Author's Introduction:
When last we left our heroes (I never get tired of saying that), they'd just managed to escape from a fate worse than death—the school pep rally—only to meet another fate almost worse than death, a ghost attack. Maybe Dash's lame Inviso-Bill costume wasn't so bad—it managed to fool Skulker for a few minutes. But now the jig is up, and Danny's trapped against a wall with no safe place to go ghost and half the school as witness…
Obligatory disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom. Sue me. The average settlement is $50,000. (chuckles.)
Ordinary World
A Danny Phantom fanfiction
Chapter Five: The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.
(The Lady of Shalott, Alfred, Lord Tennyson)
Jazz's pulse bounced up her throat like a pinball. Her brother's expression was torn—if he did nothing, the ghost would wreak havoc on the school. But if he transformed into his ghost self, his cover would be blown in front of half the student body.
"We have to do something," Jazz said, shaking Tucker, who was the only one close enough to shake.
"Like what?" Tucker asked. "My PDA doesn't have a function for this!"
Damn it, Jazz thought. She'd forgotten one important fact—Tucker knew Danny was half ghost, and she knew Danny was half-ghost, but Tucker didn't know that she knew! They couldn't compare notes or anything, and Danny was in trouble.
Danny closed his eyes slowly, as if centering himself. Then he opened them, and an expression of determination crossed his face. Jazz knew he'd decided to sacrifice himself—he was about to go ghost right where he was standing, against the wall of the corridor.
Jazz opened her mouth to scream something, anything, but for once, someone was thinking faster than she was.
A horrible shattering sound drew everyone's attention to the other side of the hallway.
Sam's locker was open, and her fists were buried in the spiderwebbed center of her beautiful mirror. Blood dripped down her forearms and spattered on the floor.
For a minute, no one moved. Sam's violet eyes were staring dazedly at the damage, as if even she were shocked by what she'd done.
"No," Danny whispered hoarsely, breaking the silence, if only a little.
Sam's eyes darted desperately towards him. Go, her expression said. Danny's blue eyes were wet and jumpy, but he set his jaw and obeyed, pushing past the stunned students to run down the corridor and out of sight.
Just in time—Paulina split the air with a blood-curdling scream.
The hallway erupted in sound. Many of the students backed away from Sam, while Tucker and Jazz surged forward.
"Sam! Are you okay?" Tucker yelled, coming out of the trance to run to his friend's side. He helped Sam take her hands out of the mirror. Shards jingled down to the tiled floor.
Sam gave him a shadow of her usual withering glare, but it was enough to reassure Jazz. Sam was still Sam.
Tucker laughed softly. "Sorry. Standard question." He sucked air through his teeth at the sight of the blood. "Whoa, Sam. Good idea, but did you have to use both hands?" he chuckled nervously.
"A good idea," Sam wheezed, doubling over a little and curling her bleeding hands into fists as Tucker turned her away from the open locker. "Not a smart idea...but a good idea."
"Oh, gross," Paulina moaned, turning her face away. "She's crazy."
"Beat it, candy floss," Jazz snapped, tossing her hair over her shoulder and turning to Sam. "Come on, Sam, let's go get you cleaned up." Even as she said it, Jazz knew "cleaning up" wasn't the right term and should be replaced by "medical attention".
"No, I—I want to go find Danny," Sam stammered, seemingly ignorant of the jagged glass sticking out of her mangled hands and the blood that was dripping faster and faster to the floor. "Danny needs help."
"Right now you're the one that needs help, Sam," Jazz said, then when she realized how that sounded, she added, "We need to bandage your hands and stuff," to emphasize that she meant physical help, not mental help.
Tucker drew Sam beneath his arm. "Sorry, Sam. Jazz is right, and we have to get out of here before Lancer shows up."
"Did you hear what she said to me?" Paulina demanded, turning to Dash.
Dash 's grin was sickly; his narrow escape from the ghost had left him pale. But he still managed to come up with a bad joke as his eyes bounced to Sam's bloody hands. "We don't have to beat up on kids like Manson—she does it to herself!"
Rage shot through Jazz like a bottle rocket. "I said get lost," she said, stomping her foot at Mr. and Mrs. Casper High.
"Danny." Sam was trying to squirm away from Tucker. He was trying to hold her without aggravating the wounds, which looked difficult.
"I think you need stitches, Sam," Jazz said. The longer she looked at the wounds, the worse they seemed.
"No, I'm fine," Sam insisted shakily. "Can we go find Danny now?"
"What's all the noise?" Having been the last person to leave the gym after the rally, Lancer was still trapped in the back of the crowd, but he'd push his way through eventually.
"We'll find him later," Tucker promised. "We always do. Lancer's coming, Sam, we have to hurry."
Jazz glanced down at the shards of glass that littered the floor beneath Sam's locker. Most of them were spattered with blood, but there wasn't time to clean any of it up. They had to get Sam out of there. She pushed the open locker shut with one foot and tried to shepherd Sam and Tucker down the hall at the same time.
"They'll tell your parents," Tucker hissed. "Your mom and dad will come and you'll be grounded and they won't let you out of your room for a month! And you won't be able to go to the concert with Danny!"
This appeal to Sam's alone-time with Danny worked where nothing else might have. Her violet eyes dimmed as she rolled Tucker's words over in her mind, and then she nodded dazedly.
Jazz tried to sound soothing—difficult when she could still roll her pulse in her mouth like candy. "Come on, Sam. It's okay. It's going to be okay."
Together, she and Tucker led the shivering girl towards the double doors.
