Chapter Twenty-Five: Danny Just Can't Stay Awake
Danny fell asleep on the car ride there, slumping over in the backseat. Sam didn't bother to try and wake him, and Tucker continued the short drive to his house.
He kept re-playing in his mind what had happened at Fenton Works, the blank look of fear on Danny's face, the way Tucker and Sam hadn't known how to stop it at first—until Danny had moved, scrambling away from his parents as though they'd burned him. Jazz pleading with her parents to just give him—them—some space—Can't you see you're scaring him? Look, I'll—I'll explain everything, but not here. He'll be fine for a few minutes; you can take him to the hospital then. She'd forced them out reluctantly, though they could see that their presence was making Danny afraid.
Sam and Tucker had taken the opportunity for what it was: a diversion. They'd gathered a few things and had hurried into Tucker's dad's car, as quietly as they could, while Jazz and the Fentons yelled in the other room.
Was there anything we could've done differently? To stop that look of fear, that odd stoniness Danny had gained as his parents revealed their feelings to him. Could they have tried to stop them earlier? But Tucker had barely registered his own horror before Danny had finally managed to flee from what he perceived as a threat.
"Do you think he'll be okay?" he asked, looking at Sam through his rearview mirror.
"I don't know," Sam said. Her voice was trembling. "It was almost worse than them flat-out rejecting him." Danny's head leaned on her shoulder, and she let it stay there, trying not to jostle him. "I don't think we can afford for him not to be okay, though, as callous as that is."
She was right, Tucker realized. Danny might have lost this fight, but he certainly hadn't lost the war. He sighed, pulling into his house's drive. How exactly am I supposed to get Mom and Dad to go for this? Especially after leaving like he had, forcing his dad to explain what little he'd managed to piece together to his mom. Well, I've probably done worse things. Maybe. It might take him a while to remember something worse, though.
"Should we carry him?" Tucker said, unbuckling his seatbelt.
"Unless you want to leave him in your dad's car, yes. How did he take that, by the way?" Sam said. Tucker stepped out of the car, closing the door behind him. He went around to the side and opened the back door. Together, he and Sam maneuvered Danny between them, him holding underneath his arms (wary of the broken one), she his legs.
"The car? I didn't really stick around long enough to find out," Tucker muttered.
They shuffled awkwardly to the front door, and Tucker realized he would have to open it somehow. "Er—"
Sam rolled her eyes. "Which pocket?" she said, lowering Danny's legs carefully to the ground. They were wrapped in bandages, but Tucker could see part of an oddly circular burn, as though someone had taken the heated rim of a cup and pressed it into his friend's skin. Definitely not from an ectoblast. Tucker took most of Danny's weight, trying not to put any pressure on his injuries.
"Front left," he replied, and as she was reaching into his pocket to get them (which was awkward but not the most awkward thing they'd ever done together), the front door began to open.
"—heard his voice, Maurice. I'm not—Tucker!" His mom's eyes widened as she turned to face them from where she'd been talking to her husband. "Where in the world have you been?" She seemed to register the fact that Sam—who'd leapt back from Tucker's pocket immediately, coughing—and Danny—who was asleep in Tucker's arms—were also there.
"The, um, the Fentons didn't take it well," Tucker said softly, staring at his mom. She'd cleaned herself up, and she was wearing pajamas, now. Her eyes looked red—from crying? Or is she tired? "Can he—they—stay here?"
His dad came up behind her, and he regarded the whole situation with only a modicum more calmness than his wife had. Tucker wondered what he was thinking; he was usually good about reading his parents, but… Now, they didn't seem as though they were looking at their son and his friends. They seemed as though they were looking at strangers.
Is that what we are now? Strangers to the people who are supposed to know us best?
"I—I don't…" His mom trailed off. She stared at Danny, at the gauze on his torso and legs and arms. Her gaze turned to her son's bandages, the deep cut Sam had stitched up on his arm, the bruises littering his body.
"We can let them stay one night," his dad murmured to her, also examining Danny. "Just one. We owe him that, at least."
"Alright," his mom conceded. She jabbed a finger at Tucker's chest. "But you're not disappearing again, young man. Danny can use your room, and Sam can use the guest room. We're going to have a talk."
They carried Danny to Tucker's bed, laying him down carefully. Tucker's parents watched from the doorway, as though they thought their son was going to go flying out of the window the minute they had their backs turned. He and Sam carefully tucked their best friend in (and if this wasn't what bros looked like, Tucker didn't know what bros were).
"You want back-up?" Sam asked, the words just barely louder than air.
"I'm not about to go for a round of fisticuffs with them, Sam. I don't need 'back-up'," Tucker murmured back, just as quiet. He could hear the tap-tap of his mom's nails on the wall.
