Disclaimer: I do not own anything Nickelodeon owns.
Claimer: This story is mine, though. I'm the one thinking it up and writing it down.
Chapter Ten
Evil
2013.24—Evil
She's tossing and turning, trying to fall asleep, when the temperature drops quickly and a grunt to her left pulls her out of bed, ghost ray lipstick in one hand and ready to shoot.
Then she realizes it's him. She doesn't shoot, though it wouldn't have made much of a difference if she had. Her breath hitches as she takes him in. "What happened?"
He slumps against her wall, slides to the ground as he morphs back into his human form. "Caught the last of 'em," he mumbles.
A raid. Of course.
She slips out of bed and is about to turn the light on before she thinks it through. Her parents are just down the hall, and though she doesn't think they'll wake up just because she flicks the light on, she won't risk it. Dad sometimes takes improvised trips to the kitchen at midnight.
Instead, she settles for her bedside lamp. She can see his injuries just fine, but if she has to do any nitpicking or anything… invasive, she'll have to risk the lights.
She pulls the med kit out from under her bed and looks him over. The gash across his cheek stands out, dried blood coating half of his face while fresh blood drips down his chin. She winces. It's a deep cut, and it might scar.
She takes note of a few other gashes on his arms and listens to his breathing—it's shallow, a little noisy, and ragged. He's in pain. It's hard as is to stay mad at him, and now he's badly injured and breathing funny.
He knows she can't stay mad at him when he's injured. Is that why he's here?
She doesn't ask, and opts instead for a monotone: "Anything internal?" Inching closer, she notices the swollen ankle. "Your legs—is it just the ankle, or is anything else broken?"
"The ankle is just sprained or something. Mom said it's not broken."
She purses her lips. She's not one to contradict Mrs. Fenton, but… "When did she say that?"
He's quiet for a moment. "Five hours ago, maybe."
She sighs. "Well, I think it's broken now. Just stay still. Legs?"
"Just scraped. I can walk."
She'll test that later. "Again, anything internal?"
The tone of his voice, weak and forced, makes her rummage through the med kit for some painkillers. "Cracked rib, maybe two," he grunts. He accepts the two little pills and swallows them dry. "Nothing hurts that bad, so no internal bleeding. It hurts a lot less than last time."
Relieved, she nods and moves to check his pants—she doesn't find any blood stains, so that's good. She wants to clean the gash on his cheek first because it stands out the most, but instead she focuses on the ankle. She cringes. "You should go to a hospital."
"No."
"Danny, it's fractured."
"Not the first time. And it doesn't hurt that bad"—the look on his face doesn't support his statement at all—"so it can't be that much of a big deal. I just need a splint."
"What if it sets wrong? It'll take a long time to heal, and if doesn't heal right…"
"I trust you."
I don't. "You need to get an X-ray, just to make sure."
He squeezes his eyes shut, and she thinks he might be about to give in. Then he looks up, face pinched, and gestures to his foot.
From his toes to his calf, the skin and muscle are gone, leaving her to look at the bones. She bites her lip so hard to keep from screaming that it bleeds. "How…?"
"Questions later," he grunts. "Just look at it."
She does. She's thankful she's not squeamish, because this is downright creepy. She looks at his ankle closely, from any and every angle she can think of, trying hard not to miss anything. It's just a small fracture, a crack. Nothing is out of place. Maybe it just looks bad because he sprained it earlier.
"Okay," she says. "No hospital. But you get a splint for now, you'll tell your mom to find you a brace or a cast later, and you'll let me look at it every single day until it heals. You don't get to move it at all for at least a month."
He nods, exhales loudly when his skin reappears. Again, she asks: "How did you…?"
He shrugs, promptly flinches. "No clue. Went invisible and hoped for the best."
She wants to laugh because that's his intention—to make this funny—but can't. "Stay still, I'll get the splint."
While she works on that, she licks her bleeding lip in concentration, though her mind wanders. He's quiet. He usually is when she's works on his injuries, per her request because she's no professional and she does need to concentrate. But this silence is different, and she knows exactly what's going through his head because it's the same thing she's thinking about.
