Author's note: Thanks to everyone who has been reading and favoriting. That means a lot. And sorry it's been a little while since the last update. I hope to have the story wrapped up this week. As with 'One Day at Christmas', this is going to be a two-part epilogue. This part is the original epilogue. The next part is an additional epilogue that I hadn't originally planned but thought some of you might like.

I hope you've been enjoying it. I still don't own "Ghostbusters" (see chapter 1 for disclaimers).

Epilogue – Part One

Two Days Later…

The Ghostbusters had gathered at Abby's apartment…with sledge hammers and power tools. Gaining access to the building had been a simple matter of dressing Kevin as the building's maintenance man and having him spritz the two Homeland Security agents with an aerosol that Holtzmann promised would do nothing more than make the agents sleep for a few hours while the Ghostbusters worked.

Abby had ruefully joked that she and Holtzmann hadn't even been roommates for a week before the engineer demolished the place (they'd both be living in the firehouse for the time being, since they were both now officially-if temporarily-homeless).

Erin had argued for the entire ride to Abby's building, suggesting alternatives for their plan, knowing all the while that they had no other option. Now that they were standing in Abby's living room, prepared to put their plan into action, she stared mournfully at the walls and the equations that adorned them.

"You really don't remember doing any of this?" Patty asked Holtzmann.

"Not one bit of it." Holtzmann had two giant gaps in her memory from the time spent under Voga Ra'El's control. She didn't remember anything between negotiating with Voga Ra'El at the warehouse and when she had hit that neutrino net back on the Altamont's rooftop.

The engineer had only seen pictures of her work on the apartment. It was more impressive in person-like the difference between seeing pictures of the Mona Lisa versus seeing the real painting. The equations and the numeric dialect were such things of beauty that Holtzmann briefly wondered if there were some way to preserve the work.

"Maybe if you tried Ray's machine again-?" Erin asked.

Abby elbowed her.

"Ow!" Erin swatted at Abby in retaliation. Admittedly, it was a tasteless suggestion, but Erin would grasp at any straw that would preserve the wealth of information they were about to destroy. Holtzmann's memory would soon be the only place where these equations would exist, and she wouldn't be able to recall them. "Sorry, it's just that if you could remember the numeric language…this is the secret to interdimensional travel. We could win the Nobel Prize in Physics…"

Abby cut her off. "We could unleash another Apocalypse, accidentally undo important historical events...come on, Erin, you know all this is too dangerous."

When the danger presented by Voga Ra'El had passed, while they were waiting for Holtzmann and Janine to fly back from New Guinea, the Ghostbusters-past and present-had talked about the dimensional gate, the equations, and the numeric dialect. The implications for science were unlimited. It meant mankind would gain the ability to travel between dimensions and through time.

Their inevitable conclusion was that mankind wasn't ready. The temptation to alter history would tempt too many people, just as it had enticed Voga Ra'El. There was no way to keep the knowledge safe and secret.

There was only one thing they could do. They had also agreed that painting over the numbers wasn't good enough. They needed to be certain that nobody could reproduce that interdimensional gate.

"It's the culmination of my life's work," Erin couldn't help but whine just a little, just one last time.

Holtzmann patted her shoulder. "Erin, Erin…you have to let it go."

Abby tried consoling her friend. "And it's not the culmination of anything. We're just getting started."

Erin forced a smile. They were right, of course. She'd closed the door to her Nobel Prize ambitions, traded them for saving the world from the very entities she'd tried so long to prove existed. That was her life's work now…and that wasn't such a bad thing, not at all. "So, we're really going to do this?"

Holtzmann was hefting a sledge hammer and grinning like it was Christmas morning.

"Abby, it's your wall. You should get the first blow," Patty said.

Abby stepped forward, raising her own hammer. "So much for my damage deposit. Okay, here we go-one more act of treason." Taking a deep breath, she swung the hammer and began smashing the drywall.

An hour later, Patty's muscles were screaming in protest. She glanced around at the apartment, which was now coated in dust and mortar. "Tell me again why we couldn't stop with painting over it?"

