Danny's been avoiding the lab.
He'll admit it outright- he's been doing his best to keep out of that sterile, eerie room with the heavy stink of incense hanging in the air and the drafts that sweep though it and rustle the paper Wards. After all, he literally died in there. It makes sense he'd be avoiding it.
Today, however, is different.
It's Sunday, which for most families marks a lazy day of rest before it's back to the daily grind at work and school. In the Fenton house, however, it's nearly indistinguishable from any other day. The only thing that's different is that the lab is even more active than normal, and you can sometimes smell sage and incense from the living room. The reason? Spirits apparently 'grow more active' on Sundays. Something to do with Christianity or Catholicism and how it ties to Paganism or whatever. Danny really can't be arsed to care.
Sam's gone with her family to whatever church function they're dragging her to, and Tucker's busy, so Danny's got nothing better to do than roam the house and stay inside doing research on ghosts and spirits. Which is why, after wolfing down a bowl of Cheerios, he's standing at the top of the stairs that lead to the basement.
Every fibre of his being is screaming at him to turn around and never go back into the lab again, but he needs to test something. Something that could give him an edge in his new spirit-whacking career.
His logic is flawed, he knows, but he's only ever interacted with his parents' inventions when he was fully human. Now that he's a Halfa, maybe he can mess around with a few things and see if they work. With a deep breath, he wrings his fingers at his sides and starts down the stainless steel steps.
The further down he goes, the stronger the smell of sage gets, and he coughs as it floods into his lungs. Behind him, Alvin and Sidney let out exclamations of surprise. Danny pauses, glancing over his shoulder at his friends.
To his surprise, their exposed skin is marred by what look like blotchy, flickering burns. A jolt of alarm shoots through him and he immediately goes back up the stairs to check them over. "What's happening? You guys okay?"
Alvin rubs ruefully at a bubbling abrasion on his forearm. It's the sage. Burning sage is a deterrent, kinda like toned-down napalm.
Sidney nods. We're just plain ol' ghosts, so we're the most affected by it. You'll probably be fine, though! You're a Halfa; Halfas don't follow the rules of humans or spirits!
Danny stares at them for a few moments, contemplating whether or not he should just head upstairs and go right back to bed. Unfortunately though, his curiosity wins out over his skepticism and he rubs at his eyes with a groan. "Okay. Okay. I'll check it out. You guys… I don't know, go hang out in my room or something-"
"Danny? Who are you talking to?" a voice interrupts, making Danny flinch.
Behind Alvin and Sidney, Jazz appears at the top of the stairs in her work uniform. She has one eyebrow cocked and is looking at Danny as if he's speaking a foreign language. Which he sort of is. He stares at her through the shimmering forms of his ghost friends, trying his hardest to plaster a smile on his face and not let his eyes flicker off to the side suspiciously.
"Nobody?"
Jazz blinks at him, unconvinced. "You were definitely talking to someone. Are your friends here?"
In a brief moment of stupidity, Danny almost says 'yes', but thankfully he catches himself and shrugs with a noncommittal hum. "Nope. You must be hearing things."
"I'm not hearing things," Jazz persists, now with a suspicious look on her face. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Jazz!" he snaps then, his anger momentarily getting the best of him.
She doesn't reply, which is odd. Usually when he gets snarky with her, she scolds him for it and turns to leave while muttering about 'little brothers and their sass' and whatnot. Now, though, she just watches him with a calculating, curious look in her eyes. It's the same look she gets when she's absorbed in research, like she's studying him, boring holes through him directly into his soul and rending him open, all his thoughts and secrets on full display.
After what could've been a second or a year, Jazz blinks and lets out a sigh. Her eyes betray nothing, but a sympathetic smile ghosts across her face. "Sorry for being nosy, I know how much you hate that. I'm just worried, you know?"
The tension in Danny's chest loosens enough for his defensiveness to fade away. "Y-yeah. I know."
"I've gotta go now so I don't run late, but just remember: you can talk to me about anything. I'm good at keeping secrets."
A sense of deja vu hits Danny when she says that, and his mind momentarily flits back to the night many years ago when he tiptoed into her room and whispered something to her that'd marked a huge positive milestone in his life. Before he can get too lost in his thoughts, however, he blinks them away and nods with a small yet genuine smile at his sister. "I know. Thanks, Jazz."
