A/N: I am so sorry for the late update! At the same time, I'm glad I waited to update. This chapter had to be rewritten like three times. I lost my inspiration; and when that happens, the chapters turn out like a pile of cow poop. But now that this chapter is out of the way, I can get to the chapters I'm more interested in writing.

Enjoy this one!

Chapter Ten – The Ol' Switcheroo

Aaron faced a severe punishment for "unnecessary roughness." Dusty and Sky were taken to the hospital to mend their injuries. After a few days to rest, Dusty returned to Propwash Junction with Ishani, Skipper, Chug, and Dottie. Since Sky was to start at Piston Peak for fire season, Blade insisted she spend the rest of her healing period at the park. Sparky, Harley, and Katherine joined her for moral support, and so Harley could lend her healing abilities to help Sky get back on her feet faster.

The firefighters at Piston Peak were happy to have Sky around, and the Smokejumpers would lend a hand as best they could to help her get around. Sky met the trainee Blade mentioned: a young Sikorsky, similar in build to Windlifter, with a bronze-brown paintjob and white stripes painted on her rotors. Her name was Robin, and her energy was boundless. The only problem was she could never contain the energy enough to listen for directions. Thankfully, Windlifter took her under his wing, and guided her through training. Robin came from a local reservation, and so appreciated knowing there was another Native on the base to connect with. Sky only got to talk to Robin for a little over a week. One day, a fire chief over in Washington called Piston Peak Air Attack asking for support with some massive wildfires across the state. Robin left at once with Dipper accompanying her.

After a week back at the base, Sky was almost fully recovered.

"All right. Just a second." Harley finished her healing on Sky's leg. "Take a little walk around the garage. Tell me how it feels." Sky slowly stood and glided across the room.

"Any soreness?" Sparky asked.

"Stiffness?" Maru added.

"Not really." Sky said.

"Well, you should take it easy regardless." Maru said. "You went through a major injury and a fast healing process."

"The good news is you're in remission." Harley said. "I can teach you some good stretches and exercises to get yourself back on your feet."

"So I can go back to work?" Sky asked.

"No way." Sparky scoffed.

"Oh come on." Sky complained.

"Sparky's right." Maru confirmed. "Too soon for you to get back into firefighting. We can't have any stiffs out there."

Sky rolled her eyes. "Oh, ha-ha. You're hilarious, Maru. Can I at least go take a walk around the base?"

"Yes." Sparky hardly finished before Sky sprinted out the garage. "Slowly!"

Harley laughed. "Even after a major injury, she still has so much energy."

"You should see her when we haven't had a fire in a long time." Maru chuckled.

Sky stood next to the runway and tilted her head back. The warmth of the sunshine caressed her cheeks. She sighed in content. "Just a little more time. Then I'll be right back in the action."

"Not until you're fully healed." Blade said as he parked next to her.

"Whatever." Sky rolled her eyes. "Hey, is Nick back yet?"

Blade sighed, concern in his eyes. "I was going to ask you the same thing. I haven't seen him since the crash."

"Me either." Sky said. "It doesn't make any sense."

"Skylar!" Katherine called from the kitchen. "Is there a loaf of bread anywhere in here?"

"Maybe in the drawer below the coffee maker!" Sky called back. "Hey, have you seen Nick anywhere?"

Katherine paused on her way back into the kitchen. She did a U-turn and wheeled herself over to Blade and Sky. "You two haven't seen him either."

"That's why we were hoping you have." Blade said. "You are the ghost whisperer, after all."

Katherine shook her head. "Don't worry too much. If what Sky told me is true, then Nick is just weak from helping her. Ghosts are able to lend their strength and heal the living when they master their use of their energy. Once he regains his strength, he'll return. No worries."

"Thanks, Katherine." Sky said. "I think that's exactly what we needed to hear." Katherine nodded and returned to the kitchen.

"It's still concerning." Blade said. "After all, we know so little about ghosts. I'm not sure even Nick knows everything about what he can do."

Sky didn't want to admit she worried greatly for Nick's well-being. She truly had no idea how big of a risk he took by helping her hold onto life. "I'm sure it'll be all right." She hoped she sounded convincing to Blade. She didn't really believe herself.

That night, Blade was awoken from his deep sleep by something that sound like a cross between a lawn mower and two pieces of metal grinding together.

"Nick…" Blade moaned tiredly. "Nick…you're snoring again…knock it off….."

Nick snorted, and then yawned. "Sorry…"

Blade was ready to slip back into dreamland when he realized Nick actually answered him. Blade's eyes flew open, and he quickly turned on the light. "Nick? Nick, where are you?"

