Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom. All characters go to their respectful owners. I only own this story.

Backwards

No, I thought desperately. This can't be happening.

They looked so frail. Their bodies were lifeless forms of who they used to be—their skin was ashen and their eyes were sunken deep into their heads. I couldn't wrap my mind around how sick they looked. There was no way they had gotten this sick in just a month. How was it possible to go from happy, laughing, and full of life to hollow, silent, and barely breathing in just one month? I wanted to help them so much, but the doctors said there was nothing anyone could do. It was too late. I'd failed them.

The news was showing some "special" about Danny Phantom. It wasn't all that special, though, seeing as how the news reported on him almost every night. It seemed no one cared about what was going on with the rest of the town, or even the world, when we had Danny Phantom flying around our streets.

"My stomach doesn't feel all that great."

I stopped pretending to listen to the news report and turned to the person beside me. "Maybe you finally ate more than you should've," I joked.

He laughed, but there was a pained look to it. "Nah, I'm sure it's nothing. I'm probably just eating too much fudge. But, hey, your mom makes the most delicious fudge."

I couldn't argue with him there, so I dropped the subject and continued ignoring the news. Poor Lance; I couldn't understand why he didn't just move to another city to be a weatherman.

The respirators were the only sound in the empty room. I wasn't even sure I was breathing. Despite the two, lifeless bodies in front of me, and two—much more alive—figures behind me, I still felt more alone than I ever had before in my entire life. I was standing in a blindingly white room, alone, without anyone to talk to about my problems. The two people behind me wouldn't understand, not like I did, because even though they knew why the two people in front of me were dying, they didn't know how they had gotten sick. I knew. I'd known for a while. Not that it had made any difference in the end.

I told Sam about the incident, but she didn't seem to be too worried about it.

"Danny, I'm sure he's fine. I mean he's practically eaten his weight in sweets every day for the past few years. It was bound to happen eventually," she said.

I nodded. While that was true, it just seemed strange that it had taken years to happen. If anything, it should have happened when his habit had started, not now. But I didn't argue. Sam was right; it had to happen eventually.

Tucker returned from the restroom, and sat back down at our table. "Man," he said. "I should not have eaten that salad last night. I haven't felt well since. Why did I even agree to eating it again?"

"Because it was either that or eat tofu, and you refused to even look at the tofu," Sam explained.

"Oh, yeah." Tucker scratched his stomach. "Remind me never to agree to try something new when I'm in a good mood. I could barely even taste the chicken on it. And I put a bunch on."

I shook my head and laughed. "Well, I can't blame you for trying. We're proud of you, Tuck."

"You guys sound like my parents," Tucker complained. "Hey, Danny, mind if I eat that hamburger? I'm starving."

I nodded and pushed the lunch that I hadn't touched over. Tucker did look like he hadn't eaten in days—not that that was saying much. After all, he looked like that if he missed just one of his so called "feedings".

"Thanks, man," he said, as he bit down greedily into the meat, completely ignoring Sam's blatant look of disgust.

I sighed as my ghost sense went off for the fourth time that day. "If it's Skulker again, I'm going to bury the thermos in the backyard," I muttered darkly.

Tucker mumbled something indistinguishable, but I didn't have any idea what it might mean—nor did I have the time to sit down and figure it out. So I just ducked under the table—right between both Sam's and Tucker's legs—and changed.

Above me, Sam started coughing. I quickly jumped out from under the table and faced her. "What's wrong?" I asked.

Sam just shook her head. "Tickle," she explained between coughs.

I nodded. "Drink some water."

She just rolled her eyes. "Go. Save the town," she rasped, grabbing her water bottle.

I nodded again and flew off.

Doctors were bustling about, yelling out medical terms in their "doctor speak" because they knew no one beside the other doctors could understand what they were saying, and if something bad was happening, no one else would panic. But I had been here long enough to learn some of their lingo. I caught the words "crashing" and "stabilize" amongst their garbled up language of medical illnesses and names for items that I had never known to exist before.

