A/N: Sorry about the late update. It seems like any more I can't get them up in a week's time. All I have to say is I hate midterms, and plot bunnies. I've been spending a lot of time working really hard on another story idea that will be coming soon. I think I spent too much time because before I knew it it was time to update this one and it was already really late! Oops. Oh well, at least it's up, right?

Thanks so much for all the reviews of the last chapter! I'm really glad you liked it! I hope this chapter will be just as good!

And I've planned out almost everything else and I think there may be four more chapters left, maybe five, depending on if I want to end one earlier. Don't quote me on that number, but that's my prediction now. It's so sad!

Chapter Eleven
What Have I Done?

Danny opened his glowing green eyes with a jolt as he sat up, remembering what happened before he blacked out. What he feared had come to pass: his ghostly wail was now short circuiting along with everything else.

He gasped as he looked in the direction he was facing when the wail hit and stared sadly at the remains in front of him. The wall separating the living room from the study was almost completely non-existent save for a few remaining pieces attached to the ceiling and the ground. The coffee table lay broken on the floor in many pieces. The television was completely demolished, leaving only the base remaining. The stairs and the wall to the kitchen were both cracked, pieces of paint chipped away.

Then Danny remembered with a shock that Jazz, Tucker, and Sam were standing near the stairs. If the stairs were cracked from his wail, that meant it hit them as well.

He jumped off the couch and ran into the kitchen, not caring if he was sick or not. He needed to make sure his friends were okay. He would never forgive himself if they were hurt.

He searched anxiously through the kitchen, trying desperately to find them. Were they possibly upstairs while his parents tended to them, or were they upstairs hiding from him? Were they even in the house anymore? Did they maybe need to rush to the hospital because he hurt them so badly? Did they pack up and leave to make sure they never got hurt again?

He breathed a sigh of relief when he heard their voices in the basement, but instead of rushing down there he walked down slowly, dreading what he'd see. He listened closely to their discussion, trying to judge how angry they were at him.

"Mrs. Fenton, is that really necessary?" he heard Sam ask in an exasperated tone.

"Of course it is dear, now just hold still."

"Ow!" he heard Sam yell.

He walked far enough down the steps to have a clear view into the lab and then stopped dead. He saw Sam sitting in a chair, her leg propped up gingerly on another chair. Her hair was disheveled and her face and eyes were red, tear marks lingering on her face. She looked like she was trying to put on a brave face, but he could see in her dull purple eyes that she was in pain. His mother was dabbing some glowing green liquid on the back of her head. Danny noticed with a shock that the rag his mother used to dab the liquid onto her head had red on it.

He turned to look to the other side of the lab and saw Tucker sitting on another chair, a bandage wrapped around his head. He was holding an ice pack on the back of his head and he sat up straight, like his back was injured. His glasses were missing and he too bore the signs of past crying and the dull look of pain in his eyes.

Jazz was sitting in another chair, her arm in a sling. His father was applying the same green liquid to a bleeding wound on the back of her head as another wound on her forehead dripped blood down her face. Her eyes were shut and her face was screwed up like she was trying not to cry again from the pain.

He couldn't believe his eyes. His friends and his sister, his beloved companions and trusted teammates, were injured, and he had done it. Tears fell from his eyes as he beheld them, covered in scratches and bruises and all sporting painful injuries and probably concussions, and it was all his fault.

"Sam dear, this will help you heal faster," Maddie explained as she continued to apply generous amounts of the liquid to her wounds.

"But does it have to hurt so much? You'd think that something that'll help me won't – "

"Danny!" Jazz yelled, sounding strangely relieved to see him. Everyone stopped what they were doing to look at him standing awkwardly in the doorway, tears pouring down his face. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be resting?"

"I…I…" he stuttered. He couldn't talk, he was still in shock. He couldn't believe it. He'd hurt the ones he loved, the ones that he cared about more than anything. He'd always been trying to protect them, keep them safe, but in the end he was the one that had hurt them.

