LOST

Chapter 38: Secrets Kept, Secrets Revealed

"Danny? What the hell?"

I jerked, swallowed a large gulp and started coughing as about half of the liquid went the wrong way. My eyes started watering as a burning sensation spread through my windpipe and nose. Through my coughs and spluttering, I managed to get to my feet and, leaning against the back of the bench I had been sitting on, glare at the person who had startled me.

"Tucker!" I managed to get out between coughs, "Don't sneak up on me like that."

My best friend didn't look impressed by my glare, the same glare I used on people to scare them off. Instead, he stepped closer and took the bottle out of my hand. I let him. No point in hiding it anymore.

"What's this?" he said, "Vodka?"

I shrugged. "That's what it says."

"You're drinking vodka?"

"Apparently."

I tried to stare him down, challenging him, daring him to say it. He looked at the almost full bottle in his hand and then back at me again.

"Where did you get this?"

"I took it from Vlad's house last night," I lied, "To get back at the fruit loop. Thought I'd try it, see what it tastes like, what the guy so excited about that he has this imported directly from Russia."

I kept my eyes on his face, making sure they never strayed to the bottle he was holding. Tucker blinked uncertainly at me.

"You shouldn't do this," he said finally, "It's not healthy, not to mention illegal. I'm..." He looked down at the ground for a moment, as if to gather courage. "I'm going to throw this out, OK?"

I shrugged. "Sure. Tastes bad anyway. Especially through the nose."

That wasn't entirely true. You got used to the taste after a while. I watched impassively as Tucker held the bottle upside down and let the clear liquid disappear in the grass, his eyes never leaving me. I didn't even flinch when he shook it to clear out the last drops. Only when it was completely empty, he spoke again.

"You should talk to Jazz about this."

Bad idea. Suddenly, I was worried. If Tucker told Jazz then she'd tell my parents and Vlad would probably hear about it too. In which case I was doomed. I couldn't let that happen. I shook my head.

"Come on, Tuck, you're my friend. It was just one sip. No need to worry Jazz about this?"

I blinked at him, trying to give him a sincere, puppy dog look. He hesitated. I threw my hands in the air.

"Tucker!" I said, "Don't be an ass. Jazz is worried enough as it is. I'm going to get Sam out today, and then I'll talk to her, OK? And they're gonna find me a new shrink tomorrow morning, first thing. I'll talk to him or her too, alright?"

He sighed, looked at the bottle once more and seemed to relax a little.

"You've never done this before?"

I looked offended. "Of course not!"

He shifted. His eyes wandered, taking in the bench, the trees, the slightly overgrown, because rarely used, path, and then back at me again.

"And you won't do it again."

I rolled my eyes. "Duh," I said.

His shoulders slumped, and only now I saw how tense he had been. He approached me and shoved the bottle in my backpack. Then he grinned at me.

"You had me worried there for a moment," he said lightly, "Let's throw that thing out at the first available trashcan, alright? Better not get caught with it."

I nodded in agreement, and we set off, leaving my secluded spot in the park. My walk was steady now, my hands were no longer shaking. Actually, I felt pretty good. Especially since in my rather large pocket there was another bottle.

"How did you find me?" I asked, to break the silence.

Tucker laughed a little. "You always used to go here after a bad fight. It's the first place I checked."

Right. Danny Fenton surfacing again. I felt a slight resentment towards my former self. He kept intruding on my life, kept making himself known. I didn't need that, because I didn't know what behavior came form him and what was me. Every time somebody saw some part of Danny in me, I felt offended. As if I wasn't my own person, as if I was only the shadow of the person they'd known. They were all waiting for him to get back. Well, big surprise, he wasn't. Frostbite had told me so.

Brooding, I descended down the hill together with an uncertain looking Tucker. At the first available trashcan, I dumped the empty bottle with only a slight pang of regret, and then glanced up at the clock on one of the high rises in the distance. I could just make out that it was now seven thirty. I had been gone longer than I thought.

"You're up early," I said to Tucker as we walked towards the entrance of the park.

"So were you," he said, "We finished the Fenton Phone Direct Communicator De Luxe tonight around four and then we sort of drifted off, I guess." He glanced at me sideways. "Jazz is... worried."

I raised my eyebrows. "Why? We've got a plan now, a real plan. You both agreed to it. We go to Vlad's, I hop into the zone, find Sam and hop back out again after kicking Aragon's ass." Obliterate him, hold him by the throat and choke him while pouring so much energy into him he'd explode.

