Man, how're we feeling, everyone? I don't know how I'm feeling. Not even a little bit.
This is the chapter I wanted to write from the very beginning, when I first came up with this AU. Even before the GIW plot took over, this was meant to be the character-driven climax and emotional payoff for the entire fic.
Don't know if I managed it, honestly. It's dialogue-heavy and also incredibly self-indulgent and cheesy, possibly redundant in some areas, but I can't imagine it any other way, so I think I've done something right?
Time will tell. I couldn't look at it anymore because I was starting to nit-pick and angst over every little thing, so in a rare show of competence from me, here is a chapter presented to you after a wildly quick turnaround time. For what it's worth, please enjoy.
Chapter 34: The Halfa
Maddie Fenton sat next to Pamela Manson on the living room couch.
A chipped mug of tea lay abandoned on the coffee table before them. Steam no longer rose from its surface. Mrs. Fenton had brought it in for herself after she and her husband had been caught up, though she had not touched it in the time since. Sam and Tucker each perched themselves on the wing of a large armchair across the room, exhausted, on edge, and pretending to be amused with their phones.
Everyone had gone. As planned, the Q&A went off without a hitch, and Maddie and Jack had led a successful mini-tour of the lab and out through the attached garage, where they said their farewells to all their guests and sent them on their way. Lance Thunder's crew had flown through their cleanup and had been out of everyone's hair in record time.
All in all, the entire event had been a roaring success.
The Fentons should have been relaxing after undergoing a stressful week of preparations. They should have been celebrating and treating themselves for a job well done.
Sam hated that they weren't.
It had been a tense, interminable hour since Jazz got everything she needed for her voice memo. Pamela had withdrawn into herself and refused to engage in much conversation afterwards. Jeremy had been equally thoughtful and quiet. Tucker and Sam, for their parts, couldn't find it in themselves to break the awkward, heavy silence either, not even amongst themselves, though they did take a few whispered seconds to compare a few notes Jazz hadn't thought to ask.
Neither of them liked what the other had to say, as it made Danny's absence all the more concerning, but they both agreed that going to school now was out of the question. Even Mrs. Foley could sense that it was a lost cause after the first gentle text she sent to Tucker, reminding him she was available to pick them up any time.
The thing was...they couldn't leave without making sure Danny was alright. It went without being said they were going to stay for as long as it took.
Jazz beat them to it. She had disappeared the moment her parents emerged from the lab. Their weary, lined faces implied a deep-seated worry they hadn't been able to address until the moment everyone else had left FentonWorks, and Sam marveled at their ability to compartmentalize.
She wouldn't have been able to do it. She was barely holding herself together as it was.
Rehashing everything with the Fentons had been...difficult. Even after listening to the voice memo Jazz took, Maddie and Jack backtracked and approached their own interrogations of Sam's parents with a thorough, scientific, and harshly detached professionalism. Jack fiddled at the remains of the headphones during most of the discussion, but it was obvious he was paying strict attention, expression stony with concentration.
Mrs. Fenton had needed to leave the room once all her questions were answered. Her husband had not followed, instead choosing to pick at the busted, illicit tech with an even more incessant vigor. When Maddie returned, her cheeks and nose were ruddy, eyes glassy. The mug of tea she held in her hands had done little to steady her hands.
"We could talk all day, all night, all week," Maddie said to the quiet room, "about how much danger a malfunctioning or impaired Portal could have posed to the people here today, not to mention the entire residential block and possibly the Zone itself. We could theorize for even longer about the war and terrorism these devices could breed between the Human World and Ghost Zone if left in the wrong hands. I could even devote some of that time to a few ideas on how to counteract the damn things, for flavor." Her voice thickened and cracked when she added, "But right now, I couldn't tell you a single thing about what continued exposure to those devices could have done to Danny. "
And it scares me, she didn't have to say.
"Is he...alright?" Jeremy asked softly. He was pale, perfectly gelled hair limp from running his fingers through it one too many times. Sam had never seen him so disheveled.
Maddie exchanged a look with Mr. Fenton and responded, "Jazz is with him."
That wasn't the answer any of them wanted to hear.
No one had the courage to speak for a long while after that, but to Sam's surprise, her parents did not break.
Nor did they retreat.
"I never intended for this to happen," Pamela whispered, once the tension became too much for her to bear. She wasn't the first one to extend the olive branch. Jack Fenton and Jeremy had started a small conversation over at the kitchen table a few minutes prior, the rise and fall of their voices barely audible from the living room.
