For the first conscious time in several days, Danny and I were alone together. We had both gone through our police interviews and were now anxiously awaiting the arrival of our parents. I picked at the green hospital blanket, not knowing what to say to him. Without Vlad's cell to bind us together, we had nothing in common anymore. We had no reason to talk to each other.
Somehow, I couldn't wrap my head around that.
"What did you tell the police?" Danny asked.
"Just what we talked about," I answered simply. "I don't think they wanted to push us too far today, anyway."
"No," he agreed. "What happened, though, when we got out? I just remember going to sleep there and waking up here."
"You won't believe it," I told him.
"Try me."
"All right. I carried you out."
I watched his facial expression out of the corner of my eye. His dark eyebrows dipped toward another, and then he shook his head. He leaned forward a little to look at me, and then he shook his head again.
"Sam, you're really little. I know I dropped weight in there, but I just don't see how it's possible."
I shrugged, before smiling at him. "I did it though. Not entirely sure how. Maheen came down earlier and she explained that she found a route for me to take, one that would get me outside. Then she helped position you on my shoulders and off I went."
"Wow," Danny murmured.
I finally lifted my eyes to look at him.
"You saved my life," he stated.
I had to roll my eyes. "Well, if it hadn't been for your sorry ass, I wouldn't have needed to do any saving."
I meant for it to come out teasing and light-hearted. Instead, my words seemed tainted with bitterness and accusation. I sounded like I had when we had first entered the cell; when I had hated him with every part of my being. Somehow, that hatred had lessened over the time we'd spent together in the cell - against my better judgement, mind you. There had been a lot of back and forth in my head concerning Danny and I knew that was far from over. The best course of action would be to walk away from him completely – he only brought me trouble, after all. But I just didn't know if I could do that.
"That's true," he murmured.
I sat there, thinking about what else I could say when I heard heels on the floor outside. My throat closed up as I heard them because, in all of my conscious hours at the hospital, no one had worn heels. I knew of one person, though, who could be conceivably wandering the hospital hallways in heels right now. I held my breath as my mother's head poked slowly around the door, revealing her face inch by inch. She looked at me, and tears began to pour from her eyes. She bolted around the doorframe, moving so fast that I was sure she would slip and fall. Instead, she fell onto the hospital bed, her arms around me.
"Mommy," I gasped, throwing my arms around her neck.
I dug my face into the crook of her shoulder; drank in the sweet scent of her perfume. There had been several dark moments when I thought that I would never hug her again; where I never thought I would feel her arms wrap around me, like this. She kissed the top of my head, ran her hands over my back, settling them on my ribs, as if she wanted to feel the rise and fall of my breath, just to assure herself that I was alive and present.
"Oh, my baby," she murmured into the top of my head, squishing me against her until I couldn't breathe.
I felt an extra weight encircle me from the other side, and I didn't even have to look to know that it was my father. He kissed the top of my head too, where Mother's lips had just been.
"Thank God you're home." He rumbled.
I was about to say something, admit how much I had missed them, when I heard the most inhuman noise; it was a high pitched, screaming sound that couldn't have come from anyone but Danny. Alarmed, I nudged my way through my parents' shoulders so that I could see him. He wasn't in his hospital bed, but was instead kneeling on the floor, his head buried in the wheelchair bound lap of Jazz Fenton.
Jazz; raised from the dead, or rather, falsely murdered by a madman. I felt my heart break a little bit, watching the scene. Though it was supposed to be a happy reunion, there was nothing exciting in the broken heaves of Danny's entire body as he sobbed, unintelligible words bursting from his mouth into Jazz's lap. She was curled over him, her arms awkwardly encircling his waist, her long red hair cascading over his back.
And if Jazz was alive, then Tucker … dare I hope? Tucker was likely alive too.
"Sammy-wammy," Mother cooed to me, distracting me from the scene. "Are you okay? Are you feeling all right? Can I get you anything?"
I watched Jack and Maddie walk into the room, and then I curled into her. "No, just don't leave me."
"Never, never again." Mother squeezed me tightly. "I love you."
"I love you too," I whispered, and then I twisted slightly to give my father a tight hug, "I love you too, Daddy."
"I love you too, honey," Dad murmured. "I love you so much."
(-.-)
It was nearing three in the morning, but neither Danny nor I were sleeping. In the cell, we must have reversed our sleeping patterns. Or we had slept so much these past few days that we couldn't make ourselves close our eyes now. We hadn't said much – both stewing in our own juices, but I was ready to make conversation, that is if he was.
"Still awake?" I whispered.
"Yeah," Danny muttered. "You excited to go home in the morning?"
"More than you can imagine … Actually, you're probably the only person in the world who could imagine it." Though our parents had very strongly wanted to take us both home yesterday, the hospital had insisted that we stay another night for observation; something that both sets of parents eventually caved to. We had been allowed to go down to the cafeteria to eat and had stayed there most of the day – it felt close to normal, and I hadn't wanted to return to the hospital room before I had to.
"It's going to be so strange. I mean, even this feels surreal. Showers; real bathrooms; real fuckin' food. It's like a dream."
"And more than each other to converse with," I joked. "Sometimes."
"And Jazz is alive. And Tucker's alive."