"Hey, look!" Paulina cried, and everyone turned back towards her. Jazz was thankful for the distraction; they actually passed Lancer as they made it to the doors. He was exiting the gym, but his eyes were trained on the far end of the hallway, where Paulina was leaning against the window.
"There he is! It's really him! My hero!" Paulina trilled. "Inviso-Bill!"
Sam made a sound and buried her head in Tucker's shoulder.
Just as Jazz had predicted, Sam needed stitches. Tucker had stayed with her in the backseat of the Jetta while Jazz, who had never gone even a mile over the speed limit in her life, blew two red lights on the way to the emergency room. After the initial shock of what she'd done had worn off, Sam had returned to her usual self, making fun of Tucker and bitching about Paulina's ridiculous skit and Dash's terrible costume. Tucker joined right in, his spirits rising with every snarky comment she made, the sheet he'd worn in the rally spread on the Jetta's backseat, slowly staining with blood.
"I've got to warn you, Sam," Jazz said to the rearview mirror as they pulled into the hospital parking lot. "Since we're all minors, they're going to call your parents. And they're obligated to tell them if they find anything…out of the ordinary." She wasn't sure how else to put it; she didn't know if she should say anything in front of Tucker.
"It's okay," Sam said, wincing as Tucker tried to take a shard of glass out of her hand. She hissed in a breath, then added, "It won't be anything they don't already know."
"Tucker, can you take her inside while I find a place to park?" Jazz said, her brow furrowing as she pulled the Jetta up to the hospital doors.
"He hates hospitals," Sam said. "Tucker, you hate hospitals. You're afraid of them."
"Well, you're the one who's going into the ER, not me," Tucker chuckled. "As soon as you're cool, we need to get the hell out of here." He opened his door and held his hands out for Sam.
"For Christ's sakes, Tucker, I'm not an invalid," Sam snapped.
Tucker grinned and carefully took her arm. "You want a wheelchair?"
"Tuck-errrrrr!" Sam wailed as they disappeared beyond the sliding doors.
Jazz tried to laugh, tried to quell the scream rising in her throat as she turned back onto the street. Walls of cars rose to meet her on every side; she grew increasingly more impatient as the minutes ticked by. Fifteen minutes later, she found a space five blocks away from the hospital. She only realized tears were biting at her eyes as turned off the ignition and the car shuddered to a stop. How the hell was Sam so calm, when she felt like falling apart? Even Tucker was laughing.
For the first time, Jazz wondered what the three younger kids did at night, what horrors they'd held hands through, what wounds they'd laughed off.
As she opened the door, she caught a glimpse in the rear view mirror of the bloody sheet still spread across the backseat
She only remembered her cell phone when she was halfway back to the hospital. It was hard to keep her shaking fingers from pressing incorrect keys as she dialed.
"Hello, you've reached the Fentons! We're not available to take your call, so please leave a message at the sound of the beep." Her mother's voice on their answering machine, right before her father cut in. "If this is a ghost-related emergency, please state that!"
Jazz wanted to scream. "Mom, Dad, it's me, Jazz. Please pick up if you're there—it's not about a ghost, but it is an emergency!"
Silence, so she continued, the sound of her own voice loud on the deserted side street. "I'm at the hospital. Sam got hurt at school and Tucker and I brought her to the emergency room—she's fine but I can't find Danny and I don't know what to do! If you see him, please tell him we're here…"
The machine cut her off. She pressed END and began a new call, her finger jumping from speed dial #1 to speed dial #2.
"Hey, this is Danny. You know what to do!"
No, that was the problem. She didn't know what to do at all.
"Danny, it's Jazz! I brought Sam to the emergency room. I don't know where you are, but I'm sure it has nothing to do with ghosts and you have to come! Please, if you get this, just come to the hospital." She knew how panicked she sounded, running the words together. Danny was probably going to think she was an idiot, when his friends were so calm.
As she reached the sliding doors, she couldn't help but notice the round drops of blood spattered on the concrete. Round drops; they'd walked inside, not run. So calm, when Jazz felt like her heart, her lungs, her eyes were shivering.
She burst into the lobby, only to skid to a stop at the sight of Tucker. He was sitting in a chair in front of the big screen TV, his eyes fixed dejectedly on Oprah.
"Tucker!" Jazz panted. "What happened? Why aren't you with Sam?"
The techno-geek shrugged miserably. "What took you so long? They took Sam into a room, said they'd let me know when she was patched up, but I couldn't stay in there with her."
"So she's alone?" Jazz asked softly, dropping into the chair next to Tucker.
Tucker's eyes were darting nervously back and forth behind his glasses. "I had to tell them her name. They're gonna call her parents."
Jazz patted his arm. "Her parents will want to know. It's for the best."
Tucker shook his head darkly. "No, it isn't. Have you ever met Sam's parents?"
Jazz cocked an eyebrow. "I didn't think anyone had met Sam's parents. Who are they, Jack Skellington and Sally?"
Tucker laughed, but it wasn't a happy laugh. "Worse. Way worse. Danny's met them—he can tell you. So could your parents."
Jazz was confused. She'd assumed no one knew anything about Sam's family. Belatedly, she realized that she hadn't known anything about Sam's family, so she had assumed no one did. How could the rest of the Fentons know something the Only Normal Fenton didn't?
"I wish we could get in touch with Danny," she murmured, huddling down in her chair. "He doesn't even know we're here."
But Tucker didn't echo her worry; rather, he smiled. "He'll find us," he assured Jazz. "Don't you know? He and Sam have a 'psychic connection'." He pulled his arm away from Jazz's to make finger quotation marks. "He'll zero in on her like a homing pigeon. Nothing will keep him away."
