In the event you missed it, I posted TWO CHAPTERS BACK TO BACK the last time I updated! Before delving into this chapter, please go back and reread "The Activation: Part II" and "The Interlude" if you didn't catch one or the other. :)
As always, please forgive any weird spacing around my italics. I never manage to catch them all on my final edit.
Enjoy!
Chapter 33: The Last Hurdle
It was an odd scene, to say the least. Sam wouldn't appreciate that until later.
At that moment, though, all that mattered was Danny.
At that moment, there weren't consequences waiting for them or any other eyes on them. There wasn't an infamously villainous ghost sitting with his head leaning back against the Fentons' cabinets nor were there two traumatized parents sitting right beside said ghost, working their way through various stages of adrenaline-fueled terror. There wasn't a presentation still on-going beneath their feet nor was there a lab full of people listening to it. The Portal wasn't more than a fleeting thought, and the GIW weren't anything close to a threat.
At that moment, there wasn't anyone else in the world but the two of them.
Danny took that precious moment to compose himself. He pressed his forehead into Sam's shoulder, his exhale shuddering against her collarbone, chilly as morning frost. She suppressed a shiver and rubbed a tender circle into his back, a reflexive reminder that she was there. She wasn't going to budge. Not for anything.
She'd stay right there for as long as he needed her to.
All too soon, it was over. Danny drew away from her, and the sudden loss shocked her numb, especially when she sought his eyes and found them hard and distant.
He had his battle face on.
"Is everyone okay?" he asked, assessing the room.
Sam barely caught the croaking affirmatives from her parents before Danny flicked a look toward Plasmius. As if sensing Danny's attention, the elder halfa opened his red eyes and met Danny's gaze. Whatever passed between them, Sam couldn't say, but she noted the way Danny inclined his chin in silent acknowledgement, how Vlad nodded once. Without another word, Plasmius disappeared.
A breathless gasp broke the silence. "That ghost!" Pamela's nails dug into her husband's wrist. "Where did he—?"
"He won't bother us," Danny said distractedly to Sam's mother. Pamela pursed her lips, eyes wide as they bounced like a drunken moth around every last empty corner of the kitchen. Danny didn't notice. He was already facing his sister. "Jazz?"
Sam had often wondered exactly how Jazz and Danny had managed it all before the Shift. Keeping Danny's identity secret, fighting ghosts, handling school and parent-issued responsibilities? She had enough trouble keeping track of her own schedule, and she wouldn't call her day-to-day life anything more intensive than that of an average high schooler's, even with all her extra volunteer work. As such, she had trouble imagining what it was like for them, before.
She didn't have to try to imagine it. Not anymore.
Watching Jazz and Danny do damage control was...unreal. They moved around each other like ballet dancers, exchanging little more than a few muttered words as they divvied up the tasks. Casual as can be. While Jazz painstakingly collected every shattered piece of the headphones, Danny straightened up, realigning the kitchen chairs and putting the toaster back where it belonged. He winced at the nice scorch mark on the wall above Sam's parents' heads but ended up leaving it alone, choosing instead to deal with the vomit on the floor by turning it intangible and sending it into the earth below FentonWorks.
Sam had to force herself to breathe in through her mouth and out through her nose when she saw that. He just did it so...so matter-of-factly. God. She was going to have words with him because surely—surely—he didn't use his intangibility like this on the norm.
And she thought Tucker was bad. Boys were so gross.
Deciding she'd rather not know, she picked the scorch mark on the wall as her focal point and, as Jazz spritzed the floor with what Sam hoped was bleach, she had the inappropriate, slightly hysterical thought that the Fentons likely ended up having a lot of little accidents like that scorch mark, at some point or another. What was another mark on the wall when you lived over a top-of-the-line paranormal research lab, anyway?
Something was wrong with her. Was this shock? Was she going into shock?
(Or was she just losing her fucking mind?)
The elder Mansons watched the Fenton siblings orbit around the other with stark bafflement. Now that the majority of their adrenaline had worn off, they had taken the time to unravel from the balls they had cowered in, shifting off sore tailbones and straightening previously locked muscles from their protective positions around each other.
