Chapter Two

CW: Depression, Mentions of Suicide

Jazz sat on her bed, staring at the half-finished student aid application. She managed to get scholarships that covered her tuition and other fees, but she was still a little short on the full funds she needed to go to Harvard next fall. For a brief moment, her eyes caught the packet from the local community college. They were the first to accept her application, and she hadn't applied to it simply as a safety school, either, since a part of her worried that if she left Amity Park, then there would be no one left to look after Danny.

Since his accident in freshman year, everyone had tried and failed to figure out what happened to Danny. He started high school completely driven, ready to put his nose to the grindstone and achieve the grades he would need to go to a prestigious university for astrophysics, the first of a dozen steps towards his lifelong dream of being an astronaut. Their parents even promised to let him take flying lessons if he managed to get straight A's freshman year and were thrilled at how committed he was. Nobody doubted Danny's intelligence, even now, but then the accident happened.

Jazz knew Danny suffered lingering side effects from the accident. His memory seemed patchy for the first week or so after he came out of the coma, and although it eventually improved, other things didn't. His temperature continued to hover on the verge of hypothermia, running around ninety-four to ninety-five degrees. Danny developed minor heart and lung problems after the accident, too, and both were just significant enough to mean that his dreams of being an astronaut were dashed to pieces. So when Danny seemed to stop caring about school and then his grades and attendance tanked, Jazz knew he must have fallen into a deep depression over the loss of his lifelong dream.

At her insistence, her parents forced him to attend therapy. They tried two different therapists with the same results: endless hours of Danny largely refusing to speak and a half-dozen missed appointments. Both therapists attempted countless strategies to get him to open up, even just a little bit, and one of them prescribed antidepressants. Jazz found Danny flushing them down the toilet, adamant he didn't need the medication, that he was fine, and that he wished they would just leave him alone. He refused to go to therapy again, and their parents weren't willing to push it further. He kept his friends at arms' length, and although she and Danny didn't share a lunch period, she occasionally passed by the cafeteria and saw him staring mournfully at his food, barely responding or engaging with his peers. Her brother simply continued to move through his life like a ghost, barely speaking to anyone or interacting with anything, and although he survived his accident, Jazz still couldn't help but feel as if they lost her little brother for good that day.

She accepted, tentatively at least, that she could not help Danny if he refused her assistance, so she picked Harvard, her dream school, and was thrilled to attend their psychology program. Even if Danny didn't have her, he still had a couple of friends in Sam and Tucker, however fragile that friendship might be these days. Her parents were clearly still trying to help him, too. He wouldn't be completely alone.

Yet leaving him still felt wrong no matter how much she told herself she was making the right choice. As his older sister, Jazz spent most of her life advocating and fighting for her brother, but now it felt as if she was going to abandon him and the rest of her family when they needed her the most. Being a psychologist was her dream, but was it fair that she still got to keep hers after Danny lost his? It wasn't his fault that things went so horribly wrong, and he shouldn't be expected to mend everything by himself, but what else could she possibly do to help at this point?

"What am I supposed to do?" she groaned, rubbing her temples. She was a Fenton. A genius from a family of geniuses. Yet she could not see a way to fix whatever was wrong with Danny. She couldn't even make a decision about what she wanted to do with her own life.

She should try to talk to Danny. Their parents weren't home right now since they were meeting with the City Council and School Committee to discuss the ghostly defenses at the school after the recent, worsening attacks. In retrospect, it seemed like a miracle no one had been seriously injured in the ghost attacks before, but Mr. Lancer and Tucker's injuries were a powerful reminder of how dangerous the ghosts could be. Originally she meant to go with her parents to provide a student's perspective on the ghost attacks since Sam, Tucker, and Valerie declined the invitation to attend after their close call with Technus, but at the last minute, her parents told her they decided to only do an initial consultation and would solicit student and parent feedback after discussing initial strategies with the City Council and School Committee.

So if there was ever a more perfect moment . . .

Jazz took a long, steadying breath, adjusting her headband as she forced herself to her feet. Walking quietly down the hall, she raised a fist to knock on Danny's door when she heard someone downstairs. The sound coming from her brother was one that she didn't think he could even make anymore. Danny was laughing.

Frowning, Jazz quietly headed down the stairs to the living room, increasingly aware of the voices coming from the kitchen. Danny's voice she recognized, of course, but the other one she didn't know and there was an odd echo to it, almost like a ghost. But it couldn't be. Danny didn't necessarily think they were as dangerous as his parents made them out to be, but the countless ghost attacks they both suffered from at school had to give him a proper fear of them, especially after Tucker's injury.

