Free Spirit
8 years after a tragedy that forced him out to deal with life on his own terms, 24-year-old Danny thinks he's ready to liberate himself from his chains of guilt and self-doubt. But a long-forgotten enemy has been liberated as well—and Danny won't be a free spirit for long... DxS
A/N: To all my wonderful, awesome reviewers—thank you! I had a whole bunch of nice shout-outs planned, but now they're illegal. Meh...
Disclaimer: Yeah, Butch rules the world, whatever...
Chapter 2: The Voice Inside
I cannot find a way to describe it
It's there inside
All I do is hide
I wish that it would go away –Avril Lavigne, Take Me Away
XxXxX
A faint glow along the horizon announcing the impending arrival of dawn had barely begun when Danny's eyes snapped open. During his years of living on his own, he had learned to get by on three or four hours of sleep per night.
He sat up and passed a hand down his cheek, over the unshaven stubble along his jawline. Deciding it wasn't worth getting cold water on his face, he stood up and trudged into the kitchen.
After haphazardly stuffing some slices of bread into the Fenton Toaster, Danny sat at the table and stared at his reflection on its side. If his ice-blue eyes were only one shade lighter, he would have looked insanely creepy, but as it was, they just made him look intense. And almost creepy. His face was drawn, his cheeks slightly hollow, and the mass of stubble lining those cheeks was just long enough to be termed a beard. His entire face was framed by a mane of unkempt midnight-black hair. He looked like a former soldier, one who'd seen enough death and horror to last him several lifetimes, which he had. It troubled him. He hadn't looked at his reflection for so long that he wasn't used to his own wild appearance.
Danny put both elbows on his knees and rested his head in his hands, a position he had taken up on many a cold and lonely night. Letting out a sigh, he rubbed his temples with his fingers, as if to ward off unpleasant memories.
His toast popped up, charred black and smeared with ectoplasm. Danny took a glance and decided he wasn't hungry. Getting up, he made up his mind to check out the rest of the house.
Danny crept up the stairs silently, not wanting to wake his parents. He put his ear to their bedroom door and was reassured by the sound of Jack's thunderous snores. He then slipped into the next room over.
Closing the door behind him, Danny turned to find...his old room. Well, he thought ironically, it's much cleaner than when I left it... Danny picked up a picture frame from his desk. It was an old photo of him, Sam, and Tucker, smiling with their arms on each others' shoulders. A fresh wave of guilt hit him as he realized how long it had been since he'd spoken with either of them.
You could have called once in a while, came a familiar voice. It always seemed to come from the corner of his mind he associated with his ghost self, the persona he'd renounced after Jazz's death. Danny gritted his teeth. Lousy conscience. They'd have liked to know you were alive, at least, it continued.
No, they wouldn't, Danny thought back. I'm the one who messed up their lives. I was the one who left. They were better off without me.
You're an idiot if you've convinced yourself that's true, the voice countered. Danny mentally frowned. He'd always thought of his ghost self as an extension of himself, like an arm or a leg. For the past few years since he'd stopped using his powers, though, they'd begun to gradually feel more distant, more alien than natural. His "conscience" seemed less and less like a part of him, and more and more like...something else. Or, more accurately, someone else. Danny felt like he was even becoming a stranger to himself.
Troubled, he put the picture down and sat down on the bed. He set down the worn, threadbare, battered backpack he constantly carried.
"Might as well get used to a long stay," he muttered, trying to convince himself of the fact. Rummaging around in his pack, he came up with a black leather-bound book—his personal journal. He flipped it open to a blank page, pulled out a pencil, and wrote, September 18. Arrived home early this morning. Town overrun by ghosts. Think I saw Kwan and Paulina. Guess Spectra was right about Kwan's future. As for Paulina—let's just say I'm not surprised. Danny paused, then added, Parents as crazy as ever. No sign of Sam or Tuck. Good. It's too miserable here even for Sam.
He laid the journal next to the picture frame, then lay on the bed and sighed. I can't tell them, he internally moaned.
You promised, the voice accused.
So? This obviously counts as a mitigating circumstance. They still blame "Inviso-Bill" for what happened to Jazz, and who could blame them? It was my fault. My stupid fault.
You promised her you'd tell them. What if you just went and broke every other promise you ever made her? Your promise not to turn evil, for one thing.
That's different.
I see no difference.
Giving up, Danny looked back out of the window at the slowly pinkening sky. He decided he'd have time for angst at a more decent hour in the morning, and went back to sleep.
XxXxX
Contrary to what Danny believed, his parents were not asleep. Jack always left a recording of his snores running in their room out of sheer paranoia. They had been down in the lab experimenting on a new weapon prototype, and had emerged just in time to see Danny disappear up the stairs. They figured it would be best to leave him alone for now, and waited until he went into his room to come into the kitchen.
Maddie looked at Jack and sighed. "Jack, it's been eight years. We lost both our daughter and son that day. Now we have Danny back. We should be happy."
"I am happy!" Jack protested. "Danny's back, and more importantly, he can help us hunt ghosts! I swore a solemn vow that terrible day that I would not rest until I find that ghost kid and rip his molecules out of phase, and by golly, I'm gonna—"
"Jack, don't you find it a little too...coincidental that the ghost kid hasn't been seen or heard from since the accident?"
"Maddie, don't call it 'the accident', the ghost kid killed her, and you know it! Otherwise, Jazz would be here to accept the Ghosthunters' Society award for Groundbreaking Research in Spectral Psychology in person, not posthumously," Jack argued.