Sam took a deep breath and slid across the kitchen floor to them. She didn't say anything, didn't so much as glare with accusation. She merely propped herself up against the wall, shoulder-to-shoulder with her dad. Her mother immediately reached over Jeremy's lap to grasp at Sam's clammy hand, and Sam allowed those thin, white-knuckled fingers to link with hers. The I told you so she initially thought she'd relish felt stale and bitter on her tongue.
"We...we had no idea," Pamela breathed suddenly, voice choked with unshed tears. Her fingers tightened around Sam's, as though to assure herself they were still there. Still warm and alive and still very much attached to Sam's hand. "We had no idea."
Danny overheard, and he stopped what he was doing to crouch before all three Mansons. Pamela flinched away on reflex, and Sam just briefly caught the flash of hurt cross Danny's features before resignation settled in. Offering a sad, comforting smile, Danny shifted back on the balls of his feet, offering more distance. His hands remained well within her parents' lines of sight.
"It wasn't you. Not really," Danny said in a voice that was, somehow, both flat and sincere, superficially warm and utterly void of any depth.
There was no light in his eyes.
Sam stared at him, recognizing exactly what it was he was trying to do and wondering how. How are you doing this? she wanted to demand, but the words were trapped in her throat. How can you be the hero right now? After everything that just happened?
Sam felt as though she'd been filled to the brim with static when Danny said, "It's okay."
"It isn't," Pamela whispered, voicing Sam's exact thoughts and pulling her right back to Earth. Wet eyes met Sam's, and she repeated, "It isn't."
Sam heard the genuine apology wrought in every last syllable. She felt it in the press of her mother's hand. She saw it, too, hanging in front of her like a neon sign.
Danny didn't.
An awful, dark little smile had replaced the calm, reassuring mask on Danny's face. Sam's skin crawled with how alien it looked there. She'd seen him self-deprecating before, but this...this wasn't that. This was so far from that.
Sam was at a loss as to how to fix it. A smothered scream of frustration and empathy built in her chest. Releasing it would have done no good. It remained trapped beneath her rib cage, where—surprise, surprise—it also did fuck all for anyone.
It hurt. So, so much.
She didn't know what to do.
"No, I guess it isn't," Danny finally said. "Not in all the ways that count." He sighed slowly, and some of the darkness seeped away on his breath. "Do you understand what happened just now?" he asked, still far too kind and conscientious for Sam's sense of sanity.
"...I think so," Pamela whispered, exchanging a look with her husband. "That—that...other ghost? He was trying to..."
"Contain me," Danny said, blunt as putty. "Yes. I know it must have been scary to see, but he wasn't here to hurt anyone. Least of all you. He just knew something wasn't right, like Sam and Tuck did, and acted to keep me from..."
His words failed him, and Sam reached across the distance. He didn't acknowledge her, didn't respond at all, actually, when Sam rested her free hand on his bent knee. Pamela tracked the movement.
"You're safe now," Danny summarized, not quite looking Sam's parents in the eye.
"And we did that?" Jeremy whispered. He immediately shook his head and muttered something under his breath before restating, with no inflection of a question in his tone, "We did this to you. We put everyone in danger. Because we trusted the wrong people."
"You couldn't have known," Danny said kindly, and Sam's utter incredulity grew. Wasn't he mad? Wasn't he upset? Shouldn't he...lecture or rage or drive the point home that ignorance and fear had led them here? That their fear could have ruined everything for him and his family?
That they hurt him?
Sam opened her mouth, ready to step in and act as the bad cop, but the sharp look he flicked at her cut her off. It was so quick she almost thought she imagined it.
"None of us really knew," Danny said to her parents.
Jeremy offered a hint of a rueful smile. "We should have known." He leaned into Sam's shoulder. "Sam knew. You knew."
You told us, Sam heard in between the lines. And we didn't listen.
Danny hesitated, an unreadable, pinched expression crossing across his face before disappearing behind a fresh cloak of sympathy. Once again, Sam was dumbstruck, wondering how in the world he had the strength to put on this face, just to ensure everyone around him felt comfortable and safe after what happened, as though he wasn't the victim here; as though he wasn't the one who'd been violated and torn so violently from ground by his roots.