Jazz slid slowly off the chair and walked gingerly towards Danny. When she got near him she outstretched her free arm like she wanted to hug him, but he backed away.

"I don't want to hurt you again."

"Danny, stop being stupid," Jazz reprimanded gently as she tried to hug him again but he just took another step back.

"I'm not being stupid; I'm serious."

"So am I. Danny, nothing's going to happen to me."

"That's what you said before, and now look what happened!"

"Danny, this wasn't your fault," Sam comforted, still in her chair.

"Yes it was! It was my power that did this to you! It's my fault!" he yelled as he broke down crying on the steps. He felt so alone, so lost. He hated himself, hated what he did, what he could do to them still. He could have killed them. If they had fallen on their neck wrong or lost too much blood they could have died.

Jazz sat next to him and wrapped her good arm around his shoulder, her eyes now glistening with tears as well. "Danny, you didn't do this. It's that powder that's doing this. I know you would never hurt us on purpose and were we in normal circumstances, none of this would have happened in the first place."

"Jazz is right Danny," Tucker replied from his chair. "It's Skulker's fault. He knew this would happen. He wanted to weaken you so he could defeat you, and now he has."

Jack and Maddie walked over to Danny as well and placed their hands on his shoulders.

"Danny, we still stand by what we said before. No matter what happens, we're here for you. We want to help you through this, regardless of what happens."

"When you first told us that your powers were malfunctioning without your control due to that stupid powder, Tucker and I both knew that your Ghostly Wail would come out eventually. If we really cared about getting hurt, don't you think we would have just rushed off to school and stayed away?" Sam explained.

"That's right Danny. We all knew it was coming sooner or later. We were expecting this," Jazz soothed.

"If you all knew it was coming then you should have left the room, gone somewhere far from me where I couldn't hurt you!"

"Danny, do you honestly think we care? We're not total idiots. If we were really that concerned about getting hurt than we would have left the room. We didn't care," Jazz stated, stressing each word.

"Plus it's not like it's that bad," Sam added. "I mean, what's a broken leg and a few bumps and bruises? I can do that falling down the stairs due to my own stupidity. This is nothing."

Danny just kept quiet, knowing that continuing to argue would be futile. Part of him realized that what they were saying was true, but the rest of him was too racked with guilt and self-hatred that he wouldn't listen to reason. No matter what they said, it was still his fault. If he wasn't part ghost none of this would be happening in the first place. If he'd been able to beat Skulker quickly and not given him a chance to use the powder none of this would have happened either. In the end, it was his fault, and no matter how much they wanted to say otherwise, he knew it was.

"Danny? Are you okay?" Jazz asked, noticing his far-off look.

"Do you really have to ask?"

"I know you probably feel guilty, but just remember that we don't blame you for anything, okay?"

Danny nodded his head. He understood, but that still didn't make him feel any better about himself. Jazz smiled at him and kissed him on the forehead, glad to see that he was outwardly feeling a little better. She knew this was going to take a few weeks, maybe even months, to get over, but at least he understood that they didn't blame him.

"Come on Jazz, we need to finish fixing you up," his father ordered.

"Alright," she sighed as she stood up and walked back to her seat, cringing at the thought of having more of that liquid placed on her head. Maddie walked back over to Sam whose eyes went wide.

"Mrs. Fenton, honestly, I'll be just fine without that stuff. I don't need it, please!" Sam begged.

"Now honestly Sam, stop being such a baby. It'll be worth it in the long run."

"But it stings! Ow!" she yelled as Maddie dabbed more of the liquid onto her head.

Tucker laughed at Sam's misfortune as Sam glared evilly at him.

"Hey, you weren't that brave when you were subjected to it either," Sam snapped back, immediately silencing Tucker.

"Yeah, but I wasn't as big of a baby as you," he shot back.

"No, you were more of a baby. I don't think I've ever heard a guy scream so loud over something so trivial."

