A/N: So, this is way shorter than previous chapters, but wanted to get the ball rolling again. Please drop me a line! Thanks! -hps-
Time marched on, slowly for some, quicker for others. Nearly two weeks had passed and Tucker still showed no sign of any memories, much to Sam's never ending disappointment. She had started to avoid him as he was always around Danny lately. She was pretty sure it was "new Danny's" way of preventing her from triggering anything in Tucker.
Tucker wasn't really sure why some people were acting all uptight about everything, but he didn't really care to find out, either. School was going on like it usually did and he was just wishing he could hurry up and graduate before things got stranger. He shut his locker door, only to find Danny standing on the other side of it. "Hey, man, you could say something next time!" Danny shrugged, an impish grin plastered on his face. Raising an eyebrow, Tucker followed his line of sight to find what he was looking at. "Try not to look so happy to see a bunch of football players coming our way," he warned his friend.
"Hey, Dork Fenton!" One of them called out, whipping a cell phone out of his pocket, "We saw you went kind of crazy at the theater!"
"Talk about a spaz!" Another of the group called out and they all burst into laughter.
None of it fazed Danny in the least. His grin didn't waver and his eyes reflected true amusement as if they were the ones being made fun of. "You should be careful," he cockily warned them, "never know when I might mistake one of you for a movie standee. After all, people like you aren't good for much else other than standing around trying to get people to go watch a game."
Tucker prepared himself for the beat down he was positive both he and Danny were about to receive, but relief flooded him when Dash narrowed his eyes at them as if able to perceive something was horribly amiss. "Whatever, loser. Clearly, that crash must have knocked a few screws loose and we know you didn't have many to start out with." His posse gave nods of agreement and the group turned away.
"What was that, Danny?!" Tucker cried.
His friend shrugged nonchalantly. "A cell phone with video. Big deal. Like I'm the first person on YouTube to do something stupid?"
"Well, no, but usually you care what people at school, you know, think, say."
"Well, that was the old Danny and this is the new Danny and new Danny doesn't really give a damn, can't you tell?"
"Dude, I don't know what's going on but lately you seem like a totally different person," Tucker muttered with a shake of his head. He had to admit, though, it did make him respect his friend more than he had in the past, though it was a little harder to relate to him.
"If only you understood the weight of that comment," Sam said with a sad sigh as she approached the two. Danny narrowed his eyes at her and gave a tight smile.
"If only you did," he echoed her, though his comment was aimed at her and not Tucker. Their mutual friend glanced between the two, unease bubbling up in him as it usually did recently when he was around them together. Separately, he felt just fine but there was some horrible tension now between the two. He had thought maybe they had engaged in sexual intercourse, but when questioned both gave vehement negatives and acted as if they hadn't had a crush on each other forever.
"I really feel like I'm missing out on something here," he voiced aloud for what felt like the billionth time.
"You are," they both replied in unison. Danny's grin widened and Sam's frown deepened before she balled her fists and marched away, feeling thoroughly frustrated.
At lunch time, the cafeteria echoed with teens' laughter and some arguing. The joint smells of pizza and spaghetti filled the room along with the usual smell associated with school cafeterias. Sam sat alone at a table much to Tucker's confusion and annoyance. She had eaten in solitude for almost two weeks now, refusing to be near Danny for any longer than necessary. To make matters worse, she was speaking to an invisible person like a certified nutcase. She caught him staring across the cafeteria and he promptly looked away, embarrassed.
Sam shook her head and muttered, "Ugh, he just doesn't get it at all. No one does."
Ezekial, invisible to everyone in the room but her had to agree, "Yeah, that's true."
Narrowing her eyes, Sam pushed some spaghetti around on her plate. Ezekial had reappeared two days ago. Sam had spent her first week of this "new Danny" as he called himself crying her eyes out and essentially grieving for the death of "old Danny." A lot of people thought this was just simply part of the YouTube thing and the wreck with his sister, but she knew exactly what he was referring to and it was eerie and a little creepy that he knew she was the only one who completely one hundred percent understood his words. She and new Danny seemed to hate each other with undying passion and both knew why and she wondered if it was as frustrating for him or her or whoever it was as it was for her. Ezekial had shown up seemingly just as depressed and let down as she felt. He didn't have to tell her the reason, she knew. It was so obvious. Not one good thing had come out of this for anyone except maybe Carolyn or Carolyn's soul. Sam had trouble following all the technicalities of it. The thing inhabiting Danny's body wasn't technically Danny anymore but it technically wasn't not Danny either. And it wasn't Carolyn either but it was. It was some weird combination of the two souls somehow, but ultimately it was Carolyn's conscious that had taken total control and even some of her memories remained. At least those were the basics she got from Ezekial and she suspected that he didn't even understand it in its totality, either. All she knew was that her Danny was basically just a whisper and rapidly becoming nothing more.