It sounded foreign and lovely to hear someone talk about her brother that way—her brother who sometimes laughed so hard that milk came out his nose; who spied on her dates and stole her diary to blackmail her with, who'd grown from the tiny, toddling boy she'd opened presents with on Christmas morning to someone mysterious and heroic that she couldn't even comprehend.
Jazz didn't know how long they sat there. The clock's hands seemed to spin languidly as she watched; she lost count of the times Oprah turned the conversation to herself. Tucker kept nodding off, his head dropping against Jazz's shoulder. And somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew it had been less than an hour, but the clock was snickering at her, refusing to give her a straight answer.
Which was why she thought she'd fallen asleep and wandered into a dream when they came in.
The woman was in a suit the color of Pepto-Bismol. A white blouse reflected the painful shade of pink, complete with one of those big blousy ties at her throat, the kind that were popular in the late eighties and early nineties. Pumps that were dyed to match the suit perfectly tapped as she walked down the hospital corridor. Her coppery hair looked awful atop all that pink, but every strand was coiffed sleekly around her head. She had icy pink lipstick and nails to match. She spoke to the nurse at the desk too softly for Jazz to hear.
A blond man in a pinstriped suit appeared at the sliding doors, surveying his surroundings before moving towards the woman to tuck a hand under her elbow. She leaned into the hold, closing her long-lashed eyes. He stroked her shoulder, murmuring something that sounded like, "This is so embarrassing," as he shook his blond head.
"We'll take care of it," the woman soothed, her voice sugary.
"And what they'll say around town…"
"I'll talk to her."
For one crazy second, Jazz wondered if she'd lapsed into another one of her early-morning fantasies of pinstripes and perfection. They seemed to shine on the stark white of the tiled floor beyond the waiting room carpet. She almost reached out to them.
"Tucker! Jazz!"
The doors hissed open, revealing a panicky Danny. His blue eyes were the color of the bottom of a gas flame, his dark hair more tousled than usual. He was out of breath.
"Danny!" Jazz leapt from her chair to hug him, but he didn't return the gesture, his wild eyes fixed on the corridor.
"Where is she? Is she okay?" His head whipped back and forth over Jazz's shoulder, searching for Sam as if she would jump out from behind one of the chairs, smiling and waving like it was all a joke.
"You found us," Jazz said, giving him a squeeze. "Tucker said you would—how did you know we were here?"
"Jazz, where is she?" Danny asked, breaking her hold on him.
"Danny," Tucker said, rushing over to them. "Did you take care of—that thing you had to do?"
Ordinarily Jazz would have scoffed at such a poor attempt to cover up, but Tucker was tired. She forgave him.
Danny looked incredulous, as if Tucker's priorities were completely skewed. "I'm here, aren't I? Where is Sam?"
The couple at the nurse's station turned at the sound of the name.
"You," the man said to Danny, pointing a thick finger at him. The woman grasped his shoulder as if preparing to stop a fight. Jazz was surprised to see that Danny knew them, or at least, they knew him.
Instead of responding to the challenge, Danny grasped Jazz's shoulders, shaking her. "What do you know? Where is Sam?"
All the shouting stopped the couple from hearing the first and second call of their name, so everyone only heard the third shout of "Mr. and Mrs. Manson." It was coming from a tall, thin man with a receding hairline and sickly green scrubs under a lab coat standing at the nurse's station.
The couple forgot Danny and lunged for the doctor.
Jazz was shocked. The visions of aesthetic perfection she had thought she'd dreamt up were the Mansons—Sam's parents. The corpse bride's parents were rich, tinted, coiffed socialites.
No wonder Sam never wanted to go home.
"Mr. and Mrs. Manson, my name is Dr. Strohmann. Would you follow me please?"
"Is Samantha okay?" Mrs. Manson asked.
"She's going to be just fine," the doctor began.
"Then she is in so much trouble," Mr. Manson declared.
Dr. Strohmann looked slightly embarrassed. "She's going to be just fine, but I'm afraid we had to sedate her..."
"Sedate her?" Jazz asked incredulously. "For God's sake, why?"
Danny and Tucker exchanged glances. The doctor sighed, looking at his clipboard. "She kept trying to leave. When we tried to tell her that we needed her to calm down so we could treat her wounds, she became agitated and...uncooperative."
Danny had wrapped his arms around himself, as if he were cold. Jazz's psychologist's brain supplied her with words for the posture, like "closed-off" and "brooding".
"Sedate her? My daughter is not an animal," Mr. Manson rumbled. "She just seems to enjoy acting like one sometimes..."
Danny immediately snapped to attention, hands curling into fists. Tucker placed a warning arm in front of him; the last thing they needed was assault charges on top of everything else. Looking into Mr. Manson's angry eyes, Jazz had no doubt that it would make his day to file a complaint against her brother.
"What kind of...wounds...are we talking about here?" Mrs. Manson asked. She looked dizzy.
"She's badly lacerated her hands. She's going to be just fine, but there are some things I'd like to discuss with you..." The doctor turned, as if noticing the room's other occupants for the first time. "Are they family?" he said, gesturing to the Fentons and Tucker.
"No," Mrs. Manson interrupted quickly. "No, they're not."
"Then, if the Mansons will come with me..." the doctor began, gesturing with his clipboard.
Jazz, who'd never stuck up for any one member of her family in her life, stamped her foot. "But—wait! You have to at least let Danny in."
"Yeah!" Tucker added, braver since he hadn't had to be the first to speak up.
