"We should come up with more signals," he muttered, it would be a good idea to have a non-verbal way to communicate with Dia and Ari, or even Ray if she wasn't in her body for whatever reason. "And of course you don't have to stay quiet when I am, if you have a story to tell I'll gladly listen to it."

When he reached the common area he stood still, lost at what he would do next. The TV on the wall was on, showing some kind of nature program. A few patients were watching that. There were puzzles and books, but both were things that never had been high on his list of things he wanted to do. He sat down in one of the chairs with a sigh, looking at some fish swimming through a coral reef. It was impossible to hear what was being said from here, the volume was barely turned on, just far enough for the people on the sofa's close to the TV to hear what was being said.
"Simon puzzled a lot," Benjamin recalled. "I played checkers with him too..." 

Being unable to spend all the time with Ray and with Simon gone, Benjamin realised he'd have to befriend other patients too, but he'd rather not befriend one and then have that patient disappear as well. And some people had a condition that made it really hard to befriend them. He had tried the first few days he was here and in the end it had been just Simon who had opened up to him. And then Ray had come from isolation. He looked at Dia. As grateful as he was for her presence, he couldn't play checkers with her. But maybe...
"How about a game of solitaire?" he asked with a smile. "You can help me decide what cards to play."

[hr]

"I wanted to ask you that, yes," Marc said with a sheepish smile, "if you wanted to have dinner. It will be my treat, there is this place that I haven't tried yet, but Benjamin once told me it's a really good place to eat. And, well, I'm sure him seeing ghosts doesn't affect his ability to know where the food is good. From his file I understood he had an active social life, but I never gone out much, so I'll take suggestions where I can get them." He laughed a bit, but it was true, he hadn't gone to bars or restaurants a lot, but he did want to take Sara to a good place.