Dani was tired. Not that she could expect otherwise, really. She hadn't slept much, and she hadn't slept well. Heck, the only reason she'd been able to drift off at all was Val's head sliding to rest on her shoulder which kept Dani still for a change to not wake her possibly-girlfriend. They weren't labeling anything yet.

It wasn't just worry about Sam that had her so keyed up, though. It was actually worry about Danny. She knew her cousin (brother? might as well be at this point) was powerful. She lacked a lot of his abilities that hadn't developed before she was created and couldn't use a couple of the ones she did have. She was a fully stabilized clone and had been able to become her own person over the past few years, but she just couldn't handle the amount of power she had been given. The farthest her ice got was her ghost sense and some basic projection from her hands when she was really upset. And a wail? Forget it. Every time she'd tried, she could just barely get it started before she passed out.

Danny didn't have those limitations, though. He'd been fighting ghosts for three years and was very good at what he did, to the point where a lot of the old nuisances had either become friends over time or just backed off of Amity Park finally. Even most of the ones who used to work for Vlad had started refusing any order that sent them near the Fenton household. But that didn't stop Vlad. If anything, it had just pissed him off even more.

Dani had no sympathy for Vlad. He was the one being in both worlds that she was perfectly comfortable saying she hated. But the beating he'd taken from Danny...

Well, Danielle couldn't say she wouldn't wish it on her worst enemy because it literally happened to her worst enemy.

She didn't think Valerie or Tucker had seen most of it since they'd been the best ones to respond to Sam's first aid, so she'd tasked herself with making sure Danny didn't actually kill Vlad. For Danny's sake, mostly. They would have more than enough issues without that sort of meltdown happening. Because of that, though, she'd seen the details of the rest of the fight- if it could even be called that.
It was more of the sort of brutal beating most folks only saw on TV.

She'd watched Danny throw and kick and blast Vlad full-force across the room multiple times. She'd heard a lot of bones break or outright shatter and saw more blood than she could remember. When you mostly spent your time fighting ghosts, ectoplasm was a constant. But human blood? A lot rarer in their line of "work." Danielle had finally stepped in when Danny had tossed Vlad against a wall and proceeded to pin him there with a Wail for several minutes straight. It took every bit of persuasiveness in her to coax Danny away with reminders that Sam needed him now, that Vlad wasn't worth it.

They'd been in luck that Vlad's newest lab was in a warehouse rather than under his home like it usually was. Dani had simply been able to pick up the broken but breathing lump that was Vlad Masters and take him out onto a nearby road to be found. She'd stayed just long enough to make sure he was found- she didn't want anyone's death on her own conscience either- and then flown off to get to the hospital to be there for Sam.

But Danny was just. Off. It made sense for him to be an anxious mess over Sam and her injury, but Dani wasn't sure she could've ever expected him to be so calm about dealing such devastating injuries to anybody. She wasn't scared of him... but she was at least a little bit scared for him. Did he even know whether Vlad survived or not? Did he care? It was just so unlike him...

For her own sake more than anything, Dani had checked on Vlad's status once or twice during the night and it seemed like he wasn't dying at least. She had no clue what the doctors thought about the abnormalities he would have from being half-ghost, but that wasn't her problem to deal with. They'd told the truth that it was Plasmius, better known to the area as the Wisconsin Ghost, was the one who'd hurt Sam. So if Vlad got revealed, he'd be heading for jail before he took one step towards any of them. As it was, though, he was still in the ICU even with increased healing from his powers so Danielle didn't expect anything for a while at least.

She did figure they should expect something, though. This was Vlad. He always came back, and he was sure to be pissed, right?

He was down for the count for the time being at least, though, so she tried to keep her check-ins short. Being half-ghost could have a lot of perks- and she didn't have much of a choice since it was the way she was created- but one of the downsides was knowing too well the smell of death. Not the way that full-humans knew it as. No, it couldn't be explained nearly as well. It was almost less of a smell and more of an... aura? It felt like a smell, though, whatever sense that made. But it was present throughout the hospital- naturally- but strongest around the ER and ICU. Again, it made sense. It really did. But that didn't mean she had to like it. Not when she'd smelled of it for the months between her original departure from Amity Park and her return and subsequent stabilization. Not when she'd been "born" to a room that reeked of it and only realized much later that it was the deaths of all her siblings that she was picking up on.

Danielle waited until after breakfast in the hospital cafeteria (they picked up some vending machine finds for Danny whenever he returned next since they each doubted he'd be back before the end of serving time) before she decided to vocalize her concerns.

"Are you guys worried about Danny?" The looks she got from the other two pretty well said their answers under the surprise of her asking the question.

"I mean... we should be worried about Sam more," Val supplied, fiddling with the cap of her juice. Dani understood- it felt sorta wrong to talk about anyone but Sam at the moment. But she'd been thinking about it all for hours now, and she wasn't going to get anywhere on her own.

"Well, obvi. But Danny, though. Doesn't anything seem kinda strange to either of you? Like yeah, of course he's going to be a mess right now, but he just kinda..." Just because she'd been thinking about it didn't mean she had the words to explain. "I mean, he hasn't said anything about watching out for ghost attacks or protecting the hospital or asked where Plasmius is or anything. I get he's focused on Sam, but this is Danny we're talking about. He's a half-ghost and we're pretty obsessive, too, even if it's not as much as the rest. Protecting Amity is always on his mind, y'know?"

The other two thought about what she said for a few long moments. "He does focus on it a lot," Val agreed, taking her time to speak correctly the first time. The opposite of what Dani did, but she also knew it was something Val had worked on for years. "But he doesn't really protect Amity Park as much as the people in it, right? And he's got us out here. If any ghosts show up anywhere in this place, we'll know about them before they've got one foot in the door. Sure, he does it all by himself most of the time, but he does trust us to take care of things when he's not able to. If anything, he's probably obsessing over Sam's safety more than all his other obsessions right now or something."

"Yeah," Dani conceded after a minute. It didn't satisfy her entirely, though. Just... the way he'd done that to Plasmius and never even looked back... It wasn't like him. The waiting room once again fell silent as it had been much of the evening and night, but it was admittedly more pensive and at least a little more tense.

"I'll talk to him when he comes back around next time," Tuck volunteered after several minutes. "He's gonna need food anyways, so I'll drag him off to get a fresh bite to eat." Dani couldn't help but give him a grateful smile.

"You just don't want the cafeteria again," Valerie teased, nudging Tucker with her arm.

Tucker shrugged. "That, too. But you saw those sandwiches! I had to eat chicken salad! That's something with the word salad in it!"

Dani dropped her jaw and put her hands on the sides of her face in mock horror. "Oh nooo, did you hear that, Val? He ate something with veggies." It was visible watching the momentary tension ease as they laughed at their friend's expense though he gave in and laughed as well after a short fake-pout.