author's note: I'm currently dithering on whether or not I'll even continue this at all. It doesn't have a title, I've lost what I wrote of it after Word crashed (lying that it had autosaved this file), and the handwritten notes planning where things would go after this. It might just have to one- or two-shot-ify it. Reign over the Frozen Heavens is similar, but is a Bleach crossover.
on the other hand, #9. references this 'fic, which makes it hard to just abandon.
#12.
Chapter 1: The Beginning
It was simply an odd coincidence that she happened to be there, on that afternoon, or thus it seemed at the time. Stranger still was that she was there, and that Sam Manson, whom anyone would have expected to be there, wasn't. The reason for both of these was actually quite simple: a school project, assigned by Mr. Lancer (first name unknown), who, feeling that students had become too set in their self-chosen groups (as many teachers mysteriously do), had utilised the time-honoured tradition of randomly creating groups by picking names from a hat. To make learning more "fun", every group had been assigned a chapter to read and then "liven up" in a manner of their choosing. He had evidently felt that this was a good way to "ease back" into school following the return from Christmas break.
It wasn't working.
The hat—for it was never Mr. Lancer's fault—had situated Valerie as the odd woman out in the normal group of Danny, Sam, and Tucker, switching her out with Sam, who in turn had been stuck with Kwan—who happened to be Valerie's boyfriend—and Star, Valerie's best friend. That the groups had otherwise formed along logical lines suggested that someone up there was laughing at Valerie Gray.
It was one of those long, weighty projects, the ones that took several days and a weekend to complete, which made no one in the class too happy with their teacher. To get it done—to get it over with—required spending time outside school with the other members of your group. For happily formed groups such as that of Dash, Paulina, and Mikey—the nerdy boy who exulted in doing Dash's bidding—this was an easy and agreeable enough way to spend their time, especially as Mikey was doing all of the work. For the less happily chosen groups, the work was tedious and unending.
One reason for this was the natural high animosity between the popular, "A-Listers", and the outcast invisibles such as Sam, Danny, and Tucker. But add on to that Sam's defiant streak of independence and rebellion, and what ensued were hours spent arguing about the virtues and vices of popularity. Meanwhile, Valerie, the sole A-Lister in her group, had to put up with constantly being ignored or (she suspected) insulted by the two boys in her group, who spent the rest of their time slacking off and sharing in-jokes. Evidently, Tucker and Danny had been friends since they were little, and Sam had been a recent addition when they had started high school. Strangely enough, it was almost… lonely, sitting there reading and rereading their assigned chapter and trying to think of something that could be done to make the dreary work fun. An A-Lister she might be (owing to her father's wealth, and thus high social standing), but she cared about her grades, too. This looked like a project she would have to do all by herself.
She refused to let these two nobodies into her house, and Tucker, regretfully, assured them that his parents had forbidden him to have guests over for the next month—owing to something which he and Danny and Sam had done, but which Valerie couldn't figure out. His only regret, as she well knew, was that he had a bit of a crush on her, and would have loved the thought of having the popular girl over at his house.
With Valerie and Tucker's houses out of the question, all that remained was Danny's house, which was famous throughout town, mostly because Danny's parents were famous throughout town. Valerie had to admit that, deep down, even she was intrigued enough by the rumours and gossip to want to visit—just once—and see how much truth there was to them. Now, a convenient excuse offered itself up to her, and she couldn't back down from it. She suspected that Tucker's excuse had been, likewise, more excuse than reason. Something was going on at the Fenton household, but then again, when wasn't something going on at the Fenton household?
It was well-known from the highest echelons to the lowest dregs of the social ladder at Casper High (or of Amity Park, period), that Jack and Madeline Fenton were a couple of nuts who believed in ghosts of all things, and spent all of their time inventing various contraptions meant to "deal with" ghosts. Their daughter, Jasmine Fenton, currently sixteen, was a sophomore at Casper High, and often complained about her parents' wackiness, fearing that it might somehow "rub off on" her. Because there was nothing at all strange about giving free advising and psychiatric sessions to anyone who asked it. These sessions usually ended with Jazz spouting a bunch of long, clinical terms at her hapless victim, with an encouraging smile suggesting that what she said was intended to be helpful. Currently, she was in her room at the Fenton home, and Valerie, who did not consider herself in need of therapy, fervently hoped that their paths would never cross while she was here. Meeting the parents had been awkward enough.
Forewarned about their over-enthusiasm, Valerie had worn one of her more worn and workaday outfits—the same casual clothes she wore to art class—though all in still a quite vibrant yellow-orange scheme. This had the added bonus of being a subtle insult at the losers she had to spend the weekend with.
How fortunate for her that she had done this; she barely avoided Jack Fenton's seemingly automatic response to a stranger arriving on the doorstep—namely, being shot at with a gun which shot nets. Daniel Fenton seemed at once horrified at and resigned to his father's odd behaviour.
