Darkness slowly faded into light. Danny felt as though the light were moving toward him... or was he moving toward it? It was almost like he was traveling along a tunnel, whatever light there was waiting at the end for him, except that he couldn't feel himself moving; it was more like the tunnel was moving past him, the light coming at him slowly but surely, warm and welcoming, quietly coaxing him to come closer, bringing him out of the darkness to bask in its glow.
Danny slowly opened his eyes. There before him was a confusion of light and color, movement and shadow; he blinked, and his surroundings gradually began to slide into focus. He saw a figure of red and blue standing over him, felt something clasping his right hand... He blinked again. There stood his mother, Maddie Fenton, standing beside him where he lay. Behind her, the mid-morning sun shone like gold as it streamed through a glass window.
He glanced up at the ceiling, the walls; he was inside a hospital recovery room, laying on his back in a bed, his head resting on a pillow. He was warm, his body clean and dry; his soaking wet clothes were gone, replaced by some sort of loose-fitting white cloth garment. He looked at his left arm, noticing something attached to it... a needle, which led to an IV drip that hung from a post on the left side of his bed.
He looked away, turning back to his mother, her round eyes the telltale center of her emotions. She lifted her arms, stopped, hesitating... flung her arms around her son, pulled him close, burying her face in his soft dark hair, the tears flowing freely. Danny looked up, seeing Jazz and his father Jack also standing over him, Jazz with her hands around Danny's left hand, tears occasionally falling down her smiling face as well.
"Danny... I... I was so afraid... I thought... we had lost you..."
His mother turned her head, pressing the side of her head against Danny's.
"We thought you were safe, I mean, at your friend's house... We only found out what happened after Jazz came back from the hospital... I'm so sorry that you had to go through all that, Danny..."
He froze, turned his eyes toward Jazz. Her smile fading, she let go with one hand, raised it to her mouth; as though suddenly troubled, she looked toward Maddie, who was still wrapped around her son, lamenting.
"I won't trouble you about it... I know you don't want to... I know I wouldn't... Considering what your friends already told me... Just forget about it for now... You're safe... You're with family now."
She continued to hold Danny's head in her arms, her tears soaking the side of his face. He blinked, confused by her words. What did they find out from Jazz? What did Sam and Tuck tell her, and besides that, where were they? He looked around, looking past Maddie, and saw another bed beside his, upon which Tuck lay, watching him. Tuck raised one hand, smiled, waved. He then noticed Sam, sitting on the end of Tuck's bed, leaning forward with her arms across her knees, her hands folded. She was the only other person in the room not watching Danny; like Jazz, her eyes were on Maddie, an expression of anxiety on her pale face.
Their tension was suddenly broken when the door to the recovery room swung open. All attention shifted toward the man in a camo uniform who rushed into the room, stopping in front of Jack.
"Sir, we're getting reports from back at the shelter about one of your... um... devices... firing up and going off... I think it would be best if you returned to the shelter and did something about it before another one of our tents catches on fire."
Jack reached over and put his hand on Maddie's shoulder, who had already looked up at the man's message. She slowly loosened her embrace, carefully laying Danny's head back on the pillow, looking down at him, raising a hand to wipe the tears from her eyes.
"Right... Right. Danny... I'm sorry... We'd really, really hate to leave you..."
"Don't worry..."
Danny closed his hand around his mother's.
"You go ahead. ...I'll be fine."
Maddie was deeply reluctant to leave her son behind, even for a moment, after being separated from him for so long; but his words were strong, confident. She knew she had nothing to fear. He was safe where he lay, in the company of his friends, under the care of the nurses. He let go of her hand, and she stepped away, her mouth gingerly bending into a smile.
"You'll be fine... We'll only be gone for a moment. We'll be back soon, I promise."
Jazz lay Danny's other hand back down on the bed, sliding her fingers along the back of his hand, stepping back from the bed, following Jack and Maddie out of the room. Jack nodded at Danny, then disappeared around the corner, through the doorway; Maddie stopped at the doorframe, looking back at Danny, smiled again.
"We'll be right back, dear. Promise."
She then turned away and left. Jazz, however, walked out of the room without looking back.
Danny watched them leave. Once the door clicked shut, the feeling set in, and his heart sank. His parents must have gone through the worst kind of emotional pain trying to deal with his unexplained absence. But then, what all did they know about what happened? What had Jazz told them?
"They think you were at my house, helping me study for a test."
Sam had walked up next to him, dragging a chair over from against the wall, planting it at his bedside and sitting down.
"Jazz is apparently trying to cover up for you. Don't worry, she doesn't know a thing... She just doesn't want your parents worrying about you too much, for some reason. Maybe she was in charge of knowing where you were at the time. We don't really know..."