"Yeah, you won't," Sam said, checking Danny's temperature with the back of her hand. "Your parents are actually reasonable—I'd almost forgotten, after the Fentons." She sighed. "I'll stay here with him. He might be disoriented when he wakes up." And the last thing we need is for him to start blasting, Tucker thought. That would really convince his parents to let Danny stay here.
"Okay," Tucker agreed, turning back to his parents. They seemed to take the hint, and he followed them out into the kitchen, which was lit with candles. It looked as though they were about to do a séance. I guess we could summon Technus. His leg, which had a long gash, ached, though Sam had cleaned and wrapped it (him closing his eyes the whole time).
He slid into the seat across from his parents; he debated, briefly, changing into his own clothes, but he thought his mom might explode if he delayed any further. In the light of the flames, his parents seemed even more uncertain, even more unlike themselves. I'm still your son, Tucker wanted to explain. There's just more to me than you thought.
"What have you, uh, managed to piece together so far?" Tucker asked. Do they know, now, why my grades dropped? Why I kept having "disciplinary" problems? Do they think I did the right thing?
"That Danny—the Danny you've known since you were both twelve years old—is somehow Phantom," his mom said. "Not that you bothered to stay around and explain it to us!"
Tucker scraped his fingernail lightly on the tablecloth. He got whiffs of the smoke every so often—pine and soap and cinnamon. We're lucky Dad likes candles so much. "I—I'm sorry. I shouldn't have just… left like that," he admitted. But what else was he supposed to have done? Danny needed me. He'd needed Tucker far more than his parents had, in that moment.
"Yeah, you shouldn't have," his dad said. "It dawned on me, and then you were gone. And neither of us knew where! And Danny… Do you realize how dangerous this sort of thing is, Tucker? You three were playing with your lives."
Playing with our lives… They did a lot of things, but not that. Two years of fighting had taught them how hazardous their new lifestyle was, better than any sort of lecture. The three didn't take risks unless they had to. "I…"
"We thought you were just going through a phase," his mom admitted, sounding close to tears. "Your grades dipped, but they went back up. We thought you'd started being more responsible… How could we have missed this? Why didn't you tell us, baby?"
Tucker swallowed. They thought he'd been more responsible… How could he explain, watching his best friend nearly die in the portal? How Danny had been so afraid, how he'd rejected the hospital, rejected his parents—and with good reason, it turned out. Tucker had been as terrified. Sometimes he'd sat in the hallway, just outside his parents' room, his body bruised, his muscles aching, debating going in, telling them everything. But he hadn't been able to.
"I don't think I knew how to," he said, finally looking up at them. "I'm still not sure I know how to. Once you start keeping the secrets… It's hard to let go." Especially when exposing only a part of the secret had led to Danny's confrontation with Valerie, the GIW, Agent R, and his parents. Its disclosure had brought them so much pain… Not to mention, it had all been a distraction to merge the worlds. The thought was still so foreign to him—he didn't know what to do with it. What did it mean, exactly? Could it be reversed?
"I think it's time to stop keeping them," his dad said. "We can start with something easy. Where did you go, exactly, when you took my car? You said to fight ghosts and to the shield, but you never really stayed long enough to properly explain." Technically, I said to "put up the shield." But clearly they'd been so shocked they hadn't really even been taking it what he'd been saying. Not that Tucker blamed them.
"To the mainstay," he replied. At their blank looks, he elaborated, "There were four we had to activate to get the shield up—the one over the city."
"That was you?" his mom said. There was an odd sort of wonder in her tone, and a fare bit of fear. "We thought—the police and the Fentons had coordinated it somehow. Without the public's knowledge. But you and—and Danny…"
"And Sam and Jazz," Tucker added. "Yeah. It was us. We didn't tell the police or the Fentons; they might've tried to stop us. Not everyone likes or trusts Phantom, and someone might have used it to steal the Fentons' tech. Who were we supposed to tell?"
"So you got the shield up—and then?" his dad prodded. Tucker wondered if this was how he treated the people he interviewed.
"I fought the ghosts inside the shield," Tucker said. "Like I said. And I'm sorry I took your car; I wouldn't have made it in time if I had walked." And then that "beast" or whatever would've rampaged through the city, causing worse damage than the earthquake did by itself.
But it didn't stop the Empress from "merging the worlds" or whatever. He shoved the thought down—the idea was too large to even really comprehend, much less experience.
"You fought them?" his mom demanded. "How many? And I saw you were hurt—and those bandages…"
"I'm fine," Tucker said. "I just have some cuts and bruises. The ghosts I was fighting were foot soldiers—cannon fodder type." Okay, so he was maybe downplaying it a tad. Sue him. He wasn't about to try and scare them further, especially because he knew he was going to have to convince them, at some point, to let him continue to do this. It's not over yet. The Empress was still out there, somewhere.
