DP Season 4 Episode 2

Memories: Sometimes It Hits You Like a Ton of Bricks

Chapter 1

Thursday June 15

Danny found himself feeling self-conscious as he sat in the waiting room of Rob's counseling office. The receptionist seemed surprised to see him, but did her best to professionally tell him to have a seat as she let Rob know he was there. There was only one other person in the room, a boy about Danny's age, who tried to keep himself busy with drawing in a notebook on his lap but kept throwing up glances at Danny.

Danny reached over to the coffee table and picked up a Highlights, hoping to distract himself with their Find Its. As soon as he found the page he heard his name being called. Looking up, he quickly put the magazine back and jumped to his feet as he said, "Hi, Rob."

The brown haired man stood with his hands behind his back and a polite smile on his face. "Sorry for making you wait. My office is just down the hall."

Danny gave one last glance at the other teen in the waiting room, seeing a cartoon version of himself on the page, before following Rob down the hall.

The man stopped at a door and held it open for Danny as he said, "Maybe next week we'll set up a way for you to get here without dealing with the waiting room."

"I'm sure it's not often you have ghosts here," Danny tried, quickly taking a seat on the sofa facing a turned off fireplace.

Rob closed the door and took a seat in an overstuffed armchair that blocked some of the bookshelf behind him. He grabbed a clipboard from the cluttered side table beside him and gave it a look before looking up at Danny. "Do you want anything to drink? I just realized I left my tea in the other room."

"Water'd be nice," Danny admitted, smiling politely as worry built up in his stomach.

"I'll be right back," Rob promised, sitting the clipboard in his chair as he stood up.

Danny watched him leave the room before letting his mind go, worried what all he might have to talk about or make up to cover his human self. He also didn't know much about councilors other than the few times he had seen them on TV and usually that meant someone had already gone crazy.

Fix that, he realized, human councilors. Any experience he had with Spectra did not count since she wasn't there to help anyone but herself.

His eyes took in the room closer now, the small room filled up so it almost felt cluttered but not overpoweringly so. The side tables, sitting on both sides of the sofa, each held a lamp of different styles with books covering the wooden table tops. A top one book was a number of pens and a masquerading crayon. On one side of the fireplace, away from the floor to ceiling bookshelf, was a shorter book case filled with dog or cat toys and an empty water bowl. The top held a stack of coloring books with an art box holding them down.

His eyes fell on the clipboard, curious what it might have on its papers but noticed footsteps outside the door right before Rob opened the door. He held a mug in one hand and pushed the door closed with the hand holding a water bottle.

"Here you go," Rob offered, passing him the bottle as he walked back to his seat. Picking back up the clipboard, he sat back down and asked, "How's your week been? I heard the other day you had those elementals to deal with."

Danny cracked open the seal on the water bottle and took a quick sip, closing it back up as he gave the man a nod. "Yeah. I don't agree with the Fenton's method, but I was thankful for their help."

"You've had to talk to too many media people," Rob said with a smile as he sat his mug on the side table beside his chair.

"Sorry," Danny tried, realizing he had worded it like he always figured superheroes would talk.

"No, I'm sorry," Rob tried, sitting back. "Maybe you can think of this as a safe place one day." He scribbled something down on the clipboard as he continued, "Have you heard what that girl is trying to do? I think her last name was Manson?"

"The 'ghosts were people too' girl?" Danny asked, keeping face. "Yeah. She's already caught me, asking if I'd be at a few of her meetings. I promised I'd be at the first one, here in Amity Park."

"I was thinking of going myself," Rob admitted. "From what I heard so far, I agree. We need laws protecting the ghost population."

"She'd be thrilled to hear you say that," Danny offered.

"You know her, don't you?" Rob asked. "Her and our youngest mayor, am I right?"

"As well as the Fenton kids," Danny offered. He gave a smile as he added, "They were my first friends after…" he looked at his hands, paying attention to the glow around his white gloves.

"I've got a question, and if you don't feel comfortable answering it, you don't have to," Rob said. "With any of my questions you have that right." He paused a moment, getting Danny to look up at him. "How did you die?"

"Electrocution," Danny simply said. He didn't want to be asked to elaborate so he quickly added, "Jazz, the budding psychologist I was talking about last time, she went through the Fenton's library and said most likely I ended up like this because of how much I didn't want to die."

"From my ecto-studies, that'd be my guess too," Rob said with a nod. "How'd you become friends?"

"I went to Fenton Works for help," Danny said, trying to come up with a believable back story. "Danny, Sam, and Tucker stopped me and helped me figure out what I could now do. Jazz found out they were hiding me and started helping."

"Danny and Jazz are the Fenton kids, am I right?"

Danny nodded his head. He forced a laugh as he added, "Does make it confusing sometimes, us having the same name."

