fandomhighdorms | School grounds, Saturday afternoon

It had taken a complicated mess of Greyhound buses, shuttle buses, walking, and a cab with one overly enthusiastic man who had rambled on at length about how he could feel the Devil beside him (and was there really any need for name calling?), but Hamlet had finally made his way from Newark to Fandom, Virginia.

He stood on the edge of the school ground for the first time since he'd died, and just stared at the school from a distance. When had they rebuilt it after the alien attack? Was there anything left in there that he'd recognize?

He didn't move any closer than the edge of the school lawn, however. He wasn't sure if he should. He wasn't sure if he would be able to in his current form.

[OOC Note: Well, look who decided to drop by for Homecoming weekend. Hamlet is currently a ghost, so your character would likely need either spiritual powers or a previous attachment to him to be able to actually see and talk to him. Otherwise, all you'll get are a drop in the temperature and lingering bits of ectoplasm. And it's also Thanksgiving weekend here in Soviet Canuckistan, so I might have to drop offline now and then to deal with arriving relatives. My this is a long note, isn't it?]

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Hamlet nodded. "I made sure that my uncle was run straight through the heart with a pointed sword so that he died before me. As the rest of my family is dead, the only issue in Denmark that still needs solving is which of my two distant relatives is the true successor to the crown." He smirked. "And I don't think a lightsaber will help much with that."

"Perhaps a coin instead," Anakin said with a wry smile. He gave Hamlet a slightly guilty look. "I really wish things had ended differently for you, my friend."

He let out a sigh of remorse. "I do too. But I don't think you, or I, or anyone* could have foretold how badly everything would end. Had I known, I would have asked you along to join me. I think I would have fared better with a lightsaber than a foil."

Except for Shakespeare, that sadist.

"I've had slightly more practice," Anakin replied. "But wishing for the past to be different is a waste of time." He tilted his head. "Even for people where time has no meaning any longer."

"I suppose so. But regrets are difficult things to let go of, especially when the consequences of action and inaction were grave."

He let out a chuckle. "And at least if I'm stuck being 18 forever, I'll never have to worry about going bald or being made to give up my gothish ways."

Anakin nodded. "I know that feeling rather well," he said. "Regrets. Not being 18 forever."

"Mmm," he said. He thought about his Mother, and Ophelia, and Laertes, and even that windbag Polonius. "I've hurt so many people along the way. My uncle wasn't the only one who went out with me, and in retrospect, I feel the weight of my sins against my conscience."

Anakin, deciding there was hardly a point to deceiving a person who was already dead, dropped the shield over his emotions that normally hid the years of guilt.

His eyes looked much too old for his body.

"I've lost track of my own body count," he admitted quietly, "but it's in the billions."

School grounds, Saturday afternoon

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