"And how did this all happen, exactly?" his dad asked. "With… with Danny?"
Tucker could see, in his mind's eye, his friend walking into the Portal. Screaming as it turned on, smoking as he came out, dazed, sick. His heart had been so slow at first—if they hadn't seen him moving, they would've thought he was dead. The odd vibrations in his chest, him suddenly falling through the floor.
Sam and Tucker hadn't known what to do except catch him.
"The…" He watched it again. "The Portal… I don't remember if I told you this already, but originally, when the Fentons turned it on, it didn't work. And—and we were being stupid…" They should've known better than to go messing with that stuff. But they'd been young, and Danny had been eager to show off, after so long of being ridiculed for his parents' professions. "It turned on. With him inside."
"And you didn't think to tell someone?" his mom demanded. "What if he'd been seriously hurt?"
He was. He was. We just didn't know then… How terrible it was. It had all seemed like some grand adventure at first, something out of a comic book. But Tucker knew they all carried scars—Danny's worst of all. "He kept falling through the floor," Tucker said, distantly. Was he talking to them or to himself? "Turning invisible… He couldn't control it. And then his parents wouldn't stop talking about—about dissecting him, Phantom. And the GIW showed up…" What were we supposed to do?
He hadn't known then, and he didn't know now. Had keeping it a secret been the right choice? Would it all have gone better if they'd just… just told someone? He'd thought about it—he knew they all had. They'd talked about it, for hours. But, ultimately, it had been Danny's decision. And his parents had… They've hurt him so badly, and they don't even know it.
"Oh, Tucker." His mom reached across the table and took his hand. "You're not alone now. You don't have to deal with—with any of that by yourself…" It sounded so much like what Danny's mom had said…
…You can rely on us, honey…
But his parents weren't like that. They weren't blinded by years of prejudice against something they didn't even understand. "I—I know," he choked out.
"And it's over now," his dad said. "You—you did an amazing job, stopping the invasion, and you don't have to—"
Tucker laughed, that same dark laugh he'd used with Lancer. Stopping the invasion? They hadn't stopped anything. Any of the people they might've managed to save from the ghosts had probably already died in the earthquake. The Empress merged the worlds, and everything—everything—outside of Amity is hers. The only reason the shield held is because we weren't her primary targets. He couldn't keep the thoughts at bay, any longer. His mind was beginning to process them, process the new, terrible reality around him.
Tucker had always coped with humor—much like Danny, or at least the Danny that had existed before all of this. Tucker had kept Sam and Danny distracted; they could both be so dark, so pessimistic sometimes—so, so harsh. Brittle. But there was no one here to pull him back from his own darkness, no one to distract him. His friends had already gone over the edge, and here he was, looking into the abyss and toppling and there was no one here to stop him.
And so he laughed—because if he didn't laugh, he would cry.
Nothing. Nothing is over. And we don't know how to make it right. He wanted to summon the optimism he usually had, but… It seemed hopeless.
"Tucker!" his mom cried as he leaned on the table, head in his hands, giggling because he couldn't stop. His shoulders shook; his diaphragm ached. Both of them watched, frozen in horror, at their son who had seemingly lost his mind.
Footsteps, the creak of a door. "What did you say to him?" Sam. When had she gotten here? She must've heard him—he tried to stop—
"Nothing! Just—that it's over, that everything's fine now!" his dad said, sounding almost as hysterical. Only one of us can be hysterical at a time, Dad, Tucker thought, trying to get himself under control.
"Pull it together, Tucker," Sam said harshly into his ear. She grasped his shoulders, and as much as he wanted to push her off, her grip was firm. Unyielding. Her eyes were shards of purple glass, sharp and fragile all at once. "Look at me. Look at me." He tried, taking gasping, hiccupping breaths. "We don't lie to each other," she hissed lowly, and that much was true, "so believe me when I tell you—we are going to win this, you get me? We'll stop her, no matter what. Okay?" When he didn't respond, she shook him, almost gently. "Okay?"
"Y-yeah. Okay." He shuddered. Satisfied he wasn't about to keel over again, Sam released him.
Good God, I'm almost as bad as Danny, Tucker thought, his racing thoughts finally calming. Next thing you know, I'll start blaming myself instead of the Empress for all this. The Empress. Right. They had faced terrible odds before, and they wouldn't be alone, this time. They had Dora and the other ghosts. And his parents, even if they were just moral support. We can win this—we have to.