Mr. Manson glanced at Danny, and if looks could kill, Danny would have been all ghost instead of just half of one.
"The situation is…only family should see her," the doctor said gently, and Mrs. Manson looked slightly smug. Jazz wanted to smash that perfect face. Instead, she turned to her brother. "Sam's really fine, Danny. She was fine the whole time we drove here. They'll let her out soon. I'm sure she'll really want to see you," she added pointedly, arching her eyebrows at the Mansons.
Danny said nothing, but his displeasure with the situation was obvious.
"This is humiliating," Mr. Manson muttered to his wife as they followed the doctor towards the corridor that led to the examination rooms.
"I'll talk to her," Mrs. Manson responded, as if she had said that too many times for her own liking, and then they disappeared behind the door.
For a minute, the three teens were silent. Only instinct made Jazz step away from the wall before Danny slammed Tucker into it.
"How could you let this happen?" Danny demanded. "How could you let her do this?"
Jazz had never heard her brother sound so furious, but where his beloved Sam was concerned, all bets were off. She grabbed him around his waist, starting with surprise at the muscle she felt beneath his shirt. "Danny! Calm down!"
"Me?" Tucker squeaked. "I was all the way across the hall, Danny! I didn't know she was going to do it. I don't think she even knew she was going to do it!"
Jazz silently agreed. Sam had looked so surprised by her own actions. She'd only known that they needed a distraction, and she'd come up with one hell of a distraction.
Jazz still wasn't sure if Danny had ever seen Sam's scars. Whether he knew or not, it didn't matter—he was overprotective of her regardless. Jazz had the feeling that Danny would gladly have taken all the day's negative attention upon himself to keep it from Sam.
It wasn't a hug. Her brother had his hands around his best friend's throat, and she had her arms around his waist, leaning back with all her weight to try to pull him off, but it was like trying to move a boy made of metal. When had he gotten so strong?
It wasn't a hug, but it was the best Jazz could do. Instead of trying to pull him away from Tucker, she pressed her cheek against his shoulder. "Danny. It'll be okay. I promise. I promise."
He relaxed, as if someone had let the air out of him, releasing Tucker, who rubbed at his throat.
"I'm sorry, Tuck," he murmured. "It's not your fault."
Tucker smiled, seemingly uncaring that Danny had just been trying to throttle him. He clapped his best friend on the shoulder. "Hey, man. I'm scared, too."
Jazz touched Danny's other shoulder. "What do you want to do?" she asked gently.
He set his jaw. "I'm not leaving here until I've seen her. I don't care what they say."
Jazz had to smile. Danny could be as stubborn as Jack when he wanted to be.
They settled back into the chairs. Oprah had been replaced by a news broadcast. Murders, robberies and fires flickered across Danny's blank face as he stared into a middle distance. Tucker and Jazz exchanged glances behind his back, like two worried parents. Finally Jazz tapped her brother's shoulder. When he turned to look, she held her hands out to him, palm down.
He didn't smile, but a look of thoughtful recognition crossed his face, and then he slowly placed his hands palm up beneath hers. A few seconds of silence passed before he tried to slap her hands, but she pulled out of his way.
"Nice one," Tucker approved.
"Tuck gets next," Danny announced, and the game continued until Dr. Strohmann appeared at the door, minus the Mansons.
"Jasmine Fenton?" he asked.
Releasing Tucker's hands, Jazz gave the boys a reassuring look and walked over to him. "I'm Jasmine Fenton."
"You brought Samantha in?" he asked.
"Yes," she said, and then the story was spilling out of her mouth before she could stop it. "I know her parents don't want us in there, but it was an accident. I swear to God it was an accident."
"I believe you," the doctor said, and Jazz was startled. She'd expected to have to put up more of a fight. "Unfortunately, her family is adamant that no other visitors be admitted, so I wanted to give you an update in case you and your friends wanted to go home."
Going home was probably the only option remaining for them, but Jazz knew she was going to have a hard time convincing Danny. An update on Sam's condition would help. "Thank you, Doctor." She beckoned to the boys, and they came over.
Dr. Strohmann smiled at Danny and Tucker reassuringly; Jazz liked him for coming out to talk to them despite the fact that the Mansons so obviously disapproved. "Samantha's going to be fine, guys. She needed stitches, and some of the cuts are probably going to scar, but we won't even keep her overnight. Her parents should be able to take her home as soon as she feels up to it. A day or so of rest and some bandages and she'll be as good as new."
Jazz rubbed her brother's arm. "See, Danny? Everything's going to be fine."
Danny didn't look satisfied. "Why can't I see her?"
"She's a little out of it from the medication," Strohmann sidestepped neatly. "She should get some rest. But she can go back to school tomorrow if she wants to, as long as she keeps those stitches wrapped and dry."
"But I have to see her," Danny protested. "Sam's my best friend. She needs me."
"I promise you she's fine," Strohmann soothed. "I've got to get back in there."
"Thank you, Doctor," Jazz interrupted. "We appreciate this."
"It's my job," he said, treating them to a smile before he disappeared beyond the door once again.
"I'm not going anywhere," Danny stated flatly, and Jazz geared up for a fight. There was no way the Mansons were going to let anyone who didn't have a medical degree within fifty feet of Sam tonight. But Jazz had known Danny for all of his life and most of hers, and she knew how stubborn he could be. Trying to keep him away from Sam would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull. He wasn't going to listen to reason on this one.
"Danny, if her parents come out and find us here, they'll be even angrier," Tucker pointed out. "We're better off just going home and seeing her tomorrow."
"No way, Tuck." Danny shook his head.
"Tucker has a point," Jazz said.