"I never…" Her mother's voice caught, and Sam was amazed to see Maddie, in a gesture so reminiscent of her son, place a hand on Pamela's shoulder. "I was a fool. I am so horrified with myself. I am so sorry, Maddie. I am so, so sorry. Your son..."
Maddie's smile was a little tight, but her voice was gentle when she said, "Jack and I made our fair share of mistakes. Before." Maddie closed her eyes, just briefly. "I—I am far too familiar with the call of willful ignorance to condemn anyone else for making the same exact mistakes we did."
"I thought I was working to keep us safe," Pamela uttered, torn and weak. "I thought I was doing the right thing."
"So did we, Pam."
Pamela looked up at Maddie then, sharp and startled with sudden realization, and Sam wondered if her mother was seeing Danny's for the first time. "How did you do it?" her mother asked Maddie in an undertone Sam was sure she wasn't supposed to hear.
Sam remembered posing something of the very same question to her mother months ago, after one of their fights about how safe it was to associate with the Fentons. Pamela hadn't listened, then. She'd brushed off the mere idea that, maybe, there was something to be said about how the Fentons managed to overcome prejudice and work toward true change within their own household.
That, maybe, there was something truly admirable about how they rebuilt their relationships with their children after standing at opposing sides of a silent war, one they hadn't once realized was being fought amongst themselves.
Maddie chuckled. "The same way a parent does anything, I suppose. We crossed our fingers and hoped for the best."
Pamela cracked a smile that immediately fell into a worried frown. "The world is changing so fast," she murmured. She curled her fingers, taupe nails digging into the meat of her palms. "Too fast. I needed to be ahead of it, to offer at least some semblance of checks and balances in a world that was beginning to accept the supernatural as perfectly natural."
"I think we understand that better than anyone," Maddie said, not unkindly.
"I...thought otherwise."
"That much was obvious," Sam muttered under her breath. If her mother or Mrs. Fenton overheard, they showed no sign. Tucker drove a sharp elbow into her ribs. She glared at him until he sighed and slid off the couch, deciding to drift over to where the other men kept their heads bowed over the partially reconstructed headphones.
He was curious about the tech. Of course he was. Sam didn't stop him. He'd tell her and Danny anything he learned or observed later, if Mr. Fenton didn't do so first.
"Well," Mrs. Fenton began. The attempt for tact was a little stiff to Sam's ears, and Sam wondered why Danny's mom bothered at all, "we do have a son with ghostly abilities, several of which are beyond standard classification. I can see how you might assume our bias blinded us to—"
"You don't have to say it," Pamela said, some tartness returning to her voice. "The only bias that matters here, now, is my own. It's what allowed the GIW to take advantage of us. Besides—" Her gaze flickered to Sam. "Daniel...Daniel is a remarkably self-aware young man. I didn't want to see that, before."
Despite herself, Sam preened at the recognition and approval in her mother's words. She might have always said she never cared if her parents liked her friends, but this was more than that. It was an acknowledgement that Danny was someone she could accept in Sam's life, exactly as he was, powers and all. It brought an instant high she never expected to experience.
"He is," Maddie agreed in a tone so warm with pride and wrought with vulnerability Sam's glow of happiness sputtered. She squirmed, uncomfortable to see Mrs. Fenton, certifiable badass that she was, exposing so much of her neck to someone who implied she was a dangerously oblivious mother not even twenty-four hours ago.
Sam peeked over her shoulder and saw Jack and Jeremy including Tucker in on their conversation, as cordial and cautiously friendly as the two women before her, and as she watched Jack Fenton offer her father a smile, she had an extraordinarily belated epiphany.
I see where Danny gets it from now.
"I was arrogant to assume everything was as starkly black and white as I wanted to believe," Pamela admitted, causing Sam to turn back in absolute astonishment. Her mother noticed and rolled her eyes at her, as though to tell Sam why, yes, I am fully aware of my failings here, thank you.
"Even after what I just experienced," Pamela continued, "I know I was wrong. I was wrong about a lot of things, it seems." She snorted darkly and rubbed her puffy eyes. She'd already washed her face clean of all makeup and, for once, did not seem to care enough to replace it. "Far too much to trust that I'm anything but another villain in your son's story."
Maddie actually laughed and knocked her prim and proper mother's shoulder with her own, as though they were longtime teammates on the court. "Don't be so melodramatic, Pam! The more I learn about the Zone and my son, the more I understand the true villains out there are the ones who use other people's weaknesses against them for their own selfish purposes. Unrepentantly and without shame. Happily, even. Ghost, human...that isn't such an important distinction, when it comes down to it." She sobered when Pamela didn't respond to the implication she herself did not fit the criteria Maddie had listed. "You're owning your mistakes. Nothing about that is unforgivable. Not in this family."