"Dad! This is Valerie Gray, a girl who goes to my school. She is not a ghost!"
In response, Mr. Fenton peered closely at Valerie, doubtless examining her for any spectral traits. He found a girl of fourteen, athletically built, with toned muscles suggesting she worked out a lot, dark-skinned, with curly black hair held back with a broad orange headband, and the same green eyes that half of the town seemed to possess. He went over the list in his head of ghostly traits, but aside from the green eyes, which research suggested to be a common eye colour for ghosts, everything about the girl seemed human. He changed his mind about her in a heartbeat, suddenly becoming hyper about how great it was that Danny had made a new friend, to whom he could blather on about ghosts. Madeline Fenton, looking on, smiled, shaking her head fondly, and apologising quietly to Valerie for her husband's enthusiasm.
"Say, where's Sam? I thought she was usually the one who came over here. Unless Danny has a new girlfriend," Jack said conspiratorially, and Valerie resisted the urge to glare at him. Childish or not, Jack Fenton was still an authority figure, who could still get her in trouble with her dad for being disrespectful.
Danny also choked a bit hearing this, "She's not my girlfriend!" he said, staring at his Dad in undisguised shock. "There's a school project. Mr. Lancer assigned her into our group, that's all. Well, if there's nothing else you want us for, we're going to my room. 'Kay, thanks, bye!"
He spoke in a rush at the end, clearly eager to be away from his parents' antics.
"Well, all right, Danny," said his mother, calling after him as he climbed the stairs to his room, motioning for the other two to follow. "We'll just be down in the lab if you need us. I'll be making supper in a couple of hours, if your new friend wants to stay for dinner."
And pulling a skin-tight mask over her head—hiding her violet eyes behind red goggles and most of the rest of her head—barring only her mouth and chin, underneath the tight-fit cerulean material—she walked away, further into the house, with Jack Fenton in tow.
"And they're almost done. Imagine how much worse they'll be if it works," Valerie heard Danny mutter aside to Tucker, who looked at him in undisguised pity. Valerie didn't have time to wonder what he meant when Danny turned to her, saying, "Come on. There should be enough space to work in my room—I kind of haven't cleaned up in a while, though, so watch your step."
And now they entered his room, with walls covered with pictures of rockets and planets and galaxies, and a ceiling painted blue spangled with stars, and books scattered all over the floor, not to mention toy rockets, and models in varying stages of completion.
"My parents are into ghosts; my sister is into psychology; me, I want to be an astronaut," he explained briefly. "Now, no offence to you, but let's get this done as quickly as possible. I'd rather neither of you were here tomorrow."
Valerie looked up from where she had been pulling her textbook out of her bag. "What's so big about tomorrow, Fenton?" she asked, with ill-disguised curiosity. Her curiosity only increased when Danny and Tucker exchanged a long-suffering look.
"You probably won't be able to avoid hearing about it at dinner, so I'll tell you," Danny said at last, sitting on his bed, legs akimbo, one hand resting on his forehead as if to stave off a headache. "It's been all my parents can talk about for quite some time, the culmination of years of work and research. They're making a—they're trying to—they're building a door between worlds!" he finished in a rush. "An inter-dimensional portal, meant to connect to the world where they believe ghosts reside!"
There was a moment of silence, in which Valerie wondered if she could possibly have heard correctly, and then, she couldn't help it, she burst out laughing. The very idea—the whole concept—was so ludicrous that she wondered how two—supposedly—brilliant individuals could believe it in the first place…. If not for their reputation, she might have thought it a false tale created by Danny or the elder Fentons themselves, but, combined with their reputation, it seemed to be the sort of thing that they might do.
She wasn't worried about insulting Danny Fenton, and thus was not relieved when he and Tucker joined in with her laughter.
"I know, I know, it's absurd," said Danny with an easy smile. "Still, part of me wonders…."
Valerie said nothing. The truth was, part of her wondered as well.
Valerie was surprised to find that the Fentons were pleasant enough company, even when they were blathering on about ghosts. Madeline Fenton—who was Maddie to adults, and Mrs. Fenton to kids—was especially careful to be pleasant and normal throughout dinner, even occasionally steering her husband away from the sensitive topic. Jasmine Fenton spent the meal with her nose in a psychology book, occasionally looking up to narrow her eyes at her parents and mutter under her breath. Danny and Tucker had both warmed up to her a little—in Tucker's case, this meant an increase in poorly constructed come-ons, but Danny, who did not have a crush on her, instead talked about normal topics, like school and hobbies. He seemed very interested when she talked about how she was a ninth-degree black belt, and the amount of work she had put into martial arts. She knew he was a loser, but no one was around to see her, and her father had outright encouraged her to stay with the Fentons for dinner—he was busy at work, and a sleepover sounded like the sort of fun his daughter hadn't had since she had started growing up. She shuddered at the mere thought of spending the night, but she had to admit that Danny really seemed to be trying to make her feel welcome. Sure, when the project was all over, they'd go back to being too distant on the social ladder to shout at one another, but why not roll with things while they were happening? After all, there was nothing she could do to change that they were stuck with one another for the length of this project, and she was sure that Sam Manson and Kwan and Star were driving each other mad. Valerie was too smart to take a course of action that would only make her miserable.
