A/N: I live! Sorry about the delay, all, I've had a crazy semester. Good news, though, I've finally got names for all the OC's in this. But you don't want excuses, so, here's the story!
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The little old lady passed his 'home' of the moment almost every day, each time carrying bags and bags of groceries. He kept worrying over her, knowing the street he lived beside was infamous for the amount of hit-and-runs it saw. But everyday she crossed that street, barely paying any attention to the traffic.
He couldn't stand it.
So one day, as she stepped out into the busy street, he grabbed her by the elbow, pulling her out of the way of an oncoming car.
"Oh!" she gasped. "Dear me, what's going on?" She glanced at him, confused for a moment, then grinned. "Hello, sonny. Could you tell me what's going on?"
Danny just blinked at her. "...What?"
Her grin didn't waver. "I'm afraid I'm a bit off lately. Old age, y'know. Must've been caught up in my thoughts again and missed whatever happened. So, what did happen?"
"Y—You just almost got run over," Danny replied, stumbling over his answer but not yet releasing her arm.
"Oh, dear! And how did I avoid it?" She asked so innocently, Danny knew she must have some form of memory loss, maybe even dementia.
"I—I pulled you back onto the sidewalk," he answered, blushing lightly.
"Well, thank you, sweetie!" She grinned even brighter at him. "D'you think you might be able to help me cross the street?" She looked at him, taking in his rather ratty-looking clothes and overgrown, messy hair, but made no mention of it.
He glanced back at his little home, almost wincing at the ragged look of it before flashing his eyes to the other side of the street. He could help her across and come back over. That wouldn't be a problem. "Um, sure."
She smiled once more at him. "Thank you, dearie." She wrapped an arm around his, he taking some of the bags to help her. Then, he looked both ways, waiting for the cross light to change before stepping into the street.
Within moments, they had made it across, and he was starting to hand the bags back. "Oh, dear, these bags are so heavy," the woman stated as she took them. "I must have gotten too much again…." She bit her lip, looking at him once more. "D'you think you might be able to help me carry them to my house? It's just down the block."
He could feel his hero-complex, long since dormant, starting to ache. Helping her cross the street seemed to have awoken it, and now, he couldn't ignore it. "I—If it's just down the block, I guess I could…."
She smiled again. "Thank you, dearie." She passed some of the bags back to him, then led the way down the sidewalk towards a small, two-story house. They stepped up the two stairs to the door, Danny standing to one side as the woman fished out her key and wiggled it into the lock. Finally, she swung the door open, smiling at Danny.
He started to hand the bags back.
"Oh, dear," she said again, and Danny quickly realized he was about to be asked to help some more. Somehow, he couldn't find it in him to be annoyed or angry, and he blamed that on his hero-complex. "I have such a hard time putting these away in all those high cabinets and shelves…." She glanced at Danny. "D'you think you might be able to help me put them away? The kitchen is just inside."
He closed his eyes, already knowing he wouldn't deny her help. "...Alright."
"Thank you, dearie," she said with that huge smile. They walked in, and he quickly got to work putting the items where she told him to. With that done, he turned to say goodbye.
The woman had already started to set up to cook dinner. Danny opened his mouth to speak, but she interrupted. "Could you hand me the chicken over on that counter?" She pointed to the thawed chicken that had obviously been set out earlier. He passed it to her. "Thank you, dearie."
"You're welcome. Um, I'm gonna—"
"Could you hand me the salt?"
Danny sighed, but did so, realizing he was now going to help her make dinner. For the next half hour, he moved about the kitchen, passing her ingredients and occasionally measuring them out. Then, she asked him to set the table for two.
He balked. "I—I should really get home—"
She turned to him, one hand on her hip and the other pointing the spoon she held in it at him. "Don't think I haven't paid as much attention to you as you have to me. Every day I see you sitting in that little alley. Not once have I seen you eat, boy, and I plan to change that. Now, set the table." She turned back to the food, and he quickly obeyed.
They sat together when the food was ready. Danny had to force himself to eat at a civilized pace and not just tear into his food. "It's really good," he mumbled as he ate.
"Thank you, dearie," she said yet again, smiling. "Y'know, I have three grandsons. They're right around your age, I'd reckon, but I don't see them too much. Their parents live too far away." She glanced at Danny. "But they call every week. They've tried to get me to set up that whatchacallit on the computer, the thing that lets you talk face to face? But I'm no good with this new-fangled technology."
She was giving him that look again. "...I can help you set it up," he said quietly. "It'd only take a—"
"Thank you, dearie," she interrupted. "You can do that in the morning, it's much too late now. How about you head on upstairs? The guest room's bed just needs a new set of sheets. You can find those in the closet in the hallway."
