Danny Phantom Post Planet Chapter 11
The Monday after Sam had been admitted to the hospital quite frankly, sucked.
He forgot to set his alarm the night before so he would up waking up 45 minutes later than normal. As if this wasn't stressful enough, he flew out of the house so fast that he forgot his bag with his completed homework. By the time he realized this and gotten back to school with it, homeroom was over and he missed 15 minutes of his first period. He tried sneaking into the class without getting his teacher's attention, and he, of course, failed.
"Mr. Fenton." His teacher called out as Danny closed the classroom door behind him.
"Yes Mr. Duncan?"
"Was there a ghost attack this morning?" He asked while several other students snickered.
"No sir."
"Then I will not tolerate your tardiness Superhero or not. Take your seat."
"Yes sir." Danny took his seat and rifled through his backpack looking for his science notebook. The rest of his classes before lunch didn't go much better. He and Sam had half their classes together which meant, that he had to tell their teachers how long she was going to be absent and pass along all her homework. Add in a forced conversation with Paulina at his locker, which resulted in her tossing his Gatorade in his face and he was not happy.
By the time he got to the cafeteria, he was starving, having not eaten breakfast that morning. Danny rarely ate lunch from the school cafeteria. Having a crazed former lunch lady ghost attack the place early in your ghost career would make you want to avoid the cafeteria lunch too. It also didn't help that half the food wasn't edible.
He was finishing the last of the leftover sandwich he and Dash had ordered for the game when he was joined by Valerie Star and Kwon.
"What happened to you?" Kwon asked indicating the red splotches on his shirt.
Danny sighed and reached for his water. "I ran into Paulina before lunch. She demanded I go out with her. I said no, so she grabbed my drink and tossed it in my face."
Star laughed. "How many times have you said no so far?"
"In the last 8 months? Too many to count."
"I wouldn't worry about it." Valerie said "The girl's in denial, she'll get the hint eventually."
"It's been 8 months Val. If she doesn't get the hint now, I don't think she ever will." Danny said.
They continued talking throughout lunch. Danny gave them the update on Sam and was happy to hear that Dash had already told them about what happened and they were genuinely relieved to hear she was doing better. He filled them in on some of the details Dash didn't give them and they congratulated him on a job well done. Danny thought his day was looking up until Star's cell phone beeped and she excused herself from the conversation to look at the alert.
"Uh-oh." She said.
"What's wrong?" Kwon asked her.
Star didn't answer right away. She was looking closer at the alert. After another minute she addressed Danny. "Umm Danny, How many people at Casper High know what really happened Saturday?"
The Ghost teen thought the question was a little strange but he answered anyway. "Sam, myself, Dash, Tucker, A few teachers and now you guys. Why?"
"Because," She said handing him her phone and pointing his attention to something on Casper's website, "This just exploded on Casper's site."
Danny took the phone from her and looked at the site. There was an article on the forums. "I REALLY know what happened to Sam Manson and Danny Fenton at the Nasty Burger." He quickly read the post and by the end of it, he really wished he hadn't eaten.
"How bad is it?" Valerie asked.
"See for yourself." He growled handing her the phone. She quickly read the post and looked disgusted. "That's just gross."
"What is it?" Kwon asked.
"Basically," Danny responded, "the forum says, Sam and I decided to have sex at the Nasty Burger and while we were sleeping together my powers caused the explosion."
"That doesn't make any sense." Kwon said. "If you were at the center of the explosion you wouldn't be here."
"Yeah," Valerie added "and I was on my way to work when the explosion happened, I saw you protecting Sam and Vlad flying off."
Danny didn't show it, but he was grateful for them defending him. He and his girlfriend had put up with their share of rumors about their relationship since Danny revealed his identity and they became a couple. This certainly wasn't the first time they were accused of sleeping together and she was better at brushing of this kind of thing than he was. If Sam were here, she would calm him down and set the record straight but she wasn't here and he really wasn't in the mood to deal with this kind of crap.
"If I find out who started this rumor, they're really gonna get it." He growled as they threw their trash away and left the cafeteria.
"You may get your chance." Star said looking at her phone. Danny turned to look at her.
"You know who posted it?"
"Yeah." She replied. "I'll give you three guesses, and the first two don't count."
Danny spent the rest of his day in such an angry haze that he didn't remember much of what happened after lunch. There were a few moments that stood out though. He remembered being called into Lancer's office and he told his former teacher exactly what happened on Saturday so the teaching staff knew his side of the story and could take action if necessary. He got a text from Dash before his last period of the day. The quarterback had told him that he was already working on setting the football team straight to make sure they knew the truth. Star, who had his English lit class with him told him that she was doing the same thing with the cheerleaders. He had thanked them for their help but he knew there was really one thing he was going to have to do stop this and future rumors from happening. He would need to confront Paulina on this.