Didn't it?

Creeping down the stairs, she stayed close to the wall, trying to remain out of sight as she spied on Danny in the kitchen. Her brother was baking something with a woman in a pink dress and white apron. She could be someone's grandmother if her skin wasn't green and glowing faintly. Part of Jazz thought she should activate the ghost defense system - there was a panic button for it in every room and it could be voice-activated now - but her hand remained still and her mouth remained closed. She knew so little about anything happening with her brother. Right now the ghost was behaving peacefully, or so it seemed, and if she activated the alarm that could shift in an instant and put Danny at risk. So instead she bit her lip, crouching down low and tucking herself into a small corner as she spied on the two of them from the living room.

"My Dad would be pretty excited if I became a baker, although he'd probably just insist I make fudge all the time," said Danny, and Jazz smiled. Her Dad's obsession with fudge was legendary. He loved it so much that her parents had a layer of the decadent treat made into the top tier of their wedding cake.

"I think you have the potential to make an excellent baker, and–oh, be a bit more careful with that food coloring, dearie. It'll darken as it dries," she said, pulling Danny's hand back a bit, and Jazz saw him nod. "Are you alright, child? You seem quite distracted today."

"Yeah, just thinking about what I am going to do after high school, that's all," he sighed. "I wanted to be an astronaut, but there's no way that'll happen now."

"You still have time to figure it out," she said gently, patting him on the arm as she peered through the oven door to check on something. Cookies, maybe, given the icing it looked like Danny was mixing. "And you're a sweet boy. If you do decide to become a baker, I'll teach you more of my secret recipes."

"Thanks." Danny turned and smiled at her as Jazz ducked. For a brief moment, she was sure that Danny saw her peeking around the corner, but when he spoke up again he didn't call out to her. "I think these are done. Do you?"

"They look that way to me. We'll have to let them cool for a bit before you can decorate." Jazz tucked her arms and knees close to her chest, hoping her brother wouldn't notice the movement. She should be hidden, but Danny was supernaturally observant these days. "Your parents must be so proud of you. Such a thoughtful child."

"Not really," he said, and Jazz's heart broke at the way his voice shook. She wanted to argue. She wanted to rush and tell him that he was wrong, that their parents were proud of him and that they loved him, but while she was certain of the latter, she was less confident in the former than she would have been once. The word 'disappointment' had been uttered in more than one conversation with respect to Danny, and while it came from the same place of concern as Jazz's own fears about him, she hadn't realized how negatively that must have impacted Danny to believe that his own family thought he was a failure. She would talk to her parents about it. They would all need to be more careful. Some things should not be spoken out loud. "But it's okay. Thanks for helping me with the cookies. I don't think I would've done this right on my own."

"Anytime, dearie," she said sweetly. "Do you think you'll need my help to decorate?"

"Nah, I think I can handle that part if you want to get going." She nodded, and Jazz looked around the corner just in time to see the ghost give him a quick hug before she vanished. Her brother returned to the counter, checking on the icing as she quietly stood up, and she was preparing herself to pretend as if she only just arrived downstairs when her brother spoke. "I know you're there, Jazz. You're not half as sneaky as you think you are."

"I'm sorry," she mumbled, stepping into the kitchen, and her brother kept his back to her as he started getting the icing into bags. "I didn't want to spook her."

"Haha." Jazz blinked, realizing the pun she made only after her brother's mock laughter. "I must be rubbing off on you. And aren't you supposed to be out with Mom and Dad at the school committee talk tonight?"

"They decided they didn't want to hear student perspectives yet," she said as she walked over to see what he made, and she sighed. "Ghost cookies? Seriously?"

"It's Dad's birthday tomorrow," he said, shrugging, and Jazz was surprised he remembered. Clearly, her reaction showed, too, since he scowled. "Even a failure like me can manage to do something for him."

"I never said you were a failure, Danny," said Jazz as she put a gentle hand on his shoulder, but he shook her off. "I really didn't want to spy on you. I just, um . . . I wanted to talk."

Danny frowned, studying her before putting down the baking supplies and crossing his arms over his chest. He leaned gently against the counter, careful to avoid touching the bowl of icing or the cookies that were cooling. "Let me guess. Mom and Dad told you that I'm going to be evaluated again?"