The line of Pamela's shoulders, held stiff and forlorn, softened suddenly. She blinked rapidly and brushed away at another stray tear. "I don't appreciate being played for a fool," Pamela said with a disdainful sniff. When she looked up, her expression was fierce, unrelenting, vicious. "And I certainly don't appreciate being used. There's a lot I need to learn." Her eyes flashed, and she turned, opening up to Maddie, kicking off her shoes and drawing one of her legs up onto the sofa to get more comfortable. "What can Jeremy and I do to help shut those bastards down for good?"
Mrs. Fenton blinked, and a slow, genuine smile spread across her face.
Sam's smile mirrored Mrs. Fenton's. She shouldn't have expected anything different from her mother, honestly. For all that she and Sam disagreed on a great number of things, their sense of justice and accountability was one thing that'd always ring in sync.
And justice would be served. Of that, there was no doubt. Her parents, for all their faults, were forces of nature when they put their minds to it, and from the expression on her mother's face, Sam could go so far as to believe that maybe her mother had found a new cause to lock her jaws into.
It was—Shit, it was a relief. Such a relief. In this, Sam would have gladly stood her ground against her mother for the rest of her life, but she could not deny that stepping down so Pamela could surge forward and grip this new stance against the GIW by the throat? Hearing her admit there were things she needed to learn in order to do so?
It felt good . It felt good to lower her hackles, to realize that finally they were all on somewhat of the same page. It felt good to let go of some of her anger and resentment, to let some hope swell into the spaces her departed negativity left behind.
The best part, though, was feeling secure in the knowledge that Danny had another budding pillar of support to lean back on. It meant Sam could devote her energy to strengthening and maintaining that pillar, rather than trying to help build its foundation out of toothpicks. It meant that, maybe, it might be strong enough to bear some of her weight too. One day.
She didn't realize how much she needed that.
The sound of footsteps pattering down the stairs startled her, and Sam swiveled around to see Jazz descend the last few stairs and swing around the banister. Sam immediately rose, not bothering to excuse herself from the two mothers' presence, and rushed to intercept her.
Jazz waited for her. Her expression wasn't nearly as troubled as Sam feared it would be, but it was hard to read all the same as she approached.
"How is he?" Sam demanded in an undertone, concern fluttering in her chest. Tucker materialized suddenly at her shoulder, his breathing uneven. He must have hoofed it from the kitchen the moment he saw Sam leave the armchair.
Jazz's smile, like her mother's, was remarkably genuine. It didn't quite meet her eyes, but the edges were neither sharp nor forced. In fact, it was degrees softer than anything Sam would have expected after the glacial airs she put on earlier.
"As well as can be expected," Jazz said. She paused, then amended, "Better. He's doing better."
Sam exhaled heavily. The knot in her gut writhed, not quite satisfied by Jazz's word alone. "Good," she babbled, mouth dry. "Good. That's good. That's—"
"He's...well, he's not exactly waiting for you, but he knows you'll come find him," Jazz interrupted, a knowing twinkle in her eye. "Go talk to him before he loses his nerve."
It was meant as a joke, surely. It was fondly scathing, light enough on the surface to sound like a sister jibbing at her little brother for some stupid thing or another, but something in Jazz's tone also felt...off. Like there was real cause for concern, too.
Sam didn't understand. What was there to lose his nerve over ? They'd already been through the worst of it, hadn't they?
What did he have to be afraid of?
(...not—not them, right?)
"Where?" Tuck asked. His gaze flicked up. "The Ops Center?"
Jazz shook her head.
The motion-sensing lights flickered on with a low-powered hum as Sam and Tucker stepped out onto the catwalk. The heavy hazard doors to the Portal below were still open, allowing the Zone to cast its fluctuating green light across the lower lab. The Fentons had once said that the doors themselves, though helpful in conserving energy, did little to stop ghosts from breaching their world. It was the shield they'd decided to erect within its mouth, stretched and shimmering across the entire front of the Portal, that supposedly did the true work.
The last time Sam had been down here, she hadn't had much time to appreciate the Portal's uncanny beauty. Without the stage lights and overhead lamps, the light and shadows spewing from the Portal looked even more eerie, the shapes they were creating utterly indescribable. Interspersed between the licks of ectoplasmic energy that teased at its opening, a haze of otherworldly mist ebbed and flowed like ocean waves, sometimes reaching out with spectral fingers to trace along the lazy swirls and spirals of light. The lab had been too bright for her to see it before, and Sam found herself utterly captivated by the marvel below her.