Danny managed a slight smile as he heard his friends arguing. They were acting just like normal, like they always did. Were they telling the truth when they said that they didn't care and that they were perfectly fine, or were they just putting an act on for him? Danny shook the thoughts out of his head. They wouldn't do something like that. They were telling the truth before; they honestly didn't care. They were bickering like nothing had happened, like they did every day.

But still, he had hurt them. It's his fault that they're hurt. They may not care, but does that really matter? It doesn't take the fact away that he had hurt them, caused them pain, endangered their health.

"Danny?" Jazz asked, again noticing his far off look. Darn her, she could always tell when he was thinking hard about something.

"Hmm?" he murmured as he looked up, an innocent expression on his face.

"What were you thinking about?"

"Oh, I was just wondering…what happened after I…"

"Sneezed?" Jazz asked, trying to finish it for him.

He was thinking more along the lines of hurting his family and friends and destroying his house. "Um yeah, that."

Jazz looked over at Tucker and Sam, wondering if she should tell him or not. She really wanted to get off this topic, but maybe once all his questions were answered he'd stop thinking about it and start getting over it.

"Well, while you…sneezed," Sam started to explain "we saw the wail starting but we really didn't think. If we were smart we would have ducked or something, but we didn't. It happened really quickly. The wail broke the table and then hit us. I got thrown into the stairs and my leg hit the railing, sending me crashing onto the stairs. Tucker was thrown towards the stairs as well, but he cleared the railing. Jazz was thrown into the wall across from you and she fell on her arm weird. Other than that, we really don't remember much."

Danny just stared as she told him what had happened, what exactly he had done. Fresh tears poured out of his eyes.

"Danny, don't start blaming yourself again," Sam ordered. "I told you because I thought you had a right to know exactly what happened, but you better not start blaming yourself again."

What she didn't know was that he had never stopped blaming himself in the first place. But he just nodded his head in agreement and Sam smiled. It was probably best to just keep them happy. Telling them that he still blamed himself wasn't going to get any of them anywhere. They'd continue to try and convince him that he didn't do anything but Danny knew that nothing they could possibly say could ever make him feel any better or stop blaming himself.

"Don't worry Danny," his mother comforted as she started wrapping a bandage around Sam's head. "Give it a few weeks and everything will be back to normal. We'll find a cure and all the injuries will heal."

"But what about the wall?" Danny asked, remembering that it didn't really exist anymore.

"Oh we've been thinking about knocking that wall out for ages!" his father replied ecstatically. Danny looked sharply at him, not quite believing him. "Well part of it anyways."

"Danny, it's just a wall. Easily broken easily fixed. Don't worry about it," his mother comforted.

"And the television?" he asked.

"We'll just buy another one. It's just a material possession; it doesn't matter."

"And now I have an excuse to buy that really nice big screen TV your mother wouldn't let me buy!" Jack yelled happily.

Danny couldn't help but smile at his father's comment. Typical Jack Fenton, thinking about a new television at a time like this.

As he contemplated his father's logic he felt his nose start to tickle, a sneeze coming on. In the few seconds it took for him to sneeze he started to panic. What if it was a Ghostly Wail again? Which direction should he face? He couldn't face up, since that would probably bring down the house. He couldn't face left or right because that would still hit them. He couldn't turn around because it might cave the stairs in and then they'd be stuck in the basement. Before he could make a decision the sneeze came, finding him still facing his family.

During the sneeze, time seemed to slow down. He looked at his family and saw them flinch, brief looks of fear on their faces. They were afraid of him, of what he and his powers might do, afraid that he might hurt them again.

Fortunately the sneeze only resulted in a loss of visibility. Danny breathed a sigh of relief and noticed that the rest of them did the same, their looks of fear turning into looks of relief. He regained visibility and felt his face burn red. Everyone present in the room shifted uncomfortably, not really knowing what to do or say. They knew he had seen that look of fear on their faces and they looked as ashamed as Danny felt for making them afraid of him in the first place. As Danny looked deeper he noticed a shadow of fear still present behind their eyes. They were relieved that nothing had happened, but he could tell that they were all still afraid of him and what he might do next.

