and Unpleasant Discussion

"LOCAL 13 YEAR OLD GIRL BUILDS ROBOT DOG"

"LOCAL PARK CITY GIRL GRADUATES UNIVERSITY AT AGE 17"

Both newspaper pages, perfectly folded and tucked behind glass hanging daintily on the wall. It contained almost all the pride in the house, forever displaying the honour of a small town girl.

But where was the girl mentioned in those newspaper headlines, you ask?

Cleaning the dishes.

The girl was whistling off-key to a tune, one she couldn't quite, place from the depths of her memory. Her neckline-long hair, which had been pulled into a short half-ponytail at the back to little avail, kept falling into her eyes. She quickly tucked the hair behind her ear and refocused her attention onto her chores.

She wiped her brow and held the perfectly-white plate in her hand. She gazed at it for a moment, and then-

"CHARLIE!"

With a loud shatter, shards of porcelain scattered everywhere across the floor, leaving Charlie covering her face and screaming at the top of her lungs. Upon blinking then turning her gaze at the mess on the floor shortly thereafter, she sighed deeply and sank to the ground.

In front of her was a spectre: a ghost, of a tiny girl no older than 7. She was see-through and mostly grey: but if you looked closely enough you could still find a faded golden shimmer in her locks of hair. The girl clutched her hand over her mouth, eyes widening in surprise.

"Oops..." She muttered with guilt in her voice.

"Susie," Charlie began, picking up a shard of what used to be a plate. "What did I tell you about jumping out at me like that?" she asked, breathing heavily.

Susie bit her lip and averted her gaze.

"Don't do it..." Susie muttered again, mimicking the tone Charlie had used when she first requested it. "I-I'm sorry! I forgot!" She insisted, and looked at Charlie innocently with baby-doll eyes.

Charlie quickly took a glance at Susie, before seeing the sparkling puppy-dog eyes and turning away. She took a deep sigh, closed her eyes, and turned back towards the ghost girl.

Truly, she was quite bothered by Susie being there, as the girl had a track record of materialising out of nowhere, surprising Charlie and disrupting whatever she had been working on. But dang, one look at her wide, sparkling baby-doll eyes made you feel sympathy for her.

"Okay," she sighed exasperatedly, "I forgive you." Charlie gave an exhausted half-smile to Susie, before picking up more pieces of the plate.

Susie giggled and bounced on her toes. "Thank you, Charlie-"

Just then with a bark, a scampering of paws- robotic ones, that is- clacked on the floor and rushed into the kitchen, before barking again.

This was Charlie's 8th grade science project, the one that propelled her grades forward and landed her a college graduate at age 17.

And there it was: barking at Charlie from the kitchen doorway, before running around in circles, and walking all over shattered porcelain.

"Sparky!" Charlie yelled out in frustration, as that was the name she affectionately gave it at age 13. The dog just responded with another bark, causing Susie to giggle even louder at the scene. When it noticed her there, it walked over to her and laid down in front of her, allowing her to pet it- or at least attempt to do so, being a ghost and all.

The first time the animatronic dog had met Susie was about 4 years ago, and Susie was ecstatic to meet it. The second she saw it her eyes lit up, she pointed and screamed 'puppy!' Before dashing off to get a closer look. Sparky didn't have as great of a reaction, however, as it barked and growled at her when it first saw her spectre, and when Susie floated towards it at a terrifyingly fast rate, the dog let out a 'yipe!' And scampered away, slipping on the wooden floor, and the click-clacking of its paws echoed down the hallway.