She's mad at him, is pretty sure that he's mad at her. She's happy to know that, despite two weeks of immature silent treatment, he allows her to take care of him. But what is she supposed to do now? He knows she can't stay mad at him when he's injured, but this is different. She can't recall an argument quite as bad as this one. He usually gives in quickly, swallows his pride and apologizes, which in turn makes her feel bad and elicits an apology of her own. There. End of story.
But this time she resisted, avoided the apologies, the pleading, guilt-inducing puppy eyes. He's good at that, looking innocent and sorry. He usually is. But this time she wanted to make a statement, make sure he understood that she's not okay with him making decisions for her. This issue has gone on long enough, and she still stands by her choice.
But. Now he's here, bleeding and probably still as sorry as he was two days after their argument. And she's here, setting his ankle into a splint, slow and careful, feeling as guilty and stupid as she did when she first turned down an apology.
It makes sense that they're quiet.
When she's done with the splint, she sits beside him with some gauze, cleans the blood off his cheek. He's looking at her, gaze sharp while the rest of him is weak and weary, and it's as distracting as if he were ranting away. After all the dried blood is gone, she cleans the gash with alcohol. She has to lean in close to get a good look and keep her hand steady, and his face gets even closer every time he flinches from the sting.
He's not pulling away from her this time.
But she does, and the moment she's done cleaning the wound, she's relieved to scoot back a little while she places a long strip of gauze along his cheek. Then she moves to treat the cuts on his arms, and he takes that as a cue to speak up: "I'm sorry."
She swallows her own apology. "I know."
"Do you? I really didn't mean to insult you or anything, I swear. I don't think you're weak, or inferior, or in any way less capable of taking care of yourself than I am of taking care of you. And I don't think that you're not smart enough to make your own choices. That'd be me, actually."
"Danny—"
"Nope, hold on. This time you've got to listen to me, please."
This time, as opposed to the past two weeks. "Alright."
He nods, takes a moment to gather his thoughts. "I'm sorry if I ever gave you that impression, because that's all it is—an impression. I only wanted what I thought was best for you—which was a pretty stupid move on my part, because most of the time I don't even know what's best for myself—and I went about it the wrong way. You know I don't want you guys stuck in my life, but that doesn't mean I don't want you in my life, period. Took me some time to figure out the difference, I know. I'm really sorry.
"I said some incredibly stupid things—things I swear I didn't mean—and reacted badly. It's great that you let me tell you stuff and that you listen, but it wasn't fair of me to take out my temper on you. Also, I'd never told you that your… your optimism, I guess, sometimes gets on my nerves. That slipped out and I didn't mean it—seriously, I didn't. And I don't want you to change.
"The thing is, I don't always understand how you can keep going when everything goes bad. It's something I admire, and envy a little. You never lose hope. I'm sorry if I made it sound like a bad thing. It's not.
"I promise I'll never say anything like that again, and if I do I'll totally let you kick my butt." His hand travels up to his bandaged cheek as he adds: "As long as you promise to patch me up afterwards."
He pauses, long enough to make her think it's her turn to speak up, but he holds up a finger when she opens her mouth. He still takes another minute, lips pursed and gaze unfocused, the way he gets whenever he's looking for the right words. Finally, he says: "You and Tuck are the best friends I could've asked for, and it was incredibly stupid of me to make you feel as if you're any less than that. I'm sorry."
At first she's quiet, throat clogged and eyes stinging. How long has he been rehearsing that in his head? Or maybe he is improvising—that sounds more like him, but…
She gives up on the bandage she's trying to wrap around his forearm, and instead wraps her arms around his shoulders. He grunts, and she loosens her hold on him, remembering the cracked ribs. "Apology accepted," she says. "If you accept mine."
She pulls away, figuring it's only fair that she look him in the eye while she says: "I pushed and prodded when I shouldn't have. You have every right to keep stuff to yourself, if that's what you want, even if I think it's a bad idea. And I took some things too personally. You had good intentions, trying to keep me safe, and I reacted badly because—from my standpoint—it sounded like you wanted to control me or something. You know that doesn't sit well with me. Yes, I think you have a very strange definition of "safe" and no, I don't agree with it. But we've been dealing with this issue for a long time and I should've known better. I did know better, but I chose to get mad anyway. So I'm sorry, too."
