Chapter Three - Premature

"What do you mean 'what am I doing here'? You just killed me!" Despite the fact that Death was a little confused as to what had just transpired, he still felt the need to defend himself.

"I didn't kill you, your dodgy ticker did. I just reaped your soul," he said matter-of-factly. Helga tried to tap her foot in impatience, but as she was floating six feet off of the ground this proved rather difficult to do. "That still doesn't explain why you are still here though," he mused thoughtfully.

"Doesn't it always happen this way then?" Helga asked as she saw Phoebe burst into tears. She felt as though her heart was going to shatter... again, apparently.

"Not usually," Death said slowly, rolling up the sleeve of his robe. "I can't help but notice that for a soul you're rather... ghostly."

"I'm a ghost!" Helga shrieked, thinking that was the last thing on earth she wanted to be.

"Don't be stupid," Death said fussily. "There's no such thing as ghosts."

"You still don't think so?" Helga said stubbornly, waving a ghostly hand over her ghostly form. Death put a hand to his forehead.

"Well..." he said slowly, clearly not handling this upset of his whole belief system with good graces. He checked the watch on his arm again. Helga watched him patiently, desperate to do something but not at all sure what that something was. She was completely at sea now, not knowing if she was or wasn't a ghost, but pretty certain that she was dead. Death gulped.

"Oh dear," he said finally. Helga glared at him, waiting for him to explain, but he didn't.

"Oh dear what?" she finally asked.

"Oh dear," Death said again.

By this point Helga was getting increasingly frustrated. In life she had rarely stood for such maddening behaviour, but now that she was dead she didn't really see what else she had left to lose.

"Either explain yourself or I am going to wrench your arm off and cram it right up your-" Helga trailed off, not entirely sure where one crammed things up a skeleton. Death gave her a pathetic smile, the kind that an air stewardess would have given to her passengers before informing them that they had just lost all four engines. A morbid dread filled Helga, and she wondered what she had left to be afraid of. Death scratched his head and avoided Helga's gaze.

"I knew that power naps were not for me..." he said quietly, muttering to himself. "Always put the watch on just before you reap the souls, just before!" he scolded himself quietly, knocking his bony knuckles against his temples.

"Er, what?" Helga cut in, feeling that if anyone was due an explanation, it was her. Death offered her the bad news smile again.

"Um, there's been a little bit of a mix up," Death said, twiddling his scythe in his hands.

"A mix up!" Helga shouted. "With my life!" Death bit an invisible lip.

"You see, I put your watch on after I first met you so I could, you know, count down the time until I got to see you again-" he offered in a simpering voice.

"How sweet of you," Helga replied sarcastically.

"Yeah, and um, I must have fallen asleep at some point, and er, well, I rolled over on to it you see and..."

"You reset my life?" she said in a scandalised voice. Helga had had a digital watch before, one with big shiny buttons that got pressed whether you wanted them too or not. She stared down at her body.

"In a manner of speaking..." Death said, trying to dodge the bullet but underestimating what a good shot Helga was.

"So when was I supposed to die?" she asked, scowling like she had never scowled before. If she had been corporeal she would have beaten his head in until it was a brand new shape. Death looked as though he wished a shiny Hell vortex would open up and swallow him whole.

"I don't know," he confessed. "Your watch is all wrong now."

"I'm going to kill you," Helga said evenly, curling her hands into fists.

"Well, I'm not technically alive, so that saves you a job," Death offered, although he wasn't entirely surprised when this didn't appease Helga.

"So what now?" Helga asked, getting angrier by the second. "And if you say you don't know, I'm going to bite you." Death thought for a moment.

And then he shrugged.

Helga lunged at him, but he held his scythe out in front of him to defend himself. "I didn't say it!" he protested. Helga stopped, knowing that there was no point in her action anyway. She couldn't touch him.

"So do I just float about here now for the rest of eternity?" she asked glumly. Death regarded her sadly.

"I'll come visit you sometimes," he said with an air of hopelessness.

"You're the last person I want to come see me," she said in a broken voice.

"Probably," Death replied. "But I'm also the only person who can come see you now."

-

Death left Helga's side shortly after, saying he had a lot of business to attend to. Helga was still mad at him, but she knew that her rage could only peter out to nothing, so she let him go and stared down quietly at her body as paramedics rushed the school to see to her. She was going to miss being alive very much. There was so much she hadn't seen or done or had done to her. She had had plans godammit, good ones that involved Arnold and a weekend away. Ones that involved Arnold and her presidency. Ones that involved Arnold and a large tub of chocolate body paint. Ones that involved Arnold.

She was very reluctant to leave her body as well. It was hers after all, and she wanted to make sure that it was well seen to. The paramedics brought a stretcher and laid her body gently onto it, and Helga was surprised at what great care they were taking not to jolt her corpse. Carefully they carried her out of the school, exposing her dead flesh to one and all, and they pushed her into the back of an ambulance. Helga had expected them to cover her face with a white sheet like they did in the movies, but surprisingly they didn't. Helga hitched a ride in the back of the ambulance, watching while one of the paramedics stumbled around, looking for supplies that didn't seem to be there.

She wondered what her funeral was going to be like. She felt a horrible pang as she realised that it would probably be the one time in all her life, or death, as it were, that her family showed any real emotion toward her. It struck her as typical that she had to do something as drastic as die just to get their attention. In the back of her mind she thought she could hear the siren of the ambulance going, but carrying a dead body was really no reason to rush. Perhaps they just wanted to get back to the hospital quickly so that they could finish their lunches.

