There and Back Again
6
To say that dinner was an awkward occasion was an understatement, at least in Danny's mind. He hadn't really even looked at the bill when it came, only dropped a random credit card down (and thank god he'd taken care of all of the little things that made life at least a little more familiar) and signed away. Between Jazz and her quasi-discreet piercing stares and Tucker's myriad comments that didn't really mean anything until paired with everything that had happened, Danny's nerves were as taut as a wire before they made it back out to the car. The truly sad thing was that he couldn't even avoid talking to them since he'd issued the invitation. But he could, and did, completely ignore any questions that he thought were too dangerous.
Which was almost all of them, but Danny was very quick to point out that he'd never promised answers to everything. Just reassurance that he was home, that he was well, and that… That pretty much nothing was the same and never would be again. At least that didn't have to actually be said, because Danny could feel the confusion and near hostility radiating off of all of them more than once during dinner, and it only made the silence as they waited for the car even more uncomfortable.
Jazz was trying to diffuse the tension, but Danny could barely keep quiet and not point out that she was the primary source of the anger at the moment. Tucker was just confused, a clean and simple emotion that Danny could relate to and regret, knowing that it was his fault. Sam… Oh, Sam. He could taste the betrayal on his tongue, so thick was it that he didn't even need to look at her. It wouldn't make a difference—she refused to look at him, anyway. In fact she'd barely said more than three words after the slip of tongue that set the mood for the evening.
It was easy to not speak as he drove Jazz home. Easy not to lay an accusing glare at Jazz and demand that she find somewhere else to live instead of being the first to be dropped off. He already knew what was happening, had to have known since the moment he set out to pick all three up. He just hadn't quite realized it until he turned the car for the nearest house. Danny thought that he might have been hoping for a more friendly atmosphere, even if the unanimous best friend vibe no longer included him, Danny'd hoped that they could at least be friends again.
She said goodnight as she slipped out of the car, and Danny hated that the hug she gave him at the door was forced. Jazz was his sister, they were at least supposed to care about each other. But the hurt and the doubt and the damned fierce anger was still there, even if she looked bothered by the tension.
He gave her a half smile. "Don't worry about it, Jazz. I get it."
That was the bitch of it, he really did, and Danny didn't even try for a faked easy camaraderie when Tucker got out. He waited, as he had with Jazz, until he was sure that his once friend was safely inside. It was the least he could do since the rift was of his own making, and was going to stay that way until he could find a way around it. Or until it was all over and they knew where he'd been for three years, what he'd been doing. When Tucker's living room light flicked on and Danny could see it he pulled away from the curb with a silent glance in the rearview mirror.
And there she was, Sam, his Sam, staring steadily back. But there was no humor or amusement in her eyes, not even forgiveness. Just a steady unending chill that radiated out from her to make his stomach grow cold, even more than his ice powers could leech his own warmth away. He knew it for cowardice when he tore his eyes from hers and put the car back on the road headed to her apartment a little too fast. Nerves, that, and he eased off the accelerator. A speeding ticket wouldn't be a wise thing to pick up, it would really make things awkward since he was sure anyone who would remember him believed him dead.
She didn't say a word as they drove smoothly along but he could feel the way her eyes bore into him; he was sure that he'd have little burn marks on the back of his head because of it. Even as he turned onto her street her eyes never left him and the habitual way that he checked the rear view mirror proved it—every time he looked in it her eyes flickered to his in a way that was all at once unnerving and… wanted. Even if she couldn't stand him anymore, even if she was so close to hating him that the semantics of the word made no difference… He still wanted to be in her eyes.
But not with this calculating coldness that she gave him as he pulled up in front of her building, parking the car at the side of the road and taking it out of gear before turning it off. He was out of the car in a single smooth motion and heading around to open her door, just as he had done for Jazz, as she opened it herself, easing out and standing with a face that was utterly blank. The look that she gave him, though, should have melted flesh from bone, and Danny rethought offering his arm to her. He'd done that with Jazz, but his sister hadn't had this unbridled rage in her eyes in the moment that he did.
