I went to Danny's house early the next morning. I hadn't slept much the night before, and I stumbled with every passing breeze. It was unnaturally cold for that time of year, but it seemed to fit the mood of the circumstances.
I rang the doorbell and waited patiently, hoping that Danny would be the one to let me in. The door creaked open and I looked in to see Jazz peering at me strangely.
"Sam? What are you doing here so early in the morning?" she asked incredulously.
I opened my mouth to attempt an explanation, but I was saved from doing so when Danny rushed down the stairs.
"Jazz, what are you doing? Let Sam in, it's freezing outside," he scolded his sister angrily.
Jazz huffed. "I was going to, Danny. I just asked her why she was here."
Danny grabbed my arm and pulled me inside, shoving Jazz aside and slamming the door shut afterwards.
"You'll find out soon enough," he mumbled bitterly.
Danny let go of my hand and poked his head into the kitchen, where his parents apparently were lounging.
"Can I see you guys for a minute? I need to tell you something," he stated with an incredible amount of composure and solemnity.
Danny returned to his spot next to me and stood with a grim look on his face. He looked as though he had gotten even less sleep than I had, and he was obviously in a very distraught state. As Jazz and Mr. and Mrs. Fenton all took their seats on the couch, I began to feel slightly uncomfortable and out-of-place as all eyes were set on Danny and me.
"Danny," I whispered, "what am I supposed to do?"
He took my hand for a moment and gently stroked my palm with his thumb. He smiled at me casually.
"Just be there," he reassured.
At last, he turned to his family and took a humungous gulp of air before he began, "Mom, Dad, Jazz, I need to tell you guys something..."
"Oh God," Maddie muttered, frightened. "Did you and Sam...?"
Danny's eyes went wide at the implication. "No! That's--that's not what this is about at all. This is something...slightly different, though equally as serious...if not more so."
The Fenton's, by now, were all on the edges of their seats. Their eyes bore into Danny like a thousand ecto-rays. Once again, he inhaled sharply.
"Something's been wonky with my ghost powers lately. It's been harder and harder to change back into my human form. I think--er, we think--," he clarified, including me and Tucker, "that somehow, every time I use my ghost powers, I become more and more ghostly. We think I'm slowly losing my human half...slowly becoming a full ghost," he finished, his voice barely audible.
There was a surprising lack of reaction from his family. They just continued to stare, as though not quite certain of how to respond. Danny began to stir under their intense gaze, and he shifted uncomfortably. I took his hand and pulled him closer to me, offering as much support as I knew how to give in this situation.
Finally, Jazz's eyes filled up with tears and she rushed to Danny and squeezed him tight. He embraced her as well, obviously needy for his sister's support and I stepped back a little bit, allowing the siblings to handle the shock together.
As they hugged, my eyes drifted nonchalantly over to Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, whose eyes were now downcast and contemplative. They slowly rose from their positions on the couch and made their way to the basement/lab.
"They didn't even seem upset," Danny noted remorsefully, watching them leave.
Jazz wiped the tears from her eyes and sniffled, "I'm sure they're just in shock, Danny. They don't know what to think. I mean, it was bad enough when you were half ghost. Half what they've loathed for years. Now..." she didn't finish her statement, as though willing Danny's theory not to be true. "They've just got conflicting emotions: their natural hatred of ghosts and their parental love of you. It's got to be killing them psychologically."
Danny nodded absently. "This is why I didn't tell them all that time. I knew they'd never really understand."
He backed up slowly, his mind elsewhere as tears flowed from his eyes. He staggered up the stairs, obviously heading for his room. I reached out to him and opened my mouth, but though better of it. He probably needed to be alone for awhile, or he would have taken me with him in the first place.
I looked at Jazz sadly and saw that she was staring into the kitchen. "He told you before he told us?" she inquired, not angrily.
I nodded slowly. "He told Tucker before he told any of us. But, yeah, he just told me last night. I don't know exactly how long they've known."
I saw her wince slightly, as though somewhat disappointed. "Let's go downstairs and see what my parents are up to, exactly," she said, deciding to change the subject.
We walked down to the lab and saw her parents working. Mrs. Fenton was taking measurements of various chemicals in test tubes, and Mr. Fenton was gravely poking away at some sort of machine that was taking the shape of a sarcophagus. They seemed not to notice me and Jazz, but mumbled to each other absentmindedly.
"I have no idea how to do this, Jack," Mrs. Fenton grumbled, shaking her head in dismay. "I've never made anything that would actually help a ghost."