Star had confirmed that it really was Paulina who created the forum and posted it on Casper's site. She had known her former friend's screenname by heart and most students in Casper high recognized it too. Danny wasn't just ticked at his former crush anymore, he was full on angry. It was one thing to annoy him with the constant date requests and random conversations at his locker, he could deal with that, but now she was dragging Sam into it.
He was really starting to wish his girlfriend were here with him. It had barely been one school day but it felt like he was falling apart without her here. She would know exactly what to say and how to handle this. He had considered texting her for advice but ultimately he decided he didn't want to bother her with this, not yet anyway. Instead he remembered the last time the two of them had talked about Paulina. For the first time all day, Danny felt himself smiling. He knew how to deal with this.
The last bell of the day rang and there was the usual chaos that came with a bunch of teenagers eager to leave school for the day. Danny left his desk, saying goodbye to Star and thanking her for help. He reached his locker and grabbed the things he would need for homework and closed his locker. He didn't leave right away though, instead he leaned his back against his locker, waiting for his locker neighbor to show up.
Said neighbor showed up a couple minutes later. "Oh Hi Danny!" She said sweetly like I was waiting for her and even though I was, it was definitely not for the reasons she must have been thinking of.
"Cut the crap Paulina." He said, pulling out his phone and linking it to the Casper High site and showing it to her. "I know you posted this earlier today. Not cool."
"Well, how do you know it was me?" She said in her fake sweet voice.
"Paulina, I'm not an idiot. Star already confirmed it was you and the entire school knows your screen name."
She closed her locker door and turned to face the ghost boy. "Oh I know that Danny. Let me guess, you want me to take the post down. I can do it but on one condition."
"What's that?" Danny asked but he had a feeling he already knew.
"You dump that goth person in front of me, make me your girlfriend and I'll take the post down."
Danny folded his arms and tightened his fists underneath his armpits. There she was, insulting Sam again. This wasn't going to be easy.
"No deal." He said. "You know what? Keep it posted. I know Sam won't care and if she doesn't care, I don't care. While we're at it, you should know something."
"What's that?" Paulina growled. All her previous sweetness had completely disappeared. This was clearly not going the way she wanted.
"This is the last conversation you and I are ever going to have. I'm not going to talk to you anymore. So keep trying to ask me out, keep posting lies on the internet and keep trying to provoke me. I don't care because I love Sam. She loves me too and you can't break that. No one can. Have a good one Paulina."
With that he turned his back and left her standing there. There may be some fallout from this conversation later but for the moment, he was glad that one problem was off the table and something had gone right today.
"You look to be in a good mood all of a sudden." Valerie said catching up to Danny as he was leaving school.
"I just had a good conversation with Paulina actually." He said. Valerie looked shocked.
"Oh, is she going to take down the post?"
The ghost teen shrugged. "Not sure." His friend looked really confused.
"What do you mean?"
"There was something I didn't tell you guys at lunch today. On Saturday night after Sam turned out to be ok and I saw her in the hospital, I well, I told her that I loved her."
Valerie stopped in her tracks. "And what did she say?" She was practically breathless. It was really cool how much of a friend she could be and how invested she was in his relationship.
Danny smiled. "She said 'I love you too Danny Fenton.'"
"Oh my God! She used your full name?" Danny nodded. "Wow. I always hoped you two would end up together but this is a really big step for you guys. How does it feel?"
"It feels amazing." He said. "It's like I can breath easier, smell things better and when I think about Sam, I feel like there's nothing on Earth I can't do. That's why I don't really care about Paulina's post anymore. She's trying to break the connection I have with Sam. Never gonna happen."
"Good for you Danny. I'm serious. You going to see your love this afternoon?"
"Where do you think I'm headed now?"
"Well have a good visit and give her my best."
"Will do."
Danny arrived at the hospital about 20 minutes later, checked in at the reception desk like before and found Sam standing up in bed, reading her book and holding her black teddy bear. She looked up when her boyfriend walked in. "Hey how was your day?"
He kissed her before answering. "Not too bad, started off pretty crappy though." He told her about his morning and first confrontation with Paulina, Sam wasn't happy about that. She was even less than happy when he showed and told her about Paulina's not so secret post on the Casper High website.
"I took care of it though." He told her.
"How?"
"I finally took your advice. I told her straight up that I was going to be ignoring her from now on. Not giving her the attention she clearly wants and maybe someday, she'll back off."
She pulled him in for a kiss. "I'm so proud of you." She said once they broke apart. "I will say that this is pretty desperate for Paulina standards though."
"You would know better than me. But enough about me, how was your day?"