So instead Danny started following her up the walk and hoping to god that she didn't kill him.
"You don't have to walk me to my door, you know," she tossed back over her shoulder as she dug through her small purse for her key. "I'm a big girl; I've been taking care of myself for three years now."
He flinched at the ice in her voice and the words, too. He deserved it, and so much more; it wasn't like he couldn't see exactly where she—hell—where all of them were coming from. He bit his lip, worrying it in a fashion that was unlike him. "I know that, Sam," he offered quietly. "I just…"
There was no way he could finish the words as she stopped in front of her door and turned to stare at him. To glare, to silently condemn him with the anger and hurt and hate in her eyes. "I don't care, Danny. Whatever you say, whatever excuse you have, I don't want to hear it." Her voice was still cold, but beneath the frigidity Danny thought he could hear something else, something very close to breaking, and he hated himself for that in her as much as she must.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I was doing what I thought was best."
"For who?" and this time her voice was hot and burning, heated in a way that only anger could make it.
He proffered his hands, palm up, and met her eyes without a second thought. "For all of us."
"For all of us," she echoed back at him weakly, face suddenly slack and disbelieving. This time her words weren't quiet and angry, this time they were loud, outraged, and so damned painful. "It was best to leave us behind? Your family? Your friends? Your best friends, Danny, god! We thought you were dead." She poked a finger out at him and into his chest. "You son of a bitch. You do that to us, put us all through that hell, and then you expect us to just take you back with open arms and no questions?"
She was well and truly wound up, and the first trickles of three years' worth of fear and pain and just wondering welled up inside her to spill from her mouth. "Where were you, Danny? Where were you when we were looking for you? When we thought you were dead? What were you doing?" Sam's eyes narrowed to amethyst slits against her pale face as she saw his mouth open and close, knowing that he wasn't going to answer.
Her jaw clenched and she fought against the very real burn of tears at the edges of her eyes. "You just ran away and damn the consequences, the people who care about you? Who love you?"
"Sam," he started, pleadingly, but she cut him off with her hand to his face in a stinging slap that echoed against the building.
"Shut up. Just shut up." She stopped and breathed in; Danny could see the way her eyes shone in the pale light of the streetlamp doing its best to reach the shadows in front of her door.
"You're a bastard and I wish I could hate you for it. You hurt us, Danny," and Sam's words grew harsh at this, Danny's face twisting in anguish with her words. "You hurt me. You just left, and you just come back, and you won't tell us anything. And then—"
This time Sam was cut off as the familiar blue mist slipped past Danny's lips and he shoved her back into her door, his body covering her as another familiar ghost came barreling in behind them, just where the two had stood moments before. She shivered as the bright silver-white rings swept across Danny's body to leave black hazmat behind and a pair of rather furious bright green eyes fixed to hers. His mouth thinned as it turned to a frown, and his teeth bared before he pushed away from her, hands glowing with vicious green ectoenergy as they swept past her face and away from the wall.
"Another welcome home party?" Danny asked with a dark smirk as he lifted into the air to hover in front of Sam, watching the ghost that had attacked where it, too, floated beyond the shadows of the building.
Wine dark flames rose in the dark, radiating out from the Fright Knight's armor. "I'd heard that you were back, young Phantom." A matching sneer could be seen beneath his helmet. "Welcome back."
It was the only warning that Danny had before the Fright Knight drew his sword and swept it towards him in a downward arc aimed at his head. It might have been the only warning, but it was warning enough, and Danny shoved Sam to one side as he took off through the air straight at the Fright Knight, both hands beginning to blur green as he reached out to tackle the older ghost away from the building. There was a clang as armor knocked together beneath the force of Danny's momentum and a momentary whooshing as they flew backwards, and then there was a soft cry as the Fright Knight brought one knee up to slam into Danny's chest.