"Go home if you want to," Danny said. "I'm staying here."
Jazz felt the beginnings of a migraine. There had just been too many problems today. She was all out of solutions. Luckily, voices interrupted.
"Danny? Jazz?"
Jazz turned around to see a sight she'd once despised—the worried faces of her parents. "Jazzie?" Maddie Fenton asked, holding her arms out to her daughter. "Are you okay, honey?"
Jazz felt a lump forming in her throat. "Mommy," she cried, and went willingly into the hug.
"We got your message, Jazzerincess," Jack said, hurrying forward. "What happened?"
The three teens mentally drew straws, and Jazz, of course, lost.
"Sam's mirror broke," she said softly. "In her locker. She cut her hands really bad."
Maddie and Jack exchanged looks, and Jazz cringed, waiting for whatever was coming—interrogation? Scolding? Grounding?
But Maddie simply ran a hand through Danny's tousled bangs. "You poor kids," was all she said. "How is Sam?"
"The doctor said she's gonna be all right, but Sam's parents won't even let us see her," Tucker explained.
"They're really upset," Jazz added dejectedly. "They yelled." The last was almost a whisper; Jazz hated to be yelled at by anyone.
Maddie put a hand on Danny's arm. "Come on, Danny Boy. Let's go home."
"No," Danny protested, snapping to life and trying to pull away from his mother. "I want to see Sam."
"There's nothing more we can do, Danny," Jazz said tiredly.
"Jazz is right, Danny." Jack stepped in and smiled at his son. "If Sam's not too badly hurt, they'll release her and she'll be back in our kitchen in no time."
Jazz had to hand it to her dad. Not only was it a good argument, it was probably even true.
"I don't want to go," Danny insisted doggedly. He was using his whole weight against Maddie, not to fight, just not to go. "We can't just leave her here all alone..."
"You said her folks are with her, right, son?" Jack asked, but Danny only looked more upset.
Jazz understood. Sam's parents were with her, but she was definitely alone.
The Only Normal Fenton took charge, turning to her mother. "Take Danny home. Tucker can ride with me."
Maddie smiled at her. "Proud of you, Jazzie," she whispered, then put an arm around Danny's shoulders to guide him down the hall, speaking soothingly to him about how everything was going to be just fine. Her father brought up the rear, keeping uncharacteristically quiet.
It was Tucker who had the last word, looking in the direction the Mansons had gone. "I told you Sam's parents were scary." He sighed, pushing his glasses up on his forehead to rub at his tired eyes. Jazz watched him, realizing that she wasn't the only one who'd been putting on a brave face. "Ready to go?" he asked, fighting a yawn.
Jazz was tired, too, but she wasn't about to leave empty-handed. "In a minute. There's just one more thing I have to do," she answered, walking to the information desk. She hoped that her fatigue and worry would disguise the fact that she was a bad liar. "Is there a bathroom around here?" she asked the nurse behind the desk.
The nurse turned bleary aqua eyes to Jazz. Her hair had probably been neatly combed at the start of her shift, but stress and hurrying had turned it into a mess of elf-locks and tangles. A smear of ink stretched from the corner of her lips towards her ear. Her fingertips were also darkened with ink.
"Can't you read?" the nurse muttered. "It's out of order."
Jazz could read; she'd seen the sign when she and Tucker had been waiting. She was hoping for another response.
"Is there another one on this floor? It's rather important." She held up her purse and jingled it—the universal code for "I've got my period and I really need to find a ladies' room, now".
The nurse's exasperated expression softened; maybe it was her time of the month, too. "Okay, I really shouldn't do this, but if you go down the hall, past x-ray and to the right, there's another bathroom."
Jazz didn't have to fake relief. "Thank you so much!" Clutching her purse, she turned to Tucker. "I'll be right back. Wait here, okay?" Without waiting for his answer, she whirled and hurried through the doors.
She'd always thought hospitals were quiet, but sound assaulted her ears as soon as the doors swung behind her.
Someone was crying in a room off to her left.
A heart monitor beeped nearby.
Wheels squeaked as an orderly pushed an IV down the hall.
She paused for a frantic moment at the beginning of the corridor. It was going to be hard not to look like she was peeking in every room, but she couldn't think of a better way. She took a few steps past the room containing the chirping heart monitor and came to a break in the wall. She could either turn left or keep going straight, but wasn't sure which would be the best course of action, and she didn't have much time.
"But why?" a drugged voice asked. "Why can't I…?"
"Why? We should be asking you why, Samantha!"
Jazz frowned and silently thanked Mr. Manson's embarrassment for doing the detective work for her. Sidling up to the wall a little further down the hall, she tried to look nonchalant as she listened. It was taking all her willpower not to peek around the doorframe, but to do so would be akin to stamping her feet and screaming out exactly where she was. All she could do was listen.
Luckily, there was a lot to listen to. Mr. Manson wasn't finished ranting.
"Why? Why do you behave habitually like a wild creature?"
Mrs. Manson joined in, although she was a lot more subdued than her husband. "Sammy, really…"
Jazz wished she could go intangible like Danny and just walk in undetected. She'd have given almost anything to see how Sam looked, to have something better than just words to take back to Danny.
But the next words were from Sam herself. "I feel fuzzy."
"They gave you a…painkiller, Sammy," Mrs. Manson said. "We're going to take you home soon."
"Okay…" Sam sighed. "Where are the boys?"
A silence. Were the Mansons exchanging looks, synchronizing their stories? Mrs. Manson answered. "Sam, we wouldn't bring the help to the hospital. What would they think?"