That was a gateway to another world right there, and it was breathtaking.
Tucker nudged her from behind, and Sam shook herself out of her amazed stupor, refocusing and scanning the rest of the catwalk ahead.
To ignorant eyes, no one else was down there. Anyone else would have left and gone hunting elsewhere.
Sam knew better.
"Danny?" she called.
No response. After Jazz's subtle warning, she hadn't really expected one.
She reached out toward the edge of the catwalk with one hand, and, with slow, tentative steps, she began to walk, fingers trailing along the safety banister. Tucker followed.
She didn't stop until her fingers bumped into Danny's. That he hadn't flown away already was a good sign, she supposed. He was in human form, his ungloved fingers cool against hers. She waited, just for a moment, for him to withdraw. When he did not, she hesitated before gently manipulating the invisible fingers. He didn't fight her, accepting the way she laced their fingers together, the palm of her hand flush against the back of his.
She pressed his hand. It's okay.
It took a second longer than it should have, probably. Or perhaps time wasn't what she thought it was. In any case, Danny was the one who decided. He returned to visibility without fanfare, eyes fixated on the Portal.
He didn't make any move to extricate his hand, so Sam did not let go. She traced the ball of his thumb with hers as Tucker settled on Danny's other side, watching the Portal with an equally diligent patience.
The fine tremor lacing through Danny's hand did not subside. His fingers remained loose, and Sam tried not to let that ruin her confidence. Tried not to think too hard about what that might mean. She continued her ministrations, hoping that they'd be enough to communicate what she couldn't say with words, just as she had in the kitchen after she smashed the headphones.
I'm here. Whatever you need. For the duration.
"Are you guys okay?" Danny asked before either she or Tucker could do so themselves. He tore his gaze away from the Portal and scanned them anxiously up and down. "Tuck? I didn't…?"
"I'm fine," Tucker assured. "You didn't hurt me."
"Probably just gave you nightmares," Danny sniped, his sarcasm falling flat. He pressed against the banister, eyes back on the Portal. "No big deal."
"Do I have to tell you I don't blame you?" Tucker asked, a scoff in his voice. "Because even if I don't know exactly what happened, it really does go without saying that I know it wasn't something you would have done willingly."
Danny flinched. "And if it was? At least in part?"
"...Was it?" Tucker asked in surprise, genuinely curious.
"I...don't know," Danny admitted, voice barely more than an exhale. Sam could feel the tension in his entire body. His knuckles were white. "It was hard to tell what was mine and what wasn't."
"Well, you did get mind-fucked," Sam said, tone a little more acrid than she intended. Tempering herself, she sighed and added, "It's okay not to know. We'll figure it out. Together." When Danny didn't respond either positively or negatively to that, Sam leaned forward, trying to get him to look her in the eye again. "We were worried about you. Are you doing okay?"
Danny chuckled without humor and sniffled. "Yet to be determined," he joked thickly. Before Sam could ask what he meant by that, he blurted, "I—I need to tell you guys something."
His voice quavered, and Sam felt her heart stutter and plummet into her stomach. She couldn't be sure what that meant, either, and her mind raced, trying to think of what type of bombshell he was about to drop on them. "Okay," she said, as gently as she could.
A beat. A short, shallow inhale that hitched in Danny's throat. "It was the Portal," he finally choked out. "It all started with the Portal."
Tucker was the one who voiced their shared confusion with a soft, "What do you mean?"
Danny drew a ragged breath, then another. He closed his eyes and, with a slight tug, finally slid his hand out from under hers. Sam didn't cling. She let him go.
He opened his eyes again and met hers, then Tucker's. His fingers twitched at his side. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed and stared at them, searching for something in them that ...Sam wasn't certain she could ever define in mere words.
It occurred to Sam, in that moment, that her earlier fear was confirming itself right before her eyes. He really was terrified. Of them.
Oh, Danny...
"It was the Portal," Danny repeated, turning away from them and back toward the open space below them. "I...I was inside the Portal."
Tucker went deathly pale. "Dude," he murmured, cautious and wide-eyed. "You...you don't mean...?"
Sam was a little slower on the uptake, but when Danny sighed and lifted his chin, the Portal light illuminated the planes of his face, reflecting in his eyes. It made him look like...
Oh.