It's a miserable excuse for an apology, especially given that she has, in fact, been thinking this through for the past two weeks. But looking at the gauze on his cheek, now stained with red, she can't concentrate. Word vomit is his problem, not hers, but it seems that their roles are reversed for this once. She knows there's plenty she should say but cannot recall one word of it.
He doesn't seem to care, though, as he stretches out a hand. "So we're both sorry. Friends?"
She shakes his hand, smiles. "Always." The moment stretches a little, fingers touching, eyes locked. Her senses are alert—he reeks of sweat and blood, she can still hear him breathing with some difficulty (though maybe this time around it has nothing to do with the pain). Her fingers feel warm where his are touching them. The light of her bedside lamp is dim, makes his eyes glint. She's tempted to inch closer, see if his pupils are dilated for a reason.
She's not tempted, however, to dive into another argument. So she clears her throat and lets go of his fingers to hold his wrist. "Stay still, I'm not done with your arms yet. How are those ribs?"
His gaze drops for a second. Then: "The painkillers are working. I think I just need some ice." He frowns. "Oh. Duh."
He points a finger to his chest, coating it in a thin layer of ice. Sam shies away from the cold radiating off him. She chides: "You're going to get a cold."
"I don't get colds."
"If you sneeze with a cracked rib, it'll hurt."
"If."
She rolls her eyes, dabs at his arm. "I'll get you a normal ice pack in a minute, no buts."
After a few minutes of cleaning up small gashes, he speaks up again: "So, to start off on the right foot, there's some stuff I need to tell you. Actually, I should tell Tucker too, but that might be easier if I just tell you first. Then you can help me explain things to him all concise and eloquent, just how you like it."
She can't believe he actually said eloquent. She laughs, and his face brightens. "I'm listening."
"I guess I should start with today. Well, no, two days ago. See, it started with this voice in my head…"
Her first reaction is to feel guilty. She should've been there for him, and instead only added to the problem. She gave Spectra something to taunt him with. He's probably not telling her all of it, watering down the worst of it because he likes to play hero. He is a hero, but that doesn't mean she has to like it.
But for once she doesn't prod, only listens and lets him tell the story however he wants to. She does add in her two cents when they reach the issue of Dash—"You should apologize."
"I know," he says.
Oh. He does? "Good."
"Yeah."
The topic is awkward because the root of the issue lies in her. She added considerably to his pent up frustrations by giving him the immature silent treatment. He punched Dash because Dash said something nasty about her—though what, exactly, the rumor mill didn't specify. She doesn't pry.
They both know that doesn't mean his decisions are her fault, and that's the thing. It was his decision, a conscious one (no matter how spur-of-the-moment that punch was), and that bugs them both because didn't he once promise to never let Dash get to him? To keep his fists to himself?
"I'm not saying you did the right thing," she breaks the silence, "because you really didn't. But you can't beat yourself up about it forever. It happened, it's over. You'll have to deal with some consequences and you'll have to man up and apologize. You've learned from the experience and you already promised your mom you'll never do that again. And that's it."
He shrugs, doesn't look at all convinced. "You didn't see the look on his face. He was trying to cover it up, be brave or something, but he was looking at me like… I don't know, he was freaked out. In pain, obviously, and freaked out. I did that."
"Well, duh," she says, even though that's not the most tactful thing to say. "Nearly four years later you choose to put up a fight? Of course he freaked out. It's not about you, properly speaking. You just tore a hole into his concept of you, and now he's reeling from it. Don't blow this out of proportion, Danny. You messed up, yeah, but it's not the end of the world."
"But why did I mess up? I lost control, Sam. And it's not just today, it's the past couple of days and the past couple of weeks. The migraines get better sometimes but then they get worse, and if at some point it becomes too much—what? Will I be overwhelmed by power? Am I going to turn into Pariah?"
She wants to cut in, but he's talking fast. Ranting again. How long has this been on his mind?
"And, sure, Spectra was definitely out to turn me insane, but who says she lied? I am a poor excuse for a king—why else would the crown and ring be fighting me? Clockwork tends to imply that they're sentient, and maybe he's right. Maybe they know I don't like any of this and maybe they really are trying to turn me into some sort of puppet. How long will I be able to put up a fight?
"I get all these thoughts, Sam, images in my head reminding me that my mistakes have a heavy price. How many times have you and Tucker and Jazz nearly died? How many bystanders have been hurt?