I wanted to go down into the room and help the doctors, because even if I wasn't the best student—and would probably do more harm than good—I still had the innate desire to assist those in need. And—if the running about was any indication—the doctors desperately needed someone to tell them what to do. But I wasn't allowed into the immaculate, pristine room, and I was forced to watch helplessly as the words "heart failure" came over the intercom.

I wasn't sure what to think when she got sick next. I asked Tucker, but he thought it was just a coincidence.

"She probably just caught the bug," he explained. "I mean, with all of the times we've gone into the Ghost Zone, we were bound to bring back something eventually. I'm sure the lab is filled with ghost bugs, so it was only a matter of time before someone got sick. Just let it play out."

But I wasn't convinced. If the pattern continued, then surely Jazz or me would be next. And I wasn't sure I was willing to leave all of the ghost hunting to by friends while we were sick. If Jazz got sick before me, we might be okay, but that still left the time while I was sick to worry over.

I walked up to the counter of the Nasty Burger and ordered the same burger and fries that I always did. The woman taking our order turned to Tucker, but he just shook his head.

"I'm not hungry."

All of the doctors seemed to be swarming around one person. I couldn't tell what they were doing, and their medical lingo was only hampering my ability to understand—not to mention, it was also distracting.

The glare of florescent lights on the snow-white lab coats did nothing more than hurt my eyes, and I couldn't look at the mass of moving figures below me for long before I had to look away. If only they would move, or at least dim the lights a bit, then I might be able to see what the doctors were doing to help the poor person.

More medical terms were coming through the intercom, but Jazz seemed to be the only one who had any clue what they were saying—she started sobbing halfway through one of the doctor's frantic shouts to the nurses. Soon after, a machine was brought in, and one of the nurses held up two plastic items.

"Charging…clear."

I'd seen enough television to know what that meant.

Surprisingly, neither Jazz nor I got sick over the next few days. Jazz guessed we were immune to the bug if it was as fast spreading as it appeared. I figured she knew more about viruses than I did, so I didn't argue.

But they didn't get better. In fact, with each passing day, they only seemed to get worse. Jazz didn't know what to think, and I was too stressed with worry to really think much about anything. They couldn't be too sick, right? No one that strong could get too bad of an illness. But Jazz wasn't as sure.

There didn't seem to be enough water to quench their incessant thirst, and any food we tried to feed them didn't stay down for long. I was at a loss for what to do. Every time I came back from school, they looked ten times worse. I even skipped a day of school to see if that would help—only leaving when I had to fight a ghost—but each time I came back, they were in an even worse condition.

The doctors managed to start up his heart again, but it had taken several minutes, and no one was sure what that meant for his brain. I didn't feel much better as I watched the last of the doctors leave the room.

Jazz was sobbing beside me, and, sometime between when she had stood up to watch with me to when the doctors had restarted his heart; she had taken to crying into my shoulder. I couldn't do much more than place my hand on her back comfortingly.

"It'll be okay, Danny," she sobbed. "They'll be fine. They'll make it through this."

We both knew she was lying.

Despite Jazz's concern that I might get sick, I still went to see them every day. Even if I couldn't do anything to make their sickness less painful while we waited it out, I could still keep them company while they fought it off.

"It's really sweet what you're doing, Danny," my mom whispered, while she gave me as tight of a hug as she could mange. "You're such a selfless person."

I didn't know how to respond to that, because to me, making people I cared about suffer, without doing anything to help, made me feel like I was being the most selfish person in the world.

The doctors finally came into the room and said that we could visit them, but only one person at a time could go.

"Go, Danny," Jazz insisted.

"But I—"

"They'd want to see you first," she said, pushing me towards the door.