Tucker shook his head. "Not about the plan... well, that too, but last night she kept going on how you acted strangely, how you seemed... and now I find you here in the park, drinking..."

Crud. Hadn't fooled him after all. I should have known. I stopped, grabbed Tucker's arms and looked him straight in the eyes.

"Tucker, I'll admit that I made a... mistake. I just needed to relax a little, I'm fine now. Really. There's nothing to worry about, I've got it under control."

"Jazz says you have PTSD."

"Jazz is an amateur psychologist who over-analyzes things. I'm fine. Things are a little rough right now, because I'm worried about Sam, OK? That's all. I'm worried. We all are. So let's not overreact."

I let go of him and started walking again. After a moment's hesitation, Tucker followed, rushing to catch up, and when he did, he had to sort of jog to keep up.

"Danny, slow down," he said, "I didn't mean to upset you. Come on, man, it's me. Tucker. Your best friend..."

I didn't have any friends. I didn't know him. I'd only just met him. I stopped and glared at him.

"You keep telling me that," I said angrily. Somewhere in the back of my head warning bells were going off. "You all know so much about me. Well, guess what. You. Don't. Know. Me!"

I was shouting by the time I finished the sentence. Tucker paled under his dark skin and took a step back. He stared at me, and I stared back. My anger slowly subsided.

"I'm sorry, Tucker," I said, looking down at the ground, "I didn't mean it."

He remained silent. I looked up again. He was shaking his head, a sad look in his eyes.

"You're right," he said, "I don't. You've... changed. You're like a different person." He swallowed. "I didn't realize... how hard it must have been for you. Everybody thinking they know you, but they don't know you at all... including me." He tried to smile. "I'm still your friend, Danny."

Suddenly, I wanted to cry. I turned away from Tucker and started walking again, more slowly this time. We walked to Tucker's house in silence.

Jazz was not pleased. She was sitting behind Tucker's computer, a plate containing a sandwich on her lap. She gave me that look of concerned disapproval again that I had become accustomed to, and opened her mouth to no doubt start one of her lectures. But I knew exactly how to appease her so that she would stop the worry-trip she was on.

"Hi Jazz," I said, flopping down on Tucker's bed while taking a sandwich from the plate standing on Tucker's nightstand, "You're all ready? Are we set to go?"

I wasn't hungry, but took a bite from the sandwich anyway and smiled at the both of them, hoping that my Danny imitation was good enough to fool them. Tucker raised his eyebrows in surprise, and Jazz shut her mouth. Determined not to let Tucker talk to Jazz about what he had just witnessed, I pressed on.

"Let's eat, I'm famished, and then I'll go to see Vlad about his portal... Can I see the new supertastic Fenton Phones De Luxe thingy you guys built? I can't believe you pulled that off. Jazz, it's best that you stay here with Tucker, there's no need to come with me to Vlad's, you'll only annoy each other..."

"Mom called," Jazz said, "She's on her way here."

I shut my mouth with a click. The whole emotional structure I had built up in my head started to sway. I didn't need this... because I wouldn't be able to handle it. Jazz, I could play, Tucker still thought I was Danny, but my mother... she'd had that look in her eyes the day before, when the GIW were questioning me, like she knew something. I knew she no longer saw me as Danny, but as something else.

"No," I said.

I got up, walked to the window and nervously looked outside. The street was empty.

"You're breaking down," Jazz said, "You can't handle it."

I could handle it fine as long as they left me alone. Subconsciously, I started feeling around, reaching for my ghost form that would allow me an easy escape. I turned around, to find Jazz standing next to Tucker's desk, holding the modified PDA and the Fenton Phones.

"Give me that," I said.

"No," she said, "You wait for mom. You can't do this to her."

"I can take it from you easily," I said.

A flash of anger crossed her face. "Yes," she said, "You could. But we have to explain the thing to you. It wouldn't be any use."

A loud rumble, screeching tires outside alerted me to the fact that my father was driving the Fenton GAV. Great. Both my parents. I rushed to the window to look outside, hoping that by some miracle there were two irresponsible RV drivers in town and that I was just mistaken, but my father was already climbing out of the car. I turned back to Jazz.

"Jazz," I said, not liking the desperate undertone to my voice one bit, "Please. I have to find Sam. I can't..."

"Yes. No," she said, "We have to find Sam. Quit trying to do everything yourself, Danny. Let us help you help Sam."