"And punching Dash—you're right, I messed up, and the worst part is that I did know what I was doing. I did. I wanted to punch his lights out, wanted to break so much more than his nose. I was angry at him, sure, but in general I was just so angry… Before this whole experience, I never got mad like that. My temper doesn't work that way, it doesn't just… latch on to the nearest victim like that.
"Look at me. I'm mad all the time, and nervous, I feel like someone is watching me from behind. I can't control what goes on in my head or how I react and… I'm scared. It's ridiculous because I wasn't this scared when I fought Pariah, damn it! And I won and now I'm scared, because what's going on inside my head, what am I doing, this isn't me. I'm scared because what if I'm turning into him, what if I'm turning… evil."
She's tempted to do the usual thing, toss most of what he just said to the side and focus on one particular detail. But this is different, so once he's done talking and is breathing hard (and wincing in pain because breathing like that with two cracked ribs isn't a very good idea), she goes over the key points of what he just said.
"This is bigger than Dash," she states. "Leave him out of it, we already closed that topic. Spectra... Spectra's in prison and can't bug you anymore. Starting right now, we're going out on a mission to prove her wrong, and then we'll rub it in her face, hmm? Because she is wrong. And you're wrong, too."
He's not looking at her. Usually, when she tries to make him feel better, she lets him say what he wants to say, look toward whatever direction he prefers, so long as it's helping him cope. This time, she tugs on his chin and forces him to look at her in the eye.
"You're not turning evil. Didn't you just say that you're scared? If you're scared of turning evil, Danny, it means you're the furthest from it. Evil is… it's the sort of thing you start to crave, something you coax into your life. It's an easy escape, a welcome reprieve. I bet that's the type of magical solution you're looking for, but you're fighting it anyway. So no, I don't think you're turning evil." She tries for humor, the way he sometimes does: "If you were, I assure you I'd kick your butt."
He doesn't laugh, but his gaze softens and he pries her fingers away from his chin. He doesn't let go of her hand, but beckons her to continue talking with a nod.
The feeling of his fingers toying with hers is distracting, though. What was she about to say? "Stop doubting yourself. I know you're not turning evil."
"I did once."
"And you prevented it." She hugs him. "We'll figure something out, okay? This… this mess isn't permanent. We'll make sure of it."
She lets go of him, suddenly very cold. "Ice pack," she remembers.
He laughs, then flinches. "Right. Ice pack."
"Tucker?"
A groggy voice on the other end of the line: "What—what time is it?"
"You're not up yet? School starts in twenty minutes!"
"So?"
She rolls her eyes. "Whatever. Look, Danny's injured, so he's not coming to school today. I'm thinking we should ditch."
"Huh? Wait, how do you—you guys made up?"
"Kind of hard not to when he has two cracked ribs and a fractured ankle."
"Ow." A hiss of sympathy. Then: "So you made up. Did you make out?"
"Tucker!" She blushes and is very thankful that he can't see it. "No, and that's not the point. Listen, I couldn't sleep last night so I got to thinking—"
"Whoa. So you did make out. Way too much info."
"Tucker!" He's just teasing, but she's still mortified. "Focus. I think we should ditch. Remember what we were talking about on Friday?"
A yawn. "No."
She sighs, is about to go back through the conversation's highlights to remind him, but then he cuts her off…
"Oh! Oh." He pauses. "Holy crap, Sam. You sure?"
"He gave us the green light about it weeks ago, remember? I think it's for the best. I can't keep treating his injuries in the dark—I'll crack your ribs if you comment on that—and we can't keep sneaking around at night. Things are different now." She looks down at the book on her desk, not nearly as useful to her as it is heavy, open at a chapter on Specter and Iris. "Really different."
"Yes, I remember that speech, I don't need to hear it twice. It's just… shouldn't we ask him? You know, fair warning?"
"If you want, sure. So you're okay with it?"
"Well…" he hesitates. "I guess, yeah. It's just… this could turn ugly. Especially for you—I have no clue how this is going to go on my end, but you…"
She thought of little else last night, and reached her conclusion. She doesn't want to start reevaluating everything now. "Don't worry about me. I'll figure something out."
A pause. "Would it be better if we tag along?"