I could tell Jazz wanted to see them just a badly as I did, but, as she always did, my sister never thought of herself first. Even if I wasn't crying—I'd cried enough already—she could still tell it hurt me to see people I loved die right before my very eyes, with absolutely no hope of changing the outcome.

So I gave up trying to stop her from pushing me out the door and gave her a small smile. Even if my parents couldn't comfort me, Jazz could.

The doctor led me down the blindingly white hallway and took me to a door with the words Emergency Room written over it. I swallowed before nodding my thanks and heading in. The doctor didn't follow; he knew I had already memorized how to get to their rooms by now. This would be the fourteenth time I had walked down this hallway—not that I was counting.

The closer I got to their rooms, the colder the hallway seemed to get, but I figured it was just nerves, seeing as how no one else seemed to be bothered by the chill. But I couldn't stop myself from hesitating outside their rooms when I finally reached the doorway at the end of the hall.

They must hate me. How could they not? This was all my fault, anyway: I hadn't gotten them help when they had clearly needed it. And even when things had gotten out of hand, I had still kept my mouth shut. They probably didn't even want to see me. I turned around to walk back, but then I remembered how they had never given up on me, despite my many failures, and I realized it didn't matter what they thought of me. They had stuck with me through everything; the least I could do was return the favor.

I took a deep breath and pushed open the doors.

They needed me; I could do this.

It wasn't until one of them started coughing up blood that we realized the situation was much more serious than we had ever imagined.

Her eyes were dull as she stared up at me while she was wheeled into the ambulance. It looked like she wanted to say something to me, but she could only make some vague whispering sound before she started coughing her lungs out again.

I grabbed her hand and squeezed to tell her I understood, but she wasn't strong enough to squeeze back, and I was forced to watch helplessly as they shut the car doors and drove off.

Two days later, he followed.

Her eyes were on me as soon as I opened the door. For the first time in weeks, I saw a light in them that I had feared I would never see again. There was a love that few people ever got to see; only those who got close enough to her were ever given the privilege to see the wondrous sight. To everyone else she looked cold and calculating, but to those she loved, she was a tender, caring woman. My heart broke at the sight of her—someone I loved with all of my heart.

I managed to make it to her bed before I dropped to my knees and grabbed her hand. "I'm sorry," I sobbed. "I'm so, so sorry."

"Oh, Danny," she breathed. "Don't cry. Please, don't ever cry." She sounded close to tears, too.

"It's my fault you're dying," I couldn't help repeating again. They knew I was killing them, but they weren't angry. Why couldn't they be angry with me?

"You didn't know. You couldn't have known."

"Why aren't you angry?" I whispered.

She smiled. "I don't want that to be the last emotion I feel," she said back just as quietly.

I laid my forehead down on her hand and finally let loose the tears I had been holding back. "I love you. Both of you."

"I love you, too, Danny." She turned her head to the body in the bed beside her. "We both do."

X-rays, CAT scans, MRIs, every type of test was done to see what would be causing the illness. But nothing showed up.

"It's like it's invisible, and we're just seeing the damage it's leaving behind," I overheard one of the doctors saying.

I spent all of my free time researching the few symptoms I had seen in the past few weeks: lack of appetite, thirst, coughs, fatigue, everything. But I couldn't find an illness that matched all of the symptoms, some, but not all. Jazz couldn't even find a reassuring explanation in her plethora of books from the library.

But I kept looking; I would find what was killing the people I loved.

When I did, I wasn't sure if I should be relieved or horrified. Not that it mattered, because all my brain seemed to be capable of feeling was shock.

My only thought was, What?

All of the symptoms matched. The site even mentioned signs I hadn't even known were symptoms. I didn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. But there it was, clear as day, typed in small font:

Cancer.

I stayed with her for about an hour before I figured it was Jazz's turn to speak with one of the few people she had ever gotten close to. She looked sad to see me go, but I promised that I would see her again as soon as possible. That cheered her up, as much as it could have in the situation, anyway.

