A/N: I'll just keep it short, to avoid droning...so I would like to say thank you for all that reviewed. Chapter 8, coming at you!
Chapter 8 - Choices You Make
Awkward silences...another set of things Danny had never gotten used to.
It was filling the car when Danny and Jazz were on their way home. He had been wondering why the return trip was taking so much longer, but then he realized that this time they weren't driving at 80 mph in a panic.
He looked over to his older sister, who seemed to be paying attention to nothing else other than the road ahead, making sure every obstacle was cleared.
It had stopped snowing for a time that day, but now it was starting to come down again. The freezing temperatures chilled him to the bone as he rubbed his hands together vigorously to get some heat into them. Why did he have to forget his jacket? It was annoying.
And another annoying thing...there was a pain that was starting to grow, and it was down towards his stomach.
Jazz glanced at her brother. Watching his futile attempts at warmth, she turned on the heater.
It was less than a minute before warm air circulated the car, to Danny's sudden surprise. Looking over to his sister, who smiled back at him, he said "thank you" with his eyes and placed his icy hands against the warm vents. Though the snow softly pelted the car's exterior, he felt safe and warm within.
But the pleasant warmth wouldn't last. The familiar stop sign with bent edges was in his sights. That signified that there was only one turn to go before they reached Fentonworks. He'd be out in the cold again.
The silence continued, even as they parked the car and walked up to the front door, shivering.
Quickly shutting the door behind them, they noticed that the house was still empty. Their parents, Jack and Maddie, weren't back yet. Like always, they missed the drama that usually happened behind their backs.
The house was freezing. Danny automatically walked over to the thermostat and turned up the heat.
Turning on the lights in the kitchen, Jazz also noticed the note next to the phone.
"So that's the reason they never called me or you," she said, breaking the silence. "They've been gone the whole time."
"Yes," he said. "I'm sorry, never got around to saying that,"
The pain near his stomach suddenly increased. He knew he should tell his sister about it, but then he decided he'd better not. He just headed for the stairs.
"Well," said Jazz, yelling from the kitchen, "it says here that we'll have to fend for ourselves, but I'm not really all that hungry. How about I make us some cocoa?"
"I'd love some," said Danny, starting to run up the staircase. "But there's one thing I gotta do first."
Jazz noticed the slight aching in Danny's voice. At first she was worried, but then she remembered something that happened earlier. Something before this all happened.
The worry that entered her mind for a second suddenly turned into a laugh and a smile. "All right," she said.
"Thanks," yelled Danny, now sprinting down the hallway, feeling as if he was going to explode.
Opening the door to the bathroom, he dashed inside to relieve himself of the seven bottles of water he had drunk earlier to get rid of the spiciness of the Nasty Sauce.
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Coming down from the stairs, Danny walked into the kitchen, where he could see his sister already sipping on a steaming mug of cocoa at the table. She slid a mug in his direction.
"Thanks," he said. "It's a good thing that the heater's up and running, though." He took a long gulp from his mug.
Jazz laughed lightly. "Yeah, but the cocoa's good, too."
Danny finished drinking. "I agree. This stuff's pretty good!"
"Thanks," she said. "You can find some really interesting things in magazines these days." She held up the copy she was reading at the hospital.
Both laughed at the same time. Then both sighed.
Jazz stared off in another direction thinking about something, but Danny's eyes remained on his sister. There was something he had to know. It wasn't life-threatening, but there was something that he had to clarify.
"Jazz?" he asked.
"Huh?" she responded, shifting into his direction.
"I want you to be completely honest with me. Was there ever a time where you liked Valerie?"
Jazz looked down on her mug and frowned a bit. "In the beginning, I would have to stamp that question with a no. At first, when she was rich, I thought she was extremely self-centered. She cared about her looks way too much, and to tell the truth, I couldn't stand her. Then came the accident at her dad's work. I must admit that some of that resentment I had kind of dissipated a bit. I agree that no one had to go through what she went through."
"And the fact that I'm somewhat responsible for all that makes me feel a little worse," thought Danny.
"When it was revealed in the nurse's office that you were her friend, I kind of admired you, because you took a bold step into allowing more people into your circle. But then I had to factor in the fact that she was a ghost hunter bent out to destroy you, and that admiration was sort of shot down a bit."
"And this dislike towards her came around again once you found out about her ghost-fighting?" asked Danny, sipping more cocoa.
"No, that's not the point at all," said Jazz. "When I heard Sam talking to you in the nurse's office that same day talking about Valerie's intentions, I agreed with her. It's no longer Valerie herself that I have trouble with, but it's her intentions that make this whole thing risky. If it were simple, it's like what mom says about letting bygones be bygones - you could have been her first friend after being on the road of shallowness."
"Basically, you're saying that if Valerie wasn't bent on destroying ghosts, then you'd probably approve a little bit?" asked Danny.
"Well, I'm not saying that my answer is still no, due to the fact that she used to be like Paulina and all those other girls, but at least without something like that I would have had some time to think about it," she stated.
"Then what Sam was saying before was right," said Danny, thinking into the past. "She said that if I could somehow talk her out of ghost fighting, then she would at least attempt to tolerate it." Suddenly he stopped, and stared at the ground. "But that means..."