"Tucker…" His dad couldn't bring himself to finish. "I—I'm sorry. I didn't know—"
"It's fine," Tucker said, voice stronger. His breathing had almost entirely cleared. He rubbed his eyes, which had filled with tears. "But it's not over, and it won't be for a long time. We were—we thought the Empress, the ghost leading the invasion, was like Pariah. We thought she'd start with Amity before—before everywhere else." His voice faltered. How could he admit what had happened? What the Empress had really done while they were all distracted?
Sam continued for him. "We were wrong," she said simply. "The Empress somehow managed to merge Earth and the Ghost Zone together. We didn't win—we failed."
Danny's dreams enveloped him in a haze of shadow and fear. He couldn't move in most of them, trapped as his parents or Agent R cut into him. In one, his mom fed him blood blossoms until he keeled over and died. In another, he saw his own funeral, where his dad gave a speech as he was lowered into the ground: Our son died long ago. We were lucky we were able to purge the ghost from him before we buried him.
Sam or Tucker woke Danny up periodically, and he was dazed when they did. His core burned, at a low simmer, in his chest, but it was bearable. Why does it hurt? It had felt fine before. Every time he woke, his friends made sure to give him more ectoplasm, water, and food before he fell back asleep. He blearily recognized that he was in Tucker's room, but his mind could barely fit the pieces together, barely seemed to comprehend anything.
Sam had explained, briefly, that they'd brought him here. But what did my parents think? They were so set on me going to the hospital… So set on curing me… Would they have cut him open to cure him? Cut him open like Agent R had threatened to? He pushed away these half-formed thoughts, which lingered in the back of his mind as he drifted in and out of sleep.
I will not think about them. But it was clear he was thinking about them; he couldn't seem to escape them. When he closed his eyes, they were always there, waiting.
After Danny woke the fourth time, he didn't want to fall back asleep, didn't want to descend into the land of nightmares again. He forced himself up, looking at his surroundings. Sam was perched on the edge of Tucker's bed, having brought him an apple and a glass of milk.
Around him, Tucker's room was lit by the sun outside—it had to have been seven or eight o'clock. Good to know the sun still shines, even with the merging. The room was clean—impeccably so. No dirty clothes or dirty dishes, no stacks of paper, no half-hidden first aid supplies. Danny knew there was a guest room, so he couldn't be more thankful that both Sam and Tucker had elected to sleep on the floor in here, though he did feel bad for taking Tucker's bed.
He deserves to sleep in his own bed.
"Talk to me," Danny murmured sleepily to Sam as he sipped the milk. I won't fall asleep again. I won't. Why was he so tired in the first place? He almost felt worse now than he had been—and he'd slept, genuinely slept, for hours.
"What about?" Sam sounded amused. That's good. He didn't want to irritate her; she was tired, too, he knew. But he just… he knew he wouldn't be able to stay awake on his own. Why am I so tired?
"I don't know." He sighed, struggling to keep his eyes open. I won't go back to sleep. "Anything."
He didn't want to see their faces again. He didn't want to hear about them curing him, fixing him. He couldn't take it—was he really so defective, such a bad son? What was so wrong with him, that they couldn't just… accept him? Why was their hatred for ghosts so much stronger than their love for him? He shoved the thoughts away, forcefully. If I feel them, I won't be able to function.
"If you're trying to stay awake, it might be a better idea for you to talk," Sam said, taking the glass as it almost slipped from his fingers. I will stay awake… The apple sat, uneaten, on Tucker's nightstand, though Sam didn't seem inclined to force him.
"What…" His thoughts were mired in a thick, white fog. He tried to find the words. "What should I talk about?"
"Actually, I just remembered," Sam said. She scooted closer. "Open your mouth—I wanted to check on your tooth. Jazz told me you lost it."
Lost it? My tooth? Why… Oh, right. That was an oddly delicate sort of wording. Feeling slow, he opened his mouth. He wasn't sure how she could see in the still-dim light, but shedidn't get any light out or ask him to move. He could barely feel anymore where the Empress had torn out his tooth. He heard her threats to tear out his tongue echo in his head. They mingled with Agent R's.
…cut you up…
"Holy shit," she muttered, leaning forward. Danny leaned back, closing his mouth.
"What?" he asked, tentatively poking at the hole with his tongue. Only, there wasn't a hole—there was a tooth. His eyes widened. I can… Grow back my teeth? He'd never done that before, though he supposed he'd never lost a tooth before—or not that he'd noticed, anyway. That shouldn't be possible. He'd thought his powers only expedited healing; he hadn't thought that they were able to completely regenerate bits he'd lost. Did this mean he could lose an arm, and it would grow back?
"It must be because of your core," Sam muttered to herself. She moved backward, seemingly realizing that she had been encroaching on his personal space. "Did Jazz or Tucker get the chance to tell you?"