She leaned forward, placing her elbows on the bed, her chin in her hands. Her eyes shifted to the needle taped down against Danny's arm.
"I know you must feel really bad about your parents missing you..."
Danny blinked.
"What did you tell them?"
Tuck spoke up.
"We told them that a ghost dragon swooped down and grabbed you two days ago, carried you off somewhere, put you in torture you for an extensive period of time, then came back carrying you to try and get me as well. ...Not a far stretch from the truth, I'd say... And that the black and white dragon managed to save both our lives before it flew away. But then again, everyone knows what you--er, that dragon did."
Danny blinked again.
"Huh?"
Sam reached down and put her hand on Danny's right hand, closing her fingers around it gently.
"Yeah... you were on the news. You're probably still on the news. But no one knows it's you, trust me."
She sighed.
"That was one of the dumbest alibis we've ever made up as an excuse for your absence, but... They bought it. But then again, when you've seen a bunch of giant monsters tearing down your house, you'd probably believe anything anybody tells you, as long as it offers some kind of explaination for what's going on..."
Danny turned his gaze down at his hand. Sam looked at his face, noting his depressed countenance.
"Danny, you don't have to worry about your parents."
"But... Mom... She was crying. Even with her having some idea where I was... She was still in a pretty sad state."
He felt her other hand close around his, lifting it up, and he turned to look; Sam held his hand between hers, leaning on her elbows, slipping her fingers between Danny's. She looked him straight in the eyes.
"It wasn't your fault, Danny. Nothing that happened over the past few days was your fault. And of course your parents would feel bad, miss you terribly... They love you. But still, there's no reason for you to feel so bad about what they went through... In a way, you made up for it. You saved their lives. Danny, you saved all our lives."
Danny looked at his hand, then back at Sam. She smiled.
"If it weren't for you and what you did, your parents probably wouldn't be here to welcome you back, to tell you how happy they are to see you again. And of course they're never going to find out it was you, as long as you choose to keep this whole thing a secret... But still, you paid them back, you were there for them, even though you couldn't actually be there to support them and comfort them. You should be happy that they're still here for you."
She turned his hand around and put the back of his wrist against her cheek, holding it there with both hands, gazing compassionately into Danny's eyes. He looked back, understanding what she was trying to get across to him. Sure, this entire ordeal had inflicted many a wound upon everyone's well-being, both physiological and psychological, but with time, these wounds will heal, and their sorrow will soon be forgotten. Things will just have to run their course for a while. There was nothing wrong with that, nothing to grieve for at all.
As his mind was calmed, he realized that things were finally starting to return to normal. Normal for him, anyway.
"Don't worry about a thing, Danny... Everything's going to be just fine."
He closed his eyes.
Sam could tell he had fallen asleep even before she had finished laying his hand back down.
He awoke later that night in a darkened room. He was quick to realize that he was still in the same room as before, just with all the lights turned off, save for a soft nightlight that hung on the wall just above his bed. He looked across at Tuck, who was fast asleep.
As far as being the only one awake at this hour, he felt somewhat lonely. He lay back on the pillow, staring tiredly up at the ceiling. There was only one thing left troubling him...
He heard the door click open, a beam of light thrown upon the wall. He sat up in bed, caught off guard. He saw the shadow on the wall, framed in the light from the hallway, and somehow it was felt he had known who it would be all along.
Jazz walked into the room, her hands folded together in front of her chest; she stopped at the foot of the bed, looking at Danny, somewhat surprised at the fact that he was awake.
"Oh, I'm sorry... I didn't know..."
She walked along the side of the bed, putting her hand on the bedsheet, touching her fingers to Danny's shoulder. She then leaned over, putting her mouth close to his ear, whispering to him.
"Now look... I covered for you this time... You wouldn't believe that I had to do to keep you out of trouble, with you running off, not telling any of us where you were going... You owe me big."
He turned his head to face her, his brows furrowed, confused. Noting his expression, she giggled, smiled, and leaned down closer to him, speaking in an even more hushed tone.
"But I'll let it go... Just this once."
She reached up and kissed him on the forehead, then carefully pushed him back against the pillow, standing up, folding her hands back together. She gave him once last glance... was it a look of pride? ...then turned and walked out of the room once more, closing the door quietly behind her.
Jazz turned around, noticing the plastic panel on the door, the panel that displayed the room number and occupants. The small slip of paper, reading "Danny Fenton", was hanging halfway out of the frame. She reached up and pushed the strip back into the slot, straightening it so that it read clearly through the small window on the panel. She stepped back to admire her work for a moment, then turned away, walking off down the hall.