BVQA: Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry! I thought I'd gotten this done months ago. . .
What makes this worse is that it's the last chapter. I was trawling through my files, came across this, and figured I'd re-read it (because there's a one-shot collection that comes next in the series I've just hit upon some inspiration for) and I noticed the final paragraph was missing. . . meaning I never finished and uploaded it!
*whimpers*
So I'm putting this up now and I'm very, very, very-
Dani: GET ON WITH IT!
BVQA: I'M SORRY, OKAY?!
She woke up.
Well, "woke up" wasn't quite the right way to put it. She hadn't been asleep, but she hadn't been awake either. She hadn't even been herself, and still wasn't. She'd been kind of drifting, lost within herself, but now she had hit the shore again and reopened her eyes on the world.
She had a splitting headache.
She sat up with a groan and almost went right back down again, holding her throbbing head in both hands. She twisted her fingers through her bob of hair, feeling the individual strands start to cut into her fingers. She squinted into the gloom in in front of her, noticing that instead of the sepia haze you got inside of a building the cool, crisp blue permeating the air was that of the outdoors. Glancing up, she figured out why- someone had gone and blown the roof off of the room.
I might have done that. She thought. Then again, I might not have. I don't particularly remember and I think I have a superpower hangover. Meh. Danny would have a field day with all the 'drunk on power' puns he could make.
Danny. . .
She looked at the ground and noticed a scrap of white fabric. She picked it up, dropping one hand from her head, and traced her thumb around the red circle that peaked over the ragged edge, smearing it with half-dried ectoplasm and fresh blood.
Don't think about it.
She wondered why there was music playing.
"Today I'm gonna try a little harder, gonna make every minute last longer, gonna learn to forgive and forget, cause we don't have long, gonna make the most of it. Today I'm gonna love my enemies, reach out to somebody who needs me, make a change, make the world a better place, cause tomorrow could be one day too late. . ."
She reached down, patting her pockets, and noticed she was wearing her jeans. So she was back in Fen- back in human form.
Don't give yourself a last name, because a last name means you need a first name and a first name means you're a person again and you can't handle being a person right now.
Locating her ipod in her back pocket she pulled it out and switched it off. Blessed silence flooded her ears and she felt her headache subside slightly. Her whole body ached, though, muscles she didn't even know she had were sore. Note to self; power surges due to powerful chemical cocktails, while fun at the time, result in a feeling like your insides were just put through a blender and poured back in your skin. Now there was something they should bring up in high school anti-drug assemblies. . .
She stood up, starting to tumble before she caught herself on a burned, half-smashed armchair. Black spots ate up her vision and her head started swimming, but she just tilted her chin forwards and waited until the feeling passed. She carefully walked to the door, one foot in front of the other, and traced her way to the front door from there. Remarkably, the rest of the house was still intact, if empty. A sudden surge of worry ran through her, where was. . ?
She found him as she left the building, back in human form and sitting lethargically on the steps. He stared off absently into the distance, but she knew he was very much aware of her presence.
She closed her eyes.
Dani opened them, and it was Dani who now stood on the steps of Vlad's mansion, staring out into the dusky twilit sky. She must've been out a while, because instead of a wispy blue it looked like someone thrown purple powder over the horizonline, staining the daylight away. Zigzags of orange light were shot through the dark background like lightning bolts through storm clouds. Dani loved looking at the sky, seeing eternity reflect back at her, just as much as she loved sailing through the night as free as a shooting star.
But tonight she was mostly looking at the sky so she didn't have to look at the stooped figure sitting on the steps below her.
"Come to kick an old man while he's down?" Vlad asked, and he couldn't keep the exhaustion out of his voice. Dani realized with a start that he probably was getting too old for this arch-nemesis stuff. "I don't suppose my mansion is still intact, either, not with the amount of rage-based power you built up."
Dani shrugged, more to herself than Vlad, since she could tell he wasn't looking at her. "Just the one room."
"Well, thank goodness for small mercies. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to put my life back together, again," Vlad said with a sigh, then stood in a way that Dani realized looked almost. . . painful.
"How long do we have to do this?" Dani blurted. Vlad glanced at her, looking too tired to be confused.
"Do what?" He snapped. "Do you have a point to get to or are you just intentionally standing between me and my front door?"
Dani shut her eyes, steeling herself for what she would have to do next. She gritted her teeth and glared down at her feet. God, the things she had to do for humanity. . .
Dani stepped forwards, looked Vlad right in the eyes, and held out her hand.
Vlad flinched backwards slightly, twitching his fingers upwards as if to conjure a shield before realizing he wasn't being attacked. Dani scowled.
"You gonna shake, or are you going to stand between me and the way home all night?" Dani asked, scowl deepening. Vlad stared at her for a moment longer, then he took her hand in both of his and a slow smile spread across his face.
"I knew it! I knew you'd rejoin me eventually-" he began, but Dani cut him off as she yanked her hand out of his grip.
"I am not joining you!" She snapped. Vlad hesitated, hands still outstretched.