Sam batted at the ignited kindling of anger and pity sparking within her. For all that she admired Danny's strength and that thing inside him that drove him to be the hero he was, she hated, with a burning passion, that she had to see it manifest like this, like it was owed and expected and absolutely unnegotiable, no matter the cost .
No matter the fact that maybe…he needed a hero to step up for him every once in a while, too.
She stared him down, begging him to look at her, as though that meager connection would be enough to make things better.
"None of us knew enough," Danny murmured, voice cracking as he, finally, broke and turned away. "I—I'm sorry."
It would seem a literal step was required. Sam attempted to surge to her feet, but before she could, Danny was across the room, taking Jazz by the arm and whispering in her ear. Tucker stepped forward himself, brow furrowed. He clearly heard what Danny said—and had something to say about it—but Jazz merely nodded, and Danny, like Vlad, disappeared before their very eyes.
"Should he be...?" Sam couldn't help but ask. She bit her tongue over the rest of the question, the ache in her chest expanding into a raw, weeping wound.
She and Tucker exchanged a glance, and she saw her own thoughts reflected right back at her. He shouldn't be alone right now .
"He's making sure nothing looks...out of place outside," Jazz said to the room, as an excuse. The command in her voice did not encourage any follow up questions, but Sam could see just how worried she was, too. "Everyone'll be exiting the lab through the garage as a part of the tour, so he's gone to see what the damage was. No one can know what happened here. Not until we know exactly what happened here."
Reaching up and opening a cabinet, Jazz collected several glasses and started to fill them, one by one, with water from the fridge. She distributed the first of these to Sam's parents, a civil but ultimately impersonal gesture. Pamela had the presence of mind to thank Danny's sister, but the moment the glass exchanged hands, she and Jeremy might as well have been a pair of dust bunnies under the couch: Jazz refused to acknowledge them any further.
Sam got the impression Jazz was furious enough that her parents didn't deserve a single ounce of her energy or scorn, dead to her as they were. She exuded a cold distance that put all the ghosts Sam's met to shame.
Not for the first time, Sam realized just how formidable Jazz Fenton was when she wanted to be.
"Sammie," Pamela whispered, eyes rimmed with running makeup. "Sammie, I am so sorry. So, so sorry."
Sam jumped when Jazz dropped the cabinet door closed with a loud bang, a definitive sign she did not appreciate nor have time for anyone's apologies right now. Sam could concur. She wasn't terribly sure what to do with a sorry right now either.
Sliding the last of the glasses over to Tucker, Jazz pulled out a seat at the kitchen table and finally looked over at the Mansons. She raised her eyebrows and waved to the open seats across from her. "We have some time to kill before everyone leaves and my parents can join us." She took out her phone and laid it flat on the table. A few taps later, and her voice memo app began to record. "Might as well tell me everything you can."
Sam took a look at her parents as they rose warily to their feet. They were watching her, as though hunting for a cue.
They had never looked so small.
Unlike Danny, Sam wouldn't ever say what happened today was "okay." She's not even sure she would make sense of what she was feeling toward her parents right at that moment, but she could at least see if her mother meant it when she said "I'm sorry." If the tears she cried weren't merely because of what she experienced but rather because of what she did.
"Let's just try to see what we can do to make things right," Sam murmured to her parents.
It wasn't much, but it was as close to a promise of forgiveness as she could make right now.
The rest...well. That remained to be seen, didn't it?
There was so much to do.
Invisible, Danny settled himself on the outer rim of the Ops Center, staring down into the backyard.
It was fine, really. The backyard, that is. Nothing there that would catch the eye of any of his parents' colleagues. In fact, nothing had . Danny had watched them file out to their cars not even fifteen minutes ago, totally oblivious and buzzing with the remnants of their academic enthusiasm.
It was a relief to see them go, but still, Danny continued to stare down at where he last saw them, mind racing up, down, and around his new mental checklist in neat, rapid repetitions, as though the number of times he ran through it would forever emblazon it into his brain.