"No problem, little brother." She chuckles before turning and vanishing out of sight.
He stands there and stares off in the direction she'd gone for a few seconds, which probably earns him a few weird looks from his ghostly companions, but he doesn't really care. What he does care about is that… maybe… just maybe…
Before he can humor the idea of opening up about his new inhuman abilities, an image of his parents overhearing him confessing to Jazz makes itself at home in his head. He clearly hears their horror, their anger, their gleeful boasting echoes in his head- 'When we catch a paranormal entity, what should we do with it?' 'Oh, we'll study it, of course! I wonder how its internal organ structure differs from a human's?' 'We'll be able to test our new weaponry on it and finally rid the world of all things paranormal!' 'I can't wait to test the extent of its healing abilities!'- and panic forces its way up his throat. He barely manages to hold himself together, and is pretty sure he's going to have a complete meltdown when the combined gentle auras of Sidney and Alvin seep into his skin.
In nearly an instant, his racing heart relaxes, his tremors still, and his breathing returns to a normal rate. He takes a deep breath through his nose, holds it for a handful of seconds, then lets it out slowly through his mouth.
When he's sure he's in a safe state of mind, he shoots a grateful look at Sidney and Alvin. Their relief is evident on their faces as he whispers a quiet, "Thank you."
No big deal, kid. We're here for you.
With their energy pulsing through his veins like soothing rays of afternoon sunlight, he turns and continues descending into his parents' basement.
The further he goes, the stronger the pungent stink of sage gets, and the more sick Danny starts feeling. Not sick in the 'I'm gonna puke' sense, but more of an achy, head cold-ish feeling that leaves his head throbbing and his mind hazy. Even so, he pushes himself further until he reaches the lab.
It's the cleanest he's ever seen it, he's certain of that.
Except that a few things are different from how it looked before the accident, and Danny's not quite sure how to feel about these changes. On one hand, there's now a fingerprint scanner next to the portal doors instead of a big lever, which Danny's thankful for. But on the other…
...his parents appear to have moved some things around and made space for a sterile metal examination table, a glass chamber of sorts where they probably plan to perform experiments on whatever unlucky spirit or ghost they happen to catch, and sage burns in lantern-like fixtures on the walls. Danny covers his mouth as a series of harsh, hacking coughs rip through him. It kind of reminds him of the time he got strep throat in middle school. Not a nice memory.
"Oh, Danny!" A sudden, cheery voice calls from the other side of the glass chamber, and Mom pokes her head around it with a grin, "I thought you'd be out with your friends today!"
Danny's voice is hoarse as he replies, "They're busy today. Um… what are you doing?"
Mom blinks as if surprised by the fact that he's actually interested in their work. Then, she skips out from behind the chamber and approaches to take him by the hand and pull him towards it. For a few moments, blind terror threatens to choke him into submission- she knows, she's gonna throw me in the tube, this is bad, this is bad, bad, BAD- but when she lets him go, he mentally berates himself for freaking out. Of course she doesn't know, there's no bloody way she could've figured anything out!
"Your father's gone out for more supplies, but in the meantime I made… this!" Mom exclaims at the same time she grabs a device from a new workbench and holds it up triumphantly.
Thankfully, Danny doesn't need to ask what it does. She's already chattering on and on and on, but this time, Danny actually pays attention. This thing could be of some use someday, maybe. Or it could be a horrible thing that he should avoid like the plague.
"I call it the Fenton Spirit Staff! It's a lightweight weapon constructed mainly of carbon fibre, but wrapped in a thin coating of iron and laced with silver. And if our theories are correct, iron should burn most paranormal entities, and silver should burn any paranormal entity with malicious intentions. Isn't it cool?!" Mom explains at a wildly intense speed, turning the weapon around like some kind of infomercial product.
It looks pretty plain, Danny has to say. It's a small, silver rod with the Fentonworks logo engraved into the body of it and brilliant green highlights, but other than that, it looks like those silly toy lightsabers you can buy anywhere. It's no big surprise that Danny doesn't really feel like taking the thing seriously.
"It looks... " Danny trails off before asking, "...does it work?"
Mom giggles excitedly. "I have no idea! I'll let you know the moment I find something to test it on!"
I guess the person to answer that question is gonna be me. Yay.