"What?"

"For an IEP," he said as he shoved his hands into the pocket of his hoodie. "Lancer thinks I'm depressed and that my health's been interfering more with my performance at school than everyone originally thought since I keep falling asleep in most of my classes and stuff. Mom and Dad agree. And unless something drastic changes, I'm apparently not doing well enough in school to move to my junior year with everyone else. Although I don't know what's going to happen with the evaluation now that Lancer's out for who knows how long after that ghost attack this week."

"Oh, Danny, I'm so sorry," she said. "We can do more with your assignments–"

"It's the in-class work I'm missing that's the problem," he said with a shrug. "The assignments are getting better, but I'm still missing too many classes and doing too poorly on quizzes and labs and stuff for it to matter."

Jazz had a dozen questions she wanted to ask, not the least of which was what she just walked in on or why Danny kept on missing classes even though he obviously cared at least a little bit about school, but one thing he said nagged at her too much to ignore. "Do you think they're right? About you being, um, y'know? Depressed?"

She expected him to roll his eyes and brush her off, to grumble about her trying to psychoanalyze him, but his shoulders drooped a bit as he bit his lower lip. "Yeah. They're probably right. I don't think it matters, though. It's not that bad, and besides, I won't take meds for it and I won't go see another therapist. Not after the Spectra thing."

"There's nothing wrong with medication, and most therapists aren't ghosts trying to eat your emotional energy. Besides, she was a guidance counselor, not a therapist. It's not exactly the same thing." Jazz sat down at the table, letting her hands rest in her lap in a desperate bid to appear non-threatening. Non-judgemental. Sometimes she felt like reading that book on how to read body language made her overthink her own.

"I know. Doesn't change anything for me," he insisted stubbornly as he grabbed a mug of what looked suspiciously like coffee. Caffeine was off-limits for him per his cardiologist, but as usual, Danny didn't care. And Jazz didn't have the heart to prod him about it right now. Her poor brother looked even more exhausted than usual.

"But you'll at least do the evaluation?"

"If it means that there's a chance I get to move up to my junior year and not get shipped off to some creepy boarding school next door to dear Uncle Vlad's or something? Obviously." Danny sat down, and she could feel the cold radiating off him from across the table as silence fell between them. She knew Danny hated Vlad, and while Jazz wasn't a huge fan either, she couldn't quite understand the intensity of Danny's own anger. He would never explain it to her or her parents, just muttering about how he found him creepy when asked.

"So . . . ghostly baking lessons?" Changing the subject. Not exactly what she wanted, despite being curious about what happened between Danny and the Lunch Lady, but she could tell from how Danny was leaning back from her, hands twisting around in his pockets, that there was no way he would talk more to her about his depression. And maybe that was for the best. She shouldn't be his therapist. That wasn't what he wanted or needed from her, and she spent too much time ignoring that and trying to take on a role that could never belong to her.

"I'm trying to get her to channel her obsession into something that's not destructive," he explained as he took a sip, and she could smell it now. It was definitely coffee, and as she wrinkled her nose she saw her brother watching her closely, his eyes twinkling as if daring her to comment. "She's obsessed with tradition, specifically food-related traditions. Baking and passing that knowledge on manages to satisfy it enough that she's content and probably won't go on a rampage over a change to the cafeteria menu. Not that they'll change the menu ever again after last time."

Jazz sat up a bit, surprised both by her brother's insights and how forthcoming he was being for once. "Are you . . . are you doing this with other ghosts, too?"

"For some of them, yeah, but there's a lot of them that are too dangerous," admitted Danny. His finger traced the rim of the cup slowly. "Are you going to lecture me?"

"Have you told Mom and Dad what you're up to? I bet they'd be thrilled that you're showing an interest in ghosts," she said. She could deflect, too, and he gave her a half-smile that showed he picked up on it. She would never promise not to lecture him, especially not about something so dangerous.

"Nope. I tried once or twice to talk to them about it a little, but they're still all shoot first, ask questions never," he muttered. "They don't want to hear anything that goes against their theories."

"They've been getting better about it. I've started to hear them questioning some of their beliefs about the ghosts, and they even have a truce with Phantom right now," said Jazz, and Danny tilted his head and cocked an eyebrow at her, clearly skeptical.

"Their truce is like a week old, Jazz," he said as he took another sip. "Hardly proof of some dramatic shift in their beliefs."