Holtzmann wiped the dust from her safety glasses and surveyed their handiwork with approval. "Not as satisfying."

Abby reminded Patty. "We can't take any chances on someone rebuilding that dimensional gate."

"I'm just going to point out that those Homeland Security folks probably already scanned all this into their computers," Patty retorted.

She was correct, there were still other copies of the equations floating around. "Ray's getting rid of the copies back at the warehouse. Peter said he'd handle the copies at Homeland Security."

"Which leaves one last copy…" Holtzmann plucked the cell phone out of Erin's pocket so quickly and smoothly that her friend didn't realize what was happening until Holtzmann was on the other side of the room with the device. It still had the photos stored that Erin had texted to her days earlier.

Erin tried in vain to grab for the phone (she should have known better than to hope Holtzmann had forgotten about them). "Oh, come on! I'm not going to share them! Holtz!"

Patty caught Erin's arm, holding her back while Holtzmann dropped the phone onto the floor and smashed it with her sledgehammer.

Holtzmann handed the broken pieces back to Erin, cringing: "Sorry."

Erin sulked. "I know-you can't buy me another one."

They were interrupted when Agent Hawkins walked into the apartment, barking: "Holtzmann, what did you do to Agents Phillips and Otani-oh shit." He cursed when he saw what they were doing.

"Patty, you didn't lock the door?" Abby groaned.

"It's not my apartment, don't jump down my throat." Abby turned to Hawkins. "How'd you find us?"

" Mr. Beckman. "

Holtzmann waved off Hawkins' concern. "They'll be fine-but everything they eat and drink for the next week will taste like purple. Side effect."

"Of what? What did Kevin spray them with?" Patty still wanted to know.

"Nothing permanent. It's not important."

What was done was done. Hawkins decided to let Director Fosse worry about reprimanded the women over the equations. He'd come on other business. He pulled a manila envelope from his coat and set it on the kitchen table.

"This is for all of you, courtesy of Deputy Director Venkman…who, incidentally, miraculously woke up two days ago with the ability to walk again." He directed the last comment at Holtzmann, raising an eyebrow at her. "You and Voga Ra'El wouldn't have paid him a visit before you went to Vegas?"

Abby was speechless. "What?"

"He can walk?" Erin was stunned-and then elated, the burden of guilt for his accident suddenly lifting from her shoulders like a weight.

Hawkins added, "According to our doctors, he has no evidence of the spinal cord damage or the other injuries from his fall."

Abby also looked at Holtzmann in confusion. "I thought you just asked Voga Ra'El to heal Janine?"

Holtzmann wondered why they were looking at her as if their staring was going to bring back her memory. "I did-and for him to leave my family alone and…uh-oh."

"Okay, I don't like it when you say 'uh-oh;. 'Uh-oh' from you is like Oppenheimer saying 'oops' after they created the atomic bomb," Patty scolded her.

Holtzmann was trying hard to recall her negotiation with the specter. She'd been so preoccupied with saving her mother's life at the time that she hadn't paid close attention to her exact words. "I may have been thinking 'safe and whole'…or something along those lines."

"So, since Peter's one of your godfathers, Voga Ra'El healed him, too?" Abby guessed. "You know, for a deviant megalomaniac bent on unleashing the Apocalypse, he was certainly a stickler for keeping his promises."

Erin was thrilled for Venkman, but also dying of curiosity about the package that Hawkins had put on the table. She had a feeling she knew the answer before she asked: "Yeah…okay, great, but what's in the envelope?"

Hawkins explained, "Paperwork officially making the four of you government contractors to the Department of Homeland Security, Paranormal Defense Division. It's retroactive to your first case consulting with us, the Rowan North affair. If you sign it, you officially will be funded by the Department of Homeland Security instead of the city of New York…and you will have clearance for all the classified information relating to the work of your predecessors in the Ghostbusters."