When the doors of the ambulance were thrown wide again, Helga was a little surprised to see that the paramedic looked rather angry. He cast a final furious gaze over the lack of contents of the ambulance once more, before pulling down the trolley with Helga's body on it and dragging it towards the entrance. He was quickly joined by the other paramedic, who began pushing it from the other end. Gently, and not sure how she was doing it, Helga followed them as they urgently pushed her through endless corridors, coming to a stop in a room full of comatose people who were all hooked up to bleeping machines.

She would have scratched her head, but her fingertips went right through her transparent bow.

She watched with interest as doctors and nurses swarmed around her, plugging tubes in here and inserting little needles there. She couldn't help but feel that all of their efforts were a little pointless, what with her already being dead and all, but still, it was nice to know that somebody cared.

She caught snippets of medical jargon as she floated around her still body, but something in her head forced her to notice that still probably wasn't the right word. Her chest was clearly rising and falling. Confusion like she had never felt before flooded her system, and in a vain attempt to understand the situation she stared into her face and gibbered for a while. It was as though something else was inside her, controlling her functions and keeping her alive. She was clearly rather out of herself, so who was it? She felt a gentle tap on her shoulder.

"Remember me?" said a voice. She spun around, and came face to face with another ghostly figure. It was an elderly man, and Helga knew at once that it was Henry Priestly. But, unlike her, he seemed to be a lot more ghostly and transparent, as though if Helga stopped thinking he was there he would disappear.

"It's you, isn't it?" she exclaimed, pointing at her body. "You're keeping me alive."

"Sort of," Henry replied with a shrug. Helga dashed forward to throw her arms around him, but instead found herself falling not only through him, but also through a pretty young nurse, who shuddered involuntarily. Helga smiled at him.

"Thank you," she said gently. "But why?"

"Well, you were the first person who came to visit me in all my years of being dead," he said sadly. "No one else ever took the time. I wanted to repay you somehow, and just as I was wondering how Death shows up and gives me the prefect opportunity!"

"Hang on a minute," Helga said suspiciously, but still not dropping her smile. "I thought you left when I asked you to?"

"Oh, I did, I did," Henry said quickly. "But I popped back every now and then. You know, just to see how you were doing."

Helga pointed at the bed. "Not too well, apparently," she said sadly. "So how comes you're in there and out here at the same time?"

"When you've been dead as long as I have, you learn how to split your essence. Right now I'm in three different places."

"Oh yeah? What's the third?" she asked, craving an answer like never before.

"You know, when I'm not there I'm not quite sure," Henry said truthfully. "But I know I'm free to come and go as I please."

"So are you a ghost?" Helga asked.

"Don't be stupid," Henry replied. "There's no such thing as ghosts." Helga had decided she was rather sick of hearing that, as she rather felt and looked like a ghost. She sighed and looked down to her body.

"How do I get back in?" she asked. Henry smiled.

"It's easy, just close your eyes and will yourself in there." He followed this statement with a quick demonstration. One second he stood in front of Helga in all his shimmering glory, the next he was gone, but there was a little more colour in Helga's pale cheeks. She grinned, closed her eyes, and with all of the force she could muster, she willed herself back into her body.

Nothing happened.

After a few moments, Henry reappeared. "You're not coming in?" he asked lightly. Helga frowned at him.

"I would, but it's proving to be a little difficult," she explained.

"Try again then," Henry prompted. Helga closed her eyes, and this time she thought of how the only thing she wanted was to be back inside her own head, and nothing more. Still, nothing happened. She sighed and fixed Henry with a cold stare.

"Henry," she began as though she were talking to a simpleton. "Have you ever willed yourself back inside your own body?" Henry let out a gentle chuckle.

"Oh Heaven no! It doesn't work," he said with a dumb smile. "You see, I'm dead and once that happens you can't... oh. Sorry." Helga groaned and buried her head in her hands. "I'll go, shall I?" Henry offered, and disappeared without another word. Thankfully Helga's chest continued to rise and fall, so she knew he hadn't gone far.

The cold-warmness that Helga had come to associate with the personification of Death filled the ward, and she spun around to look for the being in question. He appeared before her, looking relieved to see that something was at least keeping her alive down on that hospital bed. "Oh good," he said. "You're here."

"Where else would I be?" she said dryly. Death straightened his robe and cleared his non-existent throat.

"Um, quite. Anyway, I had a word with the Higher Powers and they... well, they weren't pleased."

"Shocker," Helga replied.

"Yes, you see, the thing is, this has never happened before."

"I'll bet it hasn't," Helga said slowly, feeling that she had all the luck.

"Indeed. You see, when I took your soul I caught the balance of the cosmos a little off guard. That's why old Henry here can keep you alive, you see. Because you're not properly dead."

"What the heck is that supposed to mean?"

"Well, your body is soulless right now, certainly, but everything else is in perfect working order."

"Well, why aren't I awake then?" she asked, even though she already knew the answer.

"Because consciousness-"

"- is something your soul makes you do."

"Precisely," Death replied.

"Can I get back in?" she asked.

"Well, I'm working on it, but for now you'll just have to hang around I'm afraid. As long as Henry doesn't leave your body..."

"I'll be fine?"

"You should be."

"And if he does decide to leave?"

Death made a strangled noise.

"Right."

"It's kind of funny really," Death mused, playing with the edge of his scythe.

"It really isn't," Helga replied angrily.

"No, I don't mean that," Death said with a small chuckle. "It's just that with your body still alive and your soul pretty much not that makes you..."

"Half dead," they said in unison.

All in all, Helga was feeling as though she was having a very bad day.

-

A/N: When I said three chapters tops... I of course meant four... (whistles innocently) -Sky.