Work Text:
"Come here often?"
When Erin looks back on it all, years later, she thinks that sometimes you go looking for one thing and you find something you don't expect.
They work together. They all go on retrievals together. They research and build theory and perfect their equipment. They get kind of famous, too, and although that was never the goal, Erin has to admit it's pretty cool when parents point them out on the street to their children, or little girls look at them wide-eyed as they pass. She feels like they're helping out the next generation of ghost girls. It's not the worst legacy she can imagine.
Erin and Holtzmann start working together on projects. They've got time in between ghostbusting, and it turns out Holtzmann is great to bounce ideas off. Erin's always had this Every Problem Can Be Solved mentality that means she's dogged, but usually frustrated. Holtzmann reminds her that she, and science, are limited. She also notices logical fallacies like a champ, and is at least mostly tactful when pointing them out.
In return, Erin learns to solder, planning to help repair circuit boards and free Holtzmann up for the bigger projects. She's not great at it, but Holtzmann loves teaching, and sits with her patiently. There's times when she has to guide Erin's hand and there's times when it's easier if she leans over Erin's shoulder.
There's a week of this, and then they're working on a printed board with an impossibly fine margin of error. Erin realizes early on she's in over her head, but she's determined to be helpful, and Holtzmann guides her through it, only occasionally hissing through her teeth when it looks like Erin's going to screw up.
"Look, maybe you should do this," Erin says.
"No, no, you're doing great. Keep your hand still. No, stiller."
"I can't-"
"You'll kill us all if you screw this up, Erin."
"Oh my God."
"Kidding. It's not actually that important. Pretty much just makes the light turn on and off."
"Oh my God, why would you do that to me?" Erin is about to drop the soldering iron onto a pile of miscellaneous metal parts while she gives Holtzmann a piece of her mind, but she stops when she sees Holtzmann wince. "Would that kill us, too?" she asks, with only a hint of sarcasm.
"No, it's just expensive."
Erin places it carefully on the bench. And then Holtzmann kisses her.
She surprises herself by not hesitating, not for a second. Holtzmann's warm and soft and smells like rust, and their lips fit together like they've been kissing forever. Erin wriggles closer and nibbles at Holtzmann's lip, feeling something warm and golden envelop her. Oh, she thinks, and: Yes.
('Soldering' becomes a joke between them. Sometimes when they're actually talking about work Patty will groan and leave the room.)
“Erin, how do you feel about the laws of physics?”
“That's – a complex question. I need to know what specifically you want me to comment on. Unless you want an abstract, 'they exist and we continue studying them and theorizing about them for a reason' discussion.”
“I was thinking specifically, not in the abstract. About breaking several of them.”
“Opposed,” Erin says immediately.
“Aw.”
“Unless it's safe.”
Holtzmann sighs. “Well, you know what the chances of that are. Back to the drawing board, I guess.”
Erin thinks it's funny: funny-odd, not funny-haha. She and Holtz were friends: save-the-world-together, trust-you-with-my-life kind of friends. And then one day the balance just tipped, and Holtzmann was the most important person in her life. Erin wanted to wake up next to her, to memorize the curve of her hip, to drink in every part of her. Where there had been nothing, there was something.
Holtzmann moves into Erin's apartment. Erin worries that it's too soon, but Holtzmann's lease is coming to an end and she spends almost every night in Erin's bed anyway.
It's an adjustment. They're both mature women, used to living alone and used to their own space. Erin is a terrible roommate – she can admit it – and mutters under her breath rather than having actual discussions about who should do the laundry and why it should be Holtz and why Holtz should also learn how laundry is actually done, because not everything in everyone's entire wardrobe is pairs of coveralls.
Holtzmann can be kind of a pain in the ass herself. She's laser-focused on anything to do with work, but spaces out at home. Erin finds food stashed in weird places around the house that she'd imagine were mold experiments, if she didn't recognize it as a bagel she'd seen Holtz eating a week ago. She wages a constant battle against blonde hair in the shower drain.
They work on it. Holtz learns to pick some things up and Erin learns to let some things go. Smooth seas never made good sailors, but their seas get smoother, or maybe they learn to sail.