"I…" Danny begins, but is cut off when Mom's phone goes off loudly in her pocket.
She shoots Danny an apologetic grin before pulling her phone out, looking at the screen, then murmuring, "Sorry hon, I need to take this. I'll be back in a minute or five!"
Danny doesn't even have a chance to reply before she races to the stairs and the clunking of her boots fades away. So now he's alone in the lab.
Wonderful.
He takes a deep breath, coughs aggressively at the acrid sage filling his nose and throat, and approaches the workbench where Mom had tossed the Fenton Spirit Staff. For a time, he just stares at it without moving, just watching it like one would watch a nest of hornets. He wants to go back upstairs- which should be obvious by now- but with a reluctant groan, he steels himself, clenches his jaw, and reaches out to grab the rubber-coated handle.
Nothing happens.
He lets out an anxious breath he didn't know he was holding before gently turning it over in his hands to look at it more closely. He pokes it experimentally to see what happens, but nothing does. Not when he touches the shiny green caps on either end of it, not when he shakes it, and not even when he brings it up to push it against his cheek in the hopes that something, anything will happen. Nothing does.
"Stupid thing...?!" Danny hisses sourly at the same moment he sweeps his thumb over the Fentonworks logo.
With a hiss of compressed air and the high-pitched whirring of a small motor, the Fenton Spirit Staff vibrates wildly in Danny's hands. In a panic, he drops it and jumps back a few steps, which probably was the best reaction to the weapon's sudden activation; the green caps retract with a hum, and the Spirit Staff jumps as it extends to a long, silver rod banded with shimmering ribbons of actual silver and the green joints connecting the rod's segments together.
Danny merely stands where he is for a few seconds, staring at the Spirit Staff warily, not sure whether or not it'll just straight up come for him. When nothing happens, however, he slowly walks up and gingerly grabs it by the rubber handle.
He almost has the urge to swing it around with wild abandon as he used to do with sticks on a playground as a child, but manages to suppress it. After all, he's not a kid anymore. Heck, he isn't really even human either… but that's not important right now. Running a hand through his hair with a cocked eyebrow, he murmurs to himself, "I wonder if this thing'll be useful in the long run."
Out of curiosity, he reaches out to touch the last foot of the staff, where the surface seems to flicker with otherworldly energy when he looks at it hard enough.
He immediately regrets it.
His fingertips barely brush the surface of the weapon, but the pain is immediate. His vision whites out, his breath catches in his throat, and it feels like his hand is burning, melting, melting, falling off, burning, burning, burning, it HURTSITHURTSITHURTS-
Somehow, he manages to force his body to obey him through the paralyzing agony and yank his hand away. The staff clatters to the ground and rolls away to bump against the base of the glass chamber. Danny staggers backwards, chest heaving with gasps of panic as the pain starts slowly fading away.
Despite the slowly-vanishing pain, Danny doesn't want to look. He really doesn't want to see what's become of his hand.
From upstairs, he hears Mom drawing close to the stairs.
She heard me, she knows, she knows, she KNOWS I'M-
Danny panics. He shoves his wounded hand into the pocket of his hoodie- despite the way it throbs when the burn brushes against the fabric- and hunches his shoulders before power-walking up the stairs. Mom lets out a small exclamation of surprise as he brushes past her, but thankfully, she doesn't try to stop him. Dad isn't home yet either, and Jazz is long gone, so Danny's hurried ascent to his room is unhindered. Thank God.
When he throws the door open, he's vaguely aware of Sidney and Alvin looking at him in alarm, but he just slams it shut behind him and leans back against it. Danny reaches his good hand up to grasp at his hair in agitation as he slides down so he's sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up. By now, the pain in his hand has subsided into something bearable and he lets out a shuddering breath.
At some point, Alvin had come up to float before him and now places a reassuring hand on Danny's shoulder. Sidney leans over with his head tilted to poke his face into Danny's field of view. His brows are knitted together in concern, his nose scrunched ever so slightly.
What's wrong, Danny? What happened?
Hey, hey, Danny, take a breath- Alvin begins, but his aura flares with the tang of alarm when he sees the injury. Oh jeez, Danny, what did you do?
