Delta - 13.2

The scene flickered again, and they were standing in an abandoned office building. The remains of a shattered front window lay on the floor with blood covering all the desks, still running across the slight incline and creating steady pools. Bodies were strewn across the floor, dressed in pin stripe suits and trench coats.

“Bahtaa, are you trying to scare me with some alternate future?”

They stood silent and waited for Harry to examine the name of the window shard, and then possibly notice the calendar date.

Roth & Morrow.

“Same building. Same agency. Just a different name.”
“So your previous employers never happened to mention the massacre that happened in their office?”
“No but of course I was wondering about the Tommy gun holes in the wall.” Harry ended the statement with a huff, pulling her hair back and looking at the questioning alien.
“That was sarcasm, Bahtaa. Fucking sarcasm. Of course, they never told me about this.”

Bahtaa repositioned the saddle bag hanging over vir shoulder and the look of confusion slowly slipped away from their face.

“Oh. I really wish you wouldn’t, especially after all this time.”
“You’re dead, you bitch. You’re so fucking dead. I killed you 400 hundred years ago and every time I try to find some little sliver of happiness, your fucking ghost shows up to screw with me. God, I hate this.”
“They called it shell shock. Then PTSD. Then Soldier’s Heart. No matter the name, I exist for the same reason.”

Harry had been told the story of the Roth & Morrow massacre, but it was by Jud after they died. Jud was the only employee of the old company who had ever given enough of a fuck to tell her anything. She understood. She was the outsider, the rebel fugitive from Nerot, a criminal from Tanis. In general, no one wanted her kind anywhere.

“I’m starting to doubt that you have a reason for existing, other than continuing to piss me off.”
“I show up to stop you from making bad decisions. The last time you loved and got too carried away in the emotion, how did it end?”

Badly.

“Hmm? I didn’t quite hear that.”
“Badly. It ended badly.”
“Yes and we saw some of those effects today, didn’t we?”

Harry turned back away and took her hair back behind her neck again and sighed. Bahtaa was a bitch but they were right. She didn’t have the best luck with relationships, but no one had even expected her to live past childhood.

Not the best start.

“I know you want to pretend that you can get a happily ever after with this one, but -”
Bahtaa stepped around to place vir hands on Harry’s shoulder and leaned into her ear.
“Let’s face the facts darling.”

Harry reached out her hand to punch the spirit, but her fist just went through a cloud of smoke. The movement ended with a chilling temperature passing through her body, sending her into a half kneel on the concrete.

Ow.

Ow? What kind of thing is it to say “ow”?

“I am your thoughts, so I can hear your thoughts, ya know. And “ow” is a great expression.”
“I can’t believe I thought you might be real this time. Of course, you’re just another hallucination because no one I ever knew is alive. Hallelujah.”
“Yes, I am a hallucination but how does that make me not real?”
“Bahtaa, I really don’t want to deal with your philosophical bullshit right now. Just work with me to figure out why those assassins are in town.”

She collapsed into another chaise lounge and then the spirit followed around to sit next to her. When the ghost touched against her side, the same burning and cold feeling spread throughout her body. To sit there, straight up, the pain was excruciating but so was this whole ordeal.

“Why do you always ask me for help? It’s just having a conversation with yourself and some people might start to think you’re crazy.”
“You and I both know that happened a while ago. How do you think I got all the way out here to be by myself at the end of civilization?”
“Again with those damn questions.”

The scene slowly started to materialize back into the roof where Harry had started, Will still curled up in the arm chair. Her breathing skipped for a moment and Harry turned around with more worry for Will than anything else.

“Why couldn’t I have someone else haunting me? Instead of a bitch like you.”
“You’re just lucky. Think of all the people you have killed, and you ended up with me. One of the few people who died with your mercy and respect.”
“I know those aren’t my words. I hate you motherfucking ghosts.”

Bahtaa’s spirit located the whiskey bottle on the floor and took a drink, and Harry could almost see the liquid moving through their fluid body.

“Motherfucking? Don’t insult me with such a term. You and your human insults with alternate meanings.”
“Don’t insult me by roping me into the same group as humans.”
“That’s…fair.”

Harry took the bottle back from the spirit and laughed a bit to herself at those words being connected. Bahtaa looked to her with the same questioning, dead eyes as before and for a single second, she did consider telling the joke back. Maybe the ghost would get it or maybe she would be stuck with another 70 years of bad luck. There was no way of telling from this point so as always, she took a drink and passed the bottle back to the ghost.

“Why are you laughing? It can’t be over the little spirit and spirit joke? That wasn’t worthy of anything.”

Harry looked down at the pavement, now laughing at the insult of that statement.

“Oh, it was. Sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter, really.”
“No, it does and I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want any of your sort of apologies. All they ever do is guilt me more.”