Sam sighed again. "Not your boys, Mom, my boys. Danny and Tucker. Where are my boys?"
Jazz couldn't help but smile, but it didn't last long.
"I don't want you seeing that Fenton boy," Mr. Manson rumbled. "Bad things always happen when that kid is around."
Sam interjected, with more force than she'd spoken with before. "It's not Danny's fault! I did this to myself, remember? It has nothing to do with—"
"Ugh." Mrs. Manson interrupted, as if she couldn't bear to hear it. "Don't say things like that, Sammy. We'll tell everyone it was an accident."
"You're not listening to me," she murmured in defeat. "Why don't you ever listen to me?"
"We are going home," Mr. Manson declared.
"But where's Danny? Jazz and Tucker brought me to the hospital, and I wanna tell them I'm okay…" Jazz felt a smile tug at her lips once more. But the painkillers and the day's events had taken the fight out of Sam. Her voice was getting soft again.
"Just rest now, pumpkin. We'll take care of it," Mr. Manson was saying.
"I want Danny," Sam murmured. "I want to see Danny…"
Jazz pressed her toes down hard in her shoes to stop the shaking. She understood, finally, understood everything—why Sam needed to dress in black and buckles, why she kept coming back to the Fenton house, why she'd shed her own blood before she'd let anything happen to Tucker or to Danny. Especially Danny.
The perfect couple in the hospital room were Sam's parents, but they weren't her family. They didn't even know her. After seeing those faded pink scars on Sam's wrists, Jazz's mind had run the gamut wondering what had compelled her to drag the blade down that first time. She'd wondered if Sam's parents hit her, or were too strict with her, or hated her. Finally she knew, and it was much worse.
They ignored her.
They were ignoring her now. She was lying in front of them in bandages with bloodstains drying on her arms, and they were ignoring her. Her own blood couldn't get their attention.
The psychologist in Jazz finally understood why Sam was so mistrustful of everyone. The two people who were supposed to love her unconditionally were nothing more than a couple of strangers who happened to share her DNA. No wonder she was so angry all the time.
The sound of arms being put through the sleeves of a jacket snapped Jazz out of her thoughts. She hurried back to the waiting room to collect Tucker before she was found. There was nothing more to be done here. It was time to go home.
She'd been staring at the steering wheel for about six minutes when Tucker broke the silence. "Jazz? Are you okay?"
She turned to give him a watery smile. "Yeah. Of course. You can mess with the radio if you want."
"Jazz."
It was becoming increasingly harder not to cry. She smacked her hands against the steering wheel. "God damn it."
Silence for a minute, then Tucker broke it with one of his easy laughs. "Wow. I don't think I've ever heard you swear before. Feel better?"
"Of course I don't feel better." She glared at him. "Don't you even have enough sense to be scared?"
"Sam's tough," was all he said, turning to look out the windshield. "She's a fighter." He suddenly became animated, reaching into his pocket. "I almost forgot. She gave me this for you before she went into the room. She forgot to give it to you in the car before. It's what she went back to her locker to get."
He handed her a folded sheet of paper. It was slightly crumpled, probably from the long journey it had taken today, Jazz reasoned. Sam's spiky print was on the front of it, along with some light blood spatter. A chill shook it in Jazz's fingers for a minute.
To: Jazz
Urgent—Top Secret!
From: Sam
Jazz fought a smile at the semantics of high school note-writing. "What is it?" she asked.
Tucker shrugged. "Sam asked me not to open it."
Jazz rolled her eyes. "Since when do you ever do what people ask you to do?"
Tucker squirmed uncomfortably. "Well...she said 'please'. She doesn't usually say 'please'."
Uh oh. He was scared, all right. Jazz tucked the note into her purse, making a mental note to read it as soon as she got home.
Jazz was staring at her computer, unable to type. She couldn't write about disturbed children with bad home lives when memories of Sam's bloody hands and Danny's tortured eyes kept flashing in her head.
As if to save her from her own thoughts, there was a knock on the door.
"Come in," Jazz said softly.
The door swung open to reveal Maddie, who was smiling and holding a pint of Ben and Jerry's Phish Food in one hand. She held it out to Jazz like a peace offering to a cranky god. "I thought maybe you could use a break." She had two big spoons in her other hand, so she had to push the door closed with her foot.
Jazz smiled. "Want to sit down?"
They sat on Jazz's bed and dug the spoons into the ice cream for a few minutes without speaking. Jazz knew what was coming, but she let her mother break the silence.
"You did the right thing today, Jazz. Your father and I are proud of you."
Jazz sighed. "Mom, I didn't do anything. Sam was hurt, so I took her to the hospital. That's all."
Maddie wasn't about to let her daughter put herself down. "You took charge of the situation, and you did what needed to be done. That's something to be proud of."
Jazz spooned some more ice cream out of the carton. "How's Danny?"
Maddie's turn to sigh. "Really upset. Your father's trying to get him to come out of his room, but he won't. Keeps smashing his fists into things, from what I can hear from the hallway."
Jazz hiked an auburn brow. "Shouldn't we be more worried about this?"
Maddie smiled, the knowing mom-smile that all mothers got by the time their kids were teenagers. "Oh, he'll come out when he's ready. He just needs to blow off some steam. He's had a rough day."
She was probably right, although "rough day" was an understatement. Jazz dug the spoon into the ice cream again, digging for fudgy fish. "Sam's parents are jerks," she muttered. "They should have let him see her."
Maddie didn't give the disapproving parent frown, didn't tell Jazz not to talk that way about her elders. "They're pieces of work, those two," she said, which was as close to agreeing as was polite. Then, for form's sake, she added, "I'm sure they were very worried about Sam."