Mr. Fenton shook his head in agreement. "I know what you mean, Maddie."
She whipped around to look at him curiously, and Jazz and I shirked back into the stairwell, feeling that we would get more information out of eavesdropping than general questioning.
"Just what exactly are you doing with the Fenton-Ghost-Coffin, Jack?" she asked, sounding horrified.
Mr. Fenton sighed and turned to her. "Sweetie, you and I have always known that ghosts are evil, right?" he asked, pausing for her to answer.
She nodded hesitantly, and he explained, "Well, basically, I think that without his human half to ground him to this world, Danny could become...well, malevolent. Now, we should most definitely try our hardest to find some sort of cure, but just in case we don't," he stood aside, motioning to the chamber, "I'm going to try to modify this so that it will keep a ghost in stasis and not necessarily destroy it. So if he does completely change before we find a cure, we can buy some extra time."
Then, Mrs. Fenton began to cry. She sobbed, breaking down right in front of us, and Mr. Fenton rushed forward to comfort her. Jazz took a large gasp of breath before grabbing my hand and pulling me up the stairs.
We stood alone in the kitchen, and Jazz's eyes darted around the room quickly, making sure we were the only ones around.
"Sam...I know that this is a difficult request, but please don't tell Danny about that stasis chamber thing," she pleaded.
I gawked at her, dumbfounded. "Jazz, why wouldn't we tell Danny about it? This affects him more than any of us. He has a right to know what his parents are trying to do," I protested, turning to run up the stairs and tell him right then and there.
But Jazz grabbed me by the arm forcefully and pulled me back. "Don't tell him. He's got enough to worry about right now. He doesn't need to know his parents are planning on preserving him once he becomes a full ghost," Jazz clarified.
Then, she sighed heavily. "Plus...they might be right."
DPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDP
That night, Tucker came over and we sat in my room, talking about things for awhile. It turned out that Tucker had only "known" about this for about a week, so I wasn't too far behind. He also explained to me that things weren't looking good in regards to finding a cure.
"I went to his house about noon today. His parents have basically holed themselves up in their lab. But everything they do keeps failing. It either outright kills the ghost DNA they're testing on or it has no effect. Nothing seems to be working..." he informed me.
I shook my head in anger. "This is so wrong. None of this should be happening. It doesn't make sense. Why should this happen to him? What did he do to deserve this?"
Tucker shrugged. "Nothing. Sometimes things just happen."
Just then, that familiar draft passed through my room and Tucker and I turned to see Danny, floating above the ground with his arms crossed.
"Tucker...what are you doing in my girlfriend's room?" he demanded playfully.
Tucker grinned. "Come on, man. You didn't honestly expect Sam to love you when she could have such a fine specimen as me, did ya?"
I grimaced in disgust. "Please, Tuck. Don't make me barf."
We laughed heartily, forgetting for a moment the impending doom that surrounded our friendship. Danny flew over to my bed and sat down.
"Give me a minute, guys," he begged sorrowfully before closing his eyes and painfully trying to locate his human self.
Tucker came over and sat on the other side of Danny and each of us took one of his hands in ours, offering as much support as we knew how to give. A small smile appeared on his face for a millisecond before his mouth twitched in concentration.
At last, after about five minutes of holding our breath, Danny was able to change back and we all released it in relief. Then, we sat and chatted for awhile, trying not to bring up the painful subject of Danny's slow demise.
This was the general routine every night that week. Tucker would come over promptly at eight o'clock and Danny would make his way to my room as soon as his ghost-fighting duties were done for the night. They would just leave of their own accords, sometimes not departing until past midnight. It took longer and longer every night, it seemed, for Danny to change back. At first, he'd acted self-conscious about sitting in silence as Tucker and I stared at him, but now the agony in his features was so evident that he didn't seem to care anymore about what we thought of his "weakness." He was too immersed in desperately trying to find himself, and it became harder and harder with each day.
One night, Danny had been in deep concentration for forty-five minutes and Tucker obviously needed to go to the bathroom. He looked up at me, as if for some sort of permission, and I nodded to him, rolling my eyes. He gently rose, trying not to break Danny's train of thought and he rushed to my bathroom. A few seconds later, Danny was able to change back and he looked at me, imploring sadly, "How long did that take?"
I averted my gaze. "Forty-five minutes."