"Then what. . ?" He trailed off. Dani huffed.
"How long do you think we can keep this up?" she asked, "How long until somebody can't go home? Until someone isn't breathing? How long is it till then, huh?"
"I don't-"
"You don't know. Nobody knows, do they? Until it happens. Until someone goes too far, until something goes wrong, until there's some little accident and someone goes over the edge. We're ending this now, and you are going to apologize and get an apology in kind if I have to drag you by the ears. Got it?"
Vlad looked mildly shell-shocked. "Got it," he said softly. "That doesn't mean I agree, but I got it."
"Good," Dani held her hand out once more. They shook, and to the surprise of them both when Dani took her hand back she didn't even attempt to wipe it down the front of her shirt. "I don't forgive you," she said softly, "And I probably never will, but there's gotta be some other way."
Vlad searched her face, and she felt strangely self-conscious under that icy gaze. At first she thought he hadn't found what he was looking for because he turned away and started down the steps. Then he glanced over his shoulder at her and Dani caught the faintest of smiles. "You've got a one-month trial period. If I'm not satisfied, the truce goes off, got it? Now, if I were you I'd drag a brush through your hair before we drive over to Fentonworks- I haven't touched your room, your stuff should still be there if you didn't blow it up."
Dani felt that faint smile spreading over her own face, but she hid it as she turned away and dashed up the steps into Vlad's mansion. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out her ipod and fished her earbuds from the other one. After a few moments of untangling, she slipped them in and hummed to herself as she ran through the winding hallways.
"I'm staring out into the night trying to hide the pain. I'm going to the place where love and feeling good don't ever cost a thing, and the pain you feel's a different kind of pain. I'm going home to the place where I belong where your love has always been enough for me. I'm running from- you know I think you got me all wrong. I don't regret this life I chose for me, but these places and these faces are getting old so I'm going home. . ."
It turned out, Vlad had been telling the truth. Her room, the place where she'd stayed when she was still living with Vlad, was still the same as it had been. The little room was tucked behind the library, and the best word for it? Cozy. Vlad had been under the unfortunate impression that girls liked pink when he'd done the original decorating, but Dani had done her absolute best to remedy that preliminary mistake. You could hardly see the walls anymore under the spread of Dumpty Humpty posters, and she'd sloshed around a bucket of neon green paint that got on the furniture as much as it did the floor and ceilings.
Maybe I can come back on weekends. Alternate weekends. And Vlad has to leave first.
Rifling through her drawers, she found her beat-up and abused hairbrush exactly where she'd left it. She started to drag it through her hair before catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror and freezing in place.
"Sick!" She shouted, catching at her hair with her empty hand. She flinched as her sore muscles protested the sudden movement, but smiled nonetheless. The ends of her dark hair had been stained white, just as her ghostly form no doubt had black burned into it. She struck a pose and giggled at the absurdity of it all before snagging a dusty red cap from where it had been abandoned on one of her bedposts, jamming it down over her snarly hair. Then she was off like a flash.
"I'm going home. . ."
Vlad was already in his limo when Dani slid in shotgun. He started the car and pulled smoothly out of the driveway.
"Where's your chauffeur?" Dani asked, mostly to fill up space in the air.
"I always give my human assistants the day off when there's a chance of violence. You know that."
Dani shrugged. She didn't really know what to say anymore- she'd covered what she needed to and now the heavy atmosphere in the car was just getting to be too much. She thought back through the week and tried a question that she'd been wondering about for a while.
"What's a 'wandering princess'?" She asked.
Vlad briefly glanced at her before looking back to the road and carefully turning a corner. "It's a legendary figure from the lore of the Far Frozen, almost as infamous as the so-called 'great one'. It tells of a mystical heroine who traverses the earth and ghost zone for a time immeasurable, spreading both peace and justice in her wake. She will never find a true home, but in exchange she will find all the qualities of home in every place she looks. She's actually one of the more popular figures in their lore. Why do you ask?"
Dani had a feeling he already knew, but replied anyway with the answer he was expecting. "No reason. Just. . . the name came up."
"Ah," Vlad said, and the rest of the drive passed in silence. Dani shut her eyes for what felt like a second, but opened them when Vlad's words startled her out of her doze. "We're here."
Dani grinned, then stared out the window as the front door banged open and Danny- yes, Danny- dashed towards the car, Sam and Tucker hot on his heels. Dani felt a shard of ice in her chest melt and float away, letting her breathe properly for the first time since she'd picked up that scrap of bloodstained fabric. She'd been scared, so scared that maybe. . .
No. She'd known it wasn't him. . . hadn't she?
"Just out of curiosity, how did you figure it out?" Vlad asked flatly as Dani flung the car door open. She froze, fingers tracing over the handle. How had she known? How could she explain that sense of right and wrong and alien and friend, all at the same time?
She closed her hand over the pendant hanging around her neck and went with the simplest answer.
"He didn't slam the door."
And then she was washed over in a tide of family, and there were hugs, and shouting and affectionate noogies.