"Tell me what?" Danny rubbed his chest, though it did nothing to lessen the heat there.
"We, well…" And Sam went on to explain how they had found Allistor, and how the ghost had told them what was wrong with him. How Danny's core had been close to giving out—because he'd been using the "baseline amount of energy he needed to survive," or whatever. How his human half had begun regulating everything, without input from his core. How that had led to dangerous overheating, until he had "jump-started" his core again by turning back into Phantom. How his near-death experience had triggered his core into a RMS.
He received little pleasure from the thought that his core was growing. Would he have to somehow find time to master a new power, on top of everything else? Everything else… It weighed on the back of his mind—the Empress, the world, the merging, his parents. There were so many things left undone… So many people the Empress had killed—was killing… And Danny didn't know where—where were the other portals she had created?
And how was he meant to fix what he'd created? This all happened because I failed. I failed. He only found comfort in the fact that he had managed to save Amity, for all the good it had done. Crushed under debris… And I can't even help with the rescue effort. I'm sorry.
Danny wasn't even sure he had managed to understand all that Sam had said. His brain was thick, so thick, like moving through sludge. It sounded so bizarre to him. How had he known so little about his own anatomy? It was baffling. I should've asked the yetis more questions. But why hadn't Frostbite told him? I guess I was more focused on mastering my ice powers to defeat Undergrowth more than anything else. Still. The yeti definitely could've spared five minutes to go over basic ghost anatomy.
Maybe he thought I already knew. It sounds like it's common knowledge in the Far Frozen. He yawned.
"You should go back to sleep," Sam said gently, moving to go back to her pallet on the floor.
"No!" Danny protested, before lowering his voice. "No." He felt vulnerable, suddenly. Like a child asking his parent to stay until he fell asleep. "I can't…" This was Sam—Sam who had seen him injured, seen him die. It's okay, he tried to tell himself. She'll understand.
"Nightmares?" she guessed, standing. He should've known she had already determined why he didn't want to sleep. She didn't wait for confirmation—she'd seen his nightmares first-hand. "Alright. Budge up." It took him a moment to realize what she wanted, but once he did, Danny moved to the center of the bed. Sam sat next to him. "Do you want to talk about it?" she asked, though she sounded more cursory, as though she didn't expect him to. Danny relaxed. She doesn't want anything from me. It was a nice feeling; she didn't need him to put up any sort of front.
"Not really," he said, pausing. Something had been itching at him, just slightly, since Jazz had brought it up. "I have been curious though. I know you, uh, got me away from Agent R, but—how?" The memory of it all haunted him, almost worse than his parents. To be forced to lie helplessly, barely conscious, as Agent R threatened to torture him, to hurt him... He hadn't been able to do anything. He'd been worse than worthless. Just one agent, and I couldn't even save myself from him. The Empress had been right—he was weak.
"I snuck up behind him and knocked him out," Sam answered. She didn't seem self-satisfied, as he would've expected. Instead, she seemed… upset. Almost scared. "We left him there. How much do you remember about—about what happened? Do you know how he found you?"
Danny rubbed the back of his neck. He didn't want to talk about this. But I started the conversation, he reminded himself. And she deserves to know. She'd rescued him from… from…
…When we're through, you won't know which way's up or down…
He didn't want to remember. He didn't want to remember the way Agent R's voice had trembled with—with delight. He didn't want to remember how the warm barrel had felt, pressed to his head. He didn't want to remember lying uselessly on the ground, paralyzed.
"I think—" His throat was dry. "He must've found me the same way you did—my ecto-signature. I fell through the shield from above, like I—like I told Jazz. He found me, but I was… I was so weak, Sam." Weak. He'd been too weak to defeat the Empress, too weak to stop Agent R. "He was so pleased. He told me to change back at first—to make sure I was Phantom. But I—I couldn't… The barrel of the ectogun was—he dialed it up, and you know how warm the tip of it gets. He…" Danny rubbed the marks on his thigh.
…Such a unique specimen… I don't want to damage you further… Just change, you disgusting piece of shit…
He had been nearly past pain, at that point. He hadn't really been there, in the moment. And Agent R was nothing compared to the Empress. But it had been Danny's own uselessness that had paralyzed him, not telekinesis. That was worse, somehow. He had failed again.
"You don't have to talk about it anymore," Sam said. But Danny—Danny wanted her to know what she had saved him from.
"I couldn't move," he whispered. "I heard you, when you brought me back. Well, sort of. And I couldn't move then, either. I just… couldn't do anything." He looked down at his hands; they were shaking. He clenched them around Tucker's sheets.