He bobbed his head up and down numbly. "It's getting so hard to find my human half. I search and I search and it hurts so badly. I start panicking and rummaging wildly through my mind, but...I come up short. When I finally find it, I'm so tired, I..."
He trailed off and just fell onto me. I was caught off-guard, and I started to fall, too, but I eventually managed to get us both situated and we sat up. I put my arms around him and nestled my cheek against his unruly hair. I subconsciously stroked his arm and he sighed contentedly in my arms.
I heard the rush of water that signified the flush of a toilet and heard the bathroom door click. I only looked back when Tucker did not come to sit back down with us as I had expected him to.
I was a little confused when I saw he was no longer there. He'd probably left. Perhaps he felt that he was intruding on our "moment," perhaps he'd needed to get home before midnight, or perhaps he'd developed a case of constipation or something and needed to use his own bathroom.
Whatever the reason, that was the last time Tucker came to my room at night. I imagine it was a mixture of things: his discomfort at seeing Danny deteriorate before his eyes, his awkwardness about being around his best friend and his girlfriend as they spent what could be their final days together as two living human beings. On the whole, I suppose it really didn't matter. We only had a few nights left, anyway, and we all could tell.
DPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDP
Indeed, the next night, Tucker called and said he couldn't come, giving the obviously phony excuse that his parents had suddenly forbidden him from coming to my house late at night. I didn't question it, however. Selfish and greedy as it may sound, I wanted Danny to myself for as long as I could have him.
I waited, getting impatient. It was already ten o'clock and Danny hadn't showed up yet. I began to get antsy and paced my floor fervently.
When at last he came, I gave him a look of agitation, and he replied, tears in his eyes, "I can't change back."
Frightened beyond my wits, I grabbed him and hauled him to the side of my bed, forcing him to concentrate. I held his hand and watched in silence. I felt sick, horrified, and nervous, but I couldn't take my eyes off of him as he probed his mind and gritted his teeth in frustrated anguish.
It was the longest two hours of my life, but he made it. Slowly and with almost a hint of reluctance, those familiar and welcome white rings emerged around his waist and transformed Danny. I sobbed in relief, not believing how thankful I was just to see his human side again.
He cried as well, relief flooding his pained features. The strain of the past few weeks was obviously wearing on him. The creases in his forehead made him seem permanently worried. The bags under his eyes spoke of his prominent lack of sleep, and his skinny frame displayed just how much the panic and apprehension were affecting his eating habits.
Then, he unexpectedly collapsed into me, nearly giving me a heart attack in the process.
"Danny?" I coaxed much louder than I had intended.
His breathing was so heavy, it was hard to understand him as he spoke. "I...just so tired, Sam. So tired."
I shushed him and stroked his beautiful black hair, feeling the need to touch his human self. As much as I loved both halves of Danny, I was getting sicker and sicker of seeing Phantom all the time. His human half now held some sort of immortal beauty to it. Seeing it was honestly the best sight I had ever beheld in my life.
I gently lowered Danny to the floor and his head lolled sideways as he fought to stay awake. I could just picture my parents' reaction to Danny sleeping in my room, but I didn't care. He was obviously exhausted, and he needed a place to sleep now. With any luck, they would never find out...and if they did, it wouldn't matter. Their concern was not of my concern. Walking to the closet, I quietly grabbed my old sleeping bag and threw it out onto the floor.
By now, Danny was dozing off, and I felt horrible awakening him, but I couldn't carry him to the sleeping bag; even in his weakened state, he was much too muscular for me to handle.
"Come on, Danny," I prompted, tenderly lifting him to the best of my ability.
He took initiative and moseyed his way to the bag on the floor. He didn't even bother slipping inside of it; he just lay down on top and curled into a ball, quickly passing out right afterwards.
I let my gaze remain on his still, sleeping form for a long while. He was so beautiful in his sleep. So beautiful in his human form. I bent over and gently placed a kiss on his forehead, and he smiled widely in his dreams. I grinned, too, hoping that, somehow, I had given him something pleasant to dream of instead of long nights of worry and nightmares.
I turned the light off and the world seemed to grow even darker than before.
So, perhaps still a tad OOC for Sam, but I tried to fix her a little for you guys...I know it was bugging you. Her reactions/emotions do have to fit the overall angsty and dramatic tone, though, so I couldn't change too much. Hopefully, we've met a happy place somewhere in between. So...any comments you'd care to make in a review would be most welcome. I'd love to know that you're reading this and how you're liking it. Encouragements as well as concerns are welcome. Thanks so much!