"I'm glad they stepped in," Rob offered. He glanced at his clipboard before asking, "I know you said you died at fourteen. Do you still feel you're at that age?"

"No," Danny said, surprised at the jump in topics. "I still remember my birthday and, at least for now, still count them. I'm sixteen now."

"Brad did mention you have grown since your first appearance," Rob said, more to himself.

"I wouldn't be surprised if my body is still growing, something about ghosts' minds controlling more about the body," Danny tried. "I'm learning too, as best as I can. I mean, I want to go to space still."

"But mentally, do you feel yourself sixteen?" Rob asked.

"I don't know," Danny offered, working his brain to come up with an answer. "I'm sure if you did one of those tests on me for that- shoot, what'd she call it? A battery?" Danny asked, trying to remember what Jazz had talked about once.

"The battery assessment?" Rob suggested.

"Yeah. Jazz was going down the same path and said she'd be curious where I'd place," Danny said. "I'm sure my school's dropped a bit, I was a C student when-" he paused, making sure he kept using the right words, "when I died, so I wasn't all that good to begin with."

"Well, the battery tests how the person recognizes when and where they are, basic memory functions, verbal function, visible spatial, and flexible thinking," Rob explained. "With how I've seen you fight, you actually might place pretty high in it. It may give an idea of mental age, but also it helps determine any underlining mental health problems that might be hiding. It might be something we could look into doing for you, if you'd like. It is interesting. I've still got the paperwork from when I took it."

"You do?" Danny asked, surprised.

"I'll let you in on a little secret," Rob offered with a sly smile. "Most councilors are in the field because they've been in the patient's seat. If not, they were close to someone who was." He sat back, sitting the clipboard down on his lap, and added, "I was diagnosed with dyslexia and a version of PTSD when I was about your age."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Danny tried, unsure how to respond. He understood the basic form of both and admitted his curiosity only to himself about what could've caused the man's PTSD.

"Don't be," Rob said, waving the emotions away. "Dyslexia's fun in its own way to deal with. Can't spell to save my life, but that's what spell check's for." He gave a glance to the wall behind Danny before asking, "You have anything planned for next week?"

"Just my normal stuff, I guess?" Danny offered, taking a sip of his water.

"What's a normal week for you?"

"If a ghost doesn't attack, I guess kinda dull," Danny admitted with a laugh. "Sunday's church, Monday's with Brad, Tuesday Mrs. Fenton wanted to talk."

"Be careful around them," Rob offered, worry pulling at his face.

"I am," Danny tried. "I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, and they've changed a lot." He returned to his thoughts to the week and continued, "Wednesday's my day to keep good ghost-human relations."

"What's that?" Rob asked, scribbling on his clipboard.

"Jazz- and Danny- came up with the name," Danny offered, trying to keep his humans self with his sister. "Basically it helps keep my allies in check, both human and ghost. Um, last week actually was a picnic in the Ghost Zone with Mr. and Mrs. Fenton and Queen Dora of the Dark ages."

"Queen Dora?"

"She's normally seen on the news in her blue dragon form," Danny tried. "At first she was under her brother's rule but after we helped her dethrone him, she's done what she could to help."

Rob gave him a nod, adding a note to his paper. Danny waited for him to finish before continuing.

"Thursday I'll be here again," Danny said with a smile, "and Friday and Saturday, if I'm lucky, will just be patrolling town and relaxing."

Rob nodded his head before saying, "I'm surprised you go to church. Which one?"

"I tend to rotate around, even popping into the synagogue once in a while," Danny said, stretching the truth. "And I'm normally invisible. Most churches would freak out if they knew a ghost was in the building." His mind flashed back to a few weeks ago when he had to go ghost during church and let out an involuntary laugh. "Actually they did go crazy. Found a church losing it to a ghost squirrel."

"Oh, like the Tennessee Squirrel Revival?" Rob asked with a smile.

"Yeah, kinda like that," Danny said with a laugh.

"I hate to say it, but our time's about up," Rob informed. "You have my number incase anything comes up, right?"

Danny nodded his head as they both rose to their feet.

"Call me anytime if you need me," Rob said, offering his hand.

Danny shook the man's hand as he said, "Thanks."

AN: This story ended up becoming a little heavy on exposition and fluff but that's a part of my writing style. I like to show people both the crazy time when the ghosts won't leave him alone, and the down time when the group gets to have fun for a moment.

Though I've already started to see a pattern that I hope I can break out of but so far even number episodes are being exposition and daily life while odd episodes are action/fighting stories. At least up to episode four which, while I'm editing this is already being worked on. Three and four both are being worked on right now. I've gotta stop doing this… but too many ideas all form at once and I've gotta write them down!