II.

Holtzmann had burned through ten cigarettes in twenty minutes. She is on her eleventh when Erin Gilbert walks into her lab on the second floor. Cautiously, Erin approaches the engineer's drafting table from behind and peers down onto a series of sketches and diagrams, ink-stained, coffee-stained, blue-stained with… something.

"I didn't know you smoked."

Holtzmann starts violently and turns, coughing out a puff of smoke in Erin's face. "I didn't know you were a ninja."

Erin waves her hand, dispersing the smoke. "Abby told me you were stuck."

Holtzmann nods and takes another drag.

"Seriously, Holtz, those things will kill you."

The engineer blows a perfect ring through pursed fish lips. "I just started."

"Can I help?"

"Sure, if you could just shotgun the rest of this for me…"

"I mean, can I help with whatever problem you're having with the accelerator?"

"Ah, straight to business. I like that in a woman," Holtzmann smiles and Erin can feel it in her elbows, "As you can see, Doctor, this man is dead." She points at the sketches.

Erin quirks an eyebrow.

"We've trialled seven times, I've tinkered, I've tonkered," she runs a hand through her hair, "and no cigar."

"Did you try adjusting the calibration?"

Holtzmann gives her a look, "Duh."

"Replacing the cathode rays?"

"Affirmative."

"Fine-tuning the… whatsit… okay, I've run out of jargon. I have no idea, Holtzmann. Engineering is not my field. Patty sent me up to see if you wanted to come out for a drink."

"A drink? A drink! At a time like this?!" Holtzmann bolts from her stool and starts figure-eighting around her various machinery, extraction hoods and radiation cubes. She throws her cigarette into a vacuum funnel she had been experimenting with to try and mimic a black hole. She has a feeling there are a lot of cigarette butts appearing out of thin air in Michigan.

"Holtz, I've never seen you like this," says Erin, following her through the annals of the laboratory.

The engineer stops suddenly and turns on her heel; Erin crashes into her. Even though Holtzmann is shorter than Erin, she is solid on her feet and easily steadies the physicist. Erin can feel the tickle of a stray blonde hair.

"I'm so close," she squeezes Erin's shoulders, speaking quietly, "I'm so close, but I can't touch it."

Erin swallows evenly, her cheeks flushed with color. "Maybe Abby's idea is a little far-fetched…"

"Engineering is the practice of the impossible."

"Sure, but I've been thinking… what about the moral concerns?"

Holtzmann releases Erin and steps back. "What moral concerns?"

"If we do find a way to get through the portal, what then? We destroy the Afterlife? We have absolutely no data on that dimension's physical laws. If we destroy the ghosts, will there no longer be death? Will we be immortal? Will another dimension expand and throw the whole universe off kilter? What if we-"

"I would like that drink," says Holtzmann, throwing on her leather jacket, "and I would like to buy you a drink."

Erin presses her lips thinly together. "We'll talk later… yeah, we'll talk later."

Holtzmann is already spiralling down the firepole.

All four Ghostbusters sit in Rocket Cat, one of Holtzmann's haunts- so to speak. They are crowded around a small table in the corner, pressed up against hipsters with rat tails and sleeve tattoos.

"A beard ain't never looked good on a man and never will," says Patty, casting about the dive bar, "Beards should be practical, like the Amish or the Muslims who grow 'em after they marry a bitch. Or, to keep warm in winter."

"I'd grow a beard if I could," says Holtzmann, swigging from her PBR.

"I happen to like a well-groomed beard," says Abby, "and a top hat."

"Girl, no wonder you never have a date!" laughs Patty, "you holdin' out for Abe Lincoln!"

Abby cracks up and turns to Erin, who had been sipping quietly from her white wine spritzer: "What about you, any luck with Tweedle-Hottie?" She meant Kevin, their lovable but painfully dumb secretary.

If possible, Erin shrinks even more in her chair. "I'm over him."

Holtzmann leans forward. "Is that so?"

"Yeah," Erin straightens, "a woman of my standing shouldn't be so easily swayed by such a tall, beautiful paragon of manliness…"

"Yeah, you sound over him," says Patty, "over the moon, maybe."

"No, seriously guys," defends Erin, "I've accepted the fact that he will never see me as more than a-"

"Owner of tiny bow ties?" interjects Holtzmann.

