Chapter 46

He was so dead. They leapt out the window on the eighth floor of the building and plummeted toward the hard pavement of the alley behind the building. How they would survive without at least a few dozen broken bones, Danny couldn't see an answer. In fact, he couldn't see at all because after they smashed through the window Dan shot at, he had screwed his eyes shut, not wanting to see a painful end rising swiftly to meet them. He squeezed his arms around Dan, praying for some miracle to save them.

He was a ghost, or at least, he was half ghost. Ghosts had the ability to fly. Danny was fairly certain that was fact. It made sense, somehow, though it was hard to think of the scientific explanations when he might end up being full ghost in a matter of moments. But if flight didn't work, maybe he could turn them intangible so they wouldn't slam into the ground. Flight, he thought, would be much better for their current situation.

"Woo!" The shout was right in Danny's ear. "I can't believe it. Did you do that?"

Slowly, Danny cracked open his eyes and stared over one of Dan's shoulders. They hovered a few feet off the ground, still alive and without injury. He released his breath, sagging as all the tension rushed out of him. They hit the pavement, and Dan grunted as he landed on his back with Danny on top of him. He laughed, pressing his forehead against the man's shoulder. His body shook, and he thought tears had sprung to his eyes, but he couldn't help it, even the little sob that escaped him. They were alive! And somehow he had activated his ability to fly. Or, at the very least, he could hover.

"I don't mean to interrupt the moment or anything," Dan said, "but I think-" The blare of sirens grew closer.

"Right." Danny needed no other prompting to retreat away from the building before the firemen and police arrived. He climbed to his feet then wobbled as a dizzy spell hit him. "Hey!" he yelped when the mercenary lifted him into his arms.

"We don't want to hang around here. Think you can manage that invisibility trick?" Dan walked down the alley at a quick pace.

Danny huffed in irritation at being carried but turned them both invisible so they could escape without the police spotting them. He hated being carried around like a child, but part of him was glad for the chance not to think for a while. The sounds of the sirens faded in the background as they fled farther away. Danny stared up at the sky, the stars twinkling in the breaks of the clouds. Not a storm, he hoped.

"My job would be a lot easier if I had that skill."

Something warm touched the side of his head, and Danny jerked away. He blinked several times as he took in his surroundings. "Where are we?" He lifted his gaze to Dan as his brow creased with confusion. From what he saw, he sat on the ledge of a building looking over the downtown area of Amity Park.

Dan joined him, throwing his legs over the ledge. "Good to see you're back with me." He held something out, and when he looked, Danny saw it was a to go cup from the local coffee shop.

Danny took the cup, deciding something warm would be nice after being out in the chilly weather. "Sorry." He frowned then after a moment snorted. "That was all very heroic, huh?" He could only imagine how pathetic he had to look to the other man. He groaned internally when he realized he spaced out in the arms of a killer.

"I won't tell anyone," Dan said, and Danny could practically see the man's grin, even with the mask hiding his face. "And anyway, you at least didn't scream the entire way down."

"Oh, well, I'm glad I still have a small piece of my pride intact." Danny sighed, drawing his legs up so he could rest his chin upon his knees. "How are you so calm after that? We could be lying back there broken and dead after that fall, and you act like it was nothing."

"Eh." Dan shrugged. "It wouldn't be the first time I've done something stupid without thinking it through first. Actually, I would have to say I do that a lot. But in my line of work, you don't always get the time to think through every scenario. It's good to have a plan ahead of time. That part is true. And you definitely should check things out before diving into a situation. But when the fighting comes, well, sometimes stuff happens that you can't plan for and you have to improvise. That's where crazy, stupid ideas come into play."

"Like jumping out a window eight floors up?"

"It was that or get blown up. I took a chance." Dan smacked him on the back. "And hey, you learned a new ability."

Danny felt a swell of excitement, wanting to practice his new ability. Then he deflated when he realized he owed it to Dan for his stupid move. "You jump out windows a lot then?"

"Smooth." Dan leaned back on his hands. "Quite a few times. Hurts a lot."