"We won't leave you like that again," Sam told him. She doesn't get it. She thought if—if they were there, with him, it wouldn't matter if he faltered; they would pick up the slack. But the thought of them with him when he faced down the Empress, the image of her tearing them apart, in front of him…
"You might have to." He hunched into himself. "And I can't fail, next time."
"You didn't fail," Sam said. "We didn't understand the scope of everything."
Danny faced her. "And what can you call that except failure? I failed, Sam, and people died because of it… Died right in front of me. And that's—that's my fault." She had to understand. I failed. I'm sorry.
"It is not your fault!" Sam hissed. There was that same rage in her eyes, the one she always had when they talked about this. "Why do you always blame yourself? The only person you should be blaming is the Empress."
It was kind of her to say the words—but kindness didn't make them true. "No. No. We should've been more prepared. I should've prepared us better, prepared the whole town better." He should've done so many things. He should've saved them, saved the world. Thousands had to be dead by now—if not millions. And even knowing this, he was too tired—too weak—to leave the damn bed.
"It's not your fault!" Sam insisted.
"I tried to stop her from merging the Zone and the Earth, and I failed. And people died.I tried to fight her, defeat her, and I failed. And more people died.I tried to move, and I failed. I couldn't—I couldn't even move…" He trailed off, staring at the blanket in front of him. If he'd only been more conservative with his powers, if he'd only understood. If he'd only known more…
"None of those deaths are yours," Sam said. "They're not. It's not your fault."
He didn't want to argue. His eyes were drooping again, and he wanted it to all be normal. The sunlight outside the window was a watery green, but Danny didn't know if it was from the shield or the merging. He didn't know, and he was helpless. Still.
"If you two get any louder, my parents might just kick you out," a voice said from the floor. Danny and Sam turned to look at Tucker, who sat up, still wearing Danny's clothes. "And I might help them." He looked up at them. "Are we having some kind of intervention?"
"No," Danny said.
"Yes," Sam said at the same time. They eyed each other.
"Ah, yes. That clears it up, thanks. Well, 'clears it up' like when you put mud in a plastic cup and try to use it as an eyeglass." He stood, his blankets wrapped around him like a shroud, and, without regard for Danny's personal space, sat on the other side of the bed. I guess it is his room.
"What has Dr. Sam diagnosed you with today?" Tucker questioned, peering at Sam over mimed glasses (he'd left his somewhere on the floor).
"An overactive guilt complex," Sam practically growled. "Don't think I don't know what you're doing, Tucker."
"What would you call it then?" Danny asked, tired. "If it's not 'failure.' Any way you look at it, people are dead. And they're dead when I could've stopped it. I'm so useless I can't even go intangible to help dig people out, Sam." To his horror, he felt pressure building behind his eyes—and in his core. I'm not about to cry. I can handle it.
"But if it hadn't been for you—for us—would anyone still be alive?" Sam demanded. If it hadn't been for me, everyone wouldn't have been so distracted in the first place. The logic didn't fit with his emotions; how could he feel so bad about it all if it wasn't his fault? I failed. I failed.
"She's right, dude—you did your best. You saved Amity," Tucker said.
Amity? Amity? What did Amity matter in the scheme of things? The whole fucking world had been taken over. He had "saved" Amity—for all that it had been decimated by the force of the merging—but he'd left the rest of the earth for the Empress to destroy far more thoroughly. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm so weak.
"My best wasn't good enough!" He shuddered, his core vibrating almost painfully in his chest, overreacting to his emotions. "I couldn't move…" Was he talking about Agent R or the Empress? Or his parents? Did it matter? He had been useless regardless of the situation—he had been helpless, powerless. He had always managed to do something—a quick comeback, a stupid pun. He hadn't been able to do anything.
The power in his core thrummed and swelled, and he coughed. He flickered in and out of vision, his powers reacting to his distress, and he could feel his eyes changing, glowing. Frost gathered on his arms and face and stiffened his clothes. I haven't lost control like this in ages, he thought, panicking. It didn't help.
"Danny, Danny, it's okay. Calm down!" Sam was saying. On his other side, Tucker gave him similar platitudes, but Danny didn't want them. He wanted to get away.
But seemingly, his core didn't agree. The vibrating slowed as they touched his arms and shoulders, trying to calm him. It felt like—like safety. Like his core knew—somehow—there was no danger here. Eventually, the terrible thrumming stopped completely, and Danny found himself oddly relaxed. The heat in his core was gone.
He fell asleep with his best friends on either side of him, pleading, once again, for him to stay awake.
Valerie's exhaustion was bone-deep. It saturated her muscles and skin and eyes. She had tracked down every last damn ghost inside the shield, blasting until she'd ran out of charge. Then, she'd had to use her fists, sometimes using her intangible-proof gauntlets to grab hold of the ghosts and hold them against the shield until they dissolved. The Fentons had really come through, repairing her armor. She was just thankful her dad—who'd been at work when the earthquake had hit—was safe.