"I'm sure they weren't," Jazz muttered. "You saw how mad they looked. How could they be so mean?"
"Who knows, Jazz?" Maddie sighed. "Between you and me—they're weird."
Being that her mother's goggles were still hanging around her neck, Jazz had to laugh. That was just the pot calling the kettle weird.
Her mother smiled at her. "What's funny?"
"Ah—nothing. Have some more ice cream." She held the pint out.
After a few more comfortable minutes of silence, Jazz spoke again. "Mom? You and Dad are still going to let Danny hang out with Sam, right?"
Maddie looked confused. "Of course, honey. Why wouldn't we?"
Jazz was grateful for the fact that it wouldn't occur to Jack and Maddie Fenton not to let their son hang out with a girl who smashed her fists into mirrors. Fentons smashed things regularly, by accident and on purpose, so Maddie might not think that was odd. "I was just worried."
Maddie waved her hand dismissively. "You know how Danny and Sam are. I don't think we could keep those two apart even if we wanted to. Besides, Sam's such a nice girl."
Jazz smiled. "Yeah. She and Danny seem to care about each other a lot."
Maddie smiled the all-knowing mom smile again. "Well...you know, when he's ready, Jazz."
There was another knock on the door, followed by Jack's voice. "Jazz, have you seen your mother?"
"I'm in here, Jack," Maddie answered. "What's up?"
"The ice cream is gone. Danny and I are going to get some more."
The two Fenton women looked at the nearly-empty pint of Phish Food and giggled. "Okay, hon. Let Danny pick the flavor, okay?" Maddie called.
"Okay," Jack said, and then his footsteps clamped down the hall. "To the Fentonmobile!"
And Danny's voice. "Dad, can't you just call it 'the car' like everybody else?"
Jazz and Maddie exchanged smiles, and then Jazz impulsively leaned over and hugged her mother. "I love you, Mom."
Maddie pet her daughter's hair. "I love you too, Jazzie."
Her mother had said Danny would come out when he was ready, but old habits were hard to break. Steeling her big-sister nerves, Jazz knocked on Danny's door.
"Go away," was the tired answer.
"It's Jazz," she said. "Can I come in? There's something I want to tell you."
A moment of silence, and then she heard him padding to the door. He looked haggard, his face a cup of shadows. Jazz was pretty sure he'd been crying, but decided against asking.
"I just wanted to tell you some stuff Sam said in the car," she said. "Then I'll go away and leave you alone. Okay?"
He thought it over, then nodded warily, moving aside to let her in.
As she got further into the room, Jazz realized how messy it was. Danny wasn't the neatest kid in the world, but his room wasn't usually this bad. Bottles of cologne and hairspray were scattered across the floor, as though he'd swept them off the top of his dresser with one arm. Two of the shelves in his bookcase were smashed, the splinters grinning from across the room. The books and CDs those shelves had held had fallen onto the lower shelves and the floor. The jar of loose change that usually sat on his night table was now shattered by the far wall, bleeding nickels and dimes. A small dent in the plaster above marked the place where he'd thrown it. The sheet he'd worn in the rally was thrown to cover his mirror; Jazz could see the reflective surface beneath the cut-out eye holes. He'd also pulled a drawer out of his dresser and flung its contents across the room, the carpet barely visible between scattered shirts and pairs of jeans. He'd had himself quite a tantrum; the room was trashed.
"Sit anywhere there's room," he said. "Sorry about...the mess." He looked embarrassed that he'd gone berserk.
Jazz hopped onto the bed. "What happened to the bookcase?"
Danny pointed to the floor, where the Fenton Anti-Creep Stick lay. "I figured it was time that thing was good for something," he muttered.
The two siblings looked at each other, and then both snorted with laughter. The Fenton Anti-Creep Stick was just a baseball bat that had the word "Fenton" written on the side.
Once the giggles died down, Danny's face collapsed back into exhausted severity. "You said you had something to tell me?"
Jazz sat up straighter on the bed. "I just wanted you to know that Sam was talking in the car."
Danny blinked, waiting.
"She told Tucker that he was a dork," Jazz said. "And she told me she was sorry, and she'd try not to get any blood on my upholstery. She asked me to put on the radio, but all I had was a Good Charlotte CD and she said Good Charlotte were a bunch of sellouts."
Danny was smiling, eyes shining. "So you're saying she was okay."
Jazz grinned. He'd gotten the message. "She was. Bleeding, and scared, but she was cool. She was, you know, Sam."
He clutched a pillow to his chest. "Her parents don't really like me that much. They don't like her hanging out with me."
Jazz took the other pillow. "It doesn't matter what they think," she said lightly. "Sam kept asking for you in there. She wanted you."
Danny considered this. "She asked for me?"
Jazz smiled and nodded. "Over and over."
Danny leaned against the headboard, still clutching the pillow to his chest. Jazz was silent for a while, letting him digest what she'd said. She wanted very badly to hug him, but she didn't think he'd appreciate the invasion of his personal space. He could be so touchy about that kind of thing.
He surprised her by breaking the silence. "How's your paper going? Isn't it due tomorrow?"
She sighed. "I'm going to have to get an extension. Right now I'm too shot to even remember my own name." Once again, she wondered if her brother knew about Sam's scars. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask.
"Me, too. I..." His voice cracked the tiniest bit, and he cleared his throat. "I can't think about anything but her."
He knows, Jazz decided. He knows there's something she's not telling him, but he's afraid to trust what he knows because he doesn't know how he knows it.
