"Now, Alfred, remember, I'll be back to help you move up to our quarters in a couple days. You should prepare and do what you need to so that whatever experiments you're working on can run without you present at all hours."

Christ, he's gotten used to being bossy again real quick, Alfred thought as he listened dully to Arthur over the vidcom. The Brit was clearly over the moon that the vampire was going to be moving in with him. Ever since they'd returned from London, he called Alfred just about every couple of hours with inane questions like- 'What color do you want the room to be? What kind of sheets do you like- satin or cotton? Do you want your own office? What kind of computer do you use?'

It would almost be cute. Almost. If it weren't for the fact that every fibre in Alfred's body was screaming that this was wrong.

Yeah, he knew that Arthur killed people. Like collateral damage in whatever shady business the Watchers were engaged in. He didn't know that he was a cold-blooded murderer who shot people with his own two hands.

God, I'm such a hypocrite for thinking those are two different things...

"Alfred? Alfred, are you listening to me?"

"Mm? Oh, sorry," Alfred replied, even as he wondered how he could get out of the promise he'd made. Or even if he should. He would be as close as close can get. With that would come access, privileges and opportunities.

Arthur sighed, leaning back in his office chair. "Clearly you're distracted. Very well, I shall leave you alone. I'll see you in a couple days, love. Be safe."

How can I not be safe? You're keeping me imprisoned here.

However, externally he just nodded and waved. "Yup, see ya. Can't wait." He shut the call down before the Brit could drag out the painful conversation any longer. Relieved, Alfred fell back into his chair in his lab. It really had become his lab now, strewn with empty blood packs and decorated with video game paraphernalia. Kiku's urn had its own comfy spot, displayed prominently on one of the lab tables. He felt comfortable here. Now he was getting uprooted all over again.

Still, it wasn't like he'd made any progress on his research to warrant lab work. That whole kidnapping had thrown a giant monkey wrench into his plans. Why did he just go along with it again? That was so stupid. Then again, he couldn't be sure that Arthur wouldn't drag him back to Daedalus by the ear anyway, since he couldn't have stopped the bodyguards from getting dosed.

Sighing, the vampire scooted his wheeled chair along the floor from the vidcom over to his main work station. He scrolled through Kiku's research again, trying to get through all the experiments that the man had done on AN-particles and Kihon versus Dark Matter. Just trying to understand Dark Matter was enough to make his head spin, but the gist of it was 'Oh, it's kind of like Dark Matter, but not really. Will have to do more tests.' Obviously, Kiku had gotten both very far and absolutely nowhere at the same time. Or else he would have just told Alfred how to fix Arthur while he was still alive.

Groaning, Alfred spun around to glower over at Kiku's urn. "Damnit Kiku, why'd you have to make this all so freakin' complicated?"

"Exactry what part of it is compricated?"

The vampire froze. That was Kiku's voice. That was definitely Kiku's voice. It sounded like it was going through a tunnel, sure, but that was him. "Holy- I'm going insane," he squeaked.

"Alfred-san, you're not going insane. Rook behind you."

Slowly, very slowly, the vampire turned around. There in the center of the room, stood a spectral electric blue apparition of Kiku. The younger version of him that Alfred knew best, before he went on exile, dressed in one of his favorite kimonos. With a faint smile, Kiku waved at Alfred.

Alfred slowly waved back. Before he teetered over and the floor punched him in the face.

~o~

The ceiling was still spinning a little bit when the vampire roused back to consciousness. Then he realized that he was seeing the ceiling through Kiku's translucent blue face.

A very un-creature-of-the-night-like scream pierced the air as Alfred scrambled back away from the apparition to hide underneath his desk. A second later, his security guard burst into the room, gun raised. "Agent Estonia! Agent Estonia, what happened!" she demanded, looking around the room until she found the vampire cowering underneath his computer table. "Sir, what's wrong?"

Somehow the Kiku ghost managed to disappear. Alfred had no idea what to tell her that wouldn't have her racing back to Arthur to tell him his vampire boyfriend was crazy. "I, um... I thought I saw a spider," he said, pushing himself up to his feet. The guard's skepticism was almost tangible. "Seriously, it was a scary huge spider!" the vampire insisted, waving his arms wildly. "It musta had like ten legs and thirteen eyeballs or something!"

At this, the security guard replied flatly, "Do you want me to kill the spider for you?"

"Would you mind?" Alfred answered sheepishly.

The guard released one of the most exasperated sighs imaginable as she slung her gun back over her shoulder. "Where is it?"

An hour of futile searching turned up nothing, of course. Alfred almost felt bad for leading the guard on a wild goose chase, but then again he was terrified of the ghost coming back as soon as he was left alone. Eventually, the guard told him rather forcefully to kill the bug himself if he saw it again and returned back to her post.

"Well, that took rong enough."