"You don't have to tell us this," Sam said, abrupt. No, she wouldn't hear another word. Not when he was feeling this way. Not when he looked like he was on his way to the executioner's block.
Danny snorted, wet and disdainful. "I do," he said in a harsh tone. When he looked at her again, his expression softened. His eyes danced over her face, and whatever he found there, it must have given him some strength because he sounded a lot more like himself when he added, "I need to tell you. It's...It's not fair that you don't know."
Sam grimaced. "I don't think fairness has anything to do with it, if it's making you—"
"Sam," Danny interrupted, slightly pained. He looked like he was about to throw up, and Sam swallowed her tongue. "It's...I need to, okay? You deserve to know, but it's more than that. It's...It's me, too. It's about me finally telling you. I haven't..." His voice wavered. "I haven't had to, before."
"Okay," Tucker agreed quietly, though it didn't sound like he understood anymore than Sam did. "We're not going anywhere."
Danny shuffled his feet. "I...don't know where to start exactly. It's...It's hard to—"
"The Portal?" Tucker suggested.
Danny shook his head. "No. Before then, maybe." He chewed on his lip, collecting his thoughts.
"When my parents were in college," he began softly, "they developed their first prototype for the Portal. It was about the size of one of our Porto-Portals." He drew a circle in the air with his hands to demonstrate. "They could sit it right on their lab table, it was so small. It barely functioned, honestly. But it...it functioned enough."
He dropped his hands and stared down at them. "There was an accident," he admitted. "Vlad was a part of the project. He didn't think it would work. My parents disagreed. No one was as careful as they should have been. There were some miscalculations, and...Dad turned it on when Vlad was...in the blast zone. So to speak."
Sam couldn't help her sharp inhale.
"He was in the hospital for a long time," Danny admitted. "The blast of ecto-energy got him in the face. Infected him with something the paranormalists at the time only called 'ecto acne.'" A wry, humorless smile twitched at Danny's lips. "It wasn't just ecto acne."
"Is..." Sam paused. "Is that how...?"
Danny responded with a grim nod. "It took him a long, long time to understand what had happened. How to control his abilities. How to change at all."
"Holy shit," Tucker empathized.
"Fast forward to last year. My parents finally had the funds to try again. On a grander scale. It didn't work. Again. They were heartbroken. And I...I was stupid." He ran his hands through his hair and barked a laugh. "And curious, I suppose. I don't know."
Something about how he phrased the admission triggered a memory. From Danny's first public interview with Lance Thunder, well before Sam had really attempted to become his friend. She'd had a silent, half-formed suspicion then that the Portal had something to do with how Danny became Phantom, especially considering how cagey and anxious he was about the public viewing of its Activation, and with the additional context for Vlad's own transformation, the pieces started slotting into place with horrifying clarity.
"You went to check it out," Sam prompted when Danny stalled.
"I went inside," Danny said. "I tripped. Hit something. And then...it turned on."
Sam stared at him and then down at the Portal. She imagined the shape of the first prototype Danny had drawn in the air and compared it, numb, to the monstrosity below them.
It didn't seem half as wondrous or beautiful now.
Tucker, who'd seen the activation in person, burst out, just for absolute clarification, "While you were inside ?"
"Yeah," Danny admitted on an exhale. "While I was inside."
Tucker's eyes grew wide. "I...Dude, I just... The amount of energy that—"
Danny merely nodded. "Believe me, I know." A shaky, uncertain smile forced its way onto his lips. The fake brevity hurt nearly as much as the sharp-edged cast in his eyes. "How's that for an origin story, Tuck?"
"Don't joke," Tuck snapped. "You could have died."
A dark cloud passed over Danny's expression, and he quirked an eyebrow that read, But didn't I?
Sam didn't believe him for a second. It was just a morbid joke, meant to distract from the true meat of it. Sam couldn't even imagine...
His hands were shaking again.
"There's more," she realized aloud.
"The ghosts," Danny said slowly, "call us—" Sam shivered as two hushed, warbling words hissed through Danny's teeth. He paused and frowned. "No, sorry, it's more—" He repeated both words in Ghost, and to Sam's untrained ears, they sounded no different from before, let alone different from each other, but if she listened closely, watched how his mouth moved, they almost sounded like...
"Halfa?" she guessed tentatively.
"Yeah, that's...that's the closest either Vlad or I could get in English. The ghosts adopted the English word to mock us after awhile." He huffed a sigh. "As they do. We didn't get it. Until later. Much, much later. Vlad can't understand or speak Ghost. Never could. I couldn't either, at first. Neither of us realized—though Vlad might have suspected after I started to get...stronger, develop powers far beyond his. I had absolutely no fucking idea, not until some of my allies took pity on me and taught me when they realized...well..."