So she sat there, and tried some of the food, and found that Maddie Fenton was not a bad cook, and meanwhile did indeed receive a great deal of information about the Ghost Portal, which was almost done. "It shouldn't take more than a few more hours," said Mrs. Fenton excitedly. "Isn't it exciting, kids? You'll be witness to the first ever permanent bridge between this world and the Ghost Zone!"
Wait. She would be present? Just what did that mean?
And meanwhile Danny, too, was holding his hands up, waving them in the gesture that was almost universally recognised as meaning "stop". His parents, however, seemed blissfully unaware of the meaning of this symbol, continuing to natter on about the portal, and about how lucky Valerie was to be able to witness such a feat, and that they would be sure to wake them up when the portal was finished. There was no escaping spending the night, and she would probably be grounded if her father discovered that she had spent the night at home, alone. He was just that overprotective. And, a part of her hesitated to admit, she was just a bit curious. Perhaps it was because of her mother, dead these past five years, and counting, but Valerie felt intrigued by an idea she had never before given much consideration to: did ghosts exist? And if so, what were they, really?
She paid close attention to Jack's lectures on ghosts, suddenly, yearning to have her questions answered, but not daring to ask them herself. What were ghosts? What were their natures? Were they the spirits of the deceased? If so, were they recognisable and human, or strange and grotesque? Did they retain their memories, or was the afterlife a new sort of life, complete with being born with a clean slate? What could they do, and what couldn't they do? How did they act?
Jack and Maddie answered some of these questions, particularly about the natures of ghosts, rather indirectly, going on about how, according to their research, most ghosts were merely collections of masses of ectoplasm hell-bent (no pun intended) on wreaking havoc on the lives of the living. Her mother would never become a monster like that, Valerie decided. But, perhaps they were wrong….
Valerie had had trouble falling asleep, wondering just when the Fentons would wake her up to show her the portal. As it turned out, this happened about two o'clock in the morning. Jack pounded on the door, and the three of them, who had been half-expecting such a knock all night long, immediately shot out of bed. They were still wearing their day clothes—who knew how much sleep they'd be allowed to get?—and were almost immediately alert. The entire house seemed filled with some sort of spiritual energy, but Valerie knew that was just anticipation at work. Danny's younger sister, Jazz, was still awake when Maddie came to knock on her door, and threw her own door open shortly after Jack banged on Danny's door. Who would have known that the legendary genius Jazz Fenton occasionally had to pull an all-nighter or two, herself?
All of them, Fentons and guests alike, hurried down to the lab, which was in the basement of the Fenton family home, in an excited, almost reverent silence. Now was the moment of truth. Would the portal work?
The moment when Jack and Maddie plugged the extension cord—running power from the power outlet into the power source for the portal—was anticlimactic, at best. It shot out a couple of sparks, but nothing else happened. Eventually, after waiting a couple of minutes for something, anything, to happen, the Fentons were forced to concede defeat.
"I don't get it. Why didn't it work? The one we made back in college may have malfunctioned, but there was at least a reaction," Maddie said.
"Well, we'll look at it again tomorrow. Sleep on it. Maybe there was something we forgot to include…" said Jack, sensibly. "Perhaps we shouldn't have stayed up so late working on it."
And they filed back off to bed, closely followed by Jazz, whose paper was not quite finished.
Valerie was surprised to find herself… disappointed. All along, in the forefront of her mind, she had thought this was simply yet another crackpot vision, but now, seeing the friendly, maternal Maddie Fenton's and the childlike, excitable Jack Fenton's shoulders droop in disappointment, she realised that it was more than that. It was the death of a dream.
Danny seemed to feel much the same way as she did. "Oh, man, I didn't know. I mean… I knew it was important to them—they've been working on it since they were in college, but somehow…. I mean, I guess in a way, before, it was just another one of my parents' embarrassing projects."
"I don't know about you, but I'm going to bed," said Tucker, not paying attention, but rather yawning widely.
It was true that, now that the portal was revealed to be for some reason not working, all of the excitement had gone out of standing around. Danny and Valerie felt tired, too. Perhaps that was fogging their minds?
The next day, Maddie Fenton was to be seen only when she came upstairs to fix meals for the family. She spent the rest of her time down in the lab, working on the portal. They still couldn't find out what was wrong with it, despite taking it apart piece by piece (unplugging the power first, of course, just in case). They had checked to make sure there were no kinks in the wires, that every bolt was tight, and all the pieces were in their proper positions. They took it apart and reassembled it, scrutinising every piece in an absent-minded manner, examining every screw in the tunnel that was the heart of the Ghost Portal. Then, they plugged the power in again. Maddie and Jack did not even bother wearing their facemasks. They didn't really believe it would work this time, either. They had seen no flaws in any of the materials.
