Chapter Text
She counted three pencils in her hospital bed thus far, and took a deep breath as she felt Gilbert try to stick another writing utensil in her hair without noticing. Jillian had regained consciousness about three minutes ago, but decided to let her girlfriend have her fun. She felt a pencil balance on her nose and accidentally sniffled.
“Aww, I was hoping to get to five before you woke up,” Gilbert sighed dramatically, sitting on the edge of the hospital bed.
Jillian opened her eyes and squinted from the light hurting her head for all of five seconds before the physicist leaned over and adjusted the little dial near the bed, dimming the overhead lights. Gilbert gently smoothed out Jillian’s messy blonde hair, carefully avoiding the bandage, and then leaned down to press a kiss to the engineer’s forehead. Jillian pretended not to notice the many stiches adorning Erin’s arms, or the defeated look in the older woman’s eyes.
“Are you alright?”
Gilbert took a deep breath, “That question is more loaded than a meatball marinara from Subway. All in all, I’m going to be okay, but this all has been a little... terrifying to think about. I nearly lost you.”
“How long have I been out?” Jillian asked.
“A week. The doctors said your brain showed small signs of swelling from... from the cane.”
Jillian’s hand raised up to cup Erin’s cheek. She let a lone tear slip down from the corner of her eye and weakly shook her head, “That wasn’t you.”
“But it was my body that carried out the action. What if he’d forced me to hit any harder? I could have killed you, Jillian. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for the rest of my life. If I’d been stronger, I could have fought the possession. I could have prevented all this if I’d just gone to the police about Phil all those months ago—”
“Stop it. You’re not responsible for a grown man’s sadistic actions. Thank goodness we know how to professionally handle ghosts. If this had happened when we were civilians, we would have died for good. Erin... are you sure you shouldn’t be in bed, too? I mean... you had two ghosts possess you at once.”
“I’ll be okay. Believe it or not, Austin has been walking me through it. He knows how to calm people down.”
Jillian scooted over in her hospital bed, well, as much as she could with an IV sticking out of one arm and heavy weight in her head. She gestured for Erin to join her, and the older woman took the hint rather quickly. Gilbert slithered into the hospital bed, checking that no doctor would wander in, and pulled the thin blanket over the both of them. Wordless kisses were shared, and Jillian felt an abundance of hope return to her as Gilbert’s slender fingers weaved through tangled blonde hair. They were still together. They were going to be okay.
“I love you,” Gilbert whispered into her mouth.
Jillian felt a little shocked at first, managing out a squeak before a proper reciprocation was muttered. She gripped Erin’s bicep and whispered “I love you” back to the physicist no less than a dozen times. Her finger twirled around a strand of silver hair, and she hugged Gilbert close to her chest before falling asleep; more content than she had been in days. Weeks. Months, even.
. . .
The first think the women wanted to do, out from the hospital, was check the news. It’d been a week and a half since the incident, and Jillian was interested in learning why she wasn’t currently sitting in a jail cell charged for murder. The official story was that the Police found a journal written by Phil detailing his progression into madness, and that this was all a big case of self-defense on Jillian’s end. The unofficial story was that Abby, Patty, and Austin had stormed into the Mayor’s office and delivered solid (figuratively in Austin’s case) testimonies about Phil’s abuse of Erin and his plot to murder the physicist. It would appear that Jennifer Lynch had never met a ghost in person, and she was so intimidated by the boy’s fully ionized presence that she whipped up a pardon before they even got to Patty’s testimony.
“Erin told me to mention something about ‘ghost snakes’ and that’d get her to sign you a pardon quicker,” Austin said, playing around with the PKE meter. “Hey, Abby, why does this start spinning faster when I point it towards my—”
Abby swiftly took the device out of his hands and shooed the ghost towards the other end of the lab. Jillian was comfortably resting in her armchair, allowed to only work on one device per day until she’d fully recovered (Gilbert’s rules). In her hands was the beginnings of a new proton cane, complete with a ghost radar and alarm. Patty was in the archive section of the second story, cross referencing everything she could about the ghost language, and beginning to compile translations based on what Austin could teach her. The Ghostbusters were beginning to understand why so many attempts at peace with ghosts over the past thousands of years had gone sour— neither party could understand each other.
Meanwhile, Jillian’s legs were propped up on Erin’s lap. The physicist was completing a beautiful sketch of Austin to include in the sequel to Ghosts of Our Pasts (Both Literally and Figuratively). Austin, same as his high school personality, loved to pose. He even suggested one where he held the proton guns, to which Abby and Patty fiercely shut him down. They weren’t sure what to make of the ghost yet, but if he had Erin and Jillian’s trust, it was good enough for them. There were rules, of course, he wasn’t allowed on busts unless he was possessing Jillian’s armbands (for PR reasons, and because they didn’t want him getting hurt), he had to have supervision in the lab, and he had to use the door like any other sentient being— though the last one wasn’t because Austin had floated through a wall and interrupted someone’s privacy, but because Kevin thought he could float through walls, too, and ended up with a nasty bruise on his forehead while playing tag with the ghost.
“Alright,” Abby sighed, “We need to work on the Human Ghost Trap. Some sort of device that allows us to siphon a ghost from the armbands into a proper trap.”
Austin floated above her and curiously picked at the armbands, “Haven’t you heard? Ghosts are now USB compatible.”
“Ha, ha, ha,” Abby deadpanned. Then she straightened up, “Wait, can you actually possess electronics?”