"And you're not dead?"

"I guess Death decided it didn't want to take me yet."

Danny stared at the man beside him, not entirely sure what to make of him. Dan was a mercenary, a killer. Danny should hate him. He should knock Dan out and leave him on the front steps of the police department. But somehow, Danny felt comfortable just sitting there with the man. Right here, like this, he could almost image Dan was just an ordinary man. Everything would be easier if Dan wasn't a mercenary.

"All of that just now," Danny took a shaky breath, "that wasn't you, right?"

"I am deeply offended by that!" Dan slapped a hand over his chest like something had struck him in the heart.

Danny narrowed his eyes. "You do kill people for a living. You even said explosions were fun. And what happens? We find dead bodies and the place explodes."

"And why would I blow myself up?"

"To throw me off!" Danny knew he was grabbing desperately at straws. Even if Dan did want to throw him off, it was an awfully big risk, especially when neither of them knew Danny could fly, hover, levitate, or whatever he did back there.

"I wasn't there to kill them."

"But you admit you were going to kill someone."

Dan turned his head toward Danny. The silence stretched on. "I don't have to explain my job to you."

"It would be nice if you gave me some sort of explanation!" Danny shouted, nearly crushing the cup in his hands. "You knew someone was targeting me. You showed up to make sure they didn't kill me." Frowning, he put the cup down on the ledge then turned to face Dan. "Is that it? Is that why you were there tonight? Because the same guy was trying to get me again?"

"It's not always about you!" Dan was on his feet in a flash.

Danny scrambled to his feet, knocking the cup over and spilling the coffee onto the rooftop in the process. The mercenary was gone by the time he looked up. Danny sighed, rubbing at his head tiredly. What was that outburst about? Frowning, he bent down to pick up the fallen cup. Whatever, Danny thought as he walked toward the roof door leading back into the building. He didn't need to add thinking about Dan's weirdness to his list when he already had too many things to worry about.

He headed down the stairs, invisibly in case anyone was still in the building, as he turned over the events of the evening. Someone had killed two people then blew up the laboratory. But why? Was it in hopes of erasing evidence? He shook his head, trying to clear it of the jumbled thoughts. When he stepped out of the building, a few snowflakes drifted lazily from the sky. He shivered, happy it was merely from the cold, then jogged down the street to find where he had left his bag.

By the time he arrived at home, a thin layer of snow coated the ground. Danny entered the house then reached up and ran his hand through his hair to shake out the snow. He passed the doorway to the front room on his way to the kitchen when he paused then backtracked a few steps.

"You were out late." His mother frowned severely at him.

"But I'm back before curfew." Danny walked into the front room, his gaze focused upon the big Christmas tree standing in front of the window. He hadn't noticed it on his way into the house because he wasn't paying attention. Cujo was rolling around on the floor with a string of garland tangled around him, looking like he was greatly enjoying himself.

"It's a Friday," his father said, grinning as he pulled out ornaments from a box. "I'm sure Danny and his friends just wanted to have some fun. Come help us." He waved Danny over as he stood.

"You got a tree." Danny dropped his bag by the doorway then walked into the front room.

His father glanced to his wife then back to Danny. "Oh." His jolly expression fell, and he grimaced like he was just punched in the gut. "We thought - Well, it will be Christmas soon." He sighed as he sat back down on the couch. "It's going to be strange without Jazzypants here too."

Danny felt like the bottom of his stomach had just fallen away. How could they think of celebrating Christmas without Jazz? He walked over to where his father sat and reached into the box on the table before the couch to grab an ornament. "Jazz wouldn't want us to just skip Christmas," he said as he hung the ornament on the tree. The ornament was a little pinecone angel that he and Jazz had made when they were little and had somehow survived the years. Danny smiled softly as he remembered making it with his sister.

"Ah! We still had those?"

Danny glanced over at his mother, who had come to stand beside him. She reached out to hold the pinecone angel in her hand with a smile on her face.

"The two of you went nuts making them for Christmas that year. I swear we had hundreds of them by the time you both finished." His mother laughed at the recalled memory. "I had to send some to my sister because there were so many."