They took it apart, checking every part again. They looked at the on and off switch located within the tunnel—they had to take a flashlight—it was dark in there—to find that all of the wires seemed to be properly connected. With the power connected, the portal should have worked. They spent the entire day on the project, and worked well into the night. Twenty-four hours after what they had thought was their greatest victory, they at last conceded defeat. They just quit.
During all this time, Danny, Valerie, and even Tucker threw themselves into their work—Tucker because with Danny concentrating on the project, there was no one to talk to, more than because he didn't want to think about the portal. There was only so long you could play on your PDA before it became… routine. And the bickering was distracting. They drew up outlines of key concepts in the chapters, and argued about what was a key concept for a bit. Tucker didn't really care, but Danny was insistent. It slowed their progress, when really they wanted to have finished already. Thus did they discover two things that Danny and Valerie had in common: they both wanted good grades, and they were both incredibly stubborn in their beliefs. A sort of standoff ensued, with neither side budging an inch. Valerie eventually had to call her father to tell him that she was spending another night.
And all the while, the memory of that morning lingered in the back of their minds, and their curiosity grew and grew. As the day went on, their reservations over the danger of tinkering with a potentially dangerous experiment were overcome with gentle coaxings from their more curious sides. I'll just look at it. I won't even touch anything. It doesn't work anyway. Neither one told the other what he was thinking, each resolving to wait until Maddie and Jack went to bed, and then a bit longer.
And, at two thirty in the morning, Danny, who was wide-awake on account of excitement, gently sat up, swinging his legs down and lowering his feet cautiously until they touched the floor, with only the barest noise. That was enough to wake Valerie Grey, who had been struggling to remain conscious ever since the lights had been turned out. She glanced in the direction of the noise, and saw Danny rise to her feet. With much less discretion, she stood up, and, taken aback, he paused, and jumped back, barely keeping himself from crying out.
"What are you doing up?" she hissed.
"What are you doing up?" he returned. "It's my house. I live here. I'm just, uh—"
Danny struggled to think of a good excuse. The truth was, he was terrible at lying.
"You're just going to sneak downstairs to look at the ghost portal!" Valerie hissed, realising it was true as she said it. More than not being able to tell a convincing lie, Danny's face gave away his every thought. Right now, he was blushing angrily.
"What if I am? What are you going to do, stop me?"
"What are you two arguing about? It's too early for this," Tucker said, joining the fray with a groan.
Danny and Valerie exchanged a hasty glance. The fewer people who knew what they were doing, the better. Neither wanted to get in trouble.
"Nothing, Tucker, nothing," Danny said, waving his hands in a placating sort of manner. Tucker's suspicion was immediately roused. So was his jealously.
"Are you two—are you two going to—?"
He did not seem able to bring himself to finish the sentence. Valerie immediately grasped what he was insinuating, and blushed in thorough humiliation.
"Like I'd ever be interested in one of you losers," she growled, exiting the room with a dramatic flourish. Danny and Tucker hurried after her. Fortunately for all involved (or perhaps not) the Fentons senior were heavy sleepers; Jack snored, and Maddie wore earplugs to cancel out all noise. They needed to be high quality noise blockers to drown out Jack's snores. Jazz, meanwhile, had finished her essay, and, thoroughly exhausted, slept like the dead, which was ironic for what would happen next.
They made their way, all three of them, down into the basement, which seemed somehow cold and forbidding without Maddie and Jack there. Tucker sensibly turned on the light, dully illuminating the room, usually filled with lab equipment, which was all now stored away, or pushed to the sides, so that Jack and Maddie would have space to work on the portal. The lights cast a hard, sterile light on everything in the room, throwing all shadows into sharp relief, and a painful glare to reflect off of every metallic surface—which was most surfaces, actually.
The power cord was still plugged in, as if Jack and Maddie had hoped that the portal simply needed time to warm up. The cord was carefully arranged so that it was never in danger of being unplugged or of tripping anyone. It carried from the wall to the side of the Fenton portal, a huge hexagon, taller than Jack Fenton, or any man, and wider than Jack Fenton (or any man) as well. Somewhere inside the sides of the doorway were the hidden doors, which joined together in square teeth to close. Right now, it stood wide open. To the right was a panel of dials, each set to a different setting, their use unknown.
Drawn as a moth to a flame, Valerie approached the open doorway hesitantly. It was so huge, and the inside so cavernously dark. It seemed almost…eerie. As if it truly could pierce through into another world. She didn't realise how close she had come until Danny rudely reached out a hand and shoved her back. She stumbled, but quickly caught herself. She wasn't a ninth degree black belt for nothing. Her anger renewed, she glared at the Fenton boy, who glared right back at her.