"It can be hard to admit when you're wrong," she said. "Especially when it's your life's work, and . . . look, I'll admit that I'm not convinced you're right, but after watching you for a few minutes, I'm not convinced that you're wrong, either. I can't remember the last time the Lunch Lady attacked the school." She shifted slightly in her chair, crossing one of her legs over the other, which she realized was a defensive posture. Not her intent. Hopefully, Danny wouldn't pick up on it. "But are you sure it's safe?"

"The ghosts seem to like me," he said eventually. "I don't know why. The first time the Lunch Lady attacked, I found her beforehand. We talked for a few minutes. She never tried to hurt me, not until I tried to stop her from injuring Sam. And a lot of the others are the same. They're–well, Dad and Mom aren't completely wrong. They do have obsessions, but that doesn't mean that they're mindless or even so consumed by them that they can't do anything else or ignore it when they really want to. And all of the ghosts I've met can learn and grow when given the chance. Maybe Mom and Dad are wrong just because the ghosts here are stronger or aren't like the ones they found in haunted houses or whatever from back before the portal opened. I don't know. But most of them aren't looking for trouble. And even when they hurt people, it's not–they don't think about it the same way people do, I guess."

"Meaning?"

"They're dead, Jazz," Danny explained as if it ought to be obvious. "They can't be hurt the way people can, and they don't always remember or, well, really understand how easily people can be hurt, either. I'm not even sure they view death as that big a deal. Sometimes, the way they talk about it, it just . . . it doesn't seem that bad."

A dozen alarm bells rang in her head as she listened to him. The way he said it, as if he longed for death, for something that the ghosts he spent time with perceived as not being all that terrible made Jazz realize that Danny's depression was much more severe than they thought. And she wasn't convinced that being around ghosts the way he was now was helping him, even if he was right that by doing so he was not only helping the ghosts but everyone else, too. "Danny, you know that you can talk to me about anything, right, and that suicide isn't–"

"-I'm not going to kill myself." She shivered as the temperature around them dropped. The portal always caused weird cold spots all over the house, and she rubbed her arms rapidly, trying to dispel the goose bumps that erupted. Danny, as usual, seemed unphased by it, but she guessed he noticed the shifts less since he was cold all the time now. "I almost died in my accident, Jazz. I know it's not the answer. And a ghostly version of me wouldn't be me. That much Mom and Dad are right about." She frowned at him as he took a sip of coffee and, seeing her expression, he rolled his eyes. "Seriously, Jazz. I'll pinky promise you and everything if that'll make you feel better before you run off to Harvard."

"I'm always going to worry about you, Danny," she said, reaching out a hand and gently touching his arm, forcing herself to suppress a shiver. His doctors claimed his hypothermia wasn't getting worse, but Jazz swore he was by far colder to the touch now than he was after his accident. A not so tiny part of her thrilled at the thought of having a room that didn't feel like a freezer the way nearly every room in the house did now once she finally went to college. "And I'm always here for you. Even when I'm several hundred miles away. You know if you need anything you can reach out and I'll be here in a heartbeat, right?"

"I know, Jazz." Standing up, he brushed her hand aside as he slowly put the icing into a piping bag, and she watched him in silence for a few minutes as he carefully iced each of the cookies. Her mind was still reeling from the revelation that he was actively meeting with and trying to form relationships with ghosts.

"Are you . . . is this why you miss so many of your classes?" asked Jazz, trying to be careful, and she saw his hands pause for a moment before resuming. "Because you're trying to talk to the ghosts?"

"It's part of it." He cursed softly as an air bubble caused the icing to pop softly. Twisting the piping bag, he adjusted his position before continuing to frost the cookies. "I know that you don't agree, but I feel kind of responsible for all the ghosts since I'm the idiot that managed to get the portal working."

"Mom and Dad are the ones that built it." They had this argument a few times after his accident. "And that left the lab easily accessible to a curious fourteen year old that just wanted to try and make his parents feel better. It's really not your fault, Danny."

"Maybe not completely, but some of the blame is definitely on me. And like I said, talking to the ghosts is working. Mom and Dad would never even think to try it. They'll just keep attacking and repeating the cycle of violence."