He tumbled away and up into the air, one hand clutching the now forming bruise as he took a deep breath, careful not to let it out to forcefully. Already his Wail was too close to the surface, and Danny was afraid of the damage he could cause if he slipped and used it without meaning to. So instead he slammed both hands together into a double fisted ectoblast and plowed the Fright Knight into the ground as he glanced around wondering where the almost familiar Nightmare should have been flying. There wasn't anything in the air but Danny, and he didn't waste another moment worrying about the horse as the Fright Knight barreled up from the ground toward him.
Danny twisted away from him, smirking again as he reached out and grabbed at the trailing cape. It was fisted in his hands before his opponent knew what was happening, and Danny yanked on it hard. He actually laughed as the tug pulled the Fright Knight back toward him fast enough that the innate fire inside the Spirit of Halloween left a flaming visage in the air above them. Once around, twice, and a third time and Danny let go to watch the ghost flying through the air, uncontrolled, up and over the two story apartments.
With an amused smile Danny dropped back down to the air, ready to shift back to human as he looked for Sam. He found her for a moment, eyes wide as she watched him, and then lost her again as he spun away from the hoof beats that pounded up from behind him. Nightmare galloped past, mane and tail like emerald flags streaming behind him against the dark of the night, horn lowered and ready to gouge him if he gave the creature a chance. He snapped off a sturdy blast of energy after it, hitting Nightmare firmly and making the horse squeal in pain and rage as he took to the skies and was lost to sight.
The squeal was lost as Danny turned at Sam's startled cry. Where once she was safe, hidden in the stoop of her door, now she was held by the Fright Knight, high enough that if she were to fall she'd be hurt. His eyes narrowed and Danny growled. "Let her go," he ordered, his voice bordering the demonic tone he'd used in another life. "This is between you and me; let her go."
The Fright Knight only laughed, and Danny took the chance he was given as the older ghost's eyes closed with the fully bellied mocking. Within seconds Sam was in his arms, holding tightly to his neck as he sped her back to the dubious safety of the ground. Her stomach was sick with unexpected fear as Danny dropped her down, and Sam crouched low to the ground trying to get the sudden and very human reaction to near death back under her control as she undid the straps of the heels she wore. She left them, and her purse on the grass as she raced barefoot for her door, ever thankful that she had a ground level apartment.
Her key was still clutched in her hand, tightly enough that an imprint was left in her flesh as she shoved it into the lock and twisted it open. The door swung in and Sam darted blindly through the dark. She had no need of light; too many times had she done this very thing when she needed a new thermos without time for the niceties of civilization. The cabinet was across the room, to the right, and her hand was on it, yanking it open and a thermos fair jumping into her hands even as she turned to race back outside.
They were on the ground again, Danny and the Fright Knight, a ghost that Sam had seen only rarely since Danny's disappearance. Nightmare was there again too, pawing the earth with one foreleg from behind the Knight as he shifted his weight from one leg to another. A close look showed unexpected burns along his hind legs and quarters, and Sam had to wonder at the casual power of Danny's ectoblast that had done that to the spectral horse. It wasn't a usual thing to actually wound any of the ghosts, and the sudden realization that Danny's powers had grown that much left Sam feeling colder inside than the empty rage that had filled her only minutes ago.
She could hear them arguing, Danny insisting on the Fright Knight leaving, and the Fright Knight insisting that he would only leave when Danny was well and truly dead. If the situation hadn't been so serious she might have laughed at the battle of testosterone. Instead, she uncapped the thermos and aimed it at Nightmare, sucking the horse into it with a shrill scream that made both Danny and the Fright Knight stare in surprise, neither of them having expected her to take part in the fight. She sent a pointed look Danny's way even as she prepared to run; the Fright Knight's face was warped in a twisted rage as he took a step toward her.
"Oh," she breathed as she realized that he was actually aiming for her as he unsheathed the Soul Shredder again, but even as he came within striking distance and the sword was stabbed out a dark blur came between it and her.