"It's not safe to come any closer to one of their inventions without a suit. They've warned me time and again. It's dangerous, or it could be, to work with raw ectoplasm on exposed skin. The portal doesn't work, but they would kill me if they learnt that I didn't give you the warnings. Stay back."
She blinked. He had been… trying to protect her? From a non-existent threat, but still… it didn't fit with her perception of the loser geek.
"Do you have a suit?" she asked, wondering if she had come down here for nothing, after all. The draw of the concept worked like a magnet, even now. She was tempted to approach closer, regardless of any warnings, but her father had drilled such precautions into her, too. His work was different; he worked with weapons, but Valerie was sensible. She was not about to take any unnecessary risks.
"Yeah." He grimaced. "It's white, mostly. I don't know why my parents are all about bright colours. But the worst thing about it—aside from how stupid jumpsuits look, is that it has a sticker with my Dad's face on it."
Tucker already began to snigger, and Danny shot him a glare. With jerky, angry movements, he pulled it out of the family armoire, and held it up for them to see. Valerie was suddenly quite glad that she didn't have one.
"Is it safe to go in there, even with the suit?" she asked, watching him pull the suit on.
Danny gave her a look. "The portal doesn't even work. I'll be fine."
"Hold on," said Tucker, when Danny had finished dressing himself, He and Valerie still wore the clothes they had worn coming over. This meant that his PDA was in his pocket, along with various other technical gadgets. "Since Sam isn't here…."
He trailed off, noiselessly snapping a few pictures of Danny glaring at him with the stupid jumpsuit on. Valerie took pity on him, and ripped the Jack's face off. It was sort of her fault that he was wearing the thing at all. But that was the end of her sympathy for him.
"Go on," she said, in poorly disguised curiosity. He grumbled to himself, but took a few hesitant steps towards the portal.
"Come on, Fenton," she said, in what she seemed to think was a reasonable tone of voice. "Don't you want to see what your parents worked so hard on? I know I would."
He stared at it, suddenly amazed all over again. His parents had made this—this supernatural, eerie thing. It was strangely beautiful and flowing. There was no other word for it. It was a wonder. A wonder that ought to have worked. He wondered why it hadn't. His parents' ideas might have been strange, but their blueprints were usually sound. They had made all sorts of other equipment, both weapons and more mundane items. They'd had kinks, as prototypes, but those had been smoothed out. This was not a prototype. They had made a working portal before.
"You know, you're right," he said, turning to look at her, the look of wonderment still spread across his face in the form of an easy smile and shining eyes. "Who knows what sort of awesome, super-cool things exist on the other side of the portal?"
"I guess we'll never know," said Valerie angrily. He might have taken it as being directed at him, but it was, in fact, simply the sort of anger you direct at the universe on a bad day.
The two of them watched, one in envy, and the other in apathy, as Danny Fenton passed through the open door of the portal, and continued on inside. He walked, forward and forward, on and on, until the darkness swallowed him up, just like in a movie or a fairytale. It brought a silly sort of panic to her, to see him disappear like that.
But that vague unease was nothing to what she felt moments later, when there was a bright flash of white light—electricity crackling throughout the portal, as the whole lit up white, with Danny still inside. His agonised screams rang through the tunnel and were carried out into the lab. Then, the opening began to glow green, a swirling vortex of ghostly green, and, before the doors could decide to shut, an almost familiar figure staggered out, but wearing a black jumpsuit, and with hair the blinding white of sunlight on freshly fallen snow. His eyes were glowing green. But they only caught a glimpse of them before he collapsed on the ground before the portal, unconscious. Caution tape yellow and black ran in diagonal stripes over the closed door.
Valerie's heart was suddenly racing. What had they been thinking? What had they done? They'd killed Danny! Forgetting that he was a loser and that she was a popular kid—she had her priorities straight, after all—she knelt down beside him, reached to feel for his pulse. Nothing. It was just as she feared. He was dead. Tucker stood where he had been when Danny had entered, frozen in shock. Surely, he hadn't just seen what he thought he had. Surely, Danny hadn't just been electrocuted.
They wondered why no one had come down to check what had made that horrible scream. They wondered what they should say, what they should do. It was an accident, true, but Danny was dead. What should they do?
And then, Danny's eyes opened. As they had barely had time to notice before, his eyes were a bright, glowing green. If they hadn't seen him go into the portal, they wouldn't have thought this was Danny Fenton. They still wanted to deny it.
"Dude," Tucker began shakily. On top of his worries about being responsible for the death of his best friend, he was recalling every story the Fentons had ever told him about how duplicitous and evil ghosts were. But he shook himself. Danny had been his best friend forever. Even if he had turned evil, Tucker had to give him a chance. He knew Danny was terrible at lying, and, as best friend, he had the privilege of understanding the inner workings of his friend's mind. If Danny had turned evil, he would know.