"Asleep. Leave me alone." Came Nick's sleepy mumble.

"You're a ghost. Ghosts don't sleep." Blade looked around, but didn't see the spirit. "Come on, get up. I want to know where you've been."

"Asleep, I guess. Or maybe in a lingo." Nick yawned from somewhere to Blade's left. "I don't know."

"Would you just get down here?" Blade snapped. "Hey Raven! Wake up! Nick's back!"

Sky jumped at the outburst, flipping over in her hammock and falling to the platform below. Except instead of hitting the platform, she went through it and landed on her butt on the floor. Sky didn't look phased by the pain. She looked more shocked by the fact that she literally went through a sheet of metal. Blade's eyes were wide.

"How did I do that?" Sky finally asked.

"And how are you glowing?" Blade added, still in shock.

Sky looked down to her hands. Not only did she have a faint blue aura surrounding her body, she appeared translucent like a piece of stained glass. "What's happening?"

A soft snore made Blade and Sky jump. They looked up towards the source: Sky's hammock, which appeared weighted down as though something or someone still lay in it. Sky slowly stood and walked towards the ladder. She climbed up, tiptoeing to her hammock. Blade watched her, his imagination running wild.

Sky pulled on the edge of the hammock and dumped its occupant on the ground.

"Ow! Come on, man! What'd you do that for?"

Sky wanted to scream, but no sound came out. Blade blinked a few times to confirm he wasn't dreaming.

Sky's body had fallen out of the hammock, moving and talking like a living person. Except the voice that came out was Nick's. Even the eyes of the body were different: instead of Sky's blue-green, the irises were amber-colored.

Sky's head moved around. "What's going on?" Nick's voice asked.

"Uh…...Nick? You may want to look at your hands." Blade said when he finally found his voice.

Nick rolled his eyes. "What? These hands?" He held up his hands mockingly, and then realized he was actually holding someone's hands up. Nick looked down, and he screamed in Spanish. "What in the heck? Why am I in a girl's body?! That's so weird!"

"Hey, that's my body!" Sky snapped. "You're the one possessing it! That's what's weird here!"

"This entire situation is weird!" Blade snapped, making Nick and Sky shut up. "Nick, get out of Sky right now."

"I don't even know how I got here!" Nick protested. "How am I supposed to come out?"

In the blink of an eye, his eyes turned back to blue-green. The ghostly image of Sky disappeared and the ghost of Nick Lopez popped back into existence. Sky and Nick looked down at themselves, sighing in relief.

"That's better." Sky said, standing and dusting off her pajama pants.

"I never thought I'd be so relieved to see myself as a ghost." Nick sighed.

Blade couldn't quite process all of this. It was like someone threw a wrench into the clockwork of his mind. "What just happened?"

"I'm sure it was nothing." Sky said. "Either we're all dreaming or we're sleep-deprived or something. Let's get some sleep and we'll worry about it tomorrow."

"Are you sure?" Blade asked. "Sky, we've dealt with a lot of supernatural stuff—sometimes more than I would've liked, to be honest—but this takes the cake."

"It's not real." Sky assured. "Tomorrow we'll wake up and it'll all be a dream." She climbed back into her hammock. Nick settled down in the corner and shut his eyes meditatively. Blade shut off the lights, hoping that things would make sense tomorrow.

When morning came, it seemed Sky was right. Last night must've been a dream, because Sky and Nick looked absolutely normal, like nothing happened.

"I told you it was nothing." Sky said as she dressed in her jeans, sneakers, and T-shirt. She tied a bandana over her head to keep her hair back.

"It was still weird." Nick said, floating above her.

"Yeah, I have to agree with Nick there." Blade said as they journeyed outside. "Since I've known you, Sky, I've learned to tolerate certain supernatural things. Especially since Nick came back. But what happened last night was almost too much for my brain to handle."

"It was pretty strange." Sky said. "And, if it was a dream, what did it mean?"

"Don't eat chicken noodle soup before bed?" Nick suggested, seeing how that was Sky's last meal before she went to sleep.

"Or maybe it's 'Never listen to Nick's ghost stories before bed.'" Sky teased.

"Hey, my ghost stories at the best!" Nick scoffed.

"Fine. Prove it. You said that a bunch of spirits live in the forest. Let's go find them." Sky suggested, strolling towards the trees.

"Shouldn't you be staying close to base?" Blade called after her.

"I'm still grounded, so I can't go into a fire." Sky said.

Blade couldn't argue with that. Besides, Sky was too much of a free spirit to be held down for too long. "Fine. Just don't go far and be back soon."

