It had been four hours since Danny passed out. Four hours of watching every breath he took and feeling my heart stopped every time it took just slightly longer for him to inhale again. Four hours of having the sense of absolute helplessness as Danny lay unconscious because he just had to fight that dumb ghost.
As I sat there fretting I could see, rather than feel the room getting colder. Mostly because Sam and Tucker had started rubbing their arms a little. I tried to calm myself and stop things before frost started crawling up the walls, focusing on matching my breathing with Danny. Please wake up….
While I watched, anxiety ridden and wishing for him to just wake up, a strange sense of becoming energetic and a pulling sensation started in the pit of my stomach. Something was trying to catch my attention. Those little tendrils of energy swirling and tugging. Almost whispering come with me! This way….creepy things like that.
It was when Sam came back into the room, closing the door quietly behind her, that I realized I had zoned out, the weird energy had lulled me into a sort of trance as I focused subconsciously on what it was and where it was coming from. Which was nothing really, except the really strong urge to follow it.
Before I knew it, I was starting to rise from my spot on Danny's desk, feeling almost jittery as the sense of find the damn energy source this is driving me crazy! Filled my mind.
"AHHHHHH! What-what's going on!?" the sudden awakening of Danny drove all curiosity/creepy spell thing from my mind. Shoved aside for relief.
"Danny!"
Tucker moved closer to Danny's bed, "You Passed out, we took you home. You've been asleep for four days!"
"Tucker!" I slapped him on the arm, half joking and half out of trying to relieve the energy and anxiety that made me feel like exploding. He rubbed his arm, wincing. Apparently, I hit harder than I meant to. Oops.
"Four days!" Danny screeched still kind of out of it.
"Hahahahha naw, it's only been a couple of hours."
Sam, like me was not so happy with Tucker's joke. "Knock it off Tucker, this is the second time today that your carelessness almost got him killed!"
"ME? I almost got him killed?" he gestured to himself with his thumb "The only reason why this happened is because you had to be unique! You had to take the meat away, and I'm going to get it back."
"Uhhh Tucker?" I called after his stomping form, he ignored me, too fueled by his self-righteous fury.
Sam's eye twitched dangerously before she called after him, "YOU WANT TO CHANGE THE MENU BACK?" she stormed to the door "YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO GO THROUGH ME TO DO IT!" She slammed the door causing Danny to look after her in confusion and me to flinch.
"Well I'm sure everything will be back to normal by tomorrow." Danny mused to himself
"You sure about that?" I said sardonically. I flinched again as Danny fell off the bed with a loud thump and a sound akin to a dying goat.
"How—how long have you been here?"
"Oh, you know," I looked at my nails and adopted an apathetic voice "since you flew through a wall and passed out."
He ducked his head, "S-so…you…you saw?"
"Yep." I sat down on the bed next to him "Were you ever planning on telling someone other than Sam and Tucker? Or were you just going to carry out the whole 'I must protect my identity from everyone and save this city alone' thing. Because if you were I would smack you upside the head for being dumb enough to think that you couldn't trust anyone to help you."
He curled in on himself, turning into a protective little ball. "Hey," I leaned towards him a small smile on my face "are you okay?" there was an intake of breath, sharp and small like this was the first time someone had asked him. "Come here." I held out an arm in invitation. With a small shuffle he leaned into my half-armed hug. "Want to talk about it?"
"Not really…." He trailed off. It was with that small voice that it hit me again how young he was. Sure he was a fourteen year old in the eighth grade (thanks December birthday) but he had always been a little more, well…young. it was why his parents decided to keep him back a year in the first place. Not only had he been tiny (pictures of him were scattered throughout the house, this tiny little boy with the biggest blue eyes and an even bigger heart) he would cry every time he went somewhere new and would have near anxiety attacks if his mom tried to leave him (Jazz had the same problem when we first met. First day of school and she was clutching her mother's hand until it turned white.)
"Well, that's okay. I'll be here when you want to. Though I got to say that as scared as I was watching you fight that ghost….I was really proud of you." And as I said that I realized how true the words were. I was proud of him! I laughed a little, "I have never seen you look so determined, not since you decided that you wanted to be an astronaut."
"I think—think that's out the window now….my grades have been slipping since the accident." He snuggled a little closer.
"How bad are they?" I had started carding my fingers through his hair, something he was a sucker for.
"Well, let's just say I don't think the honor roll is in my future."
"Yeah, but it's only the beginning of the school year."
"And Ghosts basically show up every day and I gotta send them back to the ghost zone." I flinched.
"Seriously? Every day?" are you kidding me? I clenched my jaw thinking that if I could I would send some ghosts back to their afterlife permanently. "Have you…I dunno, ever thought about just letting some of them go? I mean what harm can they do? Most of the time they just float around and look sad anyways."
He pulled back slightly, giving a searching look, "You've seen them?"
"well, yeah—there not that hard to miss, well sunny days aside. Honestly I think it was just the lunch lady today that has caused the most trouble."
"Yeah, but—"
"But what? Just because you can turn into a ghost doesn't mean you have to give everything up so you can fix what you think you broke."
"How did?"
"Danny I have eyes, ever since the day your parents portal started working you've been acting weird I assume it's because you kept sinking through floors?"
He made a noise between a laugh and a sigh, brining up a hand to the back of his neck "Was I that obvious?"
"To me you were. Your sister might think she knows all the answers but she kinda sucks when it comes to observing people as people."
"Yeah," Danny laughed "She is kinda bad at that."
"Y'know as for your grades….maybe I could help? I mean I'm not that good at stuff but like moral support? I really want you to do well and I am more than okay to tell a ghost to shove off."
Danny started laughing, not the little laughs he had been doing earlier but full on chuckles
"What? Think I can't do it?"
"hehehehe it's not that, I can totally see you doing it—and the ghost listening. "
"Well I am pretty persuasive." I grinned, ruffling his hair, "Alright Danny, I Zoe Harris, will do everything in my power to keep your secret safe, and you safe. Ever get into a fight and you get hurt, my window is always open for you or Sam or Tucker to stop by. No need to out you to your parents. They're already suspicious of Jazz being a ghost—" I paled "She isn't, right?"
"She's human."
"Whew. Anyways I'll help out however I can." I got off the bed and stretched "Well I gotta go Danny boy see you tomorrow." As I left I took note of the dark bags under his eyes and the almost sickly pallor of his skin. I bet he wasn't getting enough nutrients suited for his ghostly body. I know, I know, I said that I don't need food. Well I came across a biology book talking about different things like bacteria and stuff. Well cellular respiration is really cool and I have since dubbed myself a facultative anaerobe and a heterotroph with the abilty to become autotrophic, I mean come on I'm still alive and haven't lost any weight when I don't ingest food….so I probably have some sort of reaction going on inside me. Cool!
"I suggest getting some sleep and eating a salad." I said "Greens are your friend." With a wink I closed the door.
A/N: here we go! Another chapter! Not as long as my other few I've recently posted but I am doing some serious brainstorming. Mostly on how the frickle-frack half-ghosts and full ghosts work. Biology is a special interest of mine and ever since we've covered bacteria and protists I've been theorizing how things work. Now ectoplasm exists in nature. It's the outer gel-like layer of the cells cytoplasm. Found both in plants and some protozoa. Hence the whole heterotroph/autotroph logic. Also since ectoplasm in Danny Phantom is green I'm thinking there is some plant-like stuff going on, coupled with chemosynthesis since it kinda glows….well I'm still working on it. if any of you have theories or anything to add please let me know! Also please leave a review…I really want to know what you guys thing of this story!