“How else do you think I got Patty’s Spotify? There’s some fine playlists on her account.”
“Yeah, stay away from my stuff,” the historian muttered from her desk.
Jillian felt Gilbert lazily drawing circles on her thigh, and nearly let out a laugh at the tickling sensation. Her hand found Erin’s, and she gripped it with a smile, allowing Erin to lace their fingers together.
Even Ghostbusters could find themselves at peace, it seemed.
Gilbert ran her thumb over Jillian’s knuckles for a few seconds before they made eye contact. Jillian saw a dark hunger in them and straightened up. They stared at each other for all of a minute before Jillian broke, heading up to the sun room on the roof. After a few minutes, she heard a small clicking from downstairs as Gilbert followed her. A hand gently cupped her cheek and she leaned into the touch with a wide grin, her heart already racing.
“I missed you so much,” the physicist smiled.
Jillian pressed her forehead against her lover’s, taking in a deep breath and letting go of everything that’d happened in the past few weeks. The sensation of fingers lightly resting on her cheek grounded her, but only a little. Another part of her felt as though she were floating in the clouds, and she held onto that euphoria as Gilbert slowly unbuttoned her flannel. The fabric slid off her shoulders in a tantalizingly slow manner, and for once the sex wasn’t about being rough or hot or passionate. It was simply about love. Lips rested on Jillian’s collarbone, a small nip here and there by teeth causing her to let out wispy gasps as she gazed at the New York City skyline— rain beginning to roll in and splatter on the glass roof above their heads.
Her shirt finally fell to the floor, and a pair of skilled hands unclasped her bra. She pulled Erin’s tank over her head, the sports bra following. They hugged each other, standing in the middle of the sun room and pouring an unseen energy into each other.
Gilbert gently pushed her down to the couch and kissed her, “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”
“Yeah. Just make love to me.”
“We’re... we’re making love,” Erin smiled in a goofy manner.
Jillian kissed her, “Yeah, you dummy. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
. . .
And when the paparazzi started circulating rumors about a golden ring on Dr. Jillian’ Holtzmann’s finger, she merely sent a few of Austin’s ghost buddies to haunt them. They had no choice but to call the Ghostbusters for help, and in lieu of payment offered to stop publishing tabloid articles. They weren’t wrong, though. Jillian rather liked the ring. She couldn’t stop fiddling with it on the big day.
“I still think you guys should have your own TV show,” Austin said, as he adjusted the tuxedo he’d managed to conjure. “Can you imagine if I became the first ghost celebrity?”
Jillian rolled her eyes and adjusted her dress, “We already do interviews, and you should be thankful the government hasn’t stolen you away for testing.”
“Puh-lease, the secrets I know about them. Do you know how quickly political gossip travels in the underworld? You’d die for the chance to know what I know about J. Edgar. And the Kennedys! They never shut up, I swear to god.”
He’d managed to learn how to control ectoplasm about half a year ago, and when he put his arm on hers, not a drop of the slime touched her dress. Everything was going... perfectly for the big day. She took a deep breath and scuffed her pearly white sandals on the grass beneath her feet.
“This is it. Can you just possess me so I don’t do anything stupid?”
“Nope.”
Gilbert walked past her, breaking the rehearsed structure of the ceremony, “I want you to say the vows, dear. No offense, but I wouldn’t marry Austin for a million dollars.”
“You have terrible financial strategy,” the ghost said, shaking his head.
Jillian hurriedly pushed her fiancé back inside of Rebecca Gorin’s house, “It’s bad luck for us to see each other before the ceremony!”
“We work with dead people, that’s literally the epitome of bad luck, dear. I mean, maybe winning the popular vote but losing the election is worse. But we’re still up there.”
“Out! Out!”
Gilbert laughed like a maniac as she tucked the bouquet into her bun, smoothing out her suit and skipping down to where Abby and Patty were waiting. Jillian caught one last longing look at her soon to be wife and turned to her best friend. A cool afternoon breeze flowed through the air, carrying tree seeds with it, and she stepped into the sunlight to warm up.
“For over a decade, I didn’t think I’d be marrying a woman,” she confessed to Austin. “I didn’t think I’d be marrying anyone.”
“Well that’s why no one leaves you in charge of anything, Holtz. You’re an idiot.”
“ At least I’m a living idiot.”
“Low blow,” Austin scoffed. “But you can’t traverse various planes of existence, can you?”
Jillian nervously shivered, “Actually, I’m screaming into the void at this very moment. What if she backs out? What if I back out?!”
“Oh my god, just go marry her already! This is ridiculous! I might actually have to haunt you if you don’t get your ass in motion.”
Jillian shook her head with a chuckle and walked towards the start of the aisle. Eventually the time came to walk, and she felt anything but nervous. Especially when, instead of Erin Gilbert wearing a tux and fiddling with her bouquet at the end of the walkway, she just saw a curious scientist wearing a lab coat and overalls and Canadian headbands— precisely seven pencils sticking out of her various pockets and at least one reptile perched on her shoulder. She saw a woman who didn’t care what the world thought of her, and for a few moments... Jillian didn’t care, either. So, she reached down and grabbed the object she’d been hiding in the pocket of her dress. Everyone’s laughter interrupted the officiate at the silliness of the look, yet Erin’s grin shined brightly as Jillian perched the yellow glasses on her nose.
Jillian Holtzmann was learning to be unique, and she would remain eternally grateful for her bizarre, enthusiastic bisexual wife from outer space.