Danny's voice failed, and he had to clear his throat. "In—in Ghost, Vlad is—" He hissed one of the hushed words again. "It means 'half-birth,'" he translated. Pointing to himself, he muttered the second word, and this time, Sam heard a slightly different inflection on the hshhsh and AAaa sounds.
"Me? 'Twice-Born .'"
Sam's gut swooped out from under her. She recognized that epithet. Another throwback from the Thunder interview, which featured the video clip that played ad nauseum after the Shift. The very same that revealed Phantom's identity as the fifteen-year-old standing before her, trying to power through a confession he'd never had a chance to reveal on his own terms.
Until now.
And now she was starting to understand.
Danny lowered his eyes. "It was always easier, to keep pretending. To fall back on that stupid word. Halfa . Half-a-human. Half-a-ghost. It made sense. It helped others make sense of me, too, after the Shift. It implies certain things about what I am. About what Vlad is, too. But..." Sam couldn't help herself. This time, when Danny broke, she was right there, a hand gently splayed across his shoulder.
He stiffened under her touch, but again, he didn't reject it. It reminded her of the first time she casually touched him as Phantom, how he'd looked at her like he didn't know what to do with her familiarity and comfort, as though he...
Didn't think he deserved it.
"It's all a lie," Danny murmured, near inaudible. "I lied to you."
"A lie of necessity. Or omission," Sam said, unphased and still hunting for a way to wrap her mind around its enormity to Danny. "Does it matter?"
"Does it...?" Danny repeated, incredulous. "Sam, I'm not human!" he said, raising his voice for the first time since they arrived in the lab. His voice reverberated back at them, terrible and hollow. His eyes flared green, igniting the tears building there. "Not even a little bit. Don't you get it?
"Vlad's the metahuman from DC. He was the one who was bitten by a radioactive spider, the one who was struck by lightning and learned how to be a conduit—channel, whatever —for the Speed Force. He's the one whose very human immune system fought off enough ecto-crap in the past that it could say 'I can take care of this just fine, thanks; hold my beer' and altered his body to continuously fight off the contamination from his Accident. He's the human with ghost powers!
"Whatever the Portal did to me? God, I wish it was that easy! Whatever it did, it changed me, through and through. I'm not human, not ghost. I'm not even both! I'm something else."
"...Okay," Tucker said with a single nod. His eyes were far away, absorbing Danny's words and internalizing them as truth. Irrefutable fact. "Okay."
"Okay ?" Danny repeated in a wheeze. "That's all you... Okay ?"
Tucker's eyes sharpened. "Yes. Okay. "
Danny gawked. "That's…" He struggled for words, and after a few false starts, he rambled, "There are questions I'm too scared to ask my medic, you know. There are some even the Far Frozen can't answer for me. I'm still growing, somehow. Aging. But will that ever stop? Will I...even be able to die? Move on? And if I don't, will I become a full ghost? Will I be able to have kids? Will they be like me? What about my core? My power levels are wild, guys! And they're nowhere near stabilized yet. Am I even fit to stay in the Human World long term? Will I need something more to sustain me? Will I ever lose the ability to hold onto both of my forms? Will that ever contest my status with the Federal Ecto-Control Act as it stands now? Who. Fucking. Knows ? I sure as hell don't!
"And there are people out there who would kill to know!" Danny threw an arm out, an unintentional spattering of green sparks lacing down his fingers. He noticed and scowled at them as though they'd personally offended him. He shook them out, continuing, "Getting captured by the GIW isn't...isn't an option. It's more than a death sentence—and I use that phrase extremely loosely. It's an end. Full stop. I was lucky to get away the first time, and if this new faction got me? Or Vlad, even? I'm pretty much convinced they'd never let us go. If they ever figure out what makes me tick, or how something like me even happened; if they use any of that knowledge against any one of us and learn how to replicate it, what do you think it means for humans? For ghosts? For either of our worlds?
"What happened today just...highlights how not human I am. And it proves to me just how far they're willing to go to control me and the other ghosts. I thought, after I destroyed Pariah Dark's Crown and Ring, that would be the end of it—I mean, I thought I was human enough —but I'm susceptible to more than even I realize, and I...it scares me."
I scare me, he almost said.
Sam didn't like that. She didn't like that one bit.
