Klaus hated graveyards. That's what happens when you spend a good portion of your childhood locked up in one, tormented by the desperate souls inhabiting the area. He wasn't eager to repeat the experience but right now he wasn't sure what other choice he had. He stood there at the gates, catching glimpses of figures that he knew weren't living people, trying to prepare himself.
"You sure you don't want me to go with you?" Ben asked.
"Yeah," Klaus said, not looking at him. "I need to do this by myself."
Klaus had been sober since before they stopped the apocalypse. It hadn't been easy and he'd fucked up plenty, but he'd done it. And despite the pain and struggle and all of the training he desperately hated, he still hadn't been able to summon Dave. He'd tried everything he could think of, worked harder than he had at anything before, and still nothing.
This was his only other idea.
"I hope you find him," Ben said. "I'll be here."
Klaus nodded. He wasn't sure why he couldn't seem to reach Dave. Was he ignoring him? Did he not want to be found? Or maybe he just wasn't here anymore, maybe he'd somehow found his way to eternal peace or whatever. Either way, Klaus had to be sure. And if Dave was going to be anywhere, it would be here, where he'd been buried.
He took a deep breath and stepped past the gate. He wasn't mobbed immediately so he took another step, and another. He heard them before he saw them but he didn't stop and he didn't look back. They materialized all around him, reach out, begging and pleading, soldiers, gruesome specters that wouldn't take no for an answer. He wasn't even sure if they knew or even remembered what they were really asking for anymore. Not that Klaus couldn't actually give them anything
It felt stifling, even out here under the open sky. The figures surrounded him as he pushed forward, through them. His breath came in shallow gasps and he could feel himself on the verge of panicking, feeling light-headed, a migraine coming on from being overloaded like this.
He scrabbled at graves as he went past, searching for names through the fog of ghosts. He knew where he needed to go, it was just disorienting pushing through a crowd like this, but eventually he got his bearings. Still, it took much longer than he would have liked, but eventually he found it, his fingers tracing the familiar name, a tear rolling unbidden down his cheek.
"Dave," he whispered, voice hoarse.
He closed his eyes tightly for a moment, concentrating hard. When he opened his eyes again, he was alone. All of the ghosts were gone and he was left alone with Dave's grave. And no Dave.
"Why?" he whispered, sounding broken even to his own ears. He was supposed to be here, why wasn't he here? "You said you wouldn't leave, so where'd you go?"
He collapsed to his knees, tears streaming down his face as he sobbed into the grass, feeling like it was his own chest that had been ripped open. All he wanted was Dave. He just wanted to see him, one last time. How cruel the universe was to give him someone to love, someone who loved him, only to take him away again after only ten months. It felt like dying.
His concentration gone, the ghosts swarmed back in, circling him like fallen prey. He didn't want to be here anymore. He wanted to be high, he wanted to drown the pain and the ghosts and everything else until he was numb, until he was nothing.
He dragged himself to his feet, frantically pushing through the ghosts, heedless of their grasping hands reaching out to him. Ben was waiting for him like he said he would. Diego too. Ben had probably called him, warned him what they were trying to do, Klaus thought idly.
They both rushed forward, supporting him as he finally stumbled across the threshold. As soon as he was clear, he pulled away from them more viciously than he meant to. He just needed to go, to get far away from all of this.
"Where are you going?" Ben asked.
"Where do you think?" Klaus scoffed. "To get high."
"You can't give up, just like that," Ben said.
"Oh yeah?" Klaus said, rounding on him, his grief breaking through to fury. He knew Ben didn't deserve it though and he deflated immediately. But he still added, "Why not?"
"You know you're better than that."
"Am I? Are you really sure? Because the past fifteen years of my life seems to indicate otherwise. You have your own life now, just leave me to this."
"Come on, bro," Diego said. "Is that really it? One try and then you're done?"
"Yeah," Ben said, scrambling for something to say like he always did, trying to talk Klaus off the ledge and it made him feel guilty for always putting Ben in this situation. "What if he's lost and he needs you to find him? It has been fifty years."
That stopped Klaus. They had talked about this before when Ben had been a ghost, about where he went when he disappeared and all the things he had experienced after his death. Not that he actually saw much. None of the usual rules seemed to apply to any of the Hargreeves so it didn't actually tell them much about the experiences of the average ghost. They weren't sure if that was because of their bond or just because of Ben.
But Klaus still thought of the darkness, of the desperate and greedy reaching hands, the voices pleading with him, in agony and terrified. Is that what dying did to you? Or do you go somewhere that turned people into that? Was it like being trapped in the mausoleum for all eternity? Klaus thought of Dave, locked away alone with that horror for fifty years, and gave an involuntary shudder. He couldn't leave him to that. He had to keep trying. He owed it to Dave.
"Hang on, hang on," Diego said. "He was MIA, right? Maybe that's why he isn't here. Maybe we just gotta find the right place."
"Wait, what?" Klaus said, rounding on him. "What do you mean, MIA?"
"Yeah, did you guys not read the whole article?"
He shook his head. He'd been in such a hurry he hadn't let Ben finish reading it either. He'd actually been avoiding any details about the war or anyone he might have known during that time. He felt guilty for just leaving them all and avoiding the whole thing seemed like the best way to deal with it all. He still didn't even know when the war actually ended and he'd only brought himself to look up Dave's grave when he'd gotten desperate. Klaus never had been good at dealing with anything.
"Apparently his body never made it back to the States," Diego said.
"Oh no," Klaus groaned, throwing his head back. "I didn't just leave him on the battlefield, I made sure he was brought back and identified. I didn't want this to happen."
"Well that figures," Diego said. "Either they lost him in transit or they mixed up the tags."
"He could be anywhere, then." Ben said.
"I don't even know where to begin." The migraine was almost blinding at this point. Klaus closed his eyes and scrubbed a hand across his face with a heavy sigh, feeling overwhelmed and defeated.
"Don't worry, we'll find him," Ben said, hand on his shoulder, and he sounded much too certain. Was that for Klaus' sake or was he really that optimistic? "You just keep practicing and I'll look into this with Diego, see what kind of information we can dig up."
"Fine," Klaus said, all energy gone as he sagged. "Let's just go home."
He felt a little guilty being so fatalistic knowing his brothers were trying so hard to help. He was just so tired. He just needed Dave.