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It's been a little longer than Obadiah might have liked since Milliways's last appearance - long enough that the bites on his neck have healed over with shining new scar tissue. They can be mostly hidden with a carefully arranged collar, and he does that during the day, especially at work. His disappearance created enough gossip as it was. No need to provide fresh material.

He's not doing that now, though. He's loosened his tie and tugged down his collar, because here there are certain parties whose reactions he's very interested in.

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Probably not the party who is stumbling in the lake door with a bottle of beer dangling from one hand and a haggard expression on his face.

The afterlife has not been kind to Howard Stark. There are some things no amount of alcohol can drown. (His horrified resolution not to touch another drop lasted two days.)

Obadiah chose a spot on a sofa by the fire. It's invitingly comfortable, and it's a good vantage point: he can see both door and the stairs from here.

(Milliways knows its customers.)

The opening of the lake door draws his eye.

He stares.

It takes him a moment to recognize Obadiah through the intervening five years and the sheer irrational surprise. He hasn't been counting the days, but Howard had a vague notion that if he was going to meet someone he knew in life, it would have happened by now.

He is suddenly very aware of the shabby state of his clothes, the several days' worth of stubble on his chin, the bottle in his hand. Obadiah was always so concerned about appearances. Howard knows he is not a pretty picture right now.

But he ignores the brief urge to flee. He can't just walk away from this. His oldest friend, the first chance he's had to know how things turned out without him.

Howard makes his way across the room, slowly, one step after another.

It's not as if this possibility had never occurred to Obadiah. Milliways has been in his life nearly as long as Howard; he knows how it works. In fact, he even kept an eye out for Howard (or Maria), in the months after the accident, aware that death could very possibly have increased the likelihood of one or both of them finding this place.

But Howard isn't the only one who, with the passage of time, assumed that that likelihood was decreasing. The habit of thinking in linear time is hard to shake.

He smiles, automatic and stiff the way he usually only smiles to let someone know they're not worth his time, or anyone else's. Except, for the first time in a very long time, it isn't deliberate.

"Howard."

Howard dredges up a smile out of some previously unexplored corner of his psyche, and it's tired and sad but genuine.

"That bad, huh?"

He drops into an armchair, close enough for easy conversation. He doesn't want to have to raise his voice for this.

"I'm..."

Shouldn't it be easy to say it? He's known for as long as he's been here. He's been wallowing in it all this time. Just say the word, Howard.

"How long have I been... dead?"

Long enough for Obadiah to have begun to forget the immediacy of Howard's presence, the way he can fill a space and make it impossible for anyone nearby to look away.

(That's the effect he always had on Obadiah, at least.)

Long enough for him to forget how to guard against that.

(Even in the state Howard is in. But then, he was always one of those men who looked unfinished when he was clean shaven.)

"Five years." His voice is steady, anyway, calm as it might be for any other conversation.

He closes his eyes.

"God," he murmurs.

"Maria...? I've never seen her here—I don't know if—"

That is not a sentence he can finish.

Focus. He has to focus. He has to decide how he's going to handle this, and he has to do it fast.

"She was killed on impact," he says while he's thinking. (Trying to think.)

That sounds too cold on its own. He's not even sure if it's true, anyway. It's what he was told to tell Tony. Make sure he knows his parents didn't suffer.

"She didn't suffer."

Howard winces, squeezing his eyes shut tighter for a moment, and slumps in his chair.

His own memory of that night is understandably blurred. He remembers the road wasn't where he expected it to be; he remembers vertigo and terror and screaming in the dark; he remembers it hurt, but not for how long.

"And Tony? He's—five years, he'd be eighteen now." He rubs his face with one hand, the one not occupied by an ex-beer, and opens his eyes. "How is he?"

"His birthday's next week," Obadiah says.

He smiles. It's a better effort than the last one.

"He's fine. Just like his old man. Better driver, though."

—That. That was awful. Laugh-or-punch-him awful.

After a shocked moment, Howard laughs.

"I see your sense of humour hasn't improved," he says, setting his depleted bottle down on a convenient side table and leaning forward to clap Obadiah on the shoulder.

Which brings something else to his attention.

"What in God's name—?" Bite marks. On his neck. "Jesus, Obadiah, when did you get bit by a vampire?"

Of course. Even Tony at fourteen was better at knowing a nasty barb when he heard one than Howard ever was.

Is.

Obadiah is slightly surprised that Howard even noticed the scars. He reaches up to touch them. The ridged, pocked skin still feel strange under his fingertips. (The memories that accompany are more unpleasant than he'd like.)

"A few weeks ago," he says. "Pissed off the wrong undead asshole. Turns out they're not very good at amicably ending alliances."

"God, I'm sorry."

Not something the living Howard Stark was ever that big on saying.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Obadiah says dismissively. "Got rescued just in the nick -"

Hmm. Of course. Howard doesn't know about Sherlock, does he?

He files that away for later.

"- of time."

He raises his eyebrows a little.

"You're certainly interested in my well-being all of a sudden."

"I've always been interested in your well-being, Obadiah. You're the best friend I ever had."

He sighs.

"How's the company? Nobody's been giving you too much shit, have they?"

Could have fooled me, he doesn't say.

"Company's fine," he says instead. "There was a little difficulty after you died, but nothing I couldn't handle. I was always the businessman, anyway. The only thing I haven't missed is trying to drag you to meetings."

"Meetings are boring," he says with that old familiar grin. "God save me from meetings. Give me a bottle of Jack and a drafting pen any day."

Obadiah shakes his head a little.

"See," he says, "if it had been me, the company would have gone under within a year."

(There's a slight edge to his voice, despite the way he smiles. He can't quite seem to contain it.)

He looks wry.

"I know."

Another surprise. This time he deliberately exaggerates his expression into one of shock.

"Careful, Howard, I'm starting to think being dead suits you."

Howard gestures expressively at himself, taking in the unwashed clothes and the unshaved chin and the nth beer of the day.

"I've had damn little to do other than drink and feel sorry for myself."

"I hear there's a brothel upstairs."

He's never used it.

(He also hears that the security is good, better than it is down here.)

He looks wry again.

"Haven't really felt like it."

"My god," Obadiah says, "you really are having a hard time with this, aren't you?"

(He can -

No.)

"I really am," Howard admits.