"I—I couldn't—!"
Her hands were on her hips again. "You can and you will, boy. You need a good night's sleep, and you aren't gettin' it out on the streets."
"I—" He sighed. "Yes, ma'am."
"Frieda."
He turned, staring at her in confusion. "Huh?"
"My name's Frieda Greyson, sweetie. You can call me Frieda, not ma'am."
"Right. Sorry, ma—um, Frieda." He turned to go back up the stairs, but paused at the bottom, glancing back to say, "My name's Danny."
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The next morning, Danny woke up, had a huge breakfast, and sat down at Frieda's computer to set up Skype. He was done in just a few minutes, and stood to say goodbye. "Alright, you're all set up. I'm gonna—"
"Oh, Danny," she said, bustling over with a piece of paper in her hand. "If you're heading out, d'you think you might be able to run by the grocery store and pick up a few things?" Her big, brown eyes stared up at him, silently begging him to do as asked.
He sighed. Apparently, he was going to be stuck here for good. "Alright, sure." He took the list and turned to the door. "I'll be back in a little bit."
"Okay, sweetie. Be careful!"
He nodded and went out the door. Then, he sighed. If he was going to be staying here, he might as well get used to it.
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The days when he wasn't shopping were spent helping Frieda clean the house. Her back gave her trouble, so Danny ended up doing most of the vacuuming and dusting. Any time he ran out to get groceries, he ended up picking up pain medicine for her, as well.
And after what had happened in Nevada, he snuck over to a psychiatrist to get some sleeping pills prescribed to him so he wouldn't wake Frieda up at night with his screams.
He knew that the nightmares had gotten worse, but he didn't realize he'd started sleep talking—well, sleep screaming—until the DelVeccios had brought it up. So, the pills were necessary if he wanted to hide the dreams from Frieda.
He hid the pills in a backpack she'd given him. She said it was for his things, which he'd been carrying around in a makeshift bag he'd created by tying his clothes together. He didn't really have much to actually put in it, but Frieda respected his privacy and didn't look through it or even go through the guest room without permission while he was living there.
He managed to convince himself that things could be different here, that maybe he'd finally gotten away.
He hadn't.
But instead of just finding the dead body one day out of the blue, everything was drawn out this time.
It started with something he overlooked at first. In fact, he didn't even connect it until he was looking back at it later. One day, coming home from grocery shopping, he found a dead bird on the front step. He frowned at it before shrugging it off as a gift left by a local cat. He took the groceries inside.
Two days later, there was another dead bird. This time, he asked Frieda. "Do you know if there are any cats nearby?"
She shrugged. "Dunno. Why d'you ask, sweetie?"
"Nothing, just…. There was a bird on the porch today, a dead bird."
She blinked. "Oh, dear. That must've been unpleasant."
"Yeah…." He shook his head. "But I'm sure it was nothing, right?"
She smiled at him. "Of course."
The next time he came home from shopping, there was a dead dog on the porch. He froze, staring at it, seeing this time the wounds that had killed it. The throat was slashed, as were several other main arteries. Each wound was precise and the cuts were clean. No cat did this.
He ran inside and called the police. They had him come down to the station.
"So, tell us again what happened," one of the two, a young man who seemed to be in charge, stated.
"I came back from grocery shopping and found a dead dog on the porch," Danny said, still reeling over what he'd seen.
"Uh huh. Where was this again?"
"Um, Frieda Greyson's house."
The man raised an eyebrow at that. "You don't look like one of the Greyson kids. What were you doing there?"
"M—Mrs. Greyson took me in after I helped her carry her groceries home one day. I helped her cross the street and she just wouldn't let me go back."
The other officer chuckled. "Yeah, sounds like Frieda, alright."
The first frowned. "And what is your name?"
Danny barely managed to hide the fact that his eyes went wide. He hadn't been expecting this. "Um, D—Danny."
Now both officers were frowning. "You got a last name, kid?"
"No," Danny lied immediately. "I grew up in an orphanage. Don't know my last name."
"Yeah? Which orphanage?"
Danny gave the name of one he'd passed in Nevada.
The officer's eyebrows arched up. "Long way from home, aren't you?"
"Yes, sir."
The officer frowned, realizing he wouldn't get any more out of Danny. Then, he sighed. "Alright, kid, we'll check this out. You can leave now."
Danny was gone in a moment.
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The next day, a note was left on the front step. Danny frowned, picking it up and flicking it open. It was from the officer he'd spoken to.