His feeling of self-loathing increased. His own family was afraid of him. Their looks of fear showed him that everything they had said to comfort him earlier was a lie. They had just said it to make him feel better, but in reality they were scared of him but they didn't want him to know it.

"Alright Sam, let's just take a look at that leg and then you're all set," Maddie stated, trying to break the silence and act like nothing had happened. She pulled a large machine over to Sam's leg.

"What's that?" Sam asked, her tone somewhat false, like she too was trying to act like nothing had happened.

"An improved version of an x-ray," she answered simply.

Maddie positioned the machine and examined the screen, showing the inside of Sam's leg. As she looked at it, she kept looking up from the machine to look at Danny, as if she was worried that he would start sneezing again if she drew her eyes away from him for too long. He noticed that all of them seemed to constantly look up at him, afraid for their safety.

"Yup, just like I thought. It's fractured just below the knee," Maddie informed everyone.

"Alright, well let's set it and be on our way," Sam stated, sick of sitting there. She knew this had to be hard for Danny and she wanted to get up and spend some time with him, try to draw his thoughts away from everything that happened.

"Shouldn't she go to the hospital?" Tucker asked "Along with Jazz?"

"We can't send them to the hospital," Maddie answered. "They'd ask too many questions that we don't have the answers to. Your injuries wouldn't necessarily be consistent with any story we would tell them."

"But what do I tell my parents?" Sam asked. "They're going to ask how this happened."

"Just tell them that you fell down the stairs or fell off your scooter," Jack suggested.

Or that a ghost attacked you Danny thought as feelings of shame filled his heart.

"They won't be as picky as the doctors would be," his mother continued.

"I don't know, you don't really know my parents," Sam stated with a smile.

While his parents continued to fix up the three victims of the Ghostly Wail, the room was left mostly in silence, occasionally peppered by pointless conversations to end the awkward mood. The five of them continued to look up at him at occasional moments and continued to flinch with fear whenever Danny sneezed.

Danny remained silent, not feeling like talking to them. At first they had tried to get him involved in their conversations, but eventually they gave up, probably sensing that he wasn't quite feeling conversational. In reality, he felt like an outsider, someone who didn't quite belong with the rest of them. They were all innocent victims and he was the guilty criminal responsible. This large gap stretched out between them. He was separate, apart from the rest of them. He didn't belong in the room with them, sharing in their conversations, he didn't deserve it.

Finally Danny just couldn't take it anymore. He stood up, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.

"Danny, are you okay?" Maddie asked, sounding concerned. Was she really concerned about him or just concerned that he would be upstairs without someone watching him to make sure he didn't hurt anything.

Of course his mother was concerned for him, they all were. They wanted to make sure he was all right. He tried to get the negative thoughts out of his head, but they just wouldn't leave. He couldn't stop himself from thinking them. Part of him thought that he couldn't trust what they said anymore. They had told him that they weren't afraid and that they'd all make it through all right, but the fear behind their eyes contradicted that. They were afraid of him and his closest companions were anything but all right. After that he couldn't help doubt their reassuring comments or their actions towards him, whether they were true or not.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he lied. "I'm just a little tired and I think I'm going to head off to bed for a nap."

"Alright honey, have a nice nap. We'll start working on the cure as soon as we finish with Sam and Jazz."

Danny nodded and turned around to walk upstairs, heading straight for his room. Were they that anxious to find a cure? Were they that frightened of him that they wanted to find the cure as soon as possible so he wouldn't be able to hurt them anymore. Again Danny tried to shake the pessimistic thoughts out of his head. They were anxious to find the cure because they wanted him to get better so that he didn't feel sick anymore. They knew it was causing him pain and they wanted to help him end it.