Sharing a bedroom is less of a challenge. Erin has really good quality cotton sheets. They take time to appreciate them.
“Erin, how do you feel about marriage?”
Erin's breath rushes out. “Uh, abstract?" she hears her own voice pitch high, "or specific?”
“I'm always up for your musings, but in this case, specific. I – uh, I bought a ring. Should I do the one knee thing or is it too much? It's too much, right?”
“It's not too much. Oh. Oh my God.”
“Is that a yes? It's usually a yes when you-”
“Holtz, shut up and get up here and kiss me.”
Holtzmann's smile is like a ray of light. “Oh. Oh, okay, cool.”
They get married at city hall, and Erin wears a yellow dress she bought on sale and puts a daisy behind one ear, and feels kind of goofy about it, but in the best possible way. She's marrying her lover and her friend. Holtzmann tells her she's going to wear her work coveralls, and Erin laughs and says she doesn't care.
On the day, Holtzmann turns up in a three-piece suit and bow tie. Erin laughs again, and straightens the tie for her.
They have takeout and beer with their friends at the firehouse in lieu of a reception, and Erin spends the evening smiling so much she has to blink away tears and turning her wedding ring around on her finger. Holtzmann kisses her hair when they pack up their stuff and say their goodbyes, and they go home to their apartment.
Erin sits on the edge of their bed and gratefully takes off her high heels, and watches Holtzmann undress. She looks down at her ring again, and when she looks up Holtzmann's watching her.
“Regrets already?”
Erin shakes her head. “Never. It's just that it doesn't feel real yet.”
“Maybe we should have done something nicer,” Holtzmann says sheepishly, walking over to her. She's in her undershirt and still wearing her undone tie, and Erin leans over and pulls the ends of it toward her. Holtz takes a step forward and bumps her legs on the edge of the bed, and ends up basically in Erin's lap. Erin's not complaining.
“It was perfect,” she says simply, and truthfully, and kisses her wife.
Patty writes her first book and she gets a pretty impressive advance from her publisher. Erin, Holtzmann, and Abby are all involved in the proofreading and providing laypeople opinions. None of them know that much about New York history, although Erin makes an effort, taking notes and researching dates, and can't find any inaccuracies. Holtz reads it in the bathtub and pronounces it a masterpiece.
When the published edition's released, they buy a copy each at a brick and mortar bookstore, even though Patty's got advance copies to spare. Erin inhales the new-book smell and turns to the dedication page – and laughs. It's two full pages, dedicating the book to friends, family members, and the guy who delivered pizza to Patty nights when she was up late writing.
It makes solid sales and gets Patty on a few radio talk shows and a morning TV show. Her publisher starts talking about a book tour. She starts another book.
The business starts to slow down. Erin starts teaching at NYU, after Columbia tries and fails to get her back. She likes the atmosphere better and she remembers how much she missed teaching; missed watching her students' eyes light up when they understood something they'd thought was impossible. She still ghostbusts part-time, at Holtzmann's indignant request, and because she likes it. All the job satisfaction in the world doesn't compare to shooting a ghost in the face with a pistol, although obviously that's not a line she ever uses in the press.
Sometimes they talk about what ghosts mean, about what they think it says about death and an afterlife. Erin's not sure if ghosts are spectral residues of what used to be, like the faded outlines of an old photograph, or if there's a soul in there somehow. Holtzmann usually just listens. Neither of them has ever been religious or spiritual; matters of hope and faith don't come naturally to them.
On their anniversary every year, Holtzmann brings her daisies.
Abby starts fostering children. It's hard work, and there are parts of it that break her heart. She takes short-terms, mostly; kids that have rough backgrounds and need a stable home and routine while their lives shake down around them. Abby's ruthlessly organized with every aspect of their lives, but she's also down-to-earth and knows how to let kids have fun, and Erin's so happy to see her friend fulfilled.
Surprising just about everyone, Erin is great with the kids. She's comfortable around them in a way she never is with adults, and they uniformly love her and will sit quietly for long discussions of how the ghosts in Harry Potter are factually inaccurate.
Sometimes Erin catches Holtzmann watching her with a wistful expression.