Her radar beeped, and she looked down. I could've sworn… But it was a known ecto-signature—in fact, it was… No way… Valerie noted the direction and took off, flying toward the signature. It can't be her. How did she even get here? Valerie flew higher when she heard the sirens—she'd been hearing them for the past few hours, and they were as haunting as they were relieving.
Valerie realized where she was nearing and slowed. Why would she come here, of all places? She finally saw her as she rounded the corner, flying steadily through the air. She'd changed, since Valerie had last seen her. Her hair was longer, pulled into a braid, though her bangs were a messy as they'd ever been. She wore the same suit, but a spear—something Valerie had never seen her carry before—was strapped to her back.
"Hey, Dani!" she shouted, going faster to pull up to the half-ghost girl. She turned, her face lighting up as she saw Valerie. She'd visited occasionally, but she said it was never as often as she liked.
"Val!" She threw her arms around the Huntress. Valerie hugged her back. "I'm so glad you're okay! I wasn't sure, with everything… I tried to come sooner, to help, but the Zone is—or was, I guess—a mess. It wasn't safe to travel."
"You were in the Zone?" Valerie asked, concern leaking into her voice. The place was filled with dangerous, barbaric ghosts—no place for anyone, much less a fourteen-year-old. "Why?"
"Well, mostly to learn. The yetis let me stay to teach me—said it would be 'remiss' of them if they let me 'wander about' without knowing basic math and stuff," Dani replied. "And I go by El now. It just gets too confusing, with—well."
Yetis? Who the hell are the 'yetis'? And to 'learn'? If she'd wanted to learn, she had to know she could've enrolled in public school—a human public school. But maybe she didn't want to—she can't have many places to go. Her human clothes always looked old and ragged, and she was always just slightly too thin. The effect was exaggerated by her height; she'd grown since her last visit.
"Yetis?" Valerie asked.
"Oh, right. It's like a—country, maybe? Society? In the Zone… Except maybe not in the Zone, anymore. It's called the Far Frozen, inhabited by a group of ghosts that call themselves 'yetis.' They're sort of… well, like yetis. Except ghosts," Dani—El, right—explained. That literally clears nothing up. What was she doing, hanging out with a whole society of ghosts? Ghosts were a violent, brutal bunch. And while Valerie knew the girl was capable, there were always limits.
"What do you mean—not in the Zone?" She wasn't making any sense—and how had she known Amity was in danger? How had she known to come? Had these—these "yetis" known about the invasion?
"Haven't you seen the sky?" El asked. Valerie immediately looked up. It was green, sure, but that was because of the shield. She had been so thankful when it had gone up around the city, though she wondered why the Fentons—because it had to have been the Fentons—hadn't told anyone about building it. And why hadn't they activated it before? "Or the islands? Or the—the water?"
"What are you talking about?" Valerie demanded. The girl regarded her with serious eyes.
"Let me ride your board," she said. "Fly up through the shield—I'll show you." At first, Valerie didn't understand—why did she need to ride on her board? But she realized—she can't pass through the shield in her ghost form. She nodded.
Dani—El—hugged her close, standing behind her on the board. She was still shorter than Valerie, though not by much, and she changed into her human form. Valerie flew slowly up through the shield, not wanting to accidentally throw El off—even if she could fly by herself.
Valerie gasped as they made it up through the shield: the sky was wrong. It had a greenish tinge—the green of the Zone. And, far above—were those clouds? No. They had the wrong shape, the wrong color…
"They're islands," El said. "The islands from the Zone—they float here, now. The Far Frozen is way north of here—somewhere in Canada, maybe. It's hard to tell. I flew as fast as I could after it happened, but I wasn't fast enough."
What did it mean? The islands from the Ghost Zone in the earth's sky. Impossible, she would've said, if she hadn't been seeing it with her own eyes. Her radar beeped, sensing an array of ghosts now that the shield wasn't blocking their signatures. Are all of the ghosts from the Zone here, too? The thought filled her with horror. So many people were out there, ignorant about ghosts. Normal weapons would be useless; a ghost could simply go intangible to evade them.
"How—" Her voice cracked painfully. It was too much to take in. Those filthy ghosts are probably out there, terrorizing innocent people already. She longed to go after them all, but it would be suicide, especially given how tired she was.
"That earthquake—I'm sure you felt it? It happened in the Zone, too, and the next thing we knew… It had to have been the Empress. But I need to find—" She cut herself off, glancing at Valerie as though unsure.