He walked up to his bedroom and shut the door, locking it behind him. He just wanted to be alone. Alone, he wouldn't feel that great chasm, he wouldn't have to face what he'd done, he wouldn't have to endure the awkward conversations and silences. Alone, he could start to cope.

Danny lay in bed for a few hours, letting his mind wander as he continued to emit harmless sneezes, which had now jumped to ecto-shields and domes. At times he managed to draw his thoughts away from what he'd done to something else, but mostly he thought about his injured friends as he was racked with guilt.

He heard a knock on the door but he didn't bother to answer it, feigning sleep.

"Danny, I don't know if you're awake or truly asleep, but I just wanted to let you know that Tucker and I are going home now. We'll be back later to check on how you're doing, okay?"

Danny still didn't answer, not really wanting to talk to them. They were probably just going home so they weren't in the house where their lives were constantly in danger.

Later in the day his parents knocked on his door, telling him that it was dinner if he wanted to join the rest of them. Again he feigned sleep and they left him alone. Tucker and Sam came back later, as promised, but he still pretended to be asleep and they left dejectedly, knowing that something was wrong.

Danny felt surprised that they even ventured towards his room at all. Just being on the same floor as him put them in danger in case a wail broke through the walls. Did they really want to spend time with him, to make sure he was okay, or were they just pretending to care because they wanted to make him feel better? Whatever the case, Danny didn't want to spend any time with anyone, for their own safety.

Eventually he couldn't stand lying in bed any longer and got up to walk around his room. Even though he was sick and depressed he still couldn't stand the thought of just sitting, he needed to move around.

As he walked around the room he happened to glance at his reflection in the mirror. He looked into the mirror at his white hair, his glowing eyes, the glowing white sheen surrounding his body. He was still in ghost form. He tried to change back again, but he couldn't even make the rings appear. He never wanted to get out of ghost form more than he did at this moment. It was his ghost form that had hurt them, his ghostly powers that injured them. He hated his ghostly self, hated what it had done. The shame he felt in being a ghost before was nothing to how he felt right now. He was stuck as a ghost, reminding everyone, including himself, what he had done. They all told him to forget it had happened, but how could he when it continued to stare him in the face?

He had to go somewhere else, somewhere where he wouldn't be constantly reminded of what he had done, of what he could still do. He had to run away.

Danny spent the rest of the night contemplating his decision. He didn't want to leave. His family had told him earlier that they wanted to work through this together and though part of him thought that they were just saying it to be nice, he didn't really think that was the case. They had sounded so honest, so caring that he didn't think they were lying. He really wanted to stay with them, to be with them, the ones he loved, but that's why he knew he had to go. He had to protect them, to save them, like he always did, even if it meant saving them from himself.

Late at night, while he knew everyone was asleep, he took out a pen and paper and wrote them a note explaining why he was leaving. He left it on his bed and sighed. He'd be coming back, but not until he found a way to cure himself, no matter how long it took.

He screwed his eyes together in concentration as he tried to go invisible and intangible. When he finally did, he flew into his sister's room, taking one last look at her before he left. He hoped she'd understand. She'd always been there for him, to help him, to support him, but she couldn't help him with this, not anymore.

"Goodbye Jazz," he whispered as tears fell from his eyes. "I'll see you soon, I promise; I'll find a cure. And I'm sorry, for everything."

He flew out of her room and into his parents' room. He felt so sad to leave them, now that they knew about him. They'd been so supportive and accepting and the earlier conversation with his mother remained fresh in his mind, but he knew this had to be done. He couldn't reward their support by hurting them.

"Goodbye Mom, goodbye Dad. I won't be gone long. Thank you for everything these past few weeks and I'm sorry I have to go. I love you."

With those final words he flew out of the house, watching the home that contained everyone he ever loved shrink away as he flew higher into the night sky.

A/N: Just a little ending note for DP purists. I know they've never mentioned a study in the show, but looking at the layout of the house, there has to be another room behind the living room in order to support upstairs, so I just decided to make it a study.