"Tucker? Oh, thank goodness. I'm out! I'm safe! I didn't die!"
Tucker and Valerie exchanged a decidedly unromantic look.
"Uh, dude," Tucker began hesitantly. How did you break it to your best friend that he had, in fact, died?
Valerie decided for him. And her answer was blunt. She pulled out a compact mirror and held it up to him, and, for a long time, he sat there, staring. Then, as if he thought she was playing some sort of trick on him, he glanced down at himself. He examined the skin, burnt tan from the electricity. He couldn't see his eyes, but he looked ready to pull out his hair to see its changed colour for himself. The suit, however, rendered all that unnecessary. It had been inverted from white to black. He stared at the material in horror, and then at Valerie's shaking hand, still clutching the mirror.
"No… this can't be happening…" he muttered. He glanced at Tucker, as if for support. Tell me this is a dream, his eyes said. Tucker could still read those eyes, glowing green or not. His face was unusually serious.
"Sorry, dude. It's for real," he said.
"He's not evil?" asked Valerie, surprised. "I thought all ghosts were evil."
"I guess not," said Danny, as his hand sank into the floor, unbalancing him. Tucker grabbed his friend's bitter cold arm and pulled him back upright, and he nodded his thanks. He licked his lips nervously, frightened but determined.
"Get my parents," he said. "They'll know what to do with me,"
"They'll shoot you," said Tucker seriously. "They'll shoot you, and only later wonder where their son went to, and why he hasn't come home."
Danny disappeared at this news. He didn't seem to notice. "Then what do we do?" he asked from the same spot. He flickered into view again a moment later.
"I don't know," Tucker began, watching the stairway leading out of the lab, expecting to see the Fentons at any moment. How was he to know that they'd soundproofed the thing from the start?
"We'll need to explain what happened to Danny, and how the portal suddenly works…."
"Maybe the encounter with the ectoplasm changed his colouring?" asked Valerie, as if he wasn't even there. He disappeared again, silently wishing that he had never gone into the Portal. He wanted to be human again, not whatever ghostly oddity that didn't even really look like him.
He began to sink through the floor, but he was still invisible, and Valerie and Tucker were focused elsewhere. "A little help, guys?" he asked, fading back into view. This time, it took the combined efforts of Tucker and Valerie to bring him back out of the floor. He sighed in relief. "Thanks."
"Maybe there's an upside to this," said Tucker. "I mean, you can turn intangible, turn invisible…."
"Yeah, but I can't control that," said Danny in great frustration. He felt like hitting something, but wasn't sure what. The whole experience had been so draining. Suddenly, he felt tired and weak. He was sure being electrocuted was a good excuse. Anyone would feel tired and weak after dying from an electric shock.
But as he thought these things, the strangest thing happened. A flash of bright, blue-white light began at his waist, moving up over his head and down to the bottom of his feet simultaneously. The brief flash of light passed over his body, and left in its wake a boy with sapphire blue eyes, jet-black hair, and pale, untanned skin hidden under a scorched white t-shirt and jeans. Soot covered the hems of his jeans, and his shoes, and was lodged in his black hair, and smudged his face. Did it really matter? He was human again.
"Tucker! Valerie! I'm back to normal!" he cried in delight. Hugs were discouraged among boys, so he instead gave a round of high fives. Valerie did not even care about how corny it was, or what a blow it would be to her popularity if the A-List discovered that she had high-fived a loser. With a shiver, she remembered how he had pushed her aside, preventing her from going too near the portal. It might have been her. At least everything was back to normal, now.
But the celebrations were cut short when Danny's arm turned wavery and wispy, like smoke, and his sneaker, foot inside, sank through the floor, yet again. Their problems were far from over.
Danny paled. His other arm disappeared, but the first one returned to normal. "It's—it's still happening," he said, shakily. "But I'm human again—aren't I?"
"Of course you are, dude," said Tucker, and Valerie nodded, despite herself. Like this, other than the disappearing and sinking and misshapen limbs, he looked just like a normal kid.
"Maybe just after-effects," he said to himself, sounding hopeful. There was a pause, and then he looked up at them, fear somewhere behind the corner of his eyes. "Don't tell anyone, okay?"
"What sort of person do you think I am?" asked Valerie, appalled.
"We've got your back, man," said Tucker, his PDA out of his hands, perhaps to show how sincere he was. Danny frowned. His eyes narrowed, and just a hint of green crept in.
"I mean it, guys. My parents… Paulina… Kwan… Sam… Jazz…Lancer. None of them must know. Until I figure things out, I can't risk them not accepting… this. Whatever happened."
"We understand," said Valerie. There was pity in her face, and an unusual soothing quality to her voice.