Ezekial hadn't wanted to speak about what he had discovered while he'd been away and Sam was not inclined to push him. Still, she did wonder why he tailed her around the past couple days or what would become of him. She had asked before and he had just shrugged and implied he hadn't decided yet as if he still had control of the situation but didn't know what to do about it. She wondered if that meant he would just vanish at some point.
One thing was for sure, "new Danny" was sure bent on becoming a bulldog and vicious in his remarks to others and he could retaliate against the popular kids like no one's business. He had practically become popular, one of those popular anti-popular kids who tried out drugs and could be generally found going on about the ills of society. Tucker was barely hanging onto his spot as best friend, but Sam suspected "new Danny" would keep him around as it would look awfully weird to drop his closest friend out of the blue, but she knew there were probably plans for them to drift apart. At some point, Tucker was going to really start questioning things. New Danny was rather fearless and the only person that he ever didn't look completely at ease with or ready to attack was her. Still, Sam wondered how much longer her memories of Old Danny or, as she called him, Real Danny would stay intact.
"Is it going to go on like this forever?" Sam asked her new friend.
Ezekial pursed his lips and shook his head slowly. "No, I don't think it will. But, ultimately that will be up to you."
Sam's eyes snapped up and he leveled her with a look that can only be described as a mix of empathy and pity. "What do you mean?"
"I will tell you later. Not at your school. I will see you at the end of the day." And with that promise, he vanished leaving Sam to stare at her spaghetti in puzzlement but deep within her she felt a small spark of hope and some color brightened the world that had become so stark and gray to her eyes.
Jazz wasn't sure how she had wound up being the one person to need so much therapy. It really was a mystery how so many of her thoughts and memories were all muddled and confused. Her parents and Danny seemed to have so many different versions of events she thought she went through. One minute, she would have everything perfectly in order and it totally matched up to those stories then she would have some weird flash or whisper of a memory flutter into her mind. She would see Danny sick and in a rundown hotel, she would have a vision of him trying to jump out of her car, or some other really horrible, disturbing memory. At least, she was pretty sure they were memories. The therapist and her family insisted they were nightmares.
She sat in the room with her therapist and listened again to what he was saying. She believed in therapy and was a strong advocate for it, but she just couldn't bring herself to believe that she had dreamt these events into existence. She didn't believe therapy would solve this particular problem. She still went, though, as she felt it would be extremely hypocritical to reject something she was a strong advocate for and it did help her deal with the trauma of being in a car wreck and having her memories all fuzzy to a certain degree. It had at least helped her sharpen her focus on the present and live in the present for the most part, though she found herself returning to that wreck and mulling over the details that simply made no sense. Where had that car even come from and what had that funky thing been about the license plates again? Had someone in her family really purchased a stolen car by mistake as people insisted in the stories she'd been told. That's how life felt lately, like she was getting story after story and while everyone believed the story they told, that was all it amounted to: a story, not anything remotely true. Something in the back of her mind told her the truth was much more of a story and she might want to just accept things as they were but some force kept driving her to question everything that had happened to her since that car slid into the ditch on that rainy day. There was one person she wanted to speak to as she had recently had a memory flash with that particular person being in the center of it. After her session with the therapist ended, Jazz made off on a mad mission to find this person.
Sam was surprised that Jazz was able to find her later that evening. Sam had taken up residence in the old hotel room that Danny and Jazz had stayed in. She refused to live in the same house with her parents, the only other people who were very much well aware of Danny's situation, but not to new Danny's knowledge as far as she knew. Her parents actually seemed to think a short separation would do everyone some good and were willing to give her money to find a place to stay, though she refused to say where. The amount of money they gave her was meant for an upscale hotel so she had enough money to stay at his place for at least a couple of months if not more. She had already taken to cleaning some afternoons, so she could save and stay longer because she had no plans to ever to live at home again.
"How did you find me?" she asked from the chair was lounging in, reading a book. Jazz had simply walked right in like she used to and hadn't been surprised to see Sam already in the room.
"Asked around," Jazz promptly replied before shaking her head. "No, that's a lie. The truth is, I had some weird memory of this place and I kind of felt like you might be here. It took me awhile to get here, though. Kind of wanted more time to talk."