"I- nothing," Danny says in a small voice that makes him feel incredibly pathetic. "Just touched one of my parents' inventions. I-I… I didn't think it would…"
Alvin watches him with an unreadable expression for a minute before running a hand through his hair and letting out an imitation of a sigh. With careful hands, he grasps Danny by the shoulders and wraps him in a hug.
It's a strange feeling, getting a hug from a ghost. Alvin's arms feel like… well, like actual arms, except that they're way too cold to be a living human and no pulse jumps beneath the skin. Where the edges of Alvin's form phase through Danny's skin, he feels an odd tingle, kind of like hot water on cold hands, but more muted.
After the initial shock, Danny shakily reaches his uninjured hand up to return the hug. Alvin begins speaking in a soft tone then, little more than a gentle rumble in Danny's head.
Take it easy, alright? It's okay, bud. You're okay. There's a pause, and he backs up to look Danny in the face. Did your parents see anything?
"I… don't know, that's what I was freaking out about." Danny replies.
Alvin takes a moment, seeming to consider something. After a minute or so, he gives Danny's shoulders a reassuring squeeze and smiles, How about I go eavesdrop on your mother and find an answer to that question?
"You don't have to, I can deal with it-" Danny begins, but Alvin gives him a grin that can only be called 'shit-eating' and waves emphatically.
Be back in a flash, kiddo! Sidney, watch the kid! He chirps obnoxiously before phasing through the wall and vanishing.
Danny scrambles to his feet with a choked, "Alvin, wait-!" but the ghost is already gone.
A silence falls over the room for a few heartbeats before Sidney snickers, making Danny shoot him a confused look. "What are you laughing at?"
He basically told me to babysit you. Gosh, that's hilarious!
"I don't need you to babysit me, you're younger than me!" Danny snaps adamantly before catching himself, but Sidney's grinning with his braces on full display and hovering in a casual seated position a few feet above him.
I saw the Disney Alice in Wonderland in the cinema the day it released in 1951. I'm older than you by a loooooong time!
"That-" Danny stammers, "-that doesn't count! You were only alive for… what, 14 years?"
Sidney sticks his tongue out. It does count!
He narrowly dodges Danny's hand as he swipes at him, laughing brightly. Danny fights the urge to keep a smile off his face, but his efforts are futile and he ends up having to stifle laughter as he throws a dirty sock at the ghost. Sidney, being used to having things phase through him, doesn't move out of the way and takes a sweaty sock to the face.
As Sidney shrieks in disgust, Danny finds the last dregs of his earlier terror seeping out of him and leaving his thoughts clear and light.
Alvin hears Sidney and Danny arguing from where he hovers a few feet off the floor, just outside the Halfa boy's bedroom. He's positive that Sidney knows he's here, at least, but Danny's still too inexperienced with the second plane to properly detect Alvin just outside the door. He's thankful for that; he won't be caught eavesdropping.
Once the two boys lapse into a lighter mindset, Alvin makes his way down the hall the way he would have if he were still, well, alive. It's been many years since he's had proper legs to walk around on, but he still longs for the grounding feeling of his own weight with every step. He sighs, despite the fact that he doesn't need to breathe.
In a way, he envies Danny.
Not because of the horrible pressures and prejudice he'll now be forced to deal with as a Halfa, but rather his ability to see and traverse all the planes of existence. He can befriend the living and the dead, which is more than Alvin can say of himself. He pushes those thoughts out of his head, reaching up to run a hand through his wavy hair.
As he switches trains of thought, though, his mind wanders back to Danny's little breakdown a few minutes earlier and Alvin winces.
I was way out of line, hugging the kid like that. What was I thinking?
He wants to slap himself in the face, but before he can do or think anything else, an old, foggy memory flickers to the forefront of his head and makes him pause where he is-
-brother, younger brother, name… name, name, what was his name…? School, after school, bullies, bullied… brother crying… blond hair, grey eyes like mine-
"Alvin, why are the kids at school so mean?"
...walking, walking, kneeling in front of him, hugging him, comforting him, I'll protect you, I'll…
"They just are, ************, but I can beat 'em up. They'll leave ya alone, I'll show 'em!"
-Alvin shakes his head to clear it, eyes narrowing in confusion.
It's not like he doesn't remember his life before death, in fact, he remembers it in great detail, but not quite like how humans see things in their memories. Ghosts are driven by attachments. Emotions. Feelings. The visual parts of his memory are foggy, but the feelings from those memories remain and might as well be visual with how strong and visceral they are.