When she opened her eyes she could see the sword, blade barely painted green with Danny's blood where it emerged from his side to come to a stop before it touched her. His breathing was ragged, harsh and pained and she could see sweat where it formed at his temples and the way his eyes were tight with the pain. "Danny," she said as she reached out to him, and stopped at the sharp shake of his head even as his eyes rose to meet the Fright Knight's.
"Why are you still here?" came the booming question, anger knotting the words. "Why haven't you been taken?"
Danny gave the Fright Knight a grimace of a smile as his white-gloved hands tightened on the hilt of the sword. "I've already lived through my worst fear. You can't do any worse than that," he grated as he pulled the sword from his side and swung it up and down shattering the blade over his knee.
He moved towards the Fright Knight, but Sam never saw what he would have done as she uncapped the thermos again to suck the other ghost into it with his horse, narrowly missing Danny but never worried that she would hit him on accident, or even on purpose. She swallowed, her knees shaking as she capped the thermos again and took a few wavering steps to where her shoes and purse were abandoned on the grass. She stooped, scooped them up and found her way to her apartment, closing the door behind her and locking it from numb habit. She sank down to the couch, dropped her things from her hands and buried her face in them. That was how Danny found her.
---
If he could have avoided fighting in front of her, Danny would have been a lot happier. But he hadn't had the choice of time and place when the Fright Knight showed up. As it was, Danny wasn't even sure that it hadn't been planned from the beginning; the Fright Knight had long been a lackey of Vlad's. That wasn't something that was bound to change, no matter how long he'd been gone. And Sam had been brilliant, even if she'd been caught off guard at first. He could name dozens of people, maybe even more, who would have completely frozen at being captured by one of the most powerful known ghosts in existence.
Not his Sam. She'd run, sure, but straight for a thermos. And then she'd come and given him back up and kept him from having to actually do any lasting damage bar breaking the Soul Shredder. The sword, he knew, would fix itself in time. It would take a Halloween or two and the energies that it derived from the holiday and the fear inspiring tricks and treats. But it wasn't permanent; the sword couldn't be truly rid of unless fear somehow disappeared from the world. It had been one of Danny's many lessons about his ghostly opponents, one of the easiest to remember, too.
He contemplated letting his ghost half go right there in the open, but he knew the risks were too great. Even if no one was in sight, there were dozens of apartments who had windows facing the patch of lawn where he stood. He'd find himself in trouble no matter what he did if he changed back to human. Either someone would see him and his secret wouldn't be a secret anymore, or someone would see him and the blood and correctly assume he was injured. Instead he let himself drift slowly towards Sam's apartment and through the wall until he touched down next to the couch where she sat, her face a study in thought.
He couldn't read minds, but he'd had time and motivation to study body language, and with a person he knew—had once known—as well as Sam Manson, Danny could all but hear the wheels turning in her head and the things that she must be thinking. The truly sad thing was that he was close, so very close to knowing what was in her mind. But in the end what he guessed at wasn't it.
Danny would think that Sam was afraid of him, which was true, but where Sam sat on her couch, hands wrapped around her stomach as she stared blindly at the coffee table, all she could think was that this Danny Fenton was not the boy she had known. He had his eyes, and his hair, and she thought that somewhere in there was the same sense of humor. But this Danny Fenton was infinitely more dangerous, to have taken the Fright Knight the way he had. And it did frighten her, more than she wanted to admit. But beneath that was the strongest desire to know him again.
It was enough to make her head spin and Sam shook her head to try and rid herself of the confusion her thoughts left her in. She knew that he was there, that he was standing not even five feet from her as she tried to focus again, knew that he was changing back to human. She knew that the blood that had painted his black hazmat bright green had darkened to a thick red, and still she couldn't understand why he should be so… So.