And looking at the shadows under his eyes, she changed her mind about asking. It didn't matter if he knew or not; he wouldn't love her any less.
She hopped off the bed. "Come on, I'll help you clean this up before Dad starts wondering where his Anti-Creep Stick went."
"What about the bookcase?" Danny asked.
Jazz considered the bookcase. "We can go out this weekend and get you a new one. We can tie it to the roof rack of my car if it doesn't fit in the back. Mom and Dad won't even notice if you put all the books away. You do that while I fold these clothes and put the drawers back in." She knelt amidst the shirts and started folding.
Danny started picking up the fallen books and CDs, giving Jazz a watery smile, but a smile nonetheless.
After half an hour, the room didn't look perfect, but it was clean enough that Jack and Maddie wouldn't notice anything if they happened to poke their heads in, clean enough that Danny could sleep comfortably. Jazz walked to the door, ready to keep her promise to leave him alone.
"Thanks," Danny said, very softly, as if he were embarrassed.
Jazz wasn't embarrassed. "You're welcome," she said, then added, "I love you," before she left the room.
It was only when she'd gotten back to her room that Jazz remembered the note. Dumping the contents of her purse onto her bed, she pushed aside her wallet and cosmetics until she found it. Urgent, it said, top secret.
Ever since she'd found out Danny's secret, she'd made a solemn vow never to let anyone know she knew—not even Danny. But for the first time ever, she was wondering what it would be like if she really became a child psychologist—if she committed to an entire lifetime of keeping other people's secrets. It was so hard just to keep this one, and this was her baby brother's secret. This was so very important.
And as Danny had grown up into a superhero with secrets, so too had Tucker grown into a boy who read about Pavlov and probably knew enough about electronics to reprogram the space shuttle. And little, toddling Sam had grown up into a girl who wore corsets that showed a daring amount of cleavage that Jazz was shocked she was old enough to have. These were the sidekicks that Danny had chosen to help him fight his battles. These were the people who protected Danny when she, Jazz, could not. Danny trusted them.
After today, Jazz trusted them too. She'd seen exactly how far Danny's friends were willing to go for him. She had to trust them.
But now she had this note in her hand. For once, Jazz was going to be let in on the secret—someone trusted her. She wasn't going to lie and say that didn't feel good.
Sam had gone back to her locker before the attack and the mirror. Tucker had said the note was what she was going back to get. So it had been written before any of this had ever happened. What did Sam want to tell her?
She tried to ignore the dried blood spatter as she unfolded the note.
On a purple Post-It, Sam had written, "Thanks for keeping my secret. Maybe this will help with your paper. Please don't use my name. Sam."
"Oh, jeez," Jazz blurted out, eyes stinging, head aching. "Oh, jeez."
The Post-It was stuck to her missing page of psychology notes, the one with all the questions she'd written down and had given up for lost last weekend. She had always just figured Danny had taken the page to protect Sam from prying questions. It had never occurred to her that Sam herself might have taken it. But what was important about it now was that every question had been answered, in Sam's edgy handwriting.
Danny had asked how her paper was going. Jazz had said she'd have to get an extension. She'd worked on it a little every night, filling it with facts and statistics to try to make up for the fact that she didn't have a live subject to interview. Except for that missing detail, it had been finished.
Sitting down at her desk, Jazz flipped her computer switch and pushed the monitor button. It would probably take her the rest of the night, but the paper was due tomorrow. She had all that she needed now. If Danny, Sam and Tucker could be brave, then so could she.
Author's Notes:
I had to smile when I read The Wicked Wench of the West's review of chapter three, because they figured out that Sam was the one who'd taken Jazz's notes. (digs in her pocket for ten dollars). Good guess! Nice to know my plots are easier to follow than the normally dizzy gyrations of my fractured mind. (grins).
This chapter opens with a verse of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott", which can also be heard sung beautifully by Loreena McKennitt. Smitten with the sight of Lancelot, the Lady leaves her magic loom and magic mirror and looks down to Camelot, only to be struck down by the curse laid upon her. When the boat carrying her lifeless body floats down to Camelot, Lancelot proclaims to the assembled court, "She has a lovely face."
When my mama was in the hospital two Decembers ago, the hospital television was tuned to Oprah. It was the Christmas special—the annual show where she displays a bunch of "gift ideas" that really aren't in the average human's price range. Hospital waiting rooms are some of the strangest places on the planet. I spilled an entire bottle of cherry soda in the cab on the way home.
You'd think that emergency room staff would be used to patients being panicky and "uncooperative", but speaking from personal experience, the only time I was ever in the emergency room, I was described as being both and given a Valium before being subjected to a psychological examination from not just one, but two psychiatrists. I was released after seven hours, four of which involved an interrogation from these two shrinks about whether or not I'd ever had "suicidal thoughts", how much I dated, what I did for fun, and how much stress I was under, as if any of that had anything to do with the stabbing pains in my abdomen that were the reason I'd gone in to begin with. (chuckles.) My favorite part of the trip was when they told my father that they had good news—I didn't need to be committed. (chuckles again.) Strangest hospital experience of my life, but they did give me some of the meds to go. Nice way to spend a birthday, right?
The Fenton Anti-Creep stick is indeed nothing more than a baseball bat with the word "Fenton" written on the side, and appears in the episode "13". "But we brought the bat! With the word 'Fenton' on it!" (smiles.)
I wish I had some Phish Food right now. Mmm…fudgy fish.
This story, to my extreme surprise and delight, seems to be coming around the clubhouse turn, so tune in next chapter for the aftermath of Pep Rally Thursday—Friday.