Even so, he doesn't remember this. Alvin remembers his younger brother, but this specific memory has him at a loss.
This has been happening a lot lately, which is strange and a little off-putting. But Alvin isn't an idiot, and knows exactly why this is.
Alvin hasn't encountered many kids since he's died, as most kids just pass on straight away. Having the chance to interact with Danny has made him feel like an older brother again. He knows this is a silly attachment, the kid looks nothing like his own brother, but good God, he can't help worrying over him to the point his stomach churns. Hell, he doesn't even have a stomach or the ability to get nauseous, but Danny's predisposition to stumbling face-first into danger is going to give Alvin an ulcer.
He shoves those thoughts away forcefully again, continuing on his journey to the lab in the basement.
The burning sage still leaves nasty marks on his skin that feel like rashes, but he's had encounters with anti-ghost measures over the course of forty-plus years and this is nothing. Alvin steels himself, preparing for the itchy, aching sage burns, and descends.
When he enters the lab, he can still feel the overwhelming presence of death and spiritual energy left over from the accident that killed Danny. It's stifling in the way a humid summer day is stifling; harmless, but too heavy to ignore. The emotions that remain in the room, however, are so strong they're painful- fear, panic, paranoia, anger, despair, grief- and Alvin has to fight to keep the lingering emotions from influencing his own Essence.
Thankfully, the person he's looking for isn't hard to find.
Maddie Fenton is inspecting some odd looking tool shaped like a bo staff, humming to herself. As Alvin watches, she waves it through the air with a thoughtful look on her face. "Odd. The spiritual energy readings in the lab are off the charts! A spirit must have followed Danny in here…"
I guess she hasn't figured out her son's a Halfa yet. Good.
Alvin's just turning to leave when a rapid beeping sound begins echoing around the room. He stiffens, wondering with a jolt of alarm if his presence tripped one of the Fentons' inventions. When Maddie pulls a ringing cellphone out of her pocket, though, Alvin feels himself relax.
"Hello, Maddie Fenton of FentonWorks here!" she exclaims cheerily into her cellphone, "What can we do for you today?"
He's not sure what compels him to do it, it's completely stupid and risky, but… Alvin turns and approaches Maddie. He's careful about it, wary of any devices that might go off in response to his Essence and vaporize him on the spot, but his curiosity is stronger than his nerves and he keeps moving forward.
He only draws close enough to hear the voice on the other end of the phone.
"Hello there, . I'm part of a government-funded organization specializing in the supernatural, and I recently received a call about an incident in your city."
Maddie stiffens, eyes narrowing, "What incident? I haven't heard anything about this. What happened? Where?"
Alvin knows what incident this government bonehead is referring to, and he really doesn't like where this is going.
"The Amity Park police responded to a call from a janitor at Casper High School yesterday morning, and there's overwhelming evidence of paranormal activity present at the scene. The police were unsure of how to investigate, so my organization was contacted. We will be conducting an investigation at the school tomorrow morning at 0700 hours. If you and your husband could join us to find the cause of the damage, that would be greatly appreciated."
Maddie's face brightens. "Oh, of course we'll be there! We specialize in the supernatural, so we'll always jump at an opportunity to share our expertise!"
"I'm glad to hear it. Thank you for your assistance."
"Not a problem at all! Thank you for calling, Mister…?"
"Walker."
Alvin feels his entire body grow cold at that name. He's heard it in the whisperings of spirits and ghosts alike, and he knows that the presence of the man can only mean bad things for the paranormal inhabitants of Amity Park.
"Well, Walker, I look forward to meeting and working with you," Maddie says before she and Walker exchange goodbyes and hang up.
Alvin doesn't stick around any longer than that. He rockets up the stairs, not wanting to waste a single second.
If Walker is coming, he needs to warn Sidney and Danny. There's no way he's leaving them unprepared in a situation this volatile.
"You okay, Danny? You're like… super tense, man." Tucker asks on their walk to school the following morning.
Danny drags a hand down his face, muttering, "Yeah, I'm tense. I mean, the Grim Reaper of supernatural creatures is at my school and I might be walking to my death right now!"