"I'll keep an eye on her!" Nick assured, following Sky.

"It's you I'm worried about!" Blade laughed.

During fire season, Sky tended to only do short hikes at night, when she wouldn't be needed in case of a fire. She didn't do much day hiking in case of an emergency. But since she was grounded for medical reasons, she decided to regain her strength through hiking. Nick always accompanied her, mainly to ensure she had someone to alert the base in case she was injured again.

"If there are so many ghosts in these forests, why don't they come near the base?" Sky asked.

"Okay, maybe I exaggerated." Nick admitted. "But there are ghosts in the park. You know, campers who got lost, fliers who crashed, a ranger who spent most of his life up here. Most of them like to stay in the areas where they died."

"Huh. Wonder if Katherine ever talked to them." Sky stopped on the trail and began crawling up the rocks nearby.

"What are you doing now?" Nick asked.

"Climbing." Sky shrugged. "The next part of the trail is right above me."

"And you can't go around?" Nick rolled his eyes.

"Where's the fun in that? Besides, the trail below me is wide and the hill isn't that steep." Sky continued her free-climbing. "If I fall, I'll tuck-and-roll."

"Yeah, I'd prefer if you didn't fall at all." Nick said.

"Then you better keep an eye on me." Sky suggested.

"Oh boy." Nick sighed. "If you get hurt, it's your own fault."

"I'm not going to get hurt. What's the worst that can happen?" Sky grabbed a vine just above her head. When she pulled the vine towards her, she discovered a familiar (thankfully nonvenomous) scaly creature in her hand, and it hissed at her as though in annoyance. "Snake!" Sky yelped, dropping the snake. Unfortunately, her surprised jump caused her to lose her grip on the rocks, and she began falling backwards.

"The tree! Grab the tree!" Nick yelped.

Sky pushed off the rock and twisted in the air, stretching her arms out towards the branch of a nearby tree. She could easily grab the branch, swing back, and land on her feet. It wasn't her first time, after all.

But when she tried to grab the branch, her hands went right through it.

Sky yelped as she tumbled into the shrubbery and started bouncing and rolling down the hill. She landed at another section of the trail, spitting leaves out of her mouth. "Huh. That didn't hurt nearly as much as I thought it would. I didn't feel a thing." She looked to her hands. "I'm see-through?!" Her eyes widened. "Nick! Nick, where are you?"

"Up here." Came Nick's pained reply. Sky hurriedly crawled/climbed back up to where she was climbing, face-planting a few times from her disorientation. When she reached the top, she saw her body lying on the ground. Her eyes were amber again.

"Oh not again." Sky groaned.

Nick looked down and realized quickly what happened. "I'm inside you again? What the heck is going on?"

"Okay, something is seriously wrong here." Sky stood up and wobbled a little before standing up straight. "I can't feel my weight on my feet. It's really weird. Like I'm about to topple over any minute now."

"You get used to that." Nick said.

"I don't want to get used to it!" Sky said. "I want to be in my own body again!"

"You think I don't want to be out of it?" Nick tried to stand, and he also swayed unsteadily. "I'm not used to being on two legs. How do you guys move with these things?"

"Well excuse me for not being born with wheels." Sky sassed.

"Okay, don't panic!" Nick urged. "Let's just get back to base and tell Blade."

Sky nodded in agreement. But it was slow going. Sky couldn't feel her weight on her feet as she ran, and she ended up tripping and face-planting on the ground. She still couldn't feel a thing, only further disorienting her. Nick wasn't used to running on two feet. He quickly grew tired and tripped several times. All in all, it took about an hour to get back to the base.

Blade spotted them first. "There you two are! What took you so long?"

"Blade, it happened again!" Nick said. "I accidentally possessed Sky again!"

"Doesn't look like it." Blade noted.

Sky and Nick glanced down and saw they were once more back to normal. Nick groaned and muttered something in Spanish. "Blade, we're serious." Sky said. "We switched again. I went through a tree and tumbled down a hill and I didn't get hurt. There's something happening to us."

Blade did look troubled, but also confused. "What exactly is happening?"

After exchanging a look, Nick and Sky became silent. How could they explain this? They were switching places? One of them was possessing the other and didn't know it? How did any of it make sense, even for their crazy life?

Sky tried to forget about the whole thing and chalk up the experience as a hallucination from too much ibuprofen Sparky "prescribed" to her for the pain of her injuries. She had no idea of any health concerns related to taking two pills every other day, but what else could explain the experience?

Humming to herself, Sky rummaged around the kitchen for breakfast and settled on some toast. She tapped her nail on the counter as she waited for the bread to pop up.