"Dani! I thought-"
"Gone for good, but-"
"Little sis! Knew you'd-"
"Dani!"
Sid and Youngblood tackled her to the tarmac, and the sting in Dani's back was ignored in favor of the chilly arms wrapped around her.
"Hey! That's my sister!" Danny snapped, but he was smiling. "You don't get to steal her out of the group hug!"
"Oh hush." Youngblood stuck his tongue out at Danny, but Sid blushed and let Dani go. She sat up and looked at him questioningly, but with a smile.
"I apologize for my less than chivalrous actions, but I was overcome by joy when you were alright-" Dani cut him off by jumping to her feet (jolting Youngblood to his feet as well) and dragging him to the center of the group cluster.
"Knock it off, Sid!" She teased.
"Wha. . . I wanted to help you up!" He protested weakly.
Dani rolled her eyes playfully. "Chivalry's dead," she reminded him.
"So am I."
The front door banged again and then there were parents, and an older sister, and joy and happiness and-
Dani could see Vlad staring very hard at the steering wheel as he made to start the limo.
Oh no he doesn't. Dani thought.
"Come on, Vlad!" She called, then dragged him out of the car by his wrist.
"Danielle, this isn't wise-" He was cut off as Jack pulled him into a hug.
"V-man! You know what, I thought you wouldn't want to show after what happened!" Jack held Vlad out at arms length in a way that reminded Dani of her older brother and Tucker, only tucker had never looked so. . . awkward while it was happening. Or stared at the ground quite so much.
Dani coughed.
Vlad nearly flinched.
"Jack, I ah. . . I'm sorry," he glanced at Dani as he said it as if waiting for a sarcastic comment. Dani just smiled and tried to get her hair out of Youngblood's grip- where had her cap gone?
"Sorry? Oh, about the lawsuit? No worries, V-man! All's forgiven! If I had to give up a little girl as special as Dani here I wouldn't want to either! For what it's worth, I'm sorry too." He pulled Vlad back into a bone-crushing hug, but the moment Vlad wasn't looking directly at him his obliviously cheerful smile slipped a tiny amount and Dani wondered if he knew what the two "old friends" were really apologizing about.
In the back of Dani's mind, a little girl smiled smugly and shoved a blackened marshmallow into her mouth.
"Do you really think that's a good idea? Vlad could be up to something." Danny muttered in Dani's ear. Dani shrugged, shaking her head.
"He's always up to something, but that doesn't mean we can't try, right?"
Dani smirked, ruffling her hair. "You are wise beyond your years, grasshopper," he said in his very best Yoda voice.
"Yoda doesn't talk like that, smart one," and so saying, she pulled her older brother close and buried her face in the front of his soft red-and-white t-shirt. "I'm really glad you're not dead." She murmured.
"I'm. . . glad I'm not dead too?" It was a question. "What're you talking ab. . . oh, never mind. I'm happy you're back."
"Me too." Dani whispered.
"Ghost at twelve-o-clock! Or. . . possibly half-past five. . . Maddie, what time is it?!" Jack shouted, and every half ghost in the vicinity settled into a discrete fighting stance. Rather than an enemy, however, a pearly-haired ghost in a black jumpsuit tumbled out of the sky and landed a few yards from the group.
"Whoops." Danny muttered, blushing slightly as he relaxed. "Forgot I sent a duplicate out to look for you. My bad."
Dani rolled her eyes and shoved him, awkward sibling hug now officially over. "Stupid-head! Go take care of that!" She teased. Then she felt fingers in her hair, and she rolled her eyes. Youngblood again! "If you don't quit that so help me God I will-" Dani turned and found, rather than Youngblood, a faintly bemused Jazz.
"I was just checking out your new hairstyle, sis. No need to bite my head off."
Dani blushed. "Uh, sorry! Youngblood's been messing up my hair for the past ten minutes."
"Hmm," Jazz mused with a smile, glancing over to where 'Phantom' Danny was having a seemingly awkward conversation with Jack. "Speaking of ghosts, think he'll ever come clean about the whole ghost thing?"
"So, I'm glad my little sis is safe, Dad- uh, Jack," Phantom said, rubbing his elbow awkwardly.
"Me too, son- uh, Phantom." Jack said, looking everywhere but at the 'ghost' boy in front of him.
Dani smirked. "Do you really think he has to?"
"Point taken."
"Anyone up for cake?" Maddie called from the house. "I whipped it up for when Dani got back!"
"You don't even have to ask, Mrs. F!" Tucker called, thinking with his stomach again. "I call first slice!"
"Not if I get there first!" Dani transformed in a flash of light and lifted off the ground, flying towards the front door.
"No fair! That's cheating!" She heard behind her, and soon she was racing forwards with her huge, dysfunctional family hot on her heels.
And, without anyone noticing, her ipod clicked to the last song on the list.
"Oh, when I look back now, that summer seemed to last forever and if I had the choice, yeah, I'd always wanna be there.
"Those were the best days of my life. . ."
The End