He needed to visit the Ghost Zone. A half-composed explanation and appeal for assistance ran parallel to his To-Do List, right alongside a bulleted addendum of allies and possible reactions to news that the Phantom—defender of both the Human World and Ghost Zone, conqueror of Pariah Dark—had been subject (victim) to such a dangerous new development in anti-ghost technology. Contingencies began to file themselves alongside each bullet point, assuming, of course, Dora's Council, or any solo elements, did decide to go rogue and take retribution into their own hands.
(He had an essay due this week, he recalled. Couldn't forget that. The Scarlet Letter. He was a few chapters behind, so he didn't understand exactly what the prompt was asking for. He'd have to ask...).
There was a lot to consider. While his allies and enemies had mellowed somewhat since the Shift, he couldn't be too careful when dealing with them. It did not help matters that there had been rumors about the Guys in White in the Ghost Zone prior to the Portal's Activation. He couldn't dismiss the fact that Dora had gone so far as to seek him out, to try to get ahead of it all, and he'd turned her away with a simple trust me, I can handle this.
He had not handled it. The ghosts wouldn't care that his previous request to watch and wait came from a place of logic and caution rather than hubris and malice. No matter how much tact he approached the New Council with, they were not going to look kindly on the fact that they could have acted beforehand, had he not advised against it. Danny would need to prepare for reactions ranging from cold apathy to vicious fury, which would likely culminate into a dangerous amount of disrespect (the likes of which he only experienced right at the very beginning of his ghost-hunting career) and then outright hostility.
(There was a Geometry test in two days. Thursday — No, Friday? Whichever day. He shouldn't have to review too thoroughly for that, but he did need to go over the formulas a few more times, probably do a few more practice questions...).
There was going to be an uptick in ghost attacks. There was no avoiding that. Phantom had been compromised. And by humans. To the Zone, he would appear weak. Naïve. Incapable. Some ghosts would love to sink their teeth right into the opportunity to pit themselves against him. Others might be afraid enough to think that he needed to be put down. Others still would turn their distrust back onto humans, whether they identified as Guys in White or not.
He and his parents would need to prepare for every eventuality, of course. But only after he debriefed with them about the entire experience. Another top priority item. Dad may be able to reverse engineer those... things, so they can work on formulating an appropriate counter measure that would protect him (and hopefully the other ghosts) from their effects.
Danny grimaced and pulled one leg up, allowing the other heel to swing through the open air and bounce off the metal below him.
Mom would need all the details his dad wouldn't. To see if they could understand what it was about his physiology that made him susceptible to the devices in the first place. And why he was susceptible to these devices when he wasn't to Pariah Dark's mind control during the recent crisis.
(He Sensed Vlad somewhere nearby, barely within the scope of his outer range, along with two other unknown entities. They felt familiar, but hazy. Neutral. Definitely not identifiable from this distance. But also not currently threats that needed identifying. Yet. If curious parties were already hanging around, he'd need to draft up a consistent patrol schedule soon. As in, tonight).
And speaking of Vlad. Danny needed to go talk to him, as well. Vlad was immune to the devices, which made Danny wonder if perhaps the GIW's technology wasn't half as well developed as he feared. If Vlad wasn't protected by the sheer specificity of the tech's main target (i.e. Danny himself), then he was likely protected by a fluke of anonymity. Which meant his secret identity, at least, was still an ace up their sleeve. Either way, Vlad's immunity was a question that needed answering, and that meant he and Vlad would likely depend on each other—and work together—in the future, if only to determine the tech's limitations.
Ugh, he was so not looking forward to it.
It occurred to him, then, that he was going to have to tell the Vlad and the Council a lot more than he felt comfortable with. Neither Vlad nor the Council would accept anything less than utter transparency, even if it meant Danny would have to sacrifice a good deal of his own sense of personal safety and security. Vlad...Vlad was a wild card, one that might flip at any moment, but Danny had enough reason to believe he wouldn't this time, not after everything he did to protect his parents' work and professional integrity today. He would hope that the other ghosts wouldn't seek to use the GIW's own designs and plans against him either, but he couldn't know.
