Chapter 3:

Ghosts are Waiting for You

"I've got quite a vivid imagination and I'm easily overwhelmed by sensations and things that are beautiful or scary. I don't think I've ever seen a ghost - I think I'm probably haunted by my own ghosts than real ones."

-Florence Welch

A/N: Warnings for swearing, drug/alcohol mention and abuse, and suicidal ideation

There's a place in everyone too dark for you to venture. I never understood why I kept this pendant, cradled in my palms. I assume my desire is to keep it close, even though that reason is lost in the abyss.

I was seven. I liked skipping rope and guilting people as I let fake tears streak my face. It had been three days since she picked me up from school. Dad left a few months ago and Kathelyn was trying her hardest to keep things together so it came as a surprise when she didn't come at three-thirty. I walked home and tried to feed myself and do my homework. Being complacent with the disappearance of my father, Kathelyn's disappearance was just as equally unimportant. I could take care of myself, I would remind myself, I don't need anyone. Then, Shin Ra security came to pick me up at school. They told me Kathelyn was safe, fine in fact, unprompted. She felt it necessary to leave me behind, not taking me with her to wherever she thought Shin Ra would take her. Confused but complacent, as always.

"I think we're more alike than we give ourselves credit." Sephiroth smiled in response. He too understood: we were the left-behinds. A necklace to tie me down, a reminder of memories best left forgotten.

I was venturing too close to the border into the unknown so I decided to drown it in a drink. There was a bar downstairs and Kathelyn was snoring something fierce. Her deviated septum, something Mom tried so hard to fix on a strict budget, apparently was never fixed. She was always a heavy sleeper, she wouldn't miss me much.

Sneaking out and closing the door as gently as possible, I noticed someone sitting in the dark. Jofrey was sitting on the stoop leading into his open room. Smoke billowed out of his snared nostrils, a rolled cigarette hanging between forefinger and thumb.

"Sneaking out, eh? You don't seem like the type." Tendrils of smoke sneaking out of his mouth.

"I'm not going far."

"I guess that's not the point." Tap, tap and ash piled onto the clay floor between his feet. "She seems like the overprotective type and you seem like a grown adult. I guess what I'm saying is that she'll follow you around regardless."

"She's incapable of being protective, just a pretender. She can't protect me," I grumbled, unimpressed.

"You need someone to protect you?" He asked, eyebrow furrowed.

I unintentionally smirked. "You're looking for more employment? I haven't paid you enough?"

He matched my pace and laugh sardonically. "You have deep pockets; I gathered as much from the way you throw around your money. If you want someone to protect you, I'm no stranger to a fight."

His scars up and down his bare arms told me as such. There was one deep gash from where his tricep attached to the scapula, rotating around his the nook of his elbow. "You seem like it but I need more than a fighter."

"For fuck's sake, Helena. I'll be what you need me to be."

"For how much?"

"20,000 gil."

"That seems like a low bid," I joked.

"What am I worth to you?" He took the bait.

"I'll give you 10 now, 20 when you get where I need I need to be."

"And where's that?"

"Not sure yet. I guess that's where the 20 comes in."

"You got a deal," he extended his hand, cigarette loosely associated with his lip. I accepted the terms, happy that Kathelyn was no longer the only person I was relying on.

I moved towards the stairs, leading to the bar. "Want to join me?"

"Nah, not today."

I shrugged. "You think I have deep pockets now, wait until I'm drunk."

He laughed. "Have fun."

I planned on it, I was planning on enjoying as much as I could unsure where I would wake up the next day. Anxiety was something I was fully acquainted with and a good fifth of whiskey, alone on my balcony looking out the Entertainment District, ended most of them. I entered the bar feeling some anxieties surfacing. The bar was fairly empty except for the group of tourists in the corner. I took my seat on the edge of the bar counter and ordered a whiskey on the rocks -blasphemous, I know.

It wasn't long after I had the drink in my hand that I felt the presence of someone next to me, peering over my shoulder. "I'll have what the lady is having," I heard a familiar voice, settling on the barstool next to be, requesting the bartender for a drink of his own.

"I thought no one cared, at this point, I thought I finally got away. Reeve, how are ya?"

A short swig before he acknowledged me. "I'm on vacation, so I would say just fine. Never did very well in the sun, however."

"About time. I don't think you've taken time off." Reeve is possibly the most dedicated person I know. He took his job to heart but was habitually misguided by his own good intentions.

"It's an extended leave."

"What did you do?"

He smiled, "you know how it works. Massage the right backs, right?"

I took the seat next to him, dragging my perspiring glass of whiskey along the bar rail. "I think we should just drink to the fact that you found me."

"Happenstance," he shrugged, slamming his elbows down. He had clearly been drinking. "Can you believe I noticed your fingernails? Or lack thereof."

"I think it's better that way," I flashed my nails in his face, "I look like I can take a punch." He laughed at my clear shortcomings.

It was an accident. I was fourteen and smashed, so drunk that when I woke up the next morning I was still under the effects. I woke up and began laughing at my missing bloody fingernails -the first and last time that I would drive it to that extent. They just never grew back. When I went to the doctor concerned that they were growing and I was in constant pain, they recommended that I amputated them. No, this was a constant reminder of my persistent stupidity.

"Do you think it's that noticeable?" I studied them, wondering if on my rap sheet somewhere it mentioned to look out for a tattooed woman with missing fingernails.