She shrugged. "Pretty boring actually. I'm almost done my book and Grandma was here earlier. At least my parents finally backed OW!" Sam suddenly winced and grabbed her bandaged left leg.
"You ok?" She glared at him. "Sorry standard question. What's wrong?" He grabbed hold of her hand.
"My leg." She winced. The ghost teen immediately ran to the door and called for a nurse. Thirty seconds later a nurse and Doctor Jackson ran into the room. Sam was holding her leg, which was bad because as long as she was holding it, the doctor couldn't look at it. Danny picked up on this and ran to his girlfriend's side.
"Sam. Sam. Listen to me." He said. "They need to look at your leg and they can't do that while you've got a death grip on it."
"Danny it hurts!" She was crying now. Danny suddenly felt beyond helpless. He had all the ghost powers he could ever need but none of them could help his girlfriend right now.
"I know Sam." He said trying to sound calm. "I know it hurts, so just grab onto me. I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere. I promise." He positioned himself on the mattress right next to her and grabbed her hand as if to emphasize his point. She noticed this and leaned her head into his chest so she couldn't look at her leg. Danny nodded to Doctor Jackson and the good doctor set to work examining her leg. The nurse was nearby with a tray of tools waiting for instructions.
While he worked, the nurse asked Danny what happened and he explained that they were just talking like normal when Sam felt the sudden pain in her leg. That's when he rushed to the hallway for help. Doctor Jackson poked and prodded at the leg, causing Sam to wince and grip Danny's hand even tighter. After about 15 minutes, he instructed the nurse to grab some medication. Once she was gone, he turned to the teenagers. "Sam I want to give you some pain medication for the leg. You're going to feel sleepy but not any pain. Is that Ok?"
She still had her face planted against Danny's chest. She didn't answer Doctor Jackson but Danny felt her head moving up and down against his chest. "Is that what you want Sam? Do you want them to give you something for the pain?" The nodding sped up. Danny could tell she was saying yes. He nodded towards Doctor Jackson, who took a needle from the nurse and injected it into her IV drip. After about a minute, Danny felt her body relax and her grip loosened on his hand.
He leaned her back against the bed and pulled the blanket over her. She was falling asleep. Once he knew she was out, he sat up and approached Doctor Jackson.
"That was scary." He said.
"You're not kidding. I'm glad you called us when you did."
"What happened?" Danny asked.
Doctor Jackson scratched the back of his neck and looked at the now sleeping Sam. "I can only speculate without doing further testing but my best guess is the burn was infected."
"Infected?"
The doctor nodded. "It can happen in cases with higher degree burns. The problem is that some of them can remain dormant for a few days before discovered."
"How long before you know if it's an infection or not?"
"About a few hours. I'm going to call her parents to let her know what happened and then I'll be examining the leg. I hate to say this but I'm going to need to cut visitor's hours short until I know what caused the pain."
This just sucked. He felt like he just got here and now had to leave. He really felt helpless. "Can I say good night?"
Doctor Jackson clapped his shoulder. "Yeah kid. I'll leave for a minute and give you two some privacy."
Danny thanked the doctor and turned towards Sam. So much for the good mood he was in. Now he was leaving her again while she was in pain. Even though she really was in good hands, he felt terrible. There was nothing he could do to help and he hated that feeling. He pulled her blankets over her body and placed her bear in her arms. Finally, he kissed her forehead. "Good night Sam. I love you. Please feel better."
He left the room and was promised that her parents would be contacted with any news on her condition. This was good because even though he wasn't going to be contacted directly, he knew her grandmother would call him.
On his way home Danny was at a loss of what he could do. The day had gone from bad to good to the lowest level of suckage. Now he was worked up and restless with energy. He wanted to do something but he wasn't sure what. He got his answer when he got home.
He walked inside like he normally did and went to the kitchen for a drink, he didn't feel like eating. When he got there he turned on the TV to catch the news. "And finally we turn our attention to a character who lives in local infamy: Vlad Masters." Danny's fist tightened.
"Vlad Masters is still at large after his attack on the local Nasty Burger last Saturday afternoon. The former Mayor of Amity Park is now officially being treated as a terrorist and any information concerning Vlad Masters should be brought to the attention of the FBI."
He turned off the TV. Danny was angry, angrier than he ever felt in his life. What if there were other people injured in that explosion? Other people who were now in pain on a hospital bed thanks to the crazed up froot loop. Plasmius had to be stopped and the FBI, and the jokes of ghost fighters called the Guys in White had no clue on how to fight him. Danny did.
He found his phone and dialed Valerie's phone.
"Hello?"
"Hey Valerie."
"Hey Danny. What's Up?"
"I'm going after Vlad Masters. You want in?"