He shrugged.

"Got worse with comin' back and findin' ye dead."

"I'm sorry Albert," Lewis said, "I didn't really think about how you would feel in those few seconds. But you know, you can still see me, like now. It's not the total end of our friendship."

He chuckled.

"If ye weren't dead I'd offer you a drink." he said with a grin. "But hey, I'll take what I can get."

"Marianne feels the same way," Lewis said, "She wants to live with a ghost."

He shrugged.

"Give her time, lad." he said. "She'll get used to ye being gone. Heck, I'd marry her if ye wanted me to just to make sure she's alright."

He laughed.

"She'll learn ye can't be with her forever."

Lewis chuckled, "Right now I don't think she's thinking about marrying anyone," he pointed out, "She's still very clingy with me and wants me to live with her even though I'm dead..."

He sighed, "But you're right, she'll get used to it one day."

Albert nodded.

"She's afraid for her baby, lad." he said. "After that, it'll be easier."

"Well she is worrying that her parents will force her to give up the baby. She says that they don't think she should raise a dead man's child.."

Albert sighed and scratched his head.

"I don't know how I can help, lad."

"It's alright," Lewis said, "We'll figure something out. Marie wants us to go back to our house. Before I let her in there you did remove my body right??"

"What, ye'd think I'd leave it to rot?" Albert said, unable to help laughing. "It's in the morgue, ye'r funeral's next week."

"Just checking," he said which a shrug, "I don't want to scare Marie. Maybe I'll go to my funeral, invisible of course."

"And what, laugh at everyone who came?" he grinned.

Lewis chuckled. "I want to see what crazy people actually care about a murderer."

"Well, Marie and I." he said. "Alexis could come, maybe some o' the other soldiers..."

"What other soldiers?" Lewis asked, "They all hate me if you remember correctly. Some of them I threatened to kill in the beginning!"

He laughed.

"Alright alright, maybe just us three."

Lewis smiled. "Shows how completely unlikeable I am," he remarked

He shrugged.

"Ye've loved, lost and created a new life in under thirty years, lad." he said with a smile. "Ye've done more than most."

"My 31st birthday is coming up real soon," he remarked, "So if you count from birth it's more then 30 years. But yeah, I wasn't loving when I was a baby."

He chuckled.

"But I'm stuck at 30 forever now I think," Lewis said, "Don't think I'll get any older anymore. I can still count though."

He grinned, "My birthday's June 18."

He nodded.

"I think ye're clock stopped at thirty, lucky for Marie."

"For ten years," Lewis said, "Then she'll have caught up to me."

He chuckled.

"Tell me something, lad." he said, sitting down comfortably in his cot. "Where I come from, they say there's a place when ye die where you can choose to go into the sky forever, or spend time on earth among the living. It's a bright light, my ma once told me."

"It's true," Lewis said, "Most choose to never come down again but some like me choose to be allowed to drift amoung the living. Many say that it's better to just let the living along but I knew that it would be harder on Marie if I never got to say good-bye."

He smiled.

"Yeah." he agreed. "But ye've got to join them sometime."

Lewis gave a sad smile. "I know," he said, "I'm just making sure that Marie's settled first and happy with our child before I join them. I want to be there when the child's born."

He nodded, then looked up at the ceiling.

"See Ma? I knew ye were right!"

"Hey," Lewis said, "If you have a message you want to send to your mom I can tell her for you, maybe she'll even reply and have something to say to you."

• Forums are not to be used to post stories.
• All forum posts must be suitable for teens.
• The owner and moderators of this forum are solely responsible for the content posted within this area.
• All forum abuse must be reported to the moderators.