The words brought a smile to my face.
"I didn't ask earlier, but Jazz's wheelchair …?" I trailed off, unsure of how to phrase the rest of the question.
"Scary looking, isn't it?" Danny mused. "When she was attacked, there was damage done to her legs. It's not irreparable, but it's a long journey back to walking. She said the doctors were confident that she'd be able to do it, and she's walking over 50% of the time now, I guess."
"Oh, that's good."
"And she said Tucker isn't 100% normal, either."
"But he's alive," I pointed out. "The world is a much better place than we thought it was."
"It is," Danny agreed.
"So, what's going on with Tucker?" I returned to the topic of our friend.
"Uh, Jazz said some kind of amnesia. I can't remember the exact name. She says it's not that bad; that sometimes he blanks on random words or events, but it's good. It's all good." He said, with forced optimism in his voice, although his tone then became honest, "I'm just glad they both survived. Not that their lives will make me go any easier on Vlad and Elliot, once I get my hands on them."
I hesitated and then asked, "What are you going to do to them?"
"Haven't quite decided yet," Danny tried to keep his voice light, but I could hear the dark undertones.
I shivered from the force in his voice. Now that he was allowed to use his powers again, now that he had a grudge to settle, I was fearing what would happen to Vlad and Elliot. Whether they deserved to die or not wasn't for me to decide; but I didn't want Danny to become a murderer, not because of them.
"Are you going to kill them?" I asked bluntly.
"I don't know," Danny answered, completely honest. He shifted in his hospital bed so that he was lying facing me. I could see the blue glint of his eyes, as it was never dark in the hospital. "If I let them live, Vlad will come after us again, do worse than he did last time. Letting them go also scares me because I don't know exactly what Vlad's master plan is. He's still working on that, and since we've been unconscious the past few days, I worry what he's gotten up to. And if I don't kill them, then what am I going to do with them?"
"I … I don't know. I'd just hate to see you with blood on your hands."
"Me too … I don't want to become anything like him."
"When you do whatever it is you do," I began, "will you come tell me? I need to know, for my peace of mind."
Danny propped himself up on his elbow, frowning at me. "You want to see me, after?"
I sat up more against my pillows and drew my knees up to my chest. I laid my head on top of my knees and faced him. "I … just for that one thing."
There was a sour taste in my mouth as I said it, as if those words weren't the ones that were supposed to be coming out of my mouth.
"I … I can understand that," he murmured. "Whatever makes you happy."
Words bubbled into my brain; phrases that I should be saying to him. They jumbled around in my head, though I knew that I should tell him that I didn't quite hate him anymore. There was more I knew I wanted to say, but I didn't know how to say it, so I just began, "Danny –"
I cut myself off immediately. With that one word, something significantly changed in his face. His entire body seemed to lighten. His lips curled at the corner and his light blue eyes seemed to become the colour of a cloudless sky.
"What?" I pressed, trying to understand the change that had come over him.
"That's the first time you've ever called me by my name."
Whatever else I was going to say to him was immediately swallowed inside my brain as he made this revelation. Without thinking, I slunk down the length of my pillows, turned onto my non-injured side so that my back was to him, and pulled the blanket over myself.
His name.
Throughout our entire relationship, he had never been Danny to me. He had been Phantom; Fenton; Jack, when he was lying to me; even ass hat. But I'd never called him Danny. I didn't know when that had slowly changed, when I'd begun referring to him as Danny in my head, but that's not what mattered to me now. What mattered to me now was what it meant. Names were powerful things.
There was a lot that I had to sort out about Danny, and I was determined not to put it off.
While in the cell, I thought that I had felt something for him; a tiny little pull inside of me, that reminded me of butterflies brushing the inside of my stomach. I didn't think that I could trust that feeling now. Inside the cell and outside the cell were too very different places, with very different rules. Inside of the cell, we had needed to rely on one another; we had needed to trust one another completely. There was no wonder that I had started thinking that I felt something there, especially considering our history.
But I couldn't deny that my opinion on Danny had changed. I had to acknowledge that I no longer hated him completely. I didn't think that I had forgiven him for his actions – I didn't know if they could be forgiven – but I had to realize that the person who had done that to me was not the same person that was sleeping in the bed across the room from me. I didn't know how much he had changed, and I didn't know whether or not I could trust that change, but it was there, it was very real.
I was beginning to develop a headache from these considerations, but I knew that I would not rest peacefully until I had reached some sort of conclusion. I closed my eyes tightly, and thought about what I wanted my future to look like, and what kind of a role I wanted Danny to play in it. I didn't think I wanted him to have a big role in my future, if only because when he'd had that role, all he did was hurt me. I wasn't healed from that wound, and I didn't want to risk reopening it. That being said, I didn't know if I could imagine a future where he ceased to exist. Once, that was all I wanted: to pretend that Danny didn't exist whatsoever. Now, I didn't know if I could imagine that.
Just take a step back, I advised myself, give yourself time to breathe. Once you've recovered fully from this cell business, we can figure out what do about Danny. You're allowed to take your time.
After a moment, I thought: Yes, good advice. We'll go with that plan.
I don't own anything recognizable. Thanks to my betas: Forever Sky.
~TLL~