She blinked and looked up at him where he was shrugging his shirt off to press it to the sword wound at his side. It was smaller now than it had been when he was a ghost, she mused as she let her anger begin to kindle again. Three years ago that wouldn't have been the case, and three years ago Danny would have succumbed to the power of the Soul Shredder. Three years ago Danny wouldn't have even last a few minutes along with the Fright Knight, much less wipe the floor with him. Three years ago Danny would have been asking for help instead of blindly protecting her to the exclusion of all else.
That thought was enough to make the anger burst into full fledged flame, and she stood, inches shorter than him in her bare feet as she stalked to him where he was still blotting his wound. "I'm not letting you off the hook that easy," she muttered as she yanked the shirt from his hands and folded it into a small and thick pad to press to the sluggishly bleeding wound. "Keep pressure on it, alright?"
"I know," was all he said, soft and without any emotion as he held the shirt tightly and watched her leave and return, a small box in her hand that she tugged gauze and tape from.
She was quiet as her hands moved through the well practiced motions of patching him up. For a moment Danny could believe that he'd never left Amity, that he'd never lost all of those years with her and maybe his chance forever. He tried to, tried to pretend that her silence wasn't from anger and disgust with him, that it was only because she was worried. Tried to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary had happened, that everything was fine, that everything was perfect.
Her voice broke that pale belief.
"If you were so selfish to leave, why did you have to come back and ruin the fragile peace we found?" she asked softly, her voice intense.
"Selfish?" he choked out as she settled the last piece of tape at his waist and tossed the roll back into the box before turning away from him.
"Selfish," she repeated. "You left for what? To get married? Was that why?"
The offhanded accusation tore through his carefully pieced together resolve. "What?" he exclaimed. "You think I wanted to go? I didn't want to leave, I never wanted to leave. I only went because," and his voice cracked as he said it," Because he said it was the only way."
Her eyes went wide at that, and for a brief moment a million different ideas flitted through her mind. She wasn't foolish or flighty, but Sam had never lacked for imagination. He could be anyone. A ghost, a kidnapper, a friend… a lover. She bit her lip at that thought. It certainly would explain a great deal of the mystery, why Danny had disappeared without explanation, why he refused to answer questions about his marriage.
"Danny? Who is he?" The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, and Sam struggled to control the way she watched him so that she wouldn't make him more nervous than he seemed to be since the night he'd shown up on the Fenton's doorstep.
"I don't even want to know what you're thinking, do I?" he asked quietly, his voice soft in defeat. "Clockwork, Sam. I left because Clockwork told me to."
"Oh," she breathed as she realized the implication. Clockwork—she'd only met him once, and she could still remember the fear she felt knowing that she was, and everyone she knew, at the mercy of this ghost. She knew Danny had worked with him once or twice since then, but she also knew that every single time someone, Danny or his family or his friends, was in mortal danger. In that aspect, Sam could understand that if Clockwork was involved then whatever made Danny run, leave everyone he knew and loved, was serious.
Or it could simply mean…
"So… you're not my Danny, are you?" she asked very softly.
He gave a pained laugh as her eyes rose to meet his. "I am. I'm just… not," he answered softly, much softer than when she asked, and it sounded like the words tore at him to speak them aloud. And so tired, so very tired sounding as he whispered, "I've been gone a long time, Sam."
Her eyes went wide and she took a step back as she looked at him. So cryptic, but knowing that Clockwork was involved was enough to make Sam rethink everything she knew, everything she thought she knew. He'd been gone three years, she'd known him so well in the three years before that when she hunted ghosts with him and Tucker. Well enough that she should have known something wasn't right from the very beginning, the first moment she'd seen him. If she'd just thought about it, maybe she'd have known.
But there was no way to know. She only had Tucker as a comparison and Danny wasn't Tucker. But even so, Tucker was twenty, the age Danny should have been. And Tucker… Her mind flitted back six and a half years, forward by four as she thought about the ghost he'd become once, and defeated twice. Once in the future, once in the past to destroy it all. So different from both, and yet…
She almost didn't believe it, but she asked anyway. "How old are you, Danny?"
He swallowed and looked away, looked down. "Twenty-eight."