Danny grit his teeth, hating that so much depended on the ghosts' oftentimes fickle loyalties and motivations. If only he could trust that his previous alliances would hold .
(If only he could assume this was a one-off. Or that he could promise the ghosts they would likely be just as safe as Vlad was from the devices' effects).
Ha. What a thought. Danny didn't have the luxury to go underestimating the GIW's ambitions like that. He already had once, and he wouldn't be making that mistake again.
No, he just had to hope that if he (and maybe Vlad) approached the Council with a workable plan they'd a) be comfortable backing and b) want to back, that may help smooth some potential dissension among his allies and not-quite-enemies and all of his worries would be for nothing.
Perhaps, together, they could come up with an even better game plan to protect everyone.
That'd be optimal, but he hadn't disregarded the possibility the ghosts could decide to not react. That they'd close their doors to him and the Human World entirely, shun him for his failure and work solely to protect their own.
He wouldn't blame them. Danny would need to focus on protecting his own, too. His family had been used as hostages before, and now that he had Tucker and Sam…
(That reminded him: his friends threw the gauntlet at Mikey and Nathan, just the other day. Tuck boasted the three of them could wreck their classmates at Super Smash Bros, and the challenge had been accepted. Danny couldn't forget. Mikey and Nathan were cool. Danny wouldn't—he refused to— blow them off).
His rapid thoughts nearly screeched to a jolting halt before he stuttered on, right back down his To-Do List.
The Mansons...Danny would need to look a little deeper. Possibly play back any security footage, watch their movements, isolate the people they talked to and the ones they didn't. See if he could trace those devices back to whom ever the Mansons got them from in the first place.
It didn't take too much of a leap to guess that the GIW had someone in attendance today. Danny, however, didn't want to speculate too much on that. Not now. He didn't have the time, even if the answer, in retrospect, was far too obvious to ignore in light of everything else he was trying desperately not to think about.
Later, he told himself again, fighting the anxious pitter-pat of his half-latent heartbeat. His skin crawled. Later.
There was too much to do.
Recon , he reminded himself firmly. Next on the list. He had an ever-expanding subsection of his list devoted to a plethora of questions he needed answered and how exactly he expected to answer them. They spiraled back on each other, one depending on the answer of another and yet another and yet another before cycling all the way back to the top of his list and cascading down in a shower of shattered assumptions and loose ends.
The only conclusion that he could come to was that the GIW's motives weren't nearly as easy to guess as he'd expected, not without knowing what, exactly, those devices were meant to do and, as a follow up, how they were triggered at all.
If he could answer those base questions at the very least , he could help his parents. He could provide useful intel to the ghosts and create a more workable plan. He could understand why Vlad wasn't affected and use that to his advantage. He could keep his friends safe. He could—
Someone was behind him.
Danny spun, eyes alight, teeth bared in a defensive snarl. He stopped short as Jazz popped her head out of the rooftop hatch and called, "Danny?"
Tension leached from his limbs, and he slumped, just a little, releasing a sigh. Just Jazz. Of course it was Jazz.
It was always Jazz.
She must have heard him. She fixed her gaze a little above his right shoulder and said, "Come inside? Please?"
Danny shrugged. It was just as well. He needed to run through all this with her, get her input. She'd help him prioritize and delegate. She'd always been good at—
He didn't realize he was already talking, already beginning to lay out his checklist with military precision, until Jazz's face was inches from his, concern and patience and painpainpainforyou seeping from each corner of her frown, from the gentle pressure of her hands on his shoulders.
He didn't want that. He tried to pull away.
"Danny," she interrupted softly. Something in her voice had him stop in his tracks. He blinked and realized they were in the Ops Center, rather than on the Ops Center. He was now visible, floating cross-legged before his sister. He didn't remember phasing through the wall at all. Didn't remember descending to the base of the Center, flying alongside Jazz as she took the ladder down from the hatch.
How long had he been…?
"Danny."
Danny focused on Jazz again, and she smiled, just a little. "Enough," she requested softly. "Breathe."
Two words. One little request. That was all it took.