Ever since receiving Alvin's warning last night, Danny's heart has been racing, rabbiting against his ribs in a way that would probably send any normal human to a hospital. He could barely sleep because of his nerves, so in addition to the anxiety making his hands shake, he's sleep-deprived. Fantastic.
"He's just trying to be sympathetic, you know," Sam interjects with a stern yet understanding look at Danny. "You don't have to snap at him for being worried about you."
With a sigh, he nods and drags his fingers through his hair in distress. "Yeah. Yeah, I know. Sorry, Tuck."
"No sweat, dude. I getcha."
"I just... I know I'm already d- not really 'alive' anymore, but the thought of dying freaks me out. And if Alvin is right, this Walker guy is really bad news."
Sam hums in agreement. "Yeah, from what you said, he's a mega-douche. But he'll only target you if you give him a reason to suspect you, right? So just go about your school day like normal. Sleep through Lancer's class, go into an exhaustion coma in PE, choke down whatever crap's in the cafeteria today, run from Dash, rinse, repeat, no big deal. We'll just lay low until the G-Man and friends leave town."
"What if they don't leave town?" Danny quips, fighting the urge to bite at his fingernails, "What if the shit we did is enough paranormal evidence that they stay?"
"Well, I guess you could always buy a mask and onesie and become Amity Park's friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. But, like, dead. And with the ability to banish monsters to the Shadow Realm," Tucker suggests with a shrug of his shoulders and a mischievous grin.
It's a slightly tempting thought- Danny's always liked superheroes- but even with his weird new abilities, he's still just… Danny Fenton. The painfully average kid of the eccentric cryptid-hunting family in that weird house down the block. He heaves a sigh as they cross the street and approach the school. "I dunno, Tuck, that sorta thing isn't really me."
"It could be you if you wanted!" Tucker insists, "We'll make some basic hero getup from what we find at the thrift store, make you a mask, and boom! You're a superhero!"
"There's more to it than that-" Danny tries, but Tucker's on a train going off its rails.
"What would your alias be? Ooh, maybe something playing off cryptids… call yourself Mothman! You have glowy eyes, just wear a cloak and hood and people will come from all over the world to see the actual Mothman! Beat THAT, West Virginia! Point Pleasant ain't got NOTHING on Amity Park!"
"Tucker, you're getting way the hell off-topic here," Sam points out, and that seems to pull Tucker out of his tangent.
He straightens up, adjusting his glasses with a sheepish grin. "Sorry, I got ahead of myself there, huh? But you should really think about it!"
"I… guess I can think about it a bit." Danny concedes reluctantly.
Just before they reach the school's front doors, an odd sensation grabs Danny by the chest and pulls, making him choke on his breath and stop. Hardly a second later, the door opens and a man steps out with a mildly surprised look at Danny and his friends.
Some primal instinct is yanking Danny from side to side, telling him to run in the opposite direction while also growling at him to fight, fight, FIGHT! An odd feeling rumbles in his throat, but he coughs to hide it and looks up at the man towering over them.
He's a good six-foot-five at least, with a strong jaw, ghastly pale skin, and piercing green eyes that seem to burn holes right through Danny's head. Greying hair buzzed short pokes out from beneath a wide-brimmed black hat, and not a single bit of stubble is left on his face. His clothes are pristine white, without even a slight blemish, and polished black boots reflect the dull light of the autumn sun.
"S-sorry, sir, I didn't mean to almost bump into you," Danny apologizes, dropping his gaze to the man's boots and trying as hard as he can to just fall right through the ground into Earth's core.
An uncomfortable pause follows his apology, but eventually, the man speaks in a deep voice accentuated by a vague Southern accent. "It ain't a problem, son. You'd better hurry on to class before you're late. Bein' late's against the rules."
Danny swallows back his fear and forces himself to look up at the man in white with a nervous grin he hopes comes off as more awkward than anything else. "Y-yeah, we will."
The man steps aside, and Danny leads the way inside quickly, but not quickly enough to make him suspicious. As soon as the door bangs shut behind them, separating them comfortably enough from the man, Danny lets out a shaky breath and rubs at his eyes.
The man wasn't wearing a nametag and didn't introduce himself, but Danny knows damn well who the guy was. The dangerous air he gave off was evidence enough.
"Danny, was that…?" Sam begins, but doesn't need to finish because Danny's already nodding.
"Yeah," he swallows hard, "that's Walker."