Voices downstairs, friendly chatter. I turned away from my friends, yanked the door open and thundered down the stairs without waiting for them to catch up. Down in the living room my parents and the Foleys were standing, Mr and Mrs Foley obviously confused, my father looking eager and my mother... She turned around when she heard me come down the stairs and simply stared at me. I tried to look back defiantly, but failed miserably.

"Danny," she said, "Agent Z is very put out with you."

"Are they looking for me?" I asked, my hand still on the banister, one foot on the floor and one foot still on the bottom step.

She shook her head. "Not yet. But you have to take that shot."

I shook my head. No matter what Vlad said, I wasn't going to let them stick a needle in me.

"No way," I said.

Somehow, the others in the room seemed to have disappeared. They were still there, looking at us, but for all we cared, they could be statues. I could feel Jazz's presence right behind me on the stairs, but she kept quiet. I shifted my feet and stepped down the last step, straightening.

"You ran away again," my mother said.

She looked hurt, lost.

"I had to," I said, "That guy was gonna stick that huge needle in me with some pink glowing stuff in it. That's sick. Like I don't already get enough glowing stuff to eat back home. They are not going to inject me with that."

"It won't hurt..."

"Yes it will. And I don't have time to deal with it."

"Because you're going after Sam in the ghost zone."

She was stating a fact, not asking a question. I saw the certainty on her face. And something else. Determination. She remained silent after that statement, and it took me a moment to process what she was implying.

"You're not going to stop me?"

Slowly, she shook her head. "I can't," she said sadly, "There really is no way for me to control you, is there... you're seventeen, Danny. I can't lock you in your room anymore, as much as I want to."

She stepped closer, invading my personal space which was actually quite wide. I didn't step away though, as I would have if had she been anybody else. For a moment, I wanted her to hug me, hold me close and tell me everything was going to be alright, that mommy would take care of the bad bad ghosts hiding under the bed, that daddy was a fearless ghost hunter that captured all the ghosts and oh, did I know Mr Fluffy, the stuffed animal bunny I slept with actually warded off ghosts?

I took a step back, hitting my back against the wall. "Don't," I said.

The room darkened. The rough cold wall chafed my back as I slid down to the floor, crumbling into myself, shaking with fear from the looming white figure in front of me. My breathing quickened as I realized I wasn't a ghost right then, that I was just a puny human, a despicable, filthy human, completely against the rules... rules... Come on, boy, say the rules, rule number one, you know it, say it...

A soft voice, slightly hoarse, a stream of words, muttered so quickly it was almost impossible to understand what was being said, cold, cold hands on my shoulders, shaking me. Shouts, coming from far away. I looked up. My vision was hazy. Walker, grinning at me. He was going to shoot Jazz, kill Jazz. I couldn't let that happen. Hatred sprung up in me, energy built, hands started glowing. I wanted his face to crack, wanted his eyes to lose their green color, turning a blinding white instead from the built up energy inside, wanted him to be blon apart, obliterated.

A scream of pain. I shot up.

"Mom!" I yelled.

Everything slammed back into place. The colorful room. The people's shocked faces, looking down on me. My mother, held up by my father, her hair all frizzled, looking... shocked. I looked down at my hands, still glowing, and with some effort retracted the energy. Then I pushed myself up until I was standing completely upright again. The room was deathly silent.

"I...," I said, "I'm sorry." I looked at Jazz, standing next to me, her hand raised as if wanting to touch me but not quite daring to, "I didn't mean..."

My eyes caught sight of the Fenton Phones Tucker and she had worked so hard on the previous night. Her other hand held my backpackl. It hung open, and I could see wires sticking out, part of Tucker's modified PDA and a battered Fenton thermos. Slowly, I took it all from her and she let me. My face twitched, and I forced myself to look back at my parents again. From the corner of my eyes, I caught sight of Mrs Foley, her hand over her mouth, looking at me with something that could be described as pity.

I didn't need pity. I stepped forward, took a deep breath and said, "Mom, dad, I'm really sorry I never told you this, but I'm Danny Phantom."

With that, I reached inside of me, let the cold, ghostly feeling engulf me and transformed into Danny Phantom right in front of their eyes. Then I put on the Fenton Phones, adjusting it until it felt comfortable while hovering in front of them.

"I really am sorry," I said, and then I took off.

OK, so did not expect this to happen...

Anyway, here we go. Next part is about finding Sam, and I need it to be finished completely before I post anything. And seeing as I'm stuck right now, or not stuck, but trying to make a decision on how to proceed (basically, who's gonna capture him :), it might be a while.