A ring of blue-white light formed around Fenton's waist, again, flashing upwards and downwards in the blink of an eye, and the boy with white hair and green eyes stood there instead. Miraculously, his powers seemed to be under control. True, his legs had disappeared to become a tail, but other than that—there were no missing, vanished limbs, and no sinking through the floor.
Danny felt the difference, and panicked. Eventually, however, the ring formed once again, more sluggishly this time, and swept over him for a third time, leaving the familiar boy there again.
Valerie and Tucker had learnt to ignore Danny's problems unless he called for help. They discussed their cover story in hushed tones, as if someone were listening in.
Finally, the story was decided. They would tell the Fentons that Danny had been standing near the portal when it had suddenly turned on, and Danny had been caught on the edge of the ensuing blast.
"And, I've come up with a codename for what went on here tonight," said Tucker, "In case we need to talk about it further. 'The Phantom Danny Incident;"
Valerie glared at him for his insensitivity, but to her surprise, Danny chuckled. He and Tucker were almost giddy with relief; everything seemed funny now. Whether because she was a girl, because she was an A-Lister rather than one of their friends, or something else, she refused to see the humour in the pun.
"He could have died," she said waspishly, at Tucker. This knowledge, this little fact, had not escaped him.
"But he didn't," he said, inviting Valerie to check Danny's pulse to be sure. She knelt down, and reached for his wrist, reassured, strangely, by the steady, rhythmic ba-bump. Her pulse count was interrupted when Danny's hand fell through hers, but she could see that he breathed, and his heart beat, and he would bleed, also. Thoroughly human. Or was he? Humans couldn't walk through walls, or disappear, or levitate. She opened her mouth to discuss the matter, and then took a good look at Danny. He looked horrible. And with every passing moment, it grew more suspicious that they hadn't already collected Danny's parents, in a panicked rush over what had happened. The Fentons would surely notice that the portal was functioning the next time they came down. They would probably have built another portal, if this one hadn't worked.
Valerie knew that one of them would have to go and fetch the parents, while one stayed to watch Danny. Both were reluctant to go; Tucker because Danny was his friend, and Valerie because she felt that this was her fault.
Danny's sporadically-activating powers continued to drain him as the two argued, eventually draining him to the point where he passed out, still glowing occasionally, or with random blocks of his body—his head, his left arm, his right hand, his left leg—turning invisible, or intangible, or wispy. Finally, Valerie conceded that, being a better actress than he was an actor, she ought to be the one to tell the Fentons their cover story.
She walked to the entrance of the stairs, preparing herself for the workout running up three flights of stairs would be. On her mark, get set, go!
As she ran up the stairs and into the main storey, Tucker searched for any electronic devices that might have recorded what happened. Computer files could be deleted, but probably not replaced. They would notice the lack of start-up from the portal. Physical tapes could be hidden, at least until Danny felt like telling them what had happened. And it was his decision, whether or not to tell.
Valerie paused to catch her breath, and began screaming for the Fentons, calling for help. She paused only briefly to rest—the run up the stairs from the lab was quite the workout, even for one as fit as she was. When no one replied—perhaps she was too winded to give proper voice—she ran up the stairs to the bedrooms.
"Help!" she screamed. "Come quick; there's been an accident!" And lower, to herself, "Come on, come on! Why isn't anyone responding?!"
Jazz heard her, despite her fatigue, and came awake, throwing open the door, still in a pale blue nightdress.
"What? Valerie, what's wrong? It's late, and I'm tired, and I have a test tomorrow in—"
"Danny! An accident! Downstairs, in the lab! He needs help!"
Jazz's pale face lost all remaining colour. Without pausing to get dressed or even grab her headband—the only thing that kept her bright red hair out of those emerald green eyes—she grabbed Valerie's hand as if Valerie were now only five years old and in need of minding, and pulled her along to her parents' room, throwing open the door.
"Mom, Dad! Come quick! Emergency!"
Her father, of course, could not be roused by such mundane methods. Jazz rounded on Valerie.
"Get some water to throw on my Dad. You know where the bathroom is by now."
She went around the side of the bed, herself, approaching her sleeping mother. She reached out, carefully, and yanked an earplug out of her mother's ear. Maddie Fenton awoke with a start, for a moment unsure as to why Jack's snores seemed so loud. Then, she perceived Jazz standing there, pale as a ghost, and shaking.
"Jazz? What is it, sweetie?" she asked, instantly in concerned mother mode. Valerie entered with a bucket of water for Jack.
"It's Danny! There was an accident in the lab-!"
Jazz didn't get any further. Jack sat up, rubbing his eyes blearily. Maddie, still in her shift, was immediately running to the door. Jack, sputtering, was still in his jumpsuit (he claimed going without it for too long gave him rashes). He immediately got out of bed at the news, running after his wife. Valerie brought up the rear, shouting after the Fentons about there being an accident, the Fenton portal turning on, and Danny had been standing close enough to be caught in the blast.
"Was he wearing his suit?" asked Maddie, careening around the corner at the bottom of the first flight of stairs.