“Should we talk about this? Maybe we could look into adoption.” Erin knows she's getting too old for adoption agencies; that she and Holtzmann are too busy with their work; that neither of them really know anything about kids; that neither of them has really ever made the effort to learn. They could make it work, though. She'll make it work, if it's what Holtzmann wants.
“Nah,” Holtzmann says, with a faint smile. “I don't really want kids. It's just nice, watching you with them. What about you?” she asks, checking in. “I know we've talked about this before, but things change.”
“Not really,” says Erin, although sometimes she feels a pang.
Holtzmann suggests a cat. They adopt a giant orange long-haired tomcat with questionable manners and personal hygiene, and his hair joins Holtz's in covering everything in their apartment. He sharpens his claws on the antique desk that was a gift from Erin's grandparents, and he sleeps on the bed curled up against her back when Holtzmann's working late.
Erin's parents pass away within ten months of each other when she's forty-nine. That winter, there's a cold snap and the streets of New York turn into bleak skeletons. It feels like she's never going to be warm again.
It's a long cold winter for Erin and Holtzmann too. Erin's mute with grief and for the first time ever even Holtzmann can't lighten her mood. Erin stops dying her hair and lets it return to the pure white it's been ever since she and Abby came out of the portal. She feels her face freeze into lines. The blood runs out of her hands and she flexes them over and over, trying to feel something. She sleeps on the couch and stays as still as possible and spends long, dry-eyed nights staring at the ceiling.
That springtime, the streets thaw and the days get longer and some things get lighter. Erin cuts her hair above shoulder length and dyes it light brown. When she gets home that day, she's barely in the door when Holtzmann pushes into her, kissing her senseless. She doesn't try to pull away, and as she drags her fingers through Holtzmann's loose long blonde hair it's like she can feel something again. They make love standing up, and Erin feels the metal bands around her heart loosen and start to fall away. Afterward, Holtz drags her to their bed and keeps on kissing her as though she's been gone for a thousand years.
“I guess you like the hair,” Erin says, when she can breathe again.
“I like more than the hair,” Holtzmann says, and her voice trembles.
Abby fosters ten-year-old Eduardo, who becomes Teddy within ten minutes of meeting Holtzmann, and unsurprisingly adores her and her lab and everything in it that blows up. They build Lego together and spend long hours with their heads bowed together. It's Erin who becomes his favorite honorary aunt though. She's the one he goes looking for when he wants to talk about problems at school or with his friends; she's the one who buys him books about magical worlds and boys who go on heroic quests, and she's the one who always makes time for him. He ends up in long-term foster care and Abby applies to adopt him.
Patty retires. She marries a cop they meet during a ghost-related traffic stop, after a couple of stormy years dating her pizza delivery guy. They move to Atlanta to be nearer his aging parents.
Her friends are shocked that Patty's leaving New York, but her books are becoming more and more successful, so it's not a complete surprise to lose her as a ghostbuster. Erin reads Goodreads reviews fanatically and often discusses the inaccuracy of their criticisms in bed with her wife at night. Holtzmann tells her she shouldn't take the opinions of people on the internet so seriously. Erin and Holtz give Patty's books as gifts to everyone they know and laugh together over the dedication pages, which never get shorter and which drive Patty's publisher nuts, but Patty won't change a thing.
They sell their apartment and buy one with a huge spare room that Holtzmann can turn into a junk room-slash-mini-laboratory, since Erin gets heartily sick of finding engine parts and miscellaneous ooze on her coffee table. At first she keeps the door shut and tries not to imagine the chaos going on inside, but after a few days her curiosity gets the better of her and she starts wandering in while Holtz is working on something. She leans over Holtzmann's shoulder, watching her work, and they both remember soldering, and Holtzmann turns to kiss her. The light streaming in the window reflects off her lenses and catches in her bright hair, and Erin has to blink, and then she kisses back for all she's worth.
Holtzmann dies first.
She's too young and it's too quick, and Erin's not prepared. It feels like she's swinging at a ball that's already hit them in the face. At the funeral, Erin hugs Abby tight and thinks about the fact that it seems like five minutes ago that the doctors were talking encouragingly about treatment, and it had all seemed like it was going to be okay. And Holtzmann was Holtzmann, after all; the small, fierce, indestructible center that always held.