Danny took a gulping, quaking breath, and lowered his eyes away from hers, utterly derailed and sputtering on fumes. Tears sprung to his eyes, and he knew, even before she opened her mouth, what she was going to ask, how she was going to ask it. He could map each syllable, predict her exact tone and pitch.
She'd asked it enough, in the last year.
"...what happened?"
(It never failed to make him come undone).
Danny broke, nearly falling into the space Jazz had left for him. His chest heaved with the effort of trying to repress full sobs.
It was too much, all at once. Two sets of memories shifting like spilt paint in his mind, the lines blurring and colors shifting in a nauseating cacophony. The taste of their fear, the way Tucker's Adam's apple bobbed under his palms, Sam's placating hands, Vlad shouting in his ear, the sharp pain in his side, and above all…
The lack of control. The sliver of doubt Sam and Tuck had managed to wedge into his mindless drive toward a goal that was both his and not his. The mesmerizing siren call of the Portal, enhanced by the frenetic energy of his own panic and the poisonous, foul insistence he could not—did not want to—shake.
"Fuck, Jazz," he croaked. "Fuck." Danny closed his eyes against the burn. "I could have hurt them. I could have really hurt them. Hurt you. I would have. I…"
Jazz's hands were gentle on his back. Like Mom's, when he'd been too weak to sit up in bed after the Shift. Like Tucker's, when he ribbed Danny at lunch on that first day of school. Like Dad's, after he lashed out in his sleep at a nightmare only he could see.
Like Sam's, as they sat together on the cold tile floor.
He looked down at his own hands and clenched them into fists.
A weaker person would think that that was all his hands were good for.
He was trying very hard not to be that person. He'd already shown a fair bit of his belly to the Mansons. He refused to let the GIW reduce him further. They'd already done enough.
"We've been through some weird, scary shit," Danny said, "but this ... "
He was trembling, and he couldn't control it. Intrusive thoughts glutted upon him like disease-ridden mosquitoes. They were right about you, they buzzed at him. They were right to flinch away. He made his best attempt to swat them away.
His best attempt was pretty damn weak, at this point.
Jazz was silent for a moment. "This," she stressed, "isn't any different than seeing you fall through the floor for the first time. Or watching you form a ghostly tail or make ectoplasmic fire in your hands or spawn another eyeball when you tried to duplicate—and really, Daniel, of all the times to master that particular power, it's now?"
That elicited a weak chuckle out of Danny before he could stop it. "A fluke, I bet."
Jazz scrunched up her nose against his shoulder but let it go. "My point is: it's all you. And I love you, exactly like this." She pulled away from his hug and gestured up and down at his ghost form. "I didn't run then. I'm not going anywhere now. I promise. I'm just sorry it took so long to get up here."
What did I ever do, Danny wondered wildly, more cold tears blurring his vision, to deserve you? He closed his eyes, trying to focus on what she was telling him. And why it was so important.
She wasn't about to run. And she never would.
"The Mansons are gone?" Danny asked quietly.
Jazz shook her head. If she was upset with him for making an obvious attempt to delay the inevitable, she didn't show it. "They're still here. Sam and Tucker, too." Danny's eyes snapped up. "Mom and Dad are with them."
"Sam and Tucker?" he parroted weakly. Disregarding the fact he hadn't any inkling of what time it actually was, he thought they would have been long gone. A snarl of bitter self-loathing and guilt tumbled within his core. He knew exactly what he'd done. He'd known exactly how they felt. He'd fed on their fear, and it appalled him so much thinking back on it, he felt motion sick. "But why…?"
Jazz rolled her eyes at him. "Because they care, doofus."
A traitorous swell of hope, appreciation, and relief stunned him stupid, so much so he could only really land on one very important conclusion.
His friends hadn't run either.
That...that was something.
"Now, come on." She took his hand and pulled him toward the conference table. He floated after her, boneless. "Will you tell me what happened?"
Danny hesitated, then released his hold on his ghost form. It wasn't the relief he thought it would be.
It hadn't been a relief in a long, long time.
One panicked part of him wondered exactly when he'd stopped finding solace in the familiar weight and warmth of this form. The other cold, rational part of him sarcastically answered, " how about the very moment you started to internalize the word 'freak?'"