It wasn't the solution Holtzmann had hoped for, there were so many strings that came along with the new assignment, but only one thing mattered to her. "No treason charges for my mom-?"

Patty added, "Or our uncles?"

Hawkins nodded. "If you sign the agreement," he repeated.

Abby had to know one more thing before she'd consider the proposal. "What about that DX-4 order on Holtzmann? You are revoking that, right?"

"I believe that was one of Director Venkman's stipulations. You can also request to have Agent Rorke replaced with a new handler, if that's what you want."

Holtzmann shook her head. "Oh no…I want Rorke to stay. There are just so many opportunities for blackmailing him…"

Erin was reading through their new contract. She held out the papers to the engineer, pointing to one specific section. "Holtz, this says any devices you create while under contract with Homeland Security become government property. Are you sure you want to do that? I mean, it says they'll compensate you but-oh, hell, that's what they'll pay for our inventions? Your inventions. I meant yours."

Abby whistled. "That is a lot of zeros…"

Holtzmann frowned at the idea of selling her creations, her babies, to the government. She didn't care about money. She'd always got along fine without it. "It's either join the DHS or-Canada?"

Erin shrugged. "I always liked Vancouver. It's pretty. They have skiing and a beach. They have Science World and that little cannon that they shoot off at nine o'clock every night."

"I do enjoy cannon fire," Holtzmann cracked.

"Well, we can officially cross Las Vegas off our list of potential new homes. That much I know," Abby said. It turned out that the Las Vegas Strip had not magically repaired itself after Voga Ra'El's death. Three insurance companies were declaring bankruptcy for having to cover the damages, but the city itself was having a tourism boom thanks to the people who were flocking there in droves to see the wreckage (for instance, the famous High Roller wheel was now permanently embedded in front of the pyramid at the Luxor Hotel).

Patty intended to be supportive, no matter what. You did for family, it was that simple, and this contract was going to keep her and Holtzmann's mutual family from being punished for saving the world (and more importantly, for saving Holtzmann). "It's your call, baby girl. I mean, you're the one that Rorke shot and those are your inventions. We'll do whatever you want to do."

Erin and Abby nodded in agreement.

Holtzmann considered it, but only for a moment, before she found a pen and signed her name to the papers. "It's my family, right?"

Ray and Janine walk into the apartment just in time to overhear the remark. "You'd better believe it. Abby, I love the renovations," Ray said.

Party shook her head. "Okay, we need to explain to Kevin that the whole secret mission idea doesn't work if he tells everybody where we are."

Janine greeted her daughter with a hug, wincing at the burns on Jillian's neck from the neutrino net. It looked a little more painful than a 'sunburn', but at least her daughter was alive and no longer being chased by a Toltec demon and his cultists. "What happened to the agents outside?" she asked. Holtz tried looking innocent. Janine rolled her eyes. "Never mind, I don't want to know. So, what's all this? Sweetie, you can't give up your inventions…the proton pack, the grenades…"

Holtzmann had read that section carefully. "Technically, those aren't included in this contract. This contract is for devices I create after the Rowan North incident. I built our gear before Rowan's little party. The DHS gets the rights to the containment unit and the neutrino net…and a bear trap that sends ghosts to Michigan. The rest is mine."

"They get the dimensional gate," Abby said.

Hawkins snorted. "You mean that twisted heap of metal that-according to you all-self-destructed after Voga Ra'El's death and didn't look at all like it was shot multiple times with a particle accelerator?"

They all avoided the agent's gaze. There hadn't been any way they could physically take the pieces of the device with them, so they'd done the best they could on short notice to render it inoperable.

Ray could pull off the fake look of innocence far better than his goddaughter. "There was a bee. We were shooting at it. Allergic."

Patty nodded. "A big bee."

Ray was going to point out that Jillian still had the knowledge of how to rebuild the gate within her subconscious, they could use the memory device to retrieve it. There was no point giving the DHS any ideas.

Hawkins wondered what they hell he'd signed up for (as one of their handlers) by bringing these women into the company. "Whatever. Are the rest of you signing?"