"I know why you're asking," he interrupted, "and no one cares, not even Hojo. He's interested in a more recent event."

My shoulders relaxed; Reeve would never lie to me, or at least, that's what I hoped. I could never trust Shin Ra employees for I too was a backstabber. "The terrorists?"

"A thorn in Shin Ra's side compared to the whispers hanging around HQ." He leaned in, hand acting as a sound barrier to anyone nosy enough, "President Shinra was skewered by-," he drawled.

"By?"

"Our one and only General."

I felt it -nails dragging along my back, electric shocks stinging my shoulders and calves. "He's dead."

"We'd like to think so -especially you," he slurred, suggestively.

"I'd rather create this hangover than commiserate, to be honest." Another glass in my hand -getting closer to the fifth. I wanted to teeter on the edge of losing control but not so far off the edge that I couldn't walk myself to the room. "I just want to," I paused for a moment, unsure what I truly wanted, "move on."

"I remember when you first started working for Hojo, ready to take on the corporate ladder. You sure came a long way, stabbing him in the back like that."

"You're not letting me move on, are you?" I pressed, discontented by his need to bring up a past I wanted to move forward from, victorious.

"I'm just saying you've come a long way, cutting the cord."

"You refuse to cut your own cord. When I first met you, young and bright-eyed, I thought you wouldn't last. But look at you now: torn down and forced to take a vacation." I snapped, certain he wasn't pleased by his instructions to distance himself from Shin Ra for the time being and I used it to my advantage.

He finished his own glass with one swig, lips curled around the glass. I admired him, his ability to cope with everything seemingly falling around him. I heard of the plate falling; his brainchild imploding. I suppose he found solace at the bottom of a bottle just as much as me.

It was his suggestion; his inability to settle the disappointment he felt without a loss of inhibitions. A bottle was reluctantly placed in front of us. We reached the end of the bottle quickly. I noticed how boisterous we became when the bartender mentioned for us to settle down, we were scaring his only other patron. Reeve slapped down a two-hundred gil bill and instructed him to hand over another bottle. It wasn't too long before that bottle was gone too. We hoisted the bottle to our lips, sharing in our levied history. It wasn't long before we began to slur so much, muddling our words, that we laughed at our self-inflicted speech impediments.

Reeve requested that he walk me up to the hotel room, noticing me crawl over the steps to the rooms upstairs. He persisted until he saw Kathe woken up by my wheezy laughter.

"Kathe! Look who I found!" I pointed to Reeve, who had already slipped away.

"You're a complete fucking moron, you know that!" Kathe reached for my arm and lead me up the stairs.

As we reached the top of the stairs, she instructed me to walk into the room myself, disgusted by my bullheaded laughter. I was a huge embarrassment.

"I thought you were kidnapped, you fucking idiot!"

"You're not my mom, Kathe. You're the one who fucking decided it was a good idea to save me. I never asked for this. I never asked for you." I blubbered, arguing when I should have chosen to slip into bed and sleep it off, knowing this was a bad idea.

Kathe was having none of it. "You wouldn't need rescuing if you weren't such a child, Helena! You decided it was a good idea to get involved with Hojo. You decided that it was smart to come here, fully aware of the fact that Shin Ra could be at your heel at any moment."

A boiling sensation under my rib cage pouring out. "I sent card after card, every year for your birthday, no answer! So you don't get to then decided to play saviour. I had to do what I needed to do."

"You killed her, Helena!" Kathe's face now a shade of purple, tears streaking her face. "You killed her. I had to pick up the pieces, not you! You just kept making things worse with your crying and whining. But we knew, dad and I knew, you were to blame for all of it." Reflexively, her hand reached her mouth, slapping it shut.

"So now we know," suddenly sober, "you just want to punish me." Kathe shook her head furiously, sobs seeping through her hands covering her mouth.

I aimed myself for the ocean despite Kathe's pleas for me to just sleep it off and how she made a mistake. She reached for my arm several times, trying to drag me back, but I shrugged her off and continued to stumble on the stairs leading to the beach. The ocean seemed like the best place to sleep it off.

I collapsed into a sandcastle being consumed by the waves enveloping my boots. I wanted to feel the cool black water on my toes but was too drunk to reach my boots. I wondered what it would be like to have the water just swallow me whole, dragging me into its unknown abyss. It must be liberating to just feel carried away with no control and no one who could control, just drifting.

The sun was kissing the stretched-out horizon and Kathe began to hold me."I'm so sorry," she wept, "please forgive me. I made a terrible mistake. All I do is make terrible mistakes. I just want you to know its not your fault, it was never your fault. I just kept telling me that it was your fault to escape responsibility."

She may have felt she wanted to escape a hand-me-down reality no one would have wished upon her but she was wrong: it was my fault. Not just the precipitating event but all of it. I was and am a terrible person at the core, and I have to admit it, finally, admit it.

"We can fix this," I pulled her head onto my shoulder. "We can fix this."

It was sunrise now and the illuminated horizon did not seem so enigmatic; it was very much defined and not as deep. Perhaps nothing is as infinite and abstract as it seems. Perhaps even the deepest places of ourself could be defined. "We can fix this, Kathe."

A/N: I have some warnings at the beginning. I have changed some things to canon (i.e.: there is no hotel on top of the bar) just for world-building. Let me know what you think of this chapter! Or the fic as a whole!