Did it matter, in the end? Had it ever?
He wasn't sure he wanted an answer anymore.
"I...don't know what triggered it, exactly. I talked with Mr. Manson, at one point, so that could have been it. Proximity, or whatever. I don't really know," Danny said, slouching into a chair at their big conference table. "I was anxious. About the Portal. You knew that. I knew that. I think we all knew that."
"We did," Jazz said when Danny didn't immediately continue. She frowned, perplexed. "What does that have to do with…?"
Danny ran his hands through his hair. "I...don't know. I guess I'm trying to explain that...whatever happened, it wasn't mind control. Not the way you might think. Not like Pariah Dark. Or like Freakshow. It wasn't like that at all."
"But you weren't in your right mind," Jazz said as she settled in the chair beside him. "It wasn't you."
Danny shook his head. "I...I don't think it wasn't not me either."
Jazz, to her credit, absorbed the admission with calm, collected curiosity. "What makes you say that?" she probed.
"Because it…" Danny gnashed his teeth together, struggling to find the words. He buried his face in his hands. "Look. It was like I couldn't...rationalize. Or like I couldn't see beyond the tip of my nose to see my own fingers. There was one truth, and it was everything . It was everywhere, and it was suffocating, and I couldn't even see what was so wrong about it. Because I was so sure the Portal was everything wrong, and I had to fix it. I had to."
"That sounds an awful lot like..." Jazz commented slowly.
Danny pulled his head out of his hands. "An Obsession?" he finished. "Yeah, I think it was. And it didn't help that it fed into mine. "
Jazz pursed her lips. Danny didn't miss how her eyes widened slightly, how caution eclipsed her expression. He didn't talk about Obsession with her much. She'd learned not to ask. It...was a touchy subject, something intimate and private and something he wasn't entirely sure he understood himself. He couldn't imagine anyone would be able to understand. Not even other ghosts.
Especially not other ghosts. Except, perhaps, with one outlying exception in the Far Frozen, whose people had studied ghost health, psychology, and evolution for generations upon generations.
"What do you mean?" Jazz asked carefully.
"I mean, I was absolutely convinced something was wrong with the Portal, Jazz. No amount of proof would have convinced me otherwise. Part of me could see it was fine, but it didn't matter what I saw. Because shutting down the Portal was all I cared about. The Portal was wrong, and I had to fix it to protect everyone. I was the only one who could. I couldn't let anything bad happen. And if anyone got in my way…" Danny trailed off and said, in a voice so small he couldn't be sure Jazz could hear him at all, "I think I get it now. What it feels like to be a ghost with an Obsession they can't control."
He rubbed at his arms, hoping to dispel the nasty creepy-crawly sensation trickling like sludge over his body.
Jazz didn't say anything more, and for that, Danny was grateful. He wasn't so sure he could stomach any platitudes right then. Instead she scooted her chair so that she could lean into the space between and sling her arm across his shoulders. Will you be okay? she asked without words, offering a small, warm squeeze.
He didn't lean into her, but he didn't exactly hold himself aloof either. He basked in her presence, exactly as it was, without any strings or expectations attached, and closed his eyes. I'll have to be .
"They couldn't have planned this," Jazz muttered finally. "There's no way. They would have had to orchestrate exactly the right circumstances at exactly the right time, and that's...that's not possible."
"I don't think they did. And that's what makes them so terrifying," Danny muttered. "Whatever they're doing...this isn't like anything they tried before."
"The Mansons swore no outside influence told them to bring the headphones in to FentonWorks," Jazz said, voice strained. "They were told they were supposed to protect them, like their own personal little ghost shields. Filter spectral noise, block ectoplasmic radiation..."
This wasn't anything Danny hadn't already suspected, but he would be a liar if he said the confirmation wasn't a relief. Ignorance was easier to forgive, in the end. He didn't know what he would have done, had the Mansons knowingly.. .
Danny swallowed over his rising gorge, grimacing. "I know I said it wasn't mind control. But if having the ability to manipulate and control ghosts is their endgame, I don't think they are wrong to try to mess with a ghost's Obsession in order to do it."