Holtzmann passed the papers back to the rest of the team. "What do you say? It has to be unanimous."

One by one, they all signed. Hawkins collected the contract and tucked it back into the envelope. "Okay, then. Welcome to the Department of Homeland Security, ladies. I'll just get this on file…and pretend I didn't see anything that's going on here. If you'll excuse me?" He got out the door as quickly as he could, before they did something else he was going to have to lie to the Director about later.

Janine nudged her daughter. "He really is a very nice man," she suggested quietly.

Holtzmann blushed bright red. "Mom…" Abby had warned her that mothers tried to fix up their daughters. It was in those Cathy cartoons Abby had given her. They were definitely going to have to sit and talk sometime about conversational boundaries (though Abby had also warned her that mothers had no conversational boundaries where their children were concerned).

"I'm just saying…"

"I'm really not his type, mom. Really not," Holtzmann said.

Janine finally caught the hint. "Oh. I see…" She was undaunted. "Well, in that case-I think I could fix him up with my dentist. He owns a summer house in Cape Cod…"

"Mom!"

Ray took pity on his goddaughter and interrupted. "Well, now that you're official, I have something for you all." He went out to his car and returned with a box that was labeled "Classified" in big red letters and taped shut. He set it on the table.

When it dawned on Erin that she had clearance to open the box, she eagerly ripped at the tape. "What is it?

When she pulled off the lid, they saw the box was with micro cd-r's and paper files, all marked with the Ghostbusters' logo.

Ray answered proudly. "That is forty years of personal research on the paranormal collected by me, Peter, and Egon-and thirty-three years of Ghostbusters' case files."

The four women were stunned. They stared at the discs and files like they'd just found the Holy Grail.

"You ain't seen nothing yet," Ray grinned at them.

Erin breathed, reeling at the possibilities of what they'd find in the stack of information. "Oh my…"

Abby was wide-eyed as she started flipping through some of the papers. "The referential material alone will take weeks to read…look! That name Patty heard on the EVP? Zuul? There's a whole file on Zuul in here!"

Patty snatched the file from her hand and started reading.

Holtzmann had paused over a file that contain what looked like an old, old doctoral dissertation: "Particle Physics and Its Implications for Confirmation of Spectral Existence". The professor had succinctly written "Bullshit" across the title page.

The author's name was Egon Spengler. The others were so wrapped up in exploring the contents of the box, they didn't notice the paper or see Holtzmann wipe impatiently at her eyes before tucking the dissertation into her silver duffel beneath the table.

"These will take months to analyze. We need to sort them by subject matter, then we can divide them: Physics for me, Abby can handle the astrophysics, Holtz gets the technical specs on all their gear. Patty, there's a whole historical database on worldwide paranormal activity for you. We need to start right away," Erin was saying.

"You can start in the morning. If you don't mind, I'd like to steal my goddaughter for tonight." Ray said. He offered a towel to dust-coated Jillian. "I thought we could do a little dumpster diving-and then your mother and I have something we want to talk to you about if you'd join us for dinner?"

Holtzmann glanced from him to Janine, whose ears were bright red. Ray was poker-faced, but Jillian could guess whatever he wanted to talk about had something to do with wanting her permission to date her mother. This wasn't going to be weird at all.

"Can I pick the restaurant this time?" she asked.

Ray nodded. "Sure-" He noticed that Erin, Abby, and Patty were waving their hands and shaking their heads 'no' as subtly as they could manage. "-ly we can figure out a place all three of us will like. Someplace with a high-quality fire suppression system in place."

He ushered Janine and Holtzmann out of the apartment, leaving the rest of the Ghostbusters with the stack of files in the wrecked apartment.

Erin drummed her fingers on the table. "He's right. We can wait and look at these files in the morning."

Patty disagreed, cracking open another sealed file. "Screw that."

It was Erin and Abby's sentiments exactly. "I'll get my laptop," Abby said.

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AN: The conclusion will be coming in the next couple of days.