brief snippet, 200 words
He was doing the crossword in the Herald when Jo came in through the closed door, her once black hair now sort of shimmering in its translucence. It made her even more beautiful, in his opinion, and he wondered often if it was just as silky, or even moreso. "Morning," he said. "What's an eight letter word for dilemma?"

"How are you handling this so easily?" She moved to stand next to him, looking consideringly for a moment at one of the empty chairs but making no effort to sit - or at least to appear to sit - in it.

Pepper shrugged, skipping the clue and moving to fill in 17 across, Swiss mountain, with ALP. "Two options. Either you're really a ghost, which has loads of precedent and is really no weirder than all the ghosts at school. Or I'm hallucinating. Which would make me pretty fucking crazy, but I think I have just cause, so it's sort of un-worrying."

"I can't even touch you..."

At that he looked up, expression pure and sad, unmarred by the guilt that usually featured in the backs of his eyes. "I really did want to have a baby with you, you know."