"You mean—that earthquake—it wasn't natural? The Zone felt it?" And probably the whole world, too, then. A worldwide catastrophe. There were places, she knew, that probably didn't have enough earthquakes to be truly prepared for them. She'd thought it had simply been an unlucky coincidence that an earthquake had struck Amity at the same time as an invasion.
"Of course we did. Our world was being moved just as much as yours was," El replied. She sighed. "It's been nice seeing you, but I really have to go. We can meet up again later."
"What do you have to get to that's so important?" Valerie asked. "And what did she do? I don't—I don't understand." How was it possible that the Zone's islands were here? Would she find floating doors somewhere, too?
"She merged Earth and the Zone," El said. "Please—I need to go, and my signature might attract ghosts. Can we go back through the shield?" Valerie hovered just above the shield, craning her neck awkwardly to get a good look at the younger girl. She had filled out slightly, but Valerie still thought she was too thin. She had an ugly beanie jammed on her head, and she wore tattered tennis shoes and baggy, old clothes. The spear was still strapped to her back.
"She merged them?" But the half-ghost didn't look like she was joking; her lips were set into a thin line. The Empress—the ghost Phantom had mentioned on the rooftop? Was this why he had sounded so desperate? Because he'd known just how powerful his enemy was? "And you didn't answer my first question."
El scowled further. "It's none of your damn business, Valerie. We can talk more later. Now go back down through the shield."
"Not until you answer," Valerie said, defiant. "Why were you headed toward Fenton Works? What do you have to find?" There was no reason for the girl to fly toward the people who'd either shoot her on sight or capture her. She'd been to Amity enough times to know to be wary of the Fentons, and she had to know about their high-tech detection equipment. Their aim may not have been the greatest sometimes (particularly Mr. Fenton's), but they were persistent. That, at least, the Huntress and the Fentons had in common.
"I told you: none of your damn business. And I don't need your help to get through the shield." With a furious glare, she let go of Valerie and stepped off the board. Valerie shouted, swooping to catch her, but as soon as Dani—El—was through the shield, she changed back, catching herself mid-air. Valerie flew low as she began to make her way toward the Fenton household again.
"I'm just worried about your safety," she said, flying next to the half-ghost girl, who was determinedly ignoring her. "If you need some kind of equipment, let me get it for you."
"I'm not looking for equipment," El said curtly. "You can go away and sleep—I know you're tired." That was true. Valerie could feel the ache in her muscles, though her suit had protected her from anything worse than bruising.
"I won't let you put yourself in danger—"
"I'm not going as a ghost!" El exclaimed, whirling. Valerie stopped far less gracefully. "I'll transform back. I'm not stupid."
"But if they sense you—"
"They won't." She crossed her arms.
"But I don't see why you have to go in the first place," Valerie said. "There should be no reason to go to the Fentons if you're not looking for equipment." Was it the Fentons themselves? Their expertise was considered very valuable across the city, but El probably knew more about ghosts than they did, all things considered. Was it to see Jazz? That didn't make sense. Or Danny?
No. That's not… But the Zone and the earth had merged—could Valerie really say with certainty what was possible and impossible anymore? We dated! Briefly, true, but she had thought they were friends—could he really be… Phantom had run his hand through his hair. I knew I'd recognized the gesture somewhere. And the face, the build—Danny was shorter than her, too.
Not to mention the tardies. The absences. Danny had been smart in ninth grade, driven—things like that didn't just go away. And Phantom had been good at coming up with plans—so determined. But he'd been cocky, while Danny was shy and modest. There were too many similarities to deny, though. Too many to be a coincidence.
Phantom was Danny.
"No way…" she breathed. Had she really been so stupid? He always raised his hand seconds before a ghost showed up on her radar. He had bruises, sometimes—she'd thought they'd been from Dash. She felt like she needed to sit down. Anger swelled, but Valerie had thought about everything Phantom had told her on the rooftop two weeks ago.
Why would he have told me? She knew she had been hunting her classmate, in some distant part of her mind—but it had been for a good cause. It had been for her dad. He'd been a criminal anyway, at least at first. And she hadn't thought "classmate" translated to "sort of ex-boyfriend." But he isn't a criminal, and there never was any reward. Shame, hot and piercing, swept through her, dousing her anger easily.
"You know, then?" Valerie asked, looking at El. That was the reason she was going to Fenton Works. To see Danny. The half-ghost girl looked nervous, though she hid it well.
"Know what?" she said. "Look—I really need to go." She started to fly away.
"I figured it out, El. I know Danny is Phantom."
AN: I am forever blown away by your guys' response to this; thank you so much! And thanks to TheSteelShadow for being my beta. Questions: How was everyone's characterizations? Consistent with what I've shown so far? Was there too much angst? Also, what do you think of Danielle (El)?