This chapter attempts to show how this disease is affecting Danny, not only physically but emotionally as well. For someone used to saving the world, asking for help would be one of the hardest things to do. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter.
::IMPORTANT:: The reviewer responses have all been moved to a separate chapter at the end, following the Medical Reference Guide.
You know the drill – Danny Phantom belongs to Butch Hartman and House belongs to David shore. I pale in comparison to their genius.
Chapter 6 – Learning To Ask For Help -
Dr. Cuddy sat behind her desk and let out a long sigh. She had a headache the size of Montana due to dealing with complaining patients all day, and the two doctors arguing in front of her weren't helping it any. It was times like this she envied House's ability to skip any and all work he didn't like without guilt.
"Can't you see that he's still sick?" Cameron shouted at her colleague.
"Every test we've run has come back negative!" Chase yelled back.
"You're unbelievable! He still has a fever, something is obviously wrong!" Cameron argued. "I say that If we run the tests again, and check for any false negatives, I'd feel a lot better about telling a kid with a three degree fever he's fine!"
"Yes, I agree. Something is causing his fever, but that something that isn't going to show up by doing another round of the same tests," Foreman added.
"Obviously we'd try other tests as well," Cameron responded. "I just want to make sure we didn't miss anything the last time."
"As much as it pains me to say this, miss compassionate over there has a point." House said. "If we missed something the first time around, I want to know. Chase, I want you to re-check the less accurate tests for any false negatives. Once you're done with that, I want you to test the accurate tests, but make sure the results were read right. Cameron, you'll be testing the kid for the less common bacterial and viral infections. If you can think of it, test for it," House finished.
"Foreman, while Chase and Cameron are running and re-running tests, I want you to go find the kid's parents, and ask them if they've noticed anything strange about their son since last march. It could be behavioral, a change in how often he gets sick, any thing. Listen for anything in particular anything that would explain his change in temperature," House ordered.
"Fine!" Chase snapped as he walked out of the room in a huff. Of course House would shoot down his ideas, no matter haw much sense they made. He was so preoccupied with his thoughts he didn't notice that he was followed out the door by Cameron and Foreman.
"House, why are you still in here?" Caddy asked in an exasperated tone. "I haven't done anything to annoy you lately, so why are you using my office for a differential? Especially on a day when I have so much paperwork due?"
"If I didn't use your office, then how would I find time to annoy you? I have to multitask – I'm a very busy doctor," He responded, twirling his cane through the air.
"Get Out!" Cuddy yelled, rapidly loosing her patience with House.
House smirked as he left, having fulfilled his goal of annoying her. He nearly bumped into Wilson as he walked through the door.
"What is it now?" Cuddy asked, annoyed. He annoyance faded, however, when she saw the look on Wilson's face. Very few things could make him worried.
"I though you'd want to take a look at this," Wilson said as an explanation. He placed a file down onto the desk in front of her. It wasn't a medical file, but a read-out from one of the machines downstairs.
Cuddy looked through the file. The more she read, the more worried she became. Finally, she stood up and said, "This can't be documented right…but if it is we have a serious health code crisis on our hands."
"We think something's messing with the equipment down in the oncology department. All of the radiation detectors we have to keep watch on cancer treatment are picking up some high-frequency energy. I can tell you right now we have no idea what it is or where it's coming from. All we do know is that the energy is, thankfully, not radioactive. It's also coming from a source pretty close by, but not in the hospital."
"Well…shouldn't we be calling in a Hasmat team to get rid of it or something?" Cuddy panicked. "This could seriously endanger the patients!" she shouted.
"According to the report, it's not any danger to the patient. Well…directly, anyway. It's messing with the equipment, which is messing up our results," Wilson explained.
"Do you have any idea what could be causing this?" Cuddy asked, still in a state of shock.
Wilson shook his head, "I've never seen anything like it before."
House's office
While Cuddy and Wilson were talking, House went back to his office to de research. If the Fentons were right, and Amity Park ran ghost drills, surely there would be reports of any ghost activity in the newspapers. He sat down in his chair, and a few minutes later he was looking intently at the computer screen in front of him. It showed a newspaper website.
The article he was reading was titled 'Mysterious Spook Inviso-bill appears in Amity Park.'
Danny's hospital room
The next morning had arrived and Dr. Cameron and chase were there in the room, taking some more vials of blood for testing. Sam was dozing in the chair next to Danny's hospital bed. He smiled at the fact that she hadn't yet left the room except to get food. Jazz and Danny's parents would be there shortly. They were probably driving to the hospital from the nearby hotel they were staying at. It was early in the morning so they hadn't arrived yet.
Suddenly they all heard the door shut. Danny looked up, and Sam awoke from her nap. Vlad was standing in the middle of the doorway.
"Well, Daniel, it's so nice to see you again. I enjoyed our little chat yesterday. I hope you've thought it over," Vlad said, walking into the room almost exactly 24 hours after he had left.
Cameron and Chase looked at each other, confused. This man obviously knew Danny, but they had no idea who he was. Judging by the hatred showing on Danny's face, they weren't sure they wanted to.
"Dr. Cameron, Dr Chase, this is Vlad. He's not worth your time or your breath. He just doesn't know when he's lost," Danny said bitterly, glaring at his archenemy.
"So I take it that's a no on what we talked about earlier?" Vlad smirked, knowing he had the upper hand. Danny cared too much about people in his opinion, and would never want to see the hospital attacked.
"You should have expected it," Danny responded with a glare.
"That I did, my dear boy. That I did," Vlad smiled, then added, "Pity, though. I had so hoped that you would see what the right decision was. Then again, you always were stubborn. Just like you father."
"Just ignore him, Danny," Sam said, hoping her friend would listen.