Erin frowns, fingering the collar of her current tweed skirt suit. "I think they're cute…"

"You're cute," counters Holtzmann, "with or without the bow ties. Kevin's a fool."

Patty and Abby exchange a sidelong look. They've suffered through countless weeks of Holtzmann's shameless flirting and Erin's shameful blushing and sweating and stuttering. Last week, Erin had betrayed her growing anxiety on the matter and sidled up to Abby's desk. She asked for a pencil sharpener and slowly turned her (not dull) utensil over Abby's trash can. After a moment, Erin cracked.

"Do you think she's for real?"

Abby feigned ignorance.

"Holtzmann."

In all honesty, Abby didn't know what to advise. Holtzmann was a consummate flirt; she hit on anything that walked upon two legs: men and women alike, all ages, races, body types. She knew Holtzmann preferred women, but had never known her to date anyone seriously. There had been many a dazed undergrad to show up in the paranormal research lab and demand to know if Dr. Holtzmann was around. One young woman had even gone so far as to fill the lab with red carnations. Holtzmann had whistled, wide-eyed, and set about dumping all the flowers in a chemical sink and incinerating them with her blowtorch. "I hate carnations," she said, the flame glowing bright in her safety goggles.

Abby had told Erin as much, compelled her to ask Holtzmann if it mattered to her that much. Erin shrugged and Abby knew she never would muster the audacity. She feared that her friend was succumbing to a serious crush on the brilliant engineer. Despite Erin's (erstwhile) stature as a scientist and laundry list of Ivy League endorsement, she knew Erin to be the same delicate, doe-eyed teenager who cried for days over a harsh word from the popular girls or when Brett Cox, running back on the football team, asked her to prom as a joke. Ghost Girl. God, it wasn't even a clever insult.

Abby looks at Holtzmann now, as she reclines in her chair, one arm carelessly thrown over the back of Erin's backrest. She catches the eye of a hippie chick at the next table and winks. A sudden surge of annoyance runs through Abby, which is a first in her considerably long friendship with Holtzmann. Her overprotectiveness overrides her amusement. She would have to have a word with the engineer.

Abby and Holtzmann had sent Patty off, who had the grueling trek back to Queens; Erin had hailed a cab to her nearby upper east side apartment.

"You and me, lover," says Holtzmann, slinging an arm around Abby's shoulders.

Abby squirms from beneath it, "Seriously Holtzmann, is that the only mode of social interaction you know?"

"Finally getting under your skin, am I, Dr. Yates?" She waggles her eyebrows.

Abby frowns. "Yes! I want you to cut it out with Erin, okay?" That's not exactly the tact with which she wanted to broach the subject, but the beers had interceded and made her a bit gruff.

"All in good fun," she shrugs.

"Not to Erin," argues Abby, hands on her hips in that admonishing mother way, "she's been teased her whole life. What she needs is a good friend."

Holtzmann visibly deflates, her coveralls drooping on her small frame. "I uh… I didn't realize. I'm sorry."

Abby registers the rare serious tone in Holtzmann's apology. She feels bad for being so harsh. "It's okay, Holtz. I know that's just how you are. Just, maybe cool it with Erin, okay? She's sensitive-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah," Holtzmann nods emphatically, "I get it. I do. I would never hurt her, Abby. She's one the best humans I ever met."

Abby smiles and ruffles the engineer's already mussed hair. "Yeah, she is. She saved my life, Holtz…. But, before that, she was a great friend to me- I mean before all the stodgy Columbia bullshit."

Holtzmann swats Abby's hand away and stuffs her hands in the deep pockets of her coveralls.

"Wanna stay with me, tonight?" asks Abby. She knows Holtzmann had lost her apartment long before they left Higgins and was now sleeping on the old couch she had 'rescued from the landfill' and lugged up to the second floor of the firehouse.

She shrugs. "No can do, Casper needs feeding." Casper is the name Holtzmann had given to the white rat she used in many of her plasma shield experiments. "He doesn't like to be left alone for long; he peed on the Lorna Doone I gave him in protest."

Abby laughs, "Okay, I'll see you in the morning."

Holzmann smiles, but it doesn't really reach her eyes. She turns toward 106th and clicks her heels together. "No place like home."