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Shoot me.

...look, no one needs the friendly soldier ghost that Klaus has kind of not really chilled with before, who's said he reminds him of someone, and who's haunting some old homeless vet or vets that he'd been in the war with.

The one he shrugged off, for the most part, since if he was in that area he was really in something of a pit. Who'd given him a heads up five or ten times.

He doesn't recognize him when he sees him. Doesn't recognize him until it's too late. Until he's in the middle of a war that's taking place before he was born, with no idea if his luggage will take him home or somewhere else, head over heels, and he doesn't know why he didn't recognize him sooner.

(except that it's hell. Except there is no peace and half the time he doesn't know if the people he's shooting at are dead or alive.)

But he knows that face and no matter how much he lies to himself he knows that face. Recognizes, in time, the grumpy hard-ass with the constant bottle he was watching over. (Klaus figures he'd better, especially after the first time that guy saved his ass, made a joke of it. he was going to get him a drink.)

But he knows Dave's face and he knows Dave's uniform and he knows that Dave isn't going to make it home.

It doesn't make it hurt less, when it happens. He almost wishes he didn't know. Didn't know that he was going to spend his afterlife taking care of the rest of the guys. Didn't know without a doubt that the plans they entertained themselves with wouldn't happen. It colors everything, and he can't believe the voice that says maybe he can change it. Which doesn't mean he doesn't try.

He hates the way it colors the time they have left as bittersweet.

But he does what he can, and it's not enough, and he knows there was nothing he could do, no way to stop it, no way to know that shot was coming.

He'd tried to tell him once, while he was high, and Dave had smiled and told him not to be so fatalistic. Had reassured him so that he could almost believe it.

It never occurs to him to stay. He doesn't think of it. Doesn't *think* at all when he opens the suitcase.

He just goes.