"Hey Cuervo!"

Speaking of popping up…

Sky smiled at Nick as the ghost instantly appeared beside her. "Hey Nick."

"What's for breakfast?" Nick asked.

"Toast." Sky said. "Do you ever eat anything? I know you don't get hungry, but do you ever just eat something because you want to?"

"Most food goes right through me." Nick said. "Literally."

"Ever miss eating?" Sky asked as her toast popped up from the toaster.

"Sometimes." Nick said. "I don't miss burning my tongue by eating a food that's too hot."

Suddenly, Nick disappeared and Sky appeared in her ghostly form. Nick was back in Sky's body. He pinched Sky's toast in his fingers, and he yelped in pain as the heat burned his fingers.

"Hey!" Sky yelped, going after her breakfast. But the toast went right through her hands. "Nick!"

"Why am I back in your body?!" Nick groaned. "This is so weird!"

"It's weirder to hear your voice come out of my mouth!" Sky snapped.

"Sky?" Maru's voice called from outside. "You okay?"

"Not really!" Sky called back.

Maru and Sparky entered the kitchen. "What's up?" Sparky asked.

"Well just look at us!" Nick said.

"All I see is you two standing in the kitchen with toast on the ground." Sparky said.

Sky and Nick looked at themselves. They were back to normal yet again. "Something wrong with you two?" Maru asked.

"We're not sure anymore." Nick admitted.

"Shouldn't we tell someone what's going on?" Nick asked Sky, watching her do some exercises to regain the strength and flexibility in her recently healed injuries.

"I would love to, but no one is believing us." Sky said. "If we could control this weird switching thing, that would be great."

"If we could control it, I wouldn't do it anymore." Nick said. "It seems like a strange violation."

"Violation of my body?" Sky sassed with a teasing smirk. She tried a yoga pose Harley taught her.

"I guess. I was thinking more about violation of privacy." Nick said. "If I wanted to get to know you better, I wouldn't have possessed you."

"Do you even know how to possess someone?" Sky wobbled a little as she tried the pose. She had to stand on one leg and stretch her other leg behind her.

"Not really." Nick said.

In a flash, Nick and Sky switched yet again. Nick yelped as he suddenly toppled over. He didn't even know how to brace himself in a human body, and he practically face-planted onto the ground.

"You sure you don't know how to possess someone?" Sky huffed. "And can't you stop me from face-planting like that? I don't want to reinjure myself after I just got better."

"It's not my fault I don't know how to use a human body!" Nick snapped. "Ford above, this feels so weird. I'm in a girl's body for Chrysler's sake!"

"Hey, you got a problem with my body?" Sky demanded.

"Uh, no! No, of course not! It's a great body. I mean a nice body. I mean—"

"Okay, stop. It's weird again."

"Yeah let's go tell Blade!"

The two of them ran off, but Sky ended up tripping.

"Not so easy being a ghost, huh?" Nick sassed.

"Just help me up." Sky growled. Nick took her hand and pulled her to her feet. As he did, they switched back again.

"Okay, this is already getting old." Nick sighed.

"Maybe this entire day is a dream." Sky suggested.

"I don't think we're going to be that lucky." Nick said.

Sky and Nick continued their strange switching throughout the day. Somehow, nobody witnessed it. In fact, the rest of the base (besides Blade) thought they were crazy.

"This is so frustrating." Sky growled, angrily stomping around the kitchen and grabbing the materials to roast s'mores over tonight's bonfire.

"I actually don't want to go through walls in fear of getting stuck." Nick sighed. "Sky, what's happening to us?"

"If I knew, I would tell you!" Sky snapped. She sighed heavily. "Sorry. None of this makes sense. I've dealt with a lot of paranormal and supernatural stuff in the past, but this is so outside the norm for us. At least in those past times, we had some idea of what we were doing. We could prove what was happening to everyone else, and we had some resource to help us."

"I wish I could help, Sky." Nick said. "But before I met Katherine, everything I knew about ghost abilities was from my own trial-and-error."

"I think that's why I'm so upset about all this. I hate being in the dark. Not knowing." Sky gathered the s'mores stuff in her arms. "Why does my life feel like the plot of a novel or a bad TV show?"

"Who says it has to be like a bad show?" Nick said. "If I had to watch a show like that, I'd give it five stars!"

Sky smiled a little. "Thanks, Nick."

"Hey Sky!" Drip shouted from outside. "Where's the s'mores stuff?"

"S'MORES!" Avalanche cheered.