It took all Alfred had not to let out another petrified shriek. "Will you- Don't do that!" he squeaked, whirling around on the projection who calmly stared back. "What are you even doing here? Ghosts aren't- You're a hologram, aren't you? Some sort of sick hologram that Arthur installed in here while we were away."

"I am not a horogram." Kiku seemed almost offended by the accusation. Well, as offended as his stoic expressions could get anyway.

"So, what, you're..." the vampire swallowed heavily, an icy chill running down his spine, "...a ghost?"

"Perhaps," the ghost allowed. "Most rikery, I am a manifestation of your memory of me arong with my ashes, which was exposed to magical erements while you were in Engrand. Do you know when that might be?"

Alfred forced himself to think back. He shuddered. "That weird bone room. There was magic-electricity all over the place." Then it dawned on him as his eyes widened. "I was carrying your urn in my backpack at the time."

"Which is, no offense, Alfred-san... is a rittle strange. Do you always carry my ashes around with you?" Kiku asked, not unkindly.

The vampire resisted the urge to grab Kiku's urn and hold it against him like a demented security blanket. "N-no, not always..." he said, though his guilty expression betrayed him. "Look, your death was really, really hard on me, okay? And everything else has been changing and- and I'm having a little trouble letting go here."

"Ah, soudesune..." the ghost sighed gravely. "Perhaps it is better if I do not appear again."

"Wait, wait!" Alfred called out, trying to grab the ghost's sleeve before he disappeared. All he got was his hand feeling like it had been doused in a bucket of ice as it passed right through him. Nonetheless, he pleaded with him, even as he curled his frozen hand against his side, "Kiku- Kiku, please. You're my friend, aren't you? Can't you help me with all this? I'm in way over my head here."

Kiku looked reluctantly over at the wooden passcon and the computer. "How rong have you been working?"

"Two-three months," Alfred answered, wringing his hands as he watched the ghost think.

"You rearize it took me decades to research, yes?" Kiku asked, turning those hauntingly empty eyes over in Alfred's direction. "Two months is not very rong in the grand scheme of things."

Once again, the vampire had to repress a shudder, but he pressed on, "N-no, you don't understand. It took me two months just to translate the Japanese."

The silence that followed was nearly palpable.

Finally, Kiku released a long sigh. "Very well, I will assist you. What have you reaned so far?" he asked, coming over to Alfred's side to review his work. Despite himself, the vampire couldn't help but grin as he booted the passcon up to go over all his progress with his ghostly best friend.

~o~

After that, things were still way over Alfred's head, but at least Kiku seemed like he knew what he was doing as he attempted to translate everything in layman's terms for him. Once the vampire got used to the whole ghost thing, it was actually kind of easy to fall back into the familiar patterns. Kiku would talk and Alfred would just try to keep up. Or he'd try to get Kiku to lighten up a bit because he was just being way too serious.

It was just so nice. He hadn't felt so light in ages. Almost like things were back to way they used to be. More than that, Alfred actually had an ally. Somebody who could help him out so that he wouldn't feel so helpless all the time. One who couldn't actually move things with his own hands, sure, but that was a minor inconvenience.

"You still think I need to hack into the Gherkin databases, then?" Alfred asked, stretching his spin out in his chair after a few hours of being hunched over keyboard.

Kiku nodded sagely, sipping a cup of ghost tea he'd hocus-pocused out of nowhere. "We should look more into the origins of how an Antinatural came to be. My scientific tests on Arthur-san's nature were not very fruitful," he said almost apologetically. "Perhaps one day scientific methods will find out how to quantify what he is, but from what you tell me Arthur-san may not have much time left."

"Much time?" Alfred echoed, though he had a sense of what Kiku was talking about. "You think he's getting worse."

"I watched him get worse," Kiku replied softly, his haunting lantern-like eyes looking inwards into the past. "At first, I berieved it was grief that you were gone. But it was more than that. He rost his way. He rost all perspective. ...He may be getting better with you here," the ghost added, layering another heavy slab of responsibility on the vampire.

"Ergh, don't tell me that," Alfred groaned, falling into a heap over his keyboard. "I get that from Arthur enough already. It's not like I'm a good person or anything. I've done absolutely horrible things and I'm still trying to make up for all of that."

"...I think that is exactry the type of person that Arthur-san needs," Kiku said after a long moment.

However, the vampire could only give an indifferent shrug. "Look, whatever. I'll try to convince him to stop being so evil, but I still think our best bet is putting his mind back to normal. All the human things- dreams, creativity, etcetera."

The ghost let out a small sigh, as if Alfred was missing something rather obvious. He tended to do that a lot. "Very well. Then we must start with the Watcher archives. Were you able to get crose to any of the Watchers while you were there that might help?"

