AN: Ok, you all know what I'm going to say first. REVIEWS! NEED THEM! But I bet you don't know what else I'm going to say! Someone suggested to me that I should change the title of this story to attract more readers. This was an interesting suggestion and I took it into consideration. So, if you have a title suggestion, or if you like the title "The Ultimate Consequence", review me and tell me! I'm going to need your guys' help! Thanks!
So I bet you didn't expect the last chapter, did you? I decided that in order for Danny to become evil, his ghost half had to get a mind of his own. So, technically, Danny has a split personality. Yeah, all the fangirls are going to be coming at me with knives soon, I know. But it had to be done in order for the story to work!
But anyway. Here's Chapter Eight!
Chapter Eight
Danny awoke the next morning on the floor of his room, flat on his back. Opening his eyes slowly to the blinding light coming through his window, his head began to throb. What the heck? he thought. What happened?
Then the memories of the night before came flooding back to him. The shocked feeling of seeing his ghost self take control of him with such ease still gripped him. And the worst part was, Danny didn't even try to fight him off. He let his ghost half take control. Just like that. And he hated himself for it.
"Danny?" Danny heard Valerie's voice call his name from behind his door.
"Uh… just a second!" Danny called back frantically. He scrambled to his feet and, reluctantly, took a look in the mirror. He looked like a train wreck. Dark circles were under his eyes and his hair was in disarray. He flattened it out with his hand a bit, but he looked no better. What am I? A girl? Danny asked himself. Valerie doesn't care what I look like! So, turning away from the mirror as quickly as he could, Danny opened the door to see Valerie standing there, ready to head off to school.
"Morning," she said, with a smile.
"Morning," he said back, trying to crack a smile as well, but his face didn't seem to allow him.
"Will you….be ok if I go to school today?" Valerie asked. Her face was full of concern.
"Yeah, no worries," Danny immediately replied. He didn't want Valerie sticking around too much today. He'd have the whole day to work that whole outburst his ghost half had off without having to worry about going into another fit with Valerie around.
Oh my gosh, what if she heard last night? Danny thought suddenly. She had heard the night before, hadn't she? She said she hadn't heard anything more than mumbling, but last night, Danny had been yelling. There was no way she couldn't have heard. Perfect, he thought. Just when I was starting to impress a girl I liked, I have to freak her out by being a psychopath.
"Are you sure?" Valerie asked again.
"Yep," Danny answered. "No problem."
Valerie sighed. "Alright. If you need anything, just call the school office and I'll…"
"Val, don't worry," Danny said, cutting her off. "I'll be fine."
"I know," she said. There was a pause but she soon said, "Well, I'll be going then. My dad talked to about the funeral, right?"
Danny nodded, not thinking much about his conversation with Mr. Gray, but the conversation he had right after that with himself.
"Ok. Just making sure," Valerie said. "Well, see you after school then?"
"Yep," Danny said, uneasily. "See you… then."
Valerie smiled again and turned to walk down the stairs.
Danny stood at the doorway of his room for a while longer, listening to Valerie's footsteps going down the stair and out the front door. Once he heard the door shut, he retreated back into his room, closing his door behind him.
If I just stay here the whole day, I'll be fine. I'll tell them I can't find the will. That way, I'll never have to go to Vlad's and I'll never become that…thing, Danny told himself. It was a simple plan. Danny liked simple plans. Easy to come up with, easy to carry out.
Why he got up and walked out the door into the hallway, he didn't know. But without thinking, his feet took him there. Oh no, he thought. He realized what was happening as he wandered into his parents' room and crouched down next to the queen sized bed. It was him. He was doing this.
Danny tried to fight this time, though. He told himself no. He told his arms not to reach under the bed. And he was winning for a while. He hesitated and relief began to wash over him.
But his ghost half quickly took him again. Danny watched helplessly as his hand reached under the bed and pulled out a large envelope.
"Sorry, Fenton," he heard the menacing voice from the night before say. "I'm the one who's making the rules in this matter."
Valerie closed her locker and slung her backpack over her shoulder. It was the end of the day finally. She was in school, but her mind was back at Fenton Works with Danny. Poor, orphaned, lonely Danny. She couldn't stop thinking about him. She had no clue why.
Maybe because her friendship with him was quickly evolving into a crush. A full-blown one, at that. She didn't know what it was about the guy, but Danny was different. He gave off something that most teenage boys didn't. Kindness? Maturity? Respect? It was all of those. She doubted she'd never find another guy like Danny Fenton ever again, even if she searched the entire planet.
Valerie felt even worse for him after last night, though. She heard him talking to himself again, but that night, it was louder. Much louder. She still didn't hear anything but after she listened to a few murmurs, she was taken aback as he yelled, "NO! I won't turn into that! EVER! I promised them!"
After that, everything was quiet, except the tears that fell from Valerie's eyes.
What Danny promised to not turn into, Valerie didn't know. But she assumed that, like the rest of the things that had gone wrong for the boy, it wasn't his fault. The good are always the ones who have to pay the price for the villainous, aren't they? Valerie wondered. Watching the way Danny's mind was deteriorating before her eyes made her rage against the Phantom flare. I'm going to kill that ghost if it's the last thing I do, she told herself.
"I heard Fenton's going nuts," Kwan's voice said.
Valerie's ears perked at the mention of Danny's name. She turned around quickly and saw her once-upon-a-time friends standing at a group of lockers across the hall.
"Rumor is he's talking to himself," Kwan continued.
"Figures," Kwan's friend, Dash said. "He never really was ok in the head to begin with, I always thought."
"He's really talking to himself?" Dash's girlfriend, Paullina asked. "Where'd you hear that?"
"Someone over heard Valerie's dad telling the principal about the whole thing. Word spreads," Kwan explained.
That it does, Valerie thought, angrily. And it had spread due to her own father! Danny trusted both of them. Imagine if he found out that the whole school knew about his late-night talks? He would be mortified. No question.
The thought of everyone talking about him behind his back didn't make her any less angry, either. How inconsiderate do you have to be to talk about a kid who's going insane because he lost everyone he loved all in one moment? And the worst part was that none of them seemed to show any sympathy for Danny in the least bit. Shallow jerks, Valerie thought.
"He's not dead, you know," Valerie said from across the hall.
The trio gave her a confused look. They obviously had just noticed she was there. "What?" Dash wondered.
"Danny's not dead," Valerie repeated. "So stop talking about him like he is."
When Valerie walked in the door to Fenton Works, she didn't expect Danny to be sitting in the living room on the couch, hands running through his hair, in a daze. "Hey there," she said.
Danny was silent.
"How were you today?" she asked, trying to get him to talk.
He remained silent.
"Danny?" Valerie said.
Silent.
"Are you alright?" Valerie asked.
Silent.
"What's wrong?" she asked, getting concerned.
He was still silent, but he took a hand off of his head and picked up a large envelope sitting on the coffee table and held it up for her to see.
At first, Valerie had no clue what it was. But then it seemed to click. "Is that the will?" she asked.
Danny set it back down on the table. He nodded solemnly.
"Well, that's good, then. Right?" she said cheerily.
But her smile faded as Danny spoke.
"No, Valerie. It's not."