"I'm coming! I'm coming!" Sky and Nick headed out the door (Nick still wouldn't float through the walls) and approached the small bonfire.

"About time!" Drip hurried over and snatched the supplies from Sky.

"A wise man once said, 'Patience is a virtue.'" Sky said as she headed for her spot next to Harley.

"Patience may be a virtue, but never get between the Smokejumpers and their s'mores." Maru chuckled.

"Do any more switching today?" Harley teased, sitting on a short log by the fire. She scooted over so Sky could sit down.

"I'll have you know—" Sky didn't get to finish before she and Nick switched yet again. Nick lost his balance and fell backwards over the log. Sky looked to her ghostly form and groaned. "Not again."

Everyone else around the fire froze, staring at Sky and Nick. Avalanche had stuffed some marshmallows into his mouth, and a couple of them fell out when his jaw dropped.

"Okay, we believe you." Sparky said.

Nick groaned as he pulled himself back onto the log. "No offense, Sky, but I hate being human."

"Well I'm not a fan of being a ghost." Sky said.

"And I'm definitely not a fan of hearing Nick's voice come out of Sky's mouth." Harley said. "How long has this been happening?"

"Just today. Maybe since last night. I'm not totally convinced that wasn't a dream." Nick answered.

"Nick, do you remember anything from after the accident at the race?" Katherine asked.

"Not really." Nick said. "It was like I was dreaming. I haven't dreamt in years. Next thing I know, I'm hearing Blade complaining about my snoring, and I woke up. I guess I was back."

"Is that normal, Katherine?" Blade asked. Everyone's attention went to the ghost expert.

"Well, if a ghost uses too much of their energy, they tend to disappear and go into a sort of lingo while they recuperate." Katherine said. "But you should've just reappeared once you regained your strength, Nick. This here looks more like a possession."

"But I don't know how to possess people." Nick said. "At least, I've never tried."

"How hard is it to go into a person's body and control them?" Harley asked.

Katherine thought for a moment. "There's a large difference in technique regarding going through a person versus going into them." Her eyes widened a bit in realization. "Wait a minute. Back at the crash. Sky, you said you were dying."

"It certainly looked like it." Sky said. "I appeared as a spirit beside my own body. I couldn't get back in until Nick dragged me back in."

"It's not strange for someone to appear as a spirit next to their dying body. Sometimes, they are resuscitated and that spirit reenters the body. Or the body dies and the spirit goes on to either haunt the mortal world or moves on." Katherine said. "But, Nick, you had to pull Sky's spirit back into her body."

"Oh no." Harley gasped. "Nick, did you leave Sky's body when I came by to heal her?"

Nick thought for a moment. As he did, Sky and Nick switched back to normal. "Now that I think about it, I don't think I had a chance." Nick answered Harley. "I was about to, and then I blacked out."

Harley slapped her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide like she just realized she did an embarrassingly bad thing. "Good Ford, I think I accidentally locked you in Sky's body."

"You did what?" Sky asked.

"Well, I didn't know Nick was in there with you!" Harley said. "I mean, I just didn't know what was happening. All I knew was you were hurt and I had to save you."

"A dead body is easier to possess and reanimate. A broken and dying body is just as easy to enter and possess." Katherine explained. "Nick, I think you accidentally possessed Sky when Harley locked you both in. You two are stuck in one body and seem to take turns controlling that body."

"We're certainly not in control of who gets a turn." Sky said. "We've been spontaneously switching all day."

"Katherine, what can we do about this?" Blade asked.

"I'm not entirely sure." Katherine stared at Nick and Sky thoughtfully. "It's one thing for a ghost to learn possession. It's another for a ghost to be locked in a living creature. Most ghosts are locked in inanimate objects."

"I believe there is a legend of an occurrence like this." Windlifter spoke up. It was always a surprise when the normally silent chopper spoke during social gatherings. "I will call a family friend of mind to consult with us on the matter."

"I can summon some ghosts I know." Katherine suggested. "I have a lot of spiritual friends who owe me favors. Maybe they can help separate Nick's spirit from Sky's body."

"What are we supposed to do until then?" Sky asked.

"For one thing, you're definitely off firefighting until we get this sorted out." Blade said.

"Until we get you two separated, I think you better just take it easy and try to not get hurt." Katherine said. "Nick, you'll have to learn how to work a human body. Sky, you're going to have to get used to be in ghost form."

"But if we're getting this sorted out, why get used to it?" Nick asked.

Katherine looked down. She knew what she would say next would only cause more stress. Then again, Nick did ask. So she would answer.

"Because I'm not entirely sure we can get you two separated."