"Uh—" said Valerie, remembering how Danny's human appearance was decidedly jumpsuit-free. Maddie pursed her lips in the typical parental attitude that comes with holding back a scolding. First things first: make sure Danny was alright, then scold him for his incautious actions.
Any thoughts of a scolding disappeared when they finally reached the bottom of the stairs, and she saw her baby—the child she had always been closer to, truth be told—lying there on the floor (thankfully solid and visible, as his ghost powers had worn themselves out)—scorched from head to toe, and unconscious.
"Danny!" she cried, rushing over to him. She felt for a pulse, as Valerie had. All things considered, he seemed to have come away lucky. There were minor burns and scrapes all over his body, and his clothes were utterly ruined, and would have to be thrown away, but he could have been killed.
"Jack! Get the emergency kit!" she cried. As Jack ran off, Valerie asked,
"Uh, Mrs. Fenton, shouldn't Danny go to the hospital?"
Tucker shuddered at the mention of the dread place, but said nothing, shooting her a glare, for once. What was she thinking? They were bound to notice something unusual there. She glared right back. They probably weren't going to send him, and she had a part to play.
Mrs. Fenton blinked in surprise, but then remembered that Valerie hadn't had the upbringing of Danny and Jazz, or heard the lectures otherwise that Tucker had, coming over as often as he did.
"The hospital is insufficiently equipped to deal with an emergency of this nature," Maddie said, as she continued to examine Danny's vitals: heart rate, high; breathing, normal; temperature, unusually chilly…. "When the portal turned on, there would have been a brief reaction as the circuit completed, filling the entire area nearby and in a metre's radius from the entrance with ecto-energy: a strong sort of electricity that is a combination of the basic processes involved in turning on a lightbulb, but fortified by gas-state ectoplasm. The last time, a friend of ours who was standing too close developed ectoacne from the impurities in the ecto-filtrator, but we have confidence that that won't happen again, at least. The hospital did a remarkable job of handling the acne, considering its supernatural origins, but they are completely—unprepared—for dealing with accidents of a ghostly nature."
Jack returned, carrying a metal tin with a sticker with his face upon it on the lid, and his comfort fudge, in a more ordinary tin. They were kept in the same place, so, no, he didn't go looking for fudge while his son lay there, injured who-knew-how badly.
"He seems more or less unharmed. He mostly shows only the signs of normal hauntings: cold and elevated heart rate. He obviously was caught within the area of the minor explosion that would have occurred when the portal turned on, however… we should check him for signs of high ectoplasmic exposure."
Valerie and Tucker did not exchange a look. It was very difficult not to, but they kept their gaze focused on Danny. Jazz hovered at the sidelines, obviously feeling out of place and uncertain, fretting but helpless. No one noticed Valerie and Tucker or even Jazz, anyway.
Without needing to be told, Jack cautiously hefted Danny's scrawny form, spreading the weight out carefully to avoid jostling him or putting undue strain, and cautiously led the way—like a funeral procession—back up the stairs of the lab, carefully to avoid worsening any hurts. Maddie, carrying the Fenton Emergency Kit, and Jazz, came next, and finally Tucker and Valerie, still twitchy and anxious lest anyone think to ask their role in this—what they knew. It was inevitable that it should happen, of course, and the dread only mounted the longer they waited.
Jack lay Danny carefully down on a sofa, and Maddie opened up the Emergency Kit.
"What happened?" she asked, in a would-be calm voice, and Valerie felt horrible having to lie to her. His mother should know what really happened to him. All the same, Danny had asked this of them, and she couldn't really blame him for not wanting his parents to know. Perhaps they would never need to know.
Watching Mrs. Fenton work, Valerie, in a shaky voice that could be dismissed as trauma over what she had witnessed, gave the Fentons the cover story that she and Tucker had concocted. Occasionally one of the Fentons would ask further questions, and they would keep track of all of these details, to share with Danny later. But at last, the Fenton parents seemed satisfied. Jazz listened intently, horrified expression giving way to tears as she realised that she could have lost her little brother. She would have to work twice as hard to look out for him from now on, whether he called her interfering know-it-all or not.
Eventually, Mrs. Fenton grimly pronounced that he should be all right, but that he needed rest. She and Jack would stand watch in shifts in case anything happened. Jazz, Tucker, and Valerie didn't hesitate to volunteer to do the same duty. They were all tired, of course, but at the same time, wide-awake with fear. Mrs. Fenton tried to shoo them off, but Tucker was Danny's best friend, and Valerie felt guilty, and Jazz still felt helpless and was desperately seeking any little thing she could do to contribute. Eventually, she had to yield, lest they all stay up the whole night. Valerie and Tucker, and the Fentons each took their places at Danny's side, but he did not awaken that night, nor the next day, nor the night after that. It was not until Lancer's English class that they remembered the unfinished project.