11. Memory

He'd never really given much thought to his future beyond diminished dreams of space and the iron will to stay, if not good, better than he might have been, once. He'd certainly never thought about what it might be like to wake up one day and realize that, if he wasn't his own worst enemy, he could certainly resemble him. It might have been easier to bear if it had happened… not overnight. But at least over time.

It wasn't that one night Danny went to sleep and suddenly woke up towering over his family and looking like he bench pressed cars. It was more like… Jazz leaving for a summer internship at a hospital in Virginia. Tucker attending a technology fellowship in New York. Sam being forced to go to Europe with her family.

The only three people in the world who could remember that darker half, even if he no longer existed, gone long enough that any changes they found when they came home would have happened seemingly in the blink of an eye.

Tucker had frozen in utter fear when Danny called his name in the airport. That had made Danny carefully to speak softly or not at all for three days. Jazz had nearly screamed when he'd come from behind to surprise her with a hug. He didn't offer to hug her anymore after that.

But Sam… The night that Sam came home Danny gave it no more thought than the desperate want to see her. He'd slipped through her wall and materialized three feet behind her as she fussed with her lipstick in her mirror. It was something that he'd never forget, the way her eyes went wide as she saw him behind her.

How she'd dropped the lipstick, turned where she stood, her mouth open as she tried to speak. And how she'd finally just slipped backwards, feet stumbling as she tried to move farther away, eyes frightened and mascara smearing as she whispered, "Please don't hurt me."