It would, for her sake. But… "I think this is something I've got to do on my own. It'll be too overwhelming if you guys are here."
"Okay. You know what you're doing." Another pause. "So we're ditching school. And Lancer's test on literary devices."
"Yeah."
A sigh. "Thank God."
After Sam finished patching him up, she made him promise to take a shower before returning to the Ghost Zone. He had every intention to do just that, but the flaw in his plan was sheer exhaustion.
He fell asleep the moment he reached his bedroom.
Naturally, he's shocked when he wakes up to the sound of his ringtone, and is only further disoriented by the prompt interruption: "Time out."
He wants to bury his head in the pillow, ask for five more minutes like the little kid he wishes he still was. But then the haze around his eyes clears up and allows him to see Clockwork's silhouette right in front of him, in his room—oh, shit, in his room.
He sits up, catches a whiff of himself—dried blood and sweat. He feel sore and the general opposite of well-rested, despite this being his first night of sleep in weeks.
"Good morning," Clockwork says. He's not amused.
"Hi." He stands up, a little sheepish, and takes care to keep his ankle above the ground. A moment later, he changes into ghost form and settles for floating. The silence is tense, and he feels the start of a headache. "I messed up, huh?" He looks at his bed, still made and only a bit rumpled. "I just… crashed. Sorry. Didn't mean to."
"I know," Clockwork says. He extends the hand holding his staff toward him. "There's something I'd like to show you."
Danny hesitates for a moment before taking hold of the staff. He has done this before, but he never quite gets used to the empty feeling in his gut, like stepping into a vacuum, that comes with traveling through space and time with Clockwork.
When they land, it takes him a moment to recognize his surroundings: kindergarten.
Kindergarten? He has really, really vague memories of this place. "Why are we here?"
"We're observing," Clockwork says. He points in the direction of Danny's younger self, running around the playground with Tucker and… Kwan?
Oh, right. He used to be friends with some of the A-listers as a kid.
Looking around, he spots Sam in a dress. Particularly… "Wait a minute. I remember this…"
And yes, there it goes. Sam is talking with Paulina about something or other (neither girl will ever admit it, but they too used to be friends), and suddenly Paulina is pushing her into a puddle of mud. He remembers Sam's dress because it was the last one she ever wore (her mother was none too pleased when it returned home caked in mud).
This is the part he remembers best, and it's a little strange to see it from a distance, as opposed to the scene going on in his head, from his viewpoint. Sam is trying to get up while she yells at Paulina, and she catches most of the kids' attention—including his and Tucker's.
He laughs. "This is kind of funny, looking back on it. Tucker and I were a little scared of Sam. Girly as she looked, she had this glare… she was born with it, I'm sure. But we still chose to help her over Paulina, 'cause getting pushed in the mud was the meanest thing ever back in kindergarten. That puddle right there stuck around year long."
Clockwork nods. "You helped her despite your fear?"
"Kind of, yeah. I think calling it fear is a bit much, though." Danny says, looking at the scene. Sam looks kind of shocked that Danny and Tucker are helping her—she even refuses their help for a moment. Now she's getting up, each of the boys holding one of her arms. Tucker is telling Paulina to apologize… "We were about six years old, you know? We thought she was kind of intimidating, but that image shattered when we saw her covered in mud like that. The important part is that we became friends that day."
Clockwork nods. "Exactly. Let's move on."
Danny looks away from the scene. "Move on? Where to?"
Clockwork offers his staff again, so Danny braces himself for the empty feeling in his gut and grabs hold of it.
It takes a few more memories for him to see the pattern. There's the time when he and Tucker broke Mrs. Foley's favorite vase—that confrontation was the stuff of nightmares when they were seven; the day Sam broke her arm and he had to run for help, scared out of his wits because he had never seen Sam cry before, all the way home because at age eight they had no cell phones… The pattern is him steeling his nerves and gathering the guts to do stuff he'd normally be afraid of doing.
Despite that being settled, though, he still doesn't see why this little trip down memory lane is important. He doesn't get a straight answer until they leave a memory of twelve-year-old him and, rather than arriving at another memory, they land in the Ghost Zone, in his house.
Waiting for him at his living room table, as always, are the crown and ring. He stops in the doorway, staring at them, unsure of what to do next.