"And what better way to test it than choose you," Jazz mused. "One of the only ghosts who could ignore Pariah Dark's power in the first place. Do it during the Portal activation, when they could get one of their people close. See what happens by sheer coincidence. Possibly breed some chaos and discredit us while they're at it. Nothing lost, nothing gained if they failed."
"Yeah."
"That's messed up."
"You're telling me?"
Jazz cracked a smile at his sardonic humor, but when she looked at him head-on, her amusement disappeared utterly. "I was afraid," she revealed. "When I saw you flip on Tucker."
Danny winced, the sting of guilt far too harsh to ignore. "I know."
"I promised you I wouldn't be." Her gaze misted as she stared past him and into the memory of his first transformation. "No matter what happened."
Danny could Sense her own guilt pressing in on his. He sighed. "Jazz, listen, I don't blame you for—"
"Don't interrupt me. I'm not finished."
By all means, Danny gestured with a sarcastic flourish of his wrist.
"Thank you," Jazz said, tossing her curtain of red hair over her other shoulder. "I'm not looking for validation or for forgiveness. I'm not even going to delude myself into thinking it may not ever happen again. I'm trying to tell you that I hate it. I hate that it was the GIW who made me feel like this, and I hate that they made you feel like this."
Danny looked up, startled by the vehement threat of violence in her voice. The light in Jazz's eyes flared, and if she had been a halfa, Danny swore she would have smote the entire suburb with the untameable fury coming off her in that single moment.
"They aren't going to get away with it," Jazz promised. "I won't let them."
Danny stared at his sister and slowly, he felt a knot in his chest loosen. It wasn't much, but it was better, and better was good. Better meant he could pick himself up and do what needed to be done.
Better meant he could stay afloat without drowning.
He wasn't alone. He never had been, with her always there. "Thanks, Jazz," he whispered.
The hard glint in her eyes softened, and she ventured, "I don't think Sam and Tucker will either, you know."
Danny tensed, a frigid rush of anxiety dousing him. God, what they must think of him. The questions and accusations they must have. "They don't need to be involved," he said, his voice stiff, the words reflexive. They tasted old and soggy.
(Maybe because it was an overused excuse).
He couldn't imagine why they would want to see him, anyway. Not unless they wanted to spit in his face and tell him what a piece of shit he was before turning cold shoulders and refusing to speak to him ever again.
But, no, no, that was his fear talking. That was all of his insecurity presenting like a dog in heat.
(Sam or Tucker weren't like that. That wasn't who they were ).
They're still here, Jazz had said. They hadn't run. Because they care.
"They're already involved," Jazz didn't need to remind him. "And they won't thank you for cutting them out. Not after everything."
"No," Danny breathed, eyes prickling. "You're right."
His stomach churned at the prospect of going back down there. Of facing them with the tattered remains of the last veil he kept up between them. Hell, that was sugarcoating it, wasn't it? He was downright petrified. The sensation sat at distinct odds with the knowledge that his friends deserved better from him, and moreso, that they had long since earned his trust and honesty.
He saw the hesitant, hopeful question in his sister's expression, and he nodded.
He...needed to meet his friends halfway. He needed to show them that their support meant something.
Sam and Tucker had been afraid, too. Without even understanding what it would mean for them, they stood their ground and faced the monster he could be. From the moment he stumbled out of that tree on Casper High's grounds on his first day of school, they had gotten tastes of his life, heedless of how weird or terrifying, and they'd done so without faltering, time and time again. They had not run.
They had not run.
Now, it was his turn.
His To-Do List could wait. Everything else could take a back seat.
No more running.
This chapter...was weird to finish. After I finished it, I stared at my doc, scrolled up and down a few times, and thought "that can't be it?" It felt like a trick. Because this chapter was, quite literally, "the last hurdle" for both me and the characters. We are very close to the end now. For real this time. The one scene I actually had planned from the very beginning—the one I've been waiting seven years to write—is likely going to happen in the next chapter. I can hardly believe it.
Until next time. :)
Oz out