"I managed to sell a couple," Danny admitted. "Because of that, I was able to save up enough to get Jazz her Bearbert toy."

His mother wiped a tear from her eye. "Jazz really treasured it."

It hurt thinking back on those memories. Danny felt a sharp pain in his chest. But in a way, it was good. The memories remained clear and vivid in his mind. He wouldn't be forgetting all the time he spent with his sister any time soon.

"Oh," his father said, drawing their attention to where he remained sitting on the couch. In his hands, he held a familiar red stocking with white trim on top. "Jazz's stocking." He frowned as he lifted his gaze. "What should we do with it?"

His mother frowned, holding a hand to her cheek as she considered. "We could still hanging it up." She turned her gaze to Danny with a worried crease on her brow. Even his father watched Danny carefully, like they were waiting to see what his reaction would be. "What do you think?"

From his parents' expressions, Danny got the impression they didn't want to do anything that might be too painful on him. They were hurting too, but they put aside their feelings for his sake. Danny put on a smile. "Yeah. We should totally put it up. Jazz might be," he hesitated, "gone, but she's still with us in spirit. Ah, I don't mean like a ghost though," he added hurriedly before his parents could misinterpret his meaning. "I just meant that she might be gone, but she's not gone gone. She's still here." He dropped his gaze, feeling flustered with his poor explanation.

His mother wrapped her arms around him, embracing him tightly. "We know," she told him quietly.

His father came over to join them, dragging both wife and son into a big bear hug. Cujo barked as he trotted around them with the string of garland trailing behind him. It was warm and comforting, but in the back of his mind, Danny couldn't forget this hug was because of his sister's death.

"Well," his mother said as she wiggled her way free from the hug, "I think I'll go make us some hot cocoa to drink while we finish decorating the tree." Leaving them alone, she walked into the kitchen, but Danny was sure he saw her wiping tears from her eyes again.

"She wasn't sure if we should celebrate this year," his father admitted in a low tone as he walked over to the box of decorations. "Without Jazz, it seemed like it just wouldn't be Christmas." He pulled out another ornament to add to the tree. "But it would feel strange not to celebrate Christmas too."

"I don't think Jazz would want us to ignore holidays just because she's gone." Danny grabbed some more ornaments from the box. "We can't just put things on pause. We just have to keep moving forward but still remember her."

His father ruffled his son's hair. "You're growing up and getting so wise." He sighed wistfully. "And you'll be going off to college after next year." With a frown, he added another ornament. "It's all gone by so quickly. I can't believe you'll be a senior next year. I still keep thinking of you as my little boy."

Danny rolled his eyes with a light smile. "Well, I'll always be your son, though I'm not so little anymore." He would be graduating next year. Another ornament went up on the tree. He couldn't believe it either. Soon, he would have to start looking at colleges and filling out college applications. But he shook his head, deciding to worry about such things later. For now, he would focus on his upcoming break giving him a little time to relax.


Tetractys: Poor Danny. Lance Thunder and Walker just want to blame him for everything! I bet they thing the world's economic problems are his fault too!

IAMTHEGHOSTCOW: Or *scratches chin and looks away* you know, some other government organization. Spectra's a bit aggressive. XD;;

YumiStar: Dan: "Do as I say not as a I do!" XD They're in that weird phase of their relationship. XD;; Haha. Though, I think, technically, Dan hasn't killed anyone since his first encounter with Phantom.

ZoneRobotnik: Haha. Well, I don't think anyone ever accused Dan of being sane. XD

jessiejr21: Danny's too young to have kids! XD Maybe in a few years. *shot*

simplegayme: XD More interactions, woo! Now Danny just needs to realize how much he likes Dan.

Poohbearmorris: XD I won't kill them. Maybe hurt them... a lot. But not kill. XD;;

HawkeyeLover: Dan is the king of not thinking things through. XD

jelloshots99: I'm pretty sure Dan enjoyed having Danny pinned to the floor too. *shot* XD