witness protection // holtzbert

two- momma holtzmann

"Mom?" Jillian whispers slowly with a slightly scared and shocked voice. Erin's mouth falls open in shock, looking from Holtz to the ghost. Abby feels somewhat hurt that Holtzmann didn't feel comfortable enough talking to her about her family, but at the same time she feels deep sadness for her friend, who obviously was just too depressed about the whole situation. It is Patty who finally breaks the silence.

"Would somebody care to tell me what the hell is going on?"

The ghost ignores Patty's outburst, keeping Jillian as her main focus. "I thought I would never find you," Holtzmann's mom says, her voice echoing and bouncing off the walls in a delicate way.

"You were looking for me?" Holtz asks in disbelief.

"Of course. I couldn't let you end up with that horrid husband of yours." Holtz bows her head at this statement, realising in this moment she is going to have a lot of explaining to do.

"You watched over me?" Jillian says, feeling quiet touched, despite this woman being her mother. "Don't worry Mom, Declan is long gone," Holtz assures her worried mother.

By this point Erin has a million thoughts whirling around in her head. Like the fact that after all that flirting, Holtzmann is straight, or that she wasn't kidding when she made that speech about them being their family all those months ago. Either way, Erin clearly still has a lot to learn about her fellow colleague and friend.

"Now, where's your father?" the ghost suddenly blurts out, metaphorically of course, lifting the spirits in the room. "When was the last time I saw him? I think it was March 1991." Jillian bows her head, hoping her mother wouldn't ask this certain question.

"I'm sorry, Mom. He died not long after you." The transparent figure takes a deep breath.

"How?" Jillian's mother asks softly.

"Mom, I really don't think-" Jillian goes to speak but her mom cuts her off.

"Jillian. How?" This time her voice is much more stern and loud, ultimately scaring the ghostbusters, excluding Jillian, who was always used to her mothers angry outbursts, which are usually much worse than her current one.

"Suicide," Jillian simply states. Her mothers expression changes from angry and impatient to upset and guilty.

"I have to go." Jillian tries to stop her mother from disappearing but she doesn't listen.

"How about we go get some pizza," Abby says, trying to cheer up Holtz.

"I think I should just get back to my babies," Holtz replies.

"Are you sure that's a good idea. Maybe you should just relax."

"No. There's a lot of work to do, and I can't let some ghost put a halt to my plans."

"By ghost, you mean your mother?"

"Yeah." Holtz for a split second seems sad, but she quickly recovers. "Now are we gonna go or what?"

The ghostbusters arrive at the firehouse and Holtzmann immediately jumps out of the car and heads upstairs to work on her inventions. The rest of them order pizza and sit in front of the tv.

"Does anyone wanna go offer Holzmann some pizza?" Abby asks during an ad break.

"No way man, I like to stay far away from Holtzy when she's like this," Patty says.

"I will," Erin chimes in.

Erin goes upstairs to where Holtzmann said she would be, but there is no sight of her anywhere. Erin is about to leave when she hears sobs coming from the other side of the lab. She follows the sounds and ends up being lead to a curled up Holtzy crying in the corner of the room.

"Jillian?" Erin whispers, kneeling next to her friend. "Are you okay?" Immediately she feels stupid for asking the question because obviously she's not okay.

"Yeah, I just can't figure out how to get this to work," Holtzmann sniffles holding up several scrap pieces of metal and other random things she's found around the place.

"Why are you lying? You know you can talk to me right?" Holtzmann lets out a small whimper before leaning into Erin and crying into her shoulder. Erin instinctively wraps her hands around the engineer and letting out soothing sounds.

After a few minutes, Holtzmann finally sits up and wipes her eyes.

"I wish I could tell you," Holtzmann says.

"You can. You can trust me," Erin assures her.

"No, do you understand how much trouble I'll be in?"

"No I don't, so tell me," Erin begs.

"I- I" Holtzmann stutters, while Erin sits patiently. "I'm in witness protection."