Sam's ears perked at this and leaned forward with much interest "You had a weird memory of this place?"
"Yeah, with you and Danny. Like he was freaking out at you and you were terrified. I had to calm him down. He wasn't himself, it was like he'd gone off the deep end," Jazz explained before averting her eyes and looking puzzled. "But I keep having these weird memories pop up," she muttered more to herself. Her recollection of everything sounded so mechanical and uncertain.
Sam put her book down, concerned. "How long have these memories been popping up? Is this why you haven't been in school often? I heard that you were having some kind of trouble from the wreck." She left out that she had been told it was physical and not mental trouble.
"Yes," Jazz nodded promptly. "Since the wreck my memories have been all weird and I keep having strange dreams. Danny and my parents keep remembering different things and the therapist keeps saying I have PTSD but I really think these things happened. That's what I wanted to ask you." Jazz looked at her with wide eyes. "Do you think I'm crazy?"
"No, of course not!" Sam exclaimed, happiness and relief lighting up all her features. She jumped off her chair excitedly, "Finally! Someone else remembers!"
"What?"
"That is a memory! I have that memory, too. You talked Danny down from attacking me. It was in this very room!"
Jazz stared at Sam with wide eyes. "What? Are you serious?"
Sam bobbed her head up and down with so much ecstasy that her hair practically flew around her face instead of just framing it. "Yeah! No one else believe me, either. But it happened. I had no idea you were having memories of it or I would have found you. I thought you still thought you had been at your grandma's!"
Jazz slowly nodded her head and then shook it, not certain where she had been or what to believe. "I mean, I thought I had been there, then I thought I was here, then I saw them both in my memories and…." She trailed off and spread out her hands and shrugged, signaling she had no idea where she had been or how to put the pieces together to see the puzzle. It felt like she had the pieces but not the picture to guide her, she didn't know how they were supposed to fit. "Help?"
"Yes! I can help!"
"Finally! Can I come back tomorrow?"
Sam looked a little crestfallen and remembered how Jazz had expressed earlier she wished she'd had more time to talk. "You have to be somewhere."
With a sigh, Jazz nodded. "Yes, I can't be out long. I had to sneak out and have to get back before dinner. Apparently, all of this is really upsetting to Danny and then my parents get upset and they all think I'm a total nutcase. They keep tabs on me and get really upset if I'm not where I'm supposed to be."
Sam's eyes narrowed at the mention of Danny. Of course, Sam should have put two and two together and realized how dangerous it be for Jazz to stay in such close proximity to what she now considered a toxin. Jazz looked like she could fall apart any minute and didn't show up much to school. Sam was told by Tucker that she had needed physical therapy but now she saw Danny must have told that lie to him and, in turn, he unwittingly told it to her all the while Jazz was essentially being put through a very similar experience to what her younger brother had just been put through. What twisted tragedy, she thought. "We can definitely get together tomorrow."
"Do you mind coming over to my house? I had to basically sneak out. They are keeping constant tabs on me as the therapist implied my delusions could lead to suicide, so they like to know where I am all the time. If you come over, it'll just make my life easier."
Dread filled Sam as she wasn't sure she wanted to enter the "lion's den" but it might be nice to unsettle new Danny so greatly and it wasn't as if the two didn't see each other every day and it was certainly better than her parents house. She also didn't want to risk waiting too long to have this conversation with Jazz. She was sure they could figure out something once she got there. "Yes, I'll stop over tomorrow. Promise."
"Great, see you then!"
Sam watched her leave and smiled, feeling more hope color her world. Today had been good. She nearly jumped a foot when Ezekial greeted her about an hour or so later. She dropped her book, she had been so absorbed in it. He picked it up with a sheepish grin.
"Didn't mean to scare you."
"That's okay." Sam assured him, trying to calm her racing heart. She hadn't quite readjusted to how he just popped up and disappeared with little to no warning.
"See you had company."
"Yes, she remembers some. Or is having flashbacks. I'm going to see her tomorrow to talk more about it. Do you want to come? Maybe I can tell her about you and she can also see you."
Ezekial looked grim. "No, I don't think that'll be necessary."
"What? Me telling her about you or me going over there."
"Me getting to know her, so you telling her about me."
Sam waited for more but when he didn't go on, she pressed the matter. "So, you said earlier it was ultimately up to me if I wanted to change things. What did you mean?"
Ezekial mimicked a living human exhaling through their nose as one does when considering presenting another person with bad news. "Let me tell you." As Ezekial explained, Sam felt the color rapidly disappearing from her world again until it was pitch black.