Jazz spent nearly as long as I did with them, not that anyone was complaining. Everyone knew how much they meant to us, and it wasn't like they could deny a crying teenager.

After Jazz left, the remaining six people took their turns going in to speak to them. Some of them spent the entire time talking, while others just stood quietly beside them and watched. But no matter who else went in, she never spoke to anyone after Jazz. Neither did the other person, but, then again, he never woke up.

I told my idea to the doctors, and they said it was a reasonable idea, but none of the tests had showed any cancer or anything similar to a tumor.

"Even if you are right, kid," one of the doctors said patiently, "we can't operate on something we can't see."

One week later, his hair started falling out.

"Did you start treating for it?" we had asked.

"We haven't done anything to them. But their bodies are reacting as though they've been exposed to radiation treatment."

Radiation.

Jazz came up from somewhere behind me and placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. Her eyes were still red from the tears she hadn't stopped crying since she found out why they were dying, but her voice was steady. "Hey, don't beat yourself up about this. There was no way you could have known," she said quietly. I thought I heard a faint rasping in her voice—probably from all of her crying.

"But I saw the signs, Jazz," I said hopelessly, turning to face her. "I should have said something."

"We all saw the signs, Danny. We just didn't know what they were pointing to."

I just shook my head. "It's all my fault," I said sourly.

"It's not like you could do anything to prevent it," she said comfortingly.

But I could have, I thought back bitterly. But before I could say anything, Jazz's rasping breaths turned into coughs, and I could only watch sadly as my own sister fought herself for air.

"I'm sorry," I said quietly. But my words fell on deaf ears, and Jazz didn't answer.

My parents finally told me why they always wore their hazmat suits.

"The lab is filled with radiation," my mom explained. "It didn't show up until we opened the Ghost Portal, but the radiation levels in the lab always increase whenever the portal is open. That's why we almost always have it shut."

"Why is it whenever the Ghost Portal is open?" I asked.

"We think it's probably because ghosts are radioactive—at least, their ectoplasm is—which is why your father and I always fight the ghosts that we see: to protect the town."

"That's why we're so afraid of Phantom," my dad said.

"Afraid?" They never appeared to be afraid whenever they spoke about my other half. In fact, they had only seemed to radiate hatred.

"He spends so much time around humans," my dad answered. "So—"

I didn't hear the rest of what my dad was saying.

Radiation.

Ghosts.

Danny Phantom.

Me.

I had been killing my best friends every time I changed to help someone in need.

I would have laughed at the irony, if I hadn't already started sobbing.

The doctors found the cancer during the autopsies. Both of their bodies were riddled with it. It was in their lungs and hearts and brains, and everywhere it hadn't been a month ago. No one knew how it had progressed so quickly without anyone noticing. But I did. I knew.

I just made it worse every time they helped me get away, I thought bitterly. They died helping me. I'm killing people instead of helping them.

I knew I couldn't be Danny Phantom anymore. If my parents were right, and ghosts really were radioactive, then I'd have to find another way to fight them. I was obviously immune to their radiation, seeing as how I was still perfectly healthy.

But Jazz wasn't. Her cough still hadn't gone away, and she spent most of the night staying up while she fought herself for air. She didn't even come down for dinner anymore. My parents thought it was just a bug.

But I knew better.

"It'll be okay," she rasped. Her eyes were dull and sunken into her head. She looked just like Sam had, before she was sent to the hospital.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. I'd been saying that a lot lately, but I knew I could never apologize enough to ward off any of the guilt. I was a killer, and no matter how much I wanted to help, there was nothing I could do.

I felt more tears run down my cheeks, but I made no move to hide them. I was pretty sure my eyes were stained red now with the amount of crying I had been doing since I had realized I was the cause of my best friends'—my only friends—deaths.

"It's not your fault," Jazz breathed, before coughing into the blanket she had wrapped around her. She tried her best to hide it, but I still saw the blood.

But it is.