Clockwork nods at his hesitation. "This is the point I'm trying to make," he says. "You fear them."
He doesn't bother denying it. "You're saying I shouldn't?"
"Yes."
Easier said than done, is his first thought. He tries: "I'm just being careful—"
"Caution and fear are two different things." Clockwork pauses, and his features soften enough to let Danny understand that this isn't meant to be a reprimand. "The crown and ring are not trying to take control over you, Danny. They demand that you control them, and you are not doing so out of fear."
"The headaches don't make the prospect sound very welcoming," he mutters.
"They don't mean to hurt you," Clockwork insists. "The migraines and images are partially reflections of your mood. Mostly, they are a warning of what you could become, if you continue refusing the power. Someday it might overwhelm you just as you fear, because you did not learn to control it on time."
That sounds like a warning, and he realizes this is more serious than he thought. But though he doesn't mean to be stubborn about this, he can't simply concede the point and pretend that's the end of the issue. "How do you even know all this stuff?"
Clockwork's expression turns grim. "I knew Scepter and Iris."
Oh. He looks at the crown and ring, resting on the coffee table. They don't look quite that menacing in this setting, with the lights switched on and the comforting aura of home around them. He can almost believe that Clockwork is right, that maybe this is all in his head, fear making things sound worse than they are… and then he remembers.
"Look," he sighs, "I did try. I stopped fighting once, about a week ago, just to see what would happen. I bet you saw it." Clockwork nods. "You don't know how that felt, though. It was… invasive, something cold touching and twisting my insides. It reminded me too much of the shock from the portal—how was I supposed to react? I freaked out. Sure, the headache stopped, but I started seeing stuff, I could hear so many voices... It hardly lasted a minute but that didn't make it any less scary. And you're telling me I should just… give in?"
"Yes."
Danny raises his eyebrows. Really?
"The things you saw and heard are the Ghost Zone," Clockwork explains. "Being a king means it is your responsibility; the crown and ring are your connection to it. This sudden awareness is what overwhelmed you, and your fear only made matters worse. You will learn to control this over time, so long as you don't allow it to control you first.
"Consider this: you compared the feeling to the shock from your parents' portal. After the accident, when you first gained your powers, you were afraid. You overcame that fear, didn't you? Was it not worth it?"
He's running out of arguments. "I don't think that's a fair comparison."
"Why not?"
Just because? "It's just… it's… this is different. It just is. This is big, this affects more than just me, this is… different."
Well, that was pathetic.
"You are a different person from who you were three years ago," Clockwork points out.
He wishes Sam were here to come up with an argument. He knows he can't win this one—he never wins against Clockwork—but he just can't agree.
Clockwork notices the impasse. He concludes: "Do not let fear deter you, and never allow it to hide who you are." He pauses, gestures to the crown and ring. "This is who you are now, and it is not a bad thing unless you choose to make it so."
It's not a question, not an open-ended statement. Just a fact. Just his entire existence, basically, reduced to one fact. He doesn't know what to think, or say, but he knows Clockwork is telling him something important here.
As he grips Clockwork's staff, he makes a mental note to talk with Sam and Tucker about this later on. He'll have time to think about this beforehand, because his injuries won't allow him to attend school today.
They're back in his room, in Amity Park. Clockwork says: "There is a phone call waiting for you. When you answer it, remember what I said about fear." He gestures to his bed. "Be more mindful of your schedule, too. I imagine you will not feel very well today."
By the time he nods, Clockwork is nowhere in sight, replaced by the blaring of his ringtone. He picks up and glances at the caller ID, suddenly concerned. It's Tucker.
"You're sure about this?" he asks. "She can get in your head. We don't know what else she can do."
"She's in prison, Danny. With guards. I'll be fine." Jazz pats him on the arm. "Anyway, I didn't drive down here for nothing, and I only have the weekend. So hurry up! Time is everything."
He ignores that last part and keeps driving at a normal speed. Why did he think telling Jazz about Spectra's attack was a good idea? "And you're sure you don't want me to come with you?"
Jazz gives him a look. "Danny, I hate to break it to you, but you're injured. And Sam will kill me if you undo all her handiwork for me. I'll be fine. I'm not unarmed, you know."
You inherited Dad's aim, he thinks. "Why do you want to talk to Spectra, anyway? Especially today? She just got locked up—she's in a terrible mood."