She was okay for a while, and Erin accompanied her to all her treatments and they looked into alternative therapies and in between, they did laundry and went to the grocery store and Holtzmann built little projects, and they lived.
“Erin?”
“Yeah, babe?”
“What do you think about – where they come from? The other dimension, across the barrier? They used to be people. They changed. They're warped.”
Erin can't ask, 'abstract or specific?'. She knows.
“I don't think it's the only place,” she says finally. “I think there's probably others. Different places. Better places.”
“We don't have any evidence.” Holtzmann coughs, and Erin helps her sit up with a hand on her back and hands her a Kleenex.
Erin thinks about it for a long few minutes. “Sometimes you don't start with the evidence. Sometimes you start with the idea, and you have to wait for the evidence to show itself. Sometimes you find what you're looking for. Sometimes you find something you didn't expect.”
“Help me lie back down?” Holtzmann asks, and Erin does. “That's not very scientific, Erin.”
“You always did like picking apart my arguments,” Erin says, and has to blink hard. “Um. You want me to close the window? It's getting cold.”
But Holtzmann is already asleep.
Holtzmann was okay for a while, and then for a little longer, and then all of a sudden she was definitely not okay, and then she was gone, and Erin can't catch her breath.
Patty comes up from Atlanta and stands beside Erin holding her hand during the informal ceremony. Teddy's there too, and he cries and hugs her, and she feels the breadth of muscle on his back through his shirt. He's turning thirty in a week; he hasn't settled down; he's always working a new job or a new project and Abby is ridiculously proud of him.
The room's brightly decorated and Erin bought daisies and they play music and people talk about what Holtzmann meant to them. Erin can't, so Abby and Patty give beautiful, hilarious, heartbreaking speeches of their own.
Erin puts basically the entire contents of their apartment on Craigslist, and people come and pick through their things and give her wrinkled bills in exchange. She opens the door to Holtzmann's spare room and watches strangers pick things up and put them down, and the sun streams through the window.
“It's too soon,” Abby tells her fretfully. “Let me help you. Don't just throw all this stuff away.”
Erin keeps a few sentimental items, but beyond that she needs to lighten herself. She's alone all the time now. She turns down Abby's offers of dinner and looks through the estate paperwork herself, planning everything she's going to have to do, but there's a night where her eyes start to blur on the third 'hereafter to be referred to as', and she gives up and calls Abby after all. They decide on Chinese food and Abby orders sesame and peanut tofu without thinking, and Erin cries in the bathroom for a half hour, trying to get a hold of herself. When she comes back out the tofu's gone and Abby hands her a container of fried rice without comment.
The next year she gets a parcel from Patty, a signed copy of her new hardcover book, 'Ghosts of Atlanta'. Erin opens it to the dedications page, expecting Patty's familiar bursts of love for everyone who's even peripherally been involved in the writing of the book. Instead, the page is almost blank, and centered in the middle is the text: “In loving memory of Jillian Holtzmann.”
Erin closes the book, and puts it on the shelf. It's the only one of Patty's books she never reads.
They close the business. Abby can't run it by herself and there are other, competing ghosthunters taking care of New York. They're not really needed anymore, and Abby's only a few years away from retirement, and she can pick up some work teaching.
She gets a job at a community college, and it's a bone of contention. Erin argues that she should work somewhere more prestigious, but Abby just laughs and tells her it reminds her of old times.
Erin remembers the sound of her heels on the floor, dust motes floating in the air, 'Do Not Write Stupid Things On This Door', and how she hadn't realized there was someone else in the lab.
She twists her wedding ring on her finger, and looks out of the window.
A few years later, there's a beautiful summer's day when Erin asks Abby to come with her to her doctor's appointment. Abby's often busy with her grandbabies now, but she will always, always make time for Erin. Abby writes Patty about it later: about the prognosis, and about the doctor's estimated timeframe. Erin didn't even look upset, she writes. She writes that afterward she and Erin went to the park and sat on a bench for a while. She writes about Erin, sitting quietly in a golden stream of sunlight and staring off into the distance, as though she'd just caught sight of someone she used to know.
(Come here often?)