Ghostboy814 and Elemental-Zer0 : Valerie's emotional collapse, from white-hot anger to exhausted regret, was quite a challenge to write. She's not one to do anything by halves, is she? I'm glad to know it worked for you.

The Person Who Rights: You made a great point about Danny's tendency to get fixated, with your example of the "Sam/Wes" ring from "Flirting with Disaster." There's definitely a reason why I titled this fic the way I did.

Hikari of the Moon and acosta perez jose ramiro: The very first inspiration for this fic came when I saw Danny destroy Valerie's gear in "Flirting with Disaster." I imagined him trying to explain it to her, and it seemed natural for him to demonstrate, as graphically as possible, that if he really wanted to kill her she would have been dead a long time ago.

Zilleniose: I'm glad you gave my Valerie fic a chance, even if she's not your cup of tea. As I promised in the introduction to the first chapter, this is not a pairing story. That hug y'all just saw at the end of chapter nine was the closest these two are going to get. In the mean time, I hope you (and other Sam adherents) appreciate that Danny rehearsed this conversation with Sam more than once. Feel free to imagine what that was like!

Cali: So, Valerie has been redeemed in your eyes? Wow, behold the power of fanfiction. She's definitely one of the great, multi-faceted characters of the show, which makes her a joy to write. Valerie's greatest weakness is that she doesn't have enough information. She doesn't know Danny's secret, she doesn't know that he (in his human identity) knows her secret, and she doesn't know her benefactor's true agenda.

ooooooo0ooooooo

Chapter 10

When we finally pulled away from each other I glanced down at my watch and confirmed that my time was up– about five minutes ago. I went back to the table to retrieve the shiny, new (and only slightly dented) Fenton Thermos from my backpack. I held it out to her, patiently waiting for her to take it from my hand. She slung her weapon on her back and took the Thermos gingerly, by her fingertips on the lid and base, as if it might bite.

"It has a weird recoil, so I'd hold off using it on your sled until you've had some practice." We were back to business. I pulled my dingy old Thermos out of the backpack and looped the strap over my shoulder. "You should either brace it against your side," I stood beside her and demonstrated, tucking it into the crook of my elbow like a football, "or hold it with both hands in front of you. Grasp it like this– you're right-handed, aren't you?– and activate it by pressing. . . here." My Thermos sprang to life, its beam shooting harmlessly into the night sky.

Valerie copied my stance, rotating her Thermos until her fingertips rested comfortably on the trigger point. She aimed the mouth of the device toward the trees and activated it. Despite my warning, the recoil caught her off-guard and she nearly lost her balance, the beam veering wildly. "Dammit, Danny," she snarled, "it kicks forward!"

"Right– sorry! The Thermos is a vacuum, sucking inward; so I guess that would be just the opposite of the kinds of weapons you're used to using."

"Huh." She braced her feet and tried again, better prepared this time for the strong pull. "You were right. If I'd been standing on my sled just then, I'd probably have been thrown right off."

"Okay, look. This smaller button is the release. See?" The vortex reversed for a few seconds as I demonstrated. "Of course, you wouldn't want to use it under normal circumstances; just bring the Thermos to me after you capture something, and I'll release it into the Ghost Zone through the portal in the lab."

"Oh, do I ha-a-a-ave to?" she whined, mockingly.

I glared at her, but I was pretty sure she was kidding, and it was a relief to see her sense of humor peeking through. "Yes. You ha-a-a-ave to. Ready to try it for real?"

"Seriously? Bring it on!" Her smile was wicked, almost feral. She was primed for the hunt.

After returning my battered old Thermos to the table, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and did what she had wanted me to do ever since I had confessed my secret yesterday. ("Prove it!" she demanded, and I told her a story.) I released a spark of power near the center of my chest, then felt a chill stillness sweep through my body as I changed to my ghost form. The alarm on her wrist shrieked, and I opened my eyes just in time to see her flinch.

My God, she's afraid of me.

"You can turn that thing off," I said with what I hoped was a reassuring smile. "It's just me."

She switched off the alarm, but the echo made my ears ring for several seconds after the sound stopped. Her wary gaze bounced back and forth, at me, at the Thermos, then back at me. "But. . . you want me to. . .?"

"Practice using the Thermos by capturing me in it? Yeah, that's the idea. Unless you want to wait around for another ghost to show up?" I took a cautious step towards her, and she quickly backed two steps away. Dammit, she still couldn't quite bring herself to trust me. "Valerie–"

"Don't!" She dropped the Thermos in the grass and swung her ecto-gun back into a firing position. "What is this, some kind of trick?"

Oh, damn. I thought we were past all this. "No! Not a trick. . . just. . . put the gun down."

"What. . . what do you want? What are you trying to get from me, ghost? Why are you doing this– what's in it for you?"

Anxious to defuse the situation, I changed back to my human form. Sam once told me that my human voice sounds gentler, less intense. "I already told you, Valerie: I want to help you. I gave you a tool you can use to be a more effective ghost hunter. Please, please believe me– I just want you to be able to trust me, the same way I trust you."

"Why should I trust a ghost? Why should I believe a single word you've said?"

"Because we're friends! Don't you understand? I gave you that Thermos, knowing you could use it against me, because I trust you not to."

She lowered the gun, but her voice was still harsh with suspicion. "Then why do you want me to use it on you now?"

"Practice. Proof." I went ghost again, and this time she did not flinch. "Just do it like I showed you, so you'll know how it works, then let me go. It's that simple."

She bent down to pick up the Thermos, staring at me with a mixture of resentment and dread. "How do you know I won't just leave you in there?"

"I don't." There it was again. Jazz had asked the exact same question. So had Sam before her, and so had Tucker. And I still didn't have a good answer. "But. . . do you remember that exercise we did during Outdoor Education in the sixth grade? You stood on a stump and fell backwards and you had to trust that we would catch you. I'm offering to fall backwards now, to prove that I trust you."

"You shouldn't!"

"But I do."

She shook her head with disgust and muttered something to herself– and then the mouth of her Thermos erupted in a vortex of cold, blue-white light. It missed wide, about two feet over my left shoulder, but she quickly wrestled it into submission and I felt the familiar, violent suction sweep me off my feet. I faded quickly into intangibility, then slipped feet-first into oblivion.