With his parents, he'd never felt like this; felt this crushing desperation and sadness. He was crushed beyond sadness, obviously, but he'd been okay. David had assumed that it was because he hadn't been around when they died. He'd always hoped they'd come to visit him in their spectral form, but he understood why they hadn't. They had each other, and they knew that Elliot would find David; that they'd be safe together.
God did he wished they'd been right.
He understood why it was different with Elliot. Finding out that their parents died on the same exact day that his brother found him again? Elliot's presence almost made up for the loss. It had made the pain much less, at the very least. But now? Now he had nobody. He was really, truly by himself in the world. The last family he had was gone, and there was no getting him back. So it was only natural for him to be driven crazy with spectral visions. Right?
Asking David to believe in seeing a ghost shouldn't have been a problem. And it said a lot for the state of his grief, the state of his hopelessness, that he didn't believe it. It would be too easy. He remembered all the times in childhood that Elliot had told him that death was it, that his ghost stories were silly and all the teasing he'd endured for believing things like this, and they raced in his head, made it hard to believe that this could really be his brother's spirit. But the spectral vision seemed so insistent. So determined to make David pay attention.
Still, it felt wrong. Elliot's voice resounded in his ear, pleaded with him to believe, that he knew David could see him, and to ignore that, to go against all his gut instinct and his wishes for it to be real, felt like a disservice to his brother.
And what if this was actually real? What if it was truly Elliot's spirit, and because of past skeptics, because people didn't believe it to be true, he was missing his chance to say his goodbye? Or what if this spectral Elliot needed him? What if he couldn't cross over? He'd only been gone a day but David had once read somewhere that all days felt like years when you died. So no. No, he wouldn't allow that to happen. He swallowed thickly, reached one hand up and wiped the tears from his eyes, then gathered a notebook and a pen from his bag.
He'd take a chance. He'd allow himself to believe that Elliot was here, one more time. But if it didn't work this time, if he made himself feel like a fool for the sake of a fake vision again? He didn't know what he'd do. Would he be wrestling with this for the rest of his life? He didn't know if he could live, if that was the case... never being able to let go.
In his infamous chicken scratch, made worse because of the fact that he couldn't see straight thanks to the tears in his eyes, he scrawled a note. If it's really you, if I'm not imagining this? Then come with me. He tapped the page a couple of times, to make sure that he had Elliot's attention with it, then looked at the spectral Elliot beside him, hoping both that it was really his brother's spirit, and that he would understand. He couldn't do this here. These people thought he was crazy already. Giving them more fuel to add to the fire was damning him to be tossed into solitary or something.
David put the notebook down and gathered his coat, throwing it over himself and turning to look, tentatively hopefully, at his spectral brother. He started toward the greenhouses. They were close enough to the safehouse so that David didn't have to go too far, but solitary enough that people wouldn't think he was crazy for talking to himself.
The air outside was freezing, and David's eyes were instantly drawn to the destroyed greenhouse closest to the safehouse. But he didn't go there. And he also didn't say anything quite yet. The loaner door guards from Grand Central were staring at him expectantly, like they thought he might go crazy. So he headed right, to one of the still-standing greenhouses and closed the door behind him, keeping his back to the door and the guards.
“Elliot? Are you here?” he called quietly, hoping beyond hope that this wasn't all fake. “Please tell me I'm not going crazy... please be here...”