Maddie sighed again. "All I'm saying, Jack, is not to expect Danny to hold your grudge for you. He's grown up now, and has his own life to lead. By running away, he dealt with Jazz's death his own way, not yours.
"And about the ghost kid," she added. "Ever since Jazz's death, he hasn't been seen. Don't you think that might have something to do with the increase in ghost attacks over the past eight years?"
"Sure—he hides in the Ghost Zone and sends his buddies to do his dirty work for him. Why, what are you suggesting?"
"Urgh...never mind..." Maddie muttered. They'd been having these types of conversations on and off recently. Maddie was starting to think that it might be time to let it go where the ghost boy was concerned. Jack, however, clung to his vendetta like a child to a security blanket.
Luckily, they were saved from continuing the discussion by the convenient diversion of the Fenton Toaster exploding. Fixing it kept them happily occupied for the next couple of hours.
XxXxX
At 9:27 am, Danny trudged into the Fenton family kitchen for the third time that morning. This time, his parents were there to greet him (without ecto-guns).
"Morning, Danny. Sleep okay?" Maddie asked as he opened the refrigerator.
"Fine," he muttered, examining some faintly glowing, vaguely evil-looking objects that may or may not, in a former life, have been eggs. "I heard a crash, but—"
"—just the Fenton Toaster," Jack cut in to reassure him. "I fixed it up, but now it won't toast rye bread. Think I connected some circuits wrong..."
Danny rooted around in the fridge some more, gave up, and settled on a bowl of Ecto-Os ("It turns the milk GREEN!"), sat down and started wolfing it down. It was a natural, habitual thing he had become accustomed to while living on the streets for a few years: eat it fast or lose it. However, this wasn't normal behavior in the Fenton household. Maddie and Jack stared at him.
Danny, noticing their quizzical looks, paused, glanced at his spoon (and the fact that three-quarters of the bowl was gone), and put it down. He seemed to realize just how much had changed in eight years—how much he had changed. Suddenly, he wasn't hungry anymore.
An awkward silence descended.
"So," Jack finally said to break the quiet, "want to see the lab?"
"Oh, yes, we've really made a lot of breakthroughs while you were gone," Maddie piped in.
"Uh, sure," Danny agreed, more to have something to do than any real desire to see. He got up.
"Well, we finally managed to capture a ghost a few years ago," Jack explained as they came down the stairs into the lab, "and the data we have collected since then has increased our knowledge of how ghosts work tenfold. Careful observation of our subject has helped us to understand much more than we did. For instance, you know how people gain experience through age?"
"Yeah..." Danny was becoming intrigued in spite of himself. Besides the basics of how his powers worked, where everything in the Ghost Zone was located, and how to defeat his enemies, he had never really bothered to learn a lot about ghosts. Granted, it didn't help that his parents barely knew anything about ghosts either, but...
"Well, with ghosts, that isn't exactly the case," Maddie picked up from where Jack left off. "As ghosts gain more experience and become more powerful, their forms mature with them. In other words, they gain age through experience. Isn't that fascinating?"
"Really?" Danny asked, his curiosity now fully piqued. "How did you—"
"See for yourself," Maddie said gesturing around the lab. Danny looked around. His parents certainly had been keeping themselves amused for the past eight years. The walls seemed papered with complex notes and diagrams—he even thought he saw a map of the Ghost Zone, though it was not as detailed as the one he had made with his friends. All the tables were littered with bubbling ectoplasm samples or mysterious half-assembled objects of unknown nature. Boxes of parts and tools were stacked everywhere.
"Wow, you guys kept busy," Danny said. "Dad, did you say something about—"
"Oh, yeah," Jack said offhandedly, though Danny could tell he had been bursting to say this, "we caught a ghost! Did he put up quite a fight, let me tell you...Here, want to see it?" Jack pressed a button on a nearby control panel, and what Danny had taken as a spare Ghost Portal opened to reveal...
"BEWARE!" It was the Box Ghost, imprisoned in a sphere of anti-spectral energy projected by three power rods that extended from the ceiling and floor within the small closet-like space.
"The Box Ghost?" Danny asked incredulously, though to be honest, he really wasn't all that surprised.
"Well, I guess you could call it that," Maddie conceded, "it really does seem to like boxes. We've run tests on it and taken ectoplasm samples. The data is really..."
Danny barely heard the rest of Maddie's rambling. He was staring at the Box Ghost's enclosure with a mixture of revulsion and pity. The Box Ghost really did look miserable; other than his usual greeting, he had said nothing—just merely sat, dejected, in his bubble.
"...How long ago did you capture him?" Danny asked, finally finding his voice.
"Oh, about three to four years ago..." Jack said, gesturing expansively.
"And, aside from tests, he's been in there the whole time?"
"Yeah, of course! You don't think we'd risk losing our only test subject, do you?" Jack laughed. Noticing the look on Danny's face, Jack reassured him, "Don't worry, Danny, it's just a ghost, not like it has feelings or anything..."
Danny nodded just to pacify him, feeling cold. He had never felt sorrier for another ghost before, but he felt it now. To be locked away from the rest of the world, away from anything he had ever dreamed of or hoped for or loved...
You know, there's a message in that.
Whatever that was supposed to mean, Danny knew one thing: Regardless of his parents' attitude toward ghosts, it would be wrong not to do anything about this.
Both sides of him seemed to agree.