Staying around me is more dangerous than you ever thought it would be, she heard in between the lines. Staying around me could break your heart, without me even meaning to.
(That was life, though, wasn't it?)
"You're wrong," Sam said, unable to keep her reaction contained any longer. He'd been shouldering this himself for how long? With only Jazz and, later, his parents there to tell him he wasn't a monster? She wasn't sure if it was frustration or empathy or fury that made her voice so unsteady. It was probably all three. And more. "You're wrong ."
Something in Danny's eyes died. "I'm not wrong about this," he said dully. "This is what I am, Sam. I wouldn't be so terrified if I wasn't absolutely sure."
"That's—that's not..." Sam stammered. What an idiot. What an absolute fucking idiot. "You're infuriating, Daniel Fenton, you know that? I meant that you're wrong to try to scare us away!" She stepped forward, into Danny's space, pressing a finger into his chest. "We know you, Danny. Humanity isn't a measure of how un-ghostly you are! It's about what you do with the gifts you were given. How you interact with the world around you. Who you are, as a person. Because despite what I think you're trying to say here, you are a person, with thoughts and feelings and hopes and everything in between! And ignoring all of your very real concerns about the GIW and your health and your future—because those aren't questions people should ever have to ask themselves, least of all someone as amazing and selfless and deserving of life and freedom and love as you are—it doesn't matter what you are! It doesn't matter that you're not even partially human anymore! Because you have humanity in abundance anyway! Whatever happened to you in the Portal didn't take a single ounce of it away from you! Don't you see?"
Danny stared at her, incredulous, and Sam nearly snarled when she saw the small, shy smirk begin to twitch at the corners of his mouth. Her face burned. "What are you laughing at?" she demanded, pushing at his shoulder.
The asshole let her do it, too. Didn't even try to avoid her with intangibility. In fact, his smirk became a crooked smile.
"You sound just like Jazz," Danny explained when she frowned at him. "It was—"
"Well, good," Sam seethed, folding her arms. "At least someone does. She's smart, your sister. Unlike—"
"Let the guy speak, Samantha," Tucker chastised. "Let him redeem himself here."
Danny's smile broadened, and he barked a sort of stunted, disbelieving laugh. It was bright, rather than dark, and it almost made Sam forgive him on the spot. "I was going to say," he said, a hint of fondness in his tone, "that it was nice to hear. And I appreciate it. More than you know."
"Oh." Sam's defensive posture slackened.
"I really didn't mean to raise my voice like that," Danny said, satisfyingly contrite. "I wasn't trying to scare you away. That's—I don't ever want to do that. I never wanted that. But…" Some of his good humor faded, and anxiety fluttered in his voice again. "I can't guarantee what happened today won't happen again. Simply because of what I am. That's what I'm trying to tell you." His gaze flicked between them, shy and hesitant again. "And why I finally decided to tell you now. After…after seeing me like that, I couldn't put off telling you. Not again."
"Oh," Tucker breathed. Sudden shame colored his expression. "I...I think I get it now."
"What?" Sam asked stupidly. What else was there to get? Danny thought they'd reject him. They hadn't. And hopefully he'd seen that. Hopefully he'd realize when she said we'll figure it out together, she meant it with every fiber of her being, revelations, origin stories, and true nature aside.
Danny's confidence flagged. Tucker answered for him, still shamefaced and focused utterly on Danny. "You knew how scared we were."
"For you," Sam iterated fiercely.
"Of me, too."
Sam's blood chilled straight through to the bone, guilt gnawing into her very marrow. Shit. She'd known most ghosts had some form of empathy ability, but this was the first time she'd heard of Danny himself being sensitive enough to discern subtleties and differences ascribed to a single common emotion.
No wonder he was so afraid to tell us, Sam thought, hating herself for that brief moment back in the kitchen, the one that stands out in crystal clarity against the muddled confusion and stress of the rest of her memory. No wonder.
He couldn't have been sure he wouldn't know exactly how they felt about him, one way or another. He couldn't have known if this secret would have been one too many for them to handle.
"But that's the thing: you still powered through it," Danny murmured, eyes flicking up to hers. His voice was thick again, but Sam could still hear the awe and appreciation woven into his words.
And in his eyes? Sam could see there was nothing to forgive.
"I'm sorry, man," Tucker whispered for the both of them anyway.
"Don't be," Danny said. "It's just...my life, you know? It's weird and terrifying, and it's more than the ghost attacks. I don't always understand...what's happening. To me, around me, whatever. I barely understand what happened today. I have instincts that don't always make sense, powers that still mutate on the regular, other Senses that probably make it super uncomfortable to be around me. And that's probably going to be the trend for the rest of my life. You chose to stick with me, even after seeing me like that, and that's...I never expected..." His voice broke, and he shuddered through another rough breath.