"I told you yesterday and I'm telling you today. Get out," Danny said with a deadly calm in his voice. It was obvious he was close to loosing his temper.
"As you wish, young Daniel. Just remember that my offer always stands," He said. After that, he walked out of the room without a backwards glance.
"What was that all about?" Chase asked as he changed the IV fluid. The IVIG was almost gone.
"He's just an insane creep who doesn't know when he's lost a fight," Danny said. "He was friends with my parents in college. He doesn't like my dad though, blames him for ruining his life. He sent him to the hospital, where he missed out on all his college years," Danny explained, deciding it couldn't hurt to tell them that.
"That's too bad, though if I heard right he's pretty successful right now. Anyway, it looks like were just about done here," Cameron said. She now recognized the man as Vlad Masters, one of the richest men in America. "Do you have any questions?"
"Yeah, actually, I do," Danny said. "Have you figured out what's causing the guillian barre yet?" Danny asked.
"Not yet. Unfortunately, all the tests we've run have come back negative. That's why we're running some more. Don't worry though," She said, giving him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "We'll keep looking until we find it. No disease is undetectable." With that, the two doctors left the room.
A few second later, Jazz and Danny's parents walked into the room.
"Did the doctors have any news for you?" Jazz asked, setting her stuff down on a nearby chair. She'd seen Cameron and Chase walking from the room.
"They don't have anything yet, but they said they'd keep looking. I trust them," Danny said, trying to assure them, and himself, that he'd be fine. He tried to ignore the growing sense of helplessness inside him. He wasn't supposed to get sick or be to week to even get out of bed. He had a town to protect, and right now he had a hospital to protect as well.
"How are you feeling? Any better?" Maddie asked, rearranging the covers of the hospital bed so that Danny would be more comfortable.
'How about feeling guilty as heck for leaving Amity unprotected, and not being able to protect this hospital?' Danny thought to himself, but said to Maddie, "I feel a lot weaker, but the doctors said that's normal." Danny again put on a brave face for the sake of his family.
"Look Danny, I made you something!" Jack exclaimed happily, taking out an action figure that looked exactly like Danny.
"Err… thanks, dad. I guess," Danny smiled, knowing his father meant well. He took the toy from him and placed it on the table beside his bed.
"Don't think anything of it, I've got one for everyone in the family," Jack responded. Taking out three other action figures that looked like Jack, Maddie and Jazz.
Maddie rolled her eyes at her husband's antics. "I baked some cookies for you as well. I don't think this hospital food is healthy. We forgot most of our cooking stuff at home though, so we had to use the hotel supplies. It was slower, but worth the wait," She smiled, taking out a large plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.
"Thanks!" Danny exclaimed, taking a cookie from the plate slowly. After he took it though, it dropped from his hand.
"I'll just put them on the tray over here, that way you'll be able to reach them easier," Maddie smiled, tactfully not mentioning the incident.
Jack sat on the chair, pouting. "I still don't see why I couldn't have one of the cookies," He said glumly.
"Because they're for Danny and Danny only," Maddie chastised, "And I made you some fudge already. It's in the fridge at the hotel." This seemed to bring his spirits up considerably.
"Hey mom, dad," Danny said, catching their attention. If he was going to tell them about the impending ghost attack, it was now or never. "I though I should warn you. A ghost came by here earlier, and-" He started to say, but was cut off by his parent's shouts.
"GHOSTS!" Jack bellowed, standing up from the chair and wielding a Fenton bazooka in his hands before anyone could blink.
"If that piece of ectoplasmic slime tried anything to hurt you, I swear he will face my wrath," Maddie yelled, also pulling out a weapon from her jumpsuit.
Jazz was fuming. "This is a hospital!" She screeched, "Why did you bring ghost weapons here?! They're dangerous!" She glared at them. As scientists, they should know better than to bring weapons into the hospital.
"For once, I'm glad they did," Danny said, surprising everyone else in the room. "The ghost that came by earlier didn't try to attack me, but he said that other ghosts will. I know enough to take him seriously, too. Since we're here now the ghosts will try and attack us when we're down. I wanted to warn you guys so that you'll be prepared," Danny finished.
"Don't you worry, son! We'll protect you and this hospital from any ghosts that attack! Plus, I get to use my new weapon!" Jack shouted as he and Maddie left the room.
"That was very noble of you, Danny," Jazz smiled at her brother. "I know that it's hard for you to place that kind of trust in someone again when you're so used to relying on yourself. You're usually the one being the hero," Jazz said.
"I agree with your sister. I'm proud of you too, Danny," Sam smiled. "Hey, were you're powers malfunctioning earlier or something? Ya know, when you dropped the cookie?" she asked.
"No, they weren't," Danny sighed, holding his hand up and looked at it. He tried to move his fingers, but they only moved an inch or so. "I just lost my grip. I'm so useless!" He yelled in frustration, laying back into the hospital bed.
"You're not useless, Danny," Sam said. "You're sick right now and there's nothing you can do about it. Everyone needs to learn to rely on someone else now and then, even super-powered teens," She smiled.
"So that's why…" Jazz said suddenly.
"Why what?" Danny and Sam asked at the same time.
"Why you told mom and dad about ghosts coming here. You only told them about it because you had no other option. It's not that you willingly let them fight the ghosts instead of yourself, it's that you've finally realized that you can't fight, and the only way to protect this hospital is to let them. By the way, who was the ghost you were talking about?" She asked.
Before Danny had a chance to respond, they heard a loud ruckus coming from the first floor of the hospital. People were running and screaming, and they could only assume that the reason was a ghost attacking.
"It was Vlad. I guess I'll get to see now if my trust in them was well-founded," Danny answered. He sighed as he listened to the fight going on below them. A fight that, for the first time since he got his ghost powers, Danny wasn't a part of.