The image of the spray of blood and brains suddenly came to mind. "Ah, no," Alfred replied with a cringe. "I'm pretty sure that Arthur burned all those bridges." More like took some napalm to them and then followed it up with some C-4. Though... come to think of it, perhaps he should be looking into the surviving members of the group to see if any of them might be sympathetic to his cause. If Arthur hadn't managed to cow them into submission. He should check for private chatter to see if any of them were dumb enough to voice their concerns over the web.

Making a mental note for later, the vampire continued, "I might be able to check Arthur's unit. I mean, I'm going to be living with him after all. Plus he said he oversaw all the supernatural stuff personally." Besides who was the most likely to hoard all the information about his Antinatural state? Hacking into Arthur's computer might just give them everything that they need.

Come to think of it...

"Kiku, did you ever tell Arthur about what you were working on?" the vampire asked, glancing over at the ghost.

"Well, Alfred-san, I could answer that... However, if I am a manifestation of your mental image of Honda Kiku and not actually his spirit, then there is no way to tell if what I tell you is correct," the ghost replied, taking another calm sip of his tea.

Alfred stared. That had to be complete bunk. After all, Kiku was able to get through all the research himself... wasn't he? Or was that just him somehow projecting a very Kiku-like conversation on what Alfred already knew? Growling, the vampire shook his head. If he thought about this anymore, his head would start spinning. "Look, just throw me a bone here, okay? What's your best guess?"

Kiku paused again, silently contemplating his answer. "I berieve that he did know," the ghost answered in that roundabout way of his. "He certainly did not ask any questions. I was given quite a bit of freedom in my work... Much as you are being given now," he added, turning those empty eyes in Alfred's direction.

The implication in those words sent a faint chill down Alfred's spine. "You think he knows what I'm doing?" he asked quietly.

"It's possible," Kiku allowed.

"But-!" the vampire objected, jumping to his feet. "You can't know for sure! I mean, all this stuff I'm working on- It could kill him!"

His look towards the ghost turned desperate, hoping that the ghost wasn't about to say what had been but a dark, filthy inkling at the back of his mind for nearly five decades.

"Alfred-san," Kiku said after a time, "I berieve you know as well as I do that Arthur-san wishes to die."

If Alfred had a heart, it would have stopped. He knew. He knew it. Yet just hearing it said aloud made him want to scream. His unneeded breath growing a little more rapid, he turned back to the computer as urgency pumped through him like blood. "I'm not going to let that happen," he said coldly, all his previous good humor at having Kiku around again evaporated, keys clicking too loudly as he coded his decryption algorithm.

"He was meant to die one hundred years ago," the spectre said, not unkindly.

"I don't care!" Alfred snapped, abruptly stopping to glare pure violence at his friend. "He wasn't supposed to die then and I'm not going to be the reason he dies now!" Yet another, dark and guilty part of him reminded him softly that Arthur being like this was his fault. He was responsible for all of this.

For a while, Kiku was silent. Alfred could tell that he was working up what to say and whatever it was, wasn't actually what he meant.

"I wonder," Kiku said finally, "if Arthur's predecessor became a doctor to remember the way the naturar world worked."

The vampire blinked at him. Whatever the ghost meant, it went way over his head this time. So he shook his head and muttered, "Goddammit, Kiku," under his breath as he went back to coding. He wasn't going to think about that. He had a couple days free and he was going to make the most of it before Arthur came back and demanded all of his free time.

By the end of this week, he was going to have everything he needed. Even if it-

His wrist console suddenly pinged, making him jump.

"What was that?" Kiku asked, noticing his startlement.

"Nothing!" Alfred yelped, slapping a hand over his wrist. He peeked under his hand and saw that it was exactly what he suspected. The red-headed league had decided to finally take a look at his intel. Somewhere with a network. These guys really didn't know the first thing about cyber security, did they? That was just fine with him. Maybe if they added his thumb drive to their mainframe, he could feed them more, all the while borrowing a few things from them right under their noses...

"...Alfred-san?" the ghost said, coming up behind him.

"Yeah?" the vampire asked innocently. He flicked the notification away. There was enough time to deal with that bunch later. Now, however, Kiku was giving him a strange, empty-eyed look that reeked of suspicion.

Deciding it was best to change the subject, Alfred said, "You know, once we get all this information together, we're going to have to figure out how to actually make the nanites to turn Arthur back to normal. And last time I checked you weren't a nanotech genius." Or you know, could lift things.

Kiku delicately raised an eyebrow. "And do you know someone who is?"

Alfred grinned wide, "Yeah, actually. I do." Then the smile dropped. "Don't know how much we can trust him though. He's kind of an arrogant ass, but he seems like a good guy. He's Luddie's brother."

"Rudwig had a brother?" Kiku inquired in surprise.

"Yeah, completely zombed-out one, actually," Alfred hummed, tapping his fingers along the desk as he considered. His lips quirked into a fanged grin, "I should make friends."