"That's what I'm hoping for."
It's official, his sister did inherit the nutjob gene. "That's what you're—" he turns to look at her. "Are you nuts?"
Jazz rolls her eyes. "Eyes on the road, little brother." She frowns, looks around the Speeder and out the window. "Well, eyes on the… err, you get the point."
He turns his gaze back to the metaphorical road, but doesn't let go of the topic. "I won't let you see Spectra if you don't tell me what you're trying to do. If this is just a crazy attempt to learn more about ghost psychology…"
"Oh, please. She'd never be willing to teach me anything." A pause. "Wait, would she?"
"No."
"Darn." Jazz sighs. "Look, I told you: I just want to study her. She's a very particular type of ghost and I want to know why."
That's about as vague as Jazz can get, which is weird because she usually jumps into the details the moment someone asks about her projects. If she's keeping this to herself, it's probably because he won't like it. That reasoning is enough incentive to make him slow the Speeder to buy him time. "Explain."
She hesitates for a moment, then gives in: "Her form is really unstable. She needs a constant source of negative energy to keep her normal appearance up. See, ghosts don't age with time, like humans do, because they aren't finite life forms like us. Instead, they weaken and strengthen themselves through energy—how powerful they are.
"For example. Once you're older, your human form will continue aging like any other person, but I think your ghost form will evolve into an adult and stay that way. Unless, you know, your powers are radically depleted or something.
"Anyway, Spectra's form needs lots of energy to keep in shape, and that energy is depleted really fast, as if counteracted by something else. I have this theory that her psyche works like a bully's—she feeds off others' misery to keep her own a bay. So if I find the source of her misery, and delete it, she should stabilize. In theory."
He's stuck on what she said about growth for a moment—the idea of morphing between adult and old man forms sounds a little creepy, jarring enough to make him pity Clockwork. That's going to be awkward.
Then he focuses on more pressing matters: "You want to help Spectra. Help her. Why?"
"If I do, she might want to teach me something in exchange."
"You're not serious."
Jazz shakes her head. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices her frown. "No, not really. But I might learn from trying to help her, she might let something slip… Also, if we remove the need to pick on others to keep her form stable, she might stop attacking you. Maybe. It's a long shot, I wouldn't hold my breath. I'm not sure what exactly I'm looking for, but like I said, her form is really unstable. It's kind of fascinating."
"Jazz…" He'd rather she didn't try this, wants to say that he can defend himself against Spectra just fine, without her input… but then he realizes he's doing it again, the making decisions for others thing. Has he done this to everyone he knows, rather than just Sam?
"I'll be careful. I'll bite my tongue if I have to. We're almost there, anyway—and you did agree to this, remember? Otherwise we wouldn't be here at all."
"I thought you wanted to look at her, maybe ask a few questions while I stood behind you! I didn't think you wanted to take her on as a patient!"
Jazz keeps quiet for a moment, long enough to make him think he has won. Then: "Please?"
He did promise Sam he'd stop meddling… "Fine. But the moment something goes wrong, you leave and never return."
"Deal," Jazz says, way too enthusiastic. Did she not just hear him?
Apparently not. When he parks outside of Walker's prison, she's out the door in a flash of red hair, leaving him to phase out of the Speeder with a bad taste in his mouth.
A/N:
I know a lot of you, like Tucker, expected them to kiss and make up. Sorry! We're almost there, I promise :) On another note—can you guess what Sam and Tucker were talking about? (Has to do with Tucker's phone call in the Clockwork scene.) I think it's fairly obvious (that was my intention) but it'll be clarified a bit in the next chapter, just in case.
Things to celebrate today: This story has made it past 50K! Thank you, readers, for getting this story up to this point! (Without you, I probs would've stopped early on.) Plus, it seems we'll pass 100 reviews this week! Thank you! 100th reviewer gets to pick between an excerpt of the next chapter, or getting to ask one question, any question, about the story.
Also, happy (late) 4th of July to my American readers! You guys are the grand majority of my audience, so thank you for reading!
I'm really, really excited for next chapter. There's this scene… you guys will love it. I think. I hope :) As always, thank you very much for the wonderful feedback. And, in general, thank you for reading! See you next week,
—Rose.