"It wasn't a choice at all," Sam asserted. The stone in her throat hardened, tears pressing against her eyes. "It was already a guarantee. Because that's just what friends do, dumbass. The don't dropkick each other and run when things get hard. Or weird."
Tucker bobbed his head in agreement and sent an unsubtle glance Sam's way. "Some of us thrive on 'weird,' you know," he teased, voice light and level.
"...you say all that like it's the simplest thing in the world," Danny marveled quietly, rubbing the back of his hand across his eyes.
Tucker snorted. "That's because it is."
The promise in his words was subtle but powerful. Danny didn't respond, shaking his head as though he still couldn't quite wrap his mind around it.
Or, rather, as though he still couldn't believe they didn't understand just how rare and precious their friendship was to him.
"Is…" Sam hesitated and then tried again. "Is this why you were always so… cautious with us? As Phantom?"
Danny grimaced, a faint flush darkening his cheeks. "It...wasn't easy, before I met you guys," he tried to explain. "After the Accident and before the Shift, I didn't have anyone but Jazz, and I...I wasn't okay. I hadn't been okay for awhile."
With that, some of Sam's suspicions and observations about Danny's behavior solidified. His distaste for bullies, his tentative trust, his insecurity about using his powers in front of them, his tendency to withdraw into himself…
He really had been achingly lonely. Isolated. Confused and scared, going through changes that could get him killed, locked up, or worse. Sharing any of it was out of the question, even after the Shift. Who could he trust, once fame had colored people's expectations? Who would bother to actually understand? Who wouldn't judge him when they learned all of his secrets, when his entire experience as Phantom convinced him he might just deserve that judgement?
"And now?" Sam dared to ask.
(Because she couldn't overlook the little things, either: how he began to trust them with bits of his life he hadn't been comfortable sharing before; how he became more relaxed, more willing to lower the defenses he'd used to keep people at arm's length; how he smiled more easily, guarded himself less strictly. She remembered training with him, flying with him, receiving a little bit more of his whole self with every day that passed).
Danny's expression blossomed, brighter than the sun. "Now...I think I am okay. Or I will be. And you know why?"
"Because we had a heart-to-heart you dreaded with every fiber of your being and had no reason to fear after all because rejection is the furthest thing we could have ever reacted with?" Tucker asked, eyebrows raising pointedly. He dug his elbow into Danny's ribs, his grin growing to shit-eating proportions. "Because knowing there's multiple definitions of halfa doesn't change a single damn thing in our eyes? Because we're the best and you love us?"
Danny rolled his eyes goodnaturedly, shoving Tucker's arm away. "Because you invited me to eat lunch with you that day."
Because that's when it started to change.
"It might not seem like a lot, but...it made a difference. You guys changed my life. And because of that, you're kinda my heroes, you know?"
Sam didn't consciously move. One moment, she's gripping the metal banister. The next, Danny's fingers were flexing between hers. Linked as they were, Sam was pulled along as Tucker tugged Danny toward him. He wrapped his arms around their friend's torso, squeezing him tight. Danny didn't relinquish Sam's hand, not even when one of his shoulders twisted into a sort of awkward position behind him as Tucker buried him in his bear hug.
Danny's hand fit into hers like it belonged there. She hadn't noticed that, the first time. Affection bubbled like soda pop in her chest.
"You can't just say things like that, you bastard. God, and I thought I was sappy enough for all three of us combined," Tucker said into Danny's shoulder. He extricated himself and allowed Danny to step away. "Just to be perfectly clear: you got it through your thick head, right? Are we good here? Do you need more words of affirmation? I'll give them, if you need them. Sam will, too, though she's more tough love than I am, clearly, so—"
"Yeah," Danny whispered, choking on a giddy laugh that also could have been a relieved sob. He looked at them as though he were seconds from walking on air, light as a feather and free of the fear that had been silently weighing him down. "Yeah, no, we're good." He smiled even wider, uninhibited and luminous, and wiped at his face again. "We're better than good."
And, really, what more was there to say in response to that?
Sam smiled back.
Funny story, I posted this on AO3 first and TOTALLY FORGOT a chapter title, so this one is courtesy of a 5 second panic and some very speedy scrambling on my part, lol.
Next time...a conclusion chapter. And a baby epilogue, most likely. :)
Until then, everyone.