Except that wasn't entirely true, of course - their parents were slowly reconsidering their position, even if their thinking was still miles away from Danny's own beliefs. Not that Danny would know it. She didn't think he talked much to their parents anymore, let alone have long discussions about ghosts. Realistically, though, Jazz suspected the truth lay somewhere in between, with her parents' research being too abstract for so long to know the truth and with Danny being too intensely involved in what he was doing now to see the dangers that did exist. "So you think all of the ghosts would be friendly if not for Mom and Dad attacking them?"

"Of course not," he said. "There's a place for what they and Phantom and the Red Huntress all do. But there's room for what I'm doing, too. And I'd rather be doing something than just waiting for me or someone else to get hurt like Tucker and Lancer a few days ago. I can't–" He broke off suddenly, shaking his head and wincing, and putting the piping bag down he grabbed at his chest.

Jazz jerked up in her chair. She found herself constantly overreacting to every little injury, every complaint Danny had now, worried that some side effect the doctors missed might finally be rearing its ugly head. She still had nightmares about him in the hospital bed after his accident, dozens of tubes and wires attached to his body as he remained comatose. She tried to temper it, though, pushing down the worst of her anxieties as she asked, "Danny, are you okay? Is your heart–does it hurt? Should we call Mom and Dad?"

"I'm fine," he mumbled. "Just a weird muscle cramp or something."

"Do you want me to get some ibuprofen or something?" she asked. He was lying. She knew he was lying. Whatever this was, it wasn't just some cramp or something, but Danny would never tell her the truth. What were the signs of a heart attack? Chest pain, left arm pain . . . something? Darn it. She didn't know. She should know, even if it seemed unlikely that Danny could have one.

His expression relaxed after a moment, his hand leaving his chest as he turned back to finish the cookies, and she felt a bit of relief that whatever it was, the worst of it seemed to have passed. "That'd be great, Jazz." Giving his shoulder a quick squeeze, Jazz left the kitchen and went upstairs to the bathroom to find a bottle as she googled symptoms for heart attacks on her phone. It seemed unlikely, but she would keep an eye on him, make sure he was okay, and then let their parents know when they got home. She was only gone for about five minutes, tops, but when she got back downstairs the cookies were done, the green icing seeming to almost glow as they dried on the counter.

And Danny, of course, had vanished, whatever brief mood that made him willing to open up to her clearly gone as well.

She resisted the urge to kick something as she put the medicine away and headed back to her room, suspecting her little brother might have manipulated her to get her to stop poking her nose in his business. Glancing again at the Amity Park Community College brochure, this time she found herself picking it up and thumbing through it. They had a good psychology program. They offered her a full scholarship already, and if she lived at home she wouldn't need to worry about extra loans for housing or other costs. She could always go to Harvard for her doctorate.

An idea began to churn, then. She wanted to be a psychologist. Always had. But helping her brother mattered, too, and she couldn't leave him, not right now when his depression was so bad and not when he was doing something so dangerous with the ghosts. Should she tell their parents about what Danny was up to, though? She scowled, staring at the pamphlet, but decided against it for now. Danny would be upset if he thought she broke his trust and went to them when he obviously didn't want them to know. And clearly he expected to be alone tonight, or he never would have invited the Lunch Lady into their home. It was sheer luck she learned the truth about what he was up to, or at least part of the truth, since she felt an uneasy swirling in her gut that suggested she only just scratched the surface of Danny's issues.

But the only way she could help Danny would be if she could learn to understand the ghosts, too. Amity Park's college had an ecto science degree program now that, while still in its infancy, was proving to be a serious course of study. Maybe she could double major and do an undergraduate thesis on ecto psychology. She would have to find a willing advisor, but if it worked . . . It would give her more standing to push back on her parents' beliefs if she could support her arguments with science and logic. It would give her a chance to carve out a new niche in the field of psychology. And it might prove that maybe Danny was right, or at least, give her a way to meaningfully test whether he was doing something incredibly brave and genuinely helpful, or something incredibly stupid that would only put him in danger.

It was the kind of path she was searching for, and the more she considered it, the more she knew it was what she wanted to do. Mentally, she prepared herself to tell her parents about her decision while sending a quick text to Danny to make sure he was okay. They would be disappointed about her not going to Harvard, but thrilled at the prospect of Jazz studying ecto science and following in their footsteps. For now, though, hopefully she could avoid letting them know too much about what caused her change of heart.

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, subscriptions, and favorites! This is a few days later than I originally planned. My internet was mostly out for the last half of the week, though, so I had very few options. The next chapter will probably come out on Wednesday, though, since I'm going to be in Texas for a week.