Very funny, kid. We've closed your case. Don't bother us with another prank like this again.
Danny's brow furrowed. What could have caused this to happen? He headed inside, tossing the note into the trash and promptly pushing it to the back of his mind.
Until the news came on that night. It was a habit of Frieda's to have the news on during dinner, even though they mostly tuned out. But one story caught Danny's attention that night. The TV showed a small home across town, with a sobbing woman clutching the officer Danny had spoken to.
"—reported that a dead dog was found on his porch this morning," the anchorwoman was saying. "Officer Klinchley believes this was just a prank and is sure that the culprit will not strike again."
Danny's eyes went wide. Well, that explained the letter. No wonder the guy thought it was a prank, he got hit, too! Danny shook slightly, finally getting worried about what all this could mean.
"Danny, dear, could you help me wash the dishes?"
And just like that, he was pulled from his thoughts back into the menial work Frieda assigned him.
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It got worse from there. Just two days after the story on the news, he found Frieda shaking and sobbing in the hallway when he came home. He rushed to her immediately. "What's wrong?" he asked anxiously, checking her for any wounds. "What happened?"
"O—On m—my bed," the woman muttered, stumbling over the words in a way he'd never heard from her before. "S—Someone broke th—the window and l—left a d—dead bird on my p—pillow." She glanced up at Danny. "Wh—Who would d—do something like th—this?"
He bit his lip, not wanting to lie to her but also not wanting to scare her even more with the truth. "I—I don't know," he said finally. "I just don't know…."
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He didn't take his sleeping meds that night. He didn't want to leave the house unguarded. He stayed up, switching between pacing the room and sitting, arms wrapped around his legs, on the bed. He never took his eyes off the door, ears perked to listen for any strange noises. He barely even blinked.
It was silent. That is, it was, until just before dawn.
There was a soft sound of the door opening. He hadn't heard a key insert or the locks turn and knew it had to have been a ghost forcing the door open. He stood, ready to change into his ghost form and fight the ghost away from the house—
But then his ghost sense went off.
He'd been expecting it, but it still put him off guard for a moment as he gasped and glanced down at it. In that moment, something had grabbed his arms.
He felt the warmth he was used to in human form seep out of him and into the thing latched to his arm. He growled, turning to face the ghost who had caught him.
"Spectra," he snarled.
The redhead chuckled. "Danny, Danny, Danny," she practically purred, leeching more of his happiness away, "shouldn't you know by now to never drop your guard?"
He scowled at her, trying to pull his arm free.
"Ah, ah, ah! It looks like I'm going to have to teach you a lesson about listening to your betters, boy." She released his arm, instead grabbing his chin in her hands as she switched to her shadow form. Her tail wrapped around his arms and waist, leaving him unable to move. "See, you have no chance of beating Vladdie if you can't even beat me!" She was suddenly right in his face, and he tried but failed to pull away from her. "Poor little Phantom, got his wings cut off, left to fall to the earth and watch his friends and family fly away without him." She giggled. "Poor little bird, doomed to watch them die!"
"Shut up!" he yelled, squirming in her grasp.
She slammed him into the wall using her tail, then came in close again while he was still stunned from his head hitting the wall. "See, that's the problem with you, Danny," she hissed into his ear, "you keep thinking you can plug your ears and cover your eyes. You can't escape time, though, Danny. It delivers us all to the same end." She smirked at him, slicing a claw through his arm, making him shriek in pain. "And your end will come!"
He vaguely heard someone yelling in the background, but before he could figure out who it was, he had blacked out.
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When he awoke the next morning, it was to the sound of sirens. Someone was shaking him awake, and he glanced up into Frieda Greyson's worried face. "What…?" he asked, still groggy.
"You have to leave here, Danny," she told him hurriedly. "Those… things that broke in last night left us another present." She glanced back at the stairs with a scowl. Then, she looked back at him. "You knew something was wrong all this time, didn't you? You knew you'd have to move on."
Danny bit his lip, nodding.
Frieda sighed and hugged him before handing him his backpack. "You take care of yourself out there, Danny. I'll stall the police as long as I can, but they're set on pegging you as the culprit. Stay safe."
Danny nodded, heading for the back window after following Frieda downstairs. He had one foot out the window when he glanced back at her. "Frieda?" he called.
She paused on her way to the front door, turning back to him. "Yes, Danny?"
"I'm sorry."
And he was gone.
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A/N: Um, yeah. That totally went a different direction than I'd been planning. ...Oh, well. Hope you guys enjoyed, read and review please!