"That means what?" asked Jazz.
"The only way I can do this is through one method," he said.
"What method?" asked Jazz.
A silence followed the room. Once again, it was so silent that the only thing heard was the ticking of a clock. There wasn't even a breath of wind trying to enter the house, though it was snowing outside.
Danny took his eyes away from the ground and looked directly at his sister as the answer came out in a sotto tone.
"I have to go ghost while I'm in front of her, or vice versa."
Whatever he was going to say next, she wasn't expecting anything like that. Jazz got up from her chair in a tumultuous fashion, nearly spilling cocoa everywhere.
"You can't do something like that!" said Jazz. "It's suicide!"
"I know," said Danny. "But today, I kind of saw the Valerie that you guys saw all along. I don't think something like this will be anytime soon. Something like that is a crazy idea. I'll bite my tongue for that."
"What do you mean, 'the Valerie we saw all along'?" asked Jazz.
He knew it would come sooner or later. Sighing, and staring back at the ground, he spoke.
"I'm kind of the one responsible for this. Everything that happened to Valerie."
Jazz spoke skeptically. "You? What did you have to do with Valerie?"
Danny talked about the incident with the ghost dog. There seemed to be another pain that resided in his stomach as he detailed his confessions.
When he finished, Jazz's eyes were open wide. "You did some of this? No wonder she hates you so much! You were the one who helped in all of this! In fact, you were the one who started her craze for ghost hunting!"
"I know," said Danny, guiltily. "That's how it all started, her ghost hunting. It's killing me every single day, knowing that the reason she hates me is because I did this to her."
Danny looked down at the ground, ashamed. His contribution really proved to be so much in the ways of Valerie's hatred.
His sister, however, saw it another way, as she walked up to him.
"But it wasn't your fault," said Jazz. "If you think about it another way, she also kind of contributed to her own hatred."
"What?" said Danny, looking up. "I don't get it."
"No matter how you see it, Danny, she never gave you a chance to explain yourself. She jumped to conclusions."
"Well, she's got a point there," he thought.
"But I had this thing with Valerie," said Danny. "I don't know how to explain it, but a couple of days before the Pariah Dark incident, there was this little connection...now that she was down to my level, I just felt that I had to do something about it...find some way to say that I was sorry without explaining the whole thing...but she kind of did that herself...when she asked me if she wanted to compare book reports..."
Jazz started to see how everything fit together. "So what you're saying is that this friendship was kind of a way to relieve yourself of some of the guilt you've been holding?"
A fuse went off in Danny's head, as he found himself nodding.
That was the answer...
The answer!
He was ecstatic that he had found it, but also a little irritated. How could he not see that coming? It took his sister to figure that out?
"Now I'm a bit proud of you," said Jazz. "You're been trying to do the right thing, to try and set things right..."
But then he realized that guilt was merely half the answer...the fireworks show in his head died down a bit as he continued speaking.
"But I also really did feel this connection...she helped me get rid of Dash that one time, and then she complemented me a few times...she seemed to be there a lot, and I kind of enjoyed her company..."
He paused. Then another horrifying realization came to his head.
Perhaps it was true...maybe there was more than just a friendship...maybe there was...
Jazz seemed to be reading his mind. "That meant you kind of liked her, did you?"
To some extent, that answer had a mild yes. Danny nodded.
"But what about Sam?" asked Jazz, now starting to sail into dangerous waters. "Your best friend?"
His mind went to work again. That was true...what about Sam?
They never spoke about it, but it was clearly there...Sam could never bring herself to talk about her feelings when it came to this topic, but she definitely showed signs...
Especially when Paulina was overshadowed by Kitty.
But then, he also liked Paulina...which led into the reasons for liking her...
His head bearing the weight of those three people took their toll as it pressured into his mind about having to end up making a choice in the end.
Danny couldn't think any longer. He turned away from his sister and spoke in the same tone he used when he blew up at Valerie.
"This is EXACTLY my point!" he screamed. "The problem with me is that I don't have the ability to make a choice! Everyone gets affected by it, and everyone, most of time, ends up losing, or drawn away from me! Now that I've had that talk with Valerie in the hospital, she now hates me, and probably hates my ghost side even more!"
"Did you have a choice of whether or not to blow up at Valerie?" asked Jazz.
"Well, she mentioned that Sam was a goth geek, and that kind of fired me up," said Danny.
"Then you made a choice right there," said Jazz. "You came in defense of Sam, and whether or not Valerie liked it, you were the one who left the room."
"What else could I have done?" asked Danny.
"You could have stayed!" yelled Jazz. "You could have taken the other path and shrugged off the insult, but you decided to sacrifice all of that for Sam."
Once again, Danny could only blink as he took her words into account.
Perhaps he did like Sam...
Jazz viewed her brother, who was deep in thought. "You see, Danny? Our choices make us who we are. You do have the abilities to make these choices, whether or not you're conscious about them. You remember about what Sam said earlier, making a decision? She's right."
She paused to make sure he was still listening. He was.
"Look, I don't know what to think about Valerie anymore. But you blowing up at her, knowing that she's a ghost hunter, with intentions to get rid of you? That's the type of choice that you should really be focused about."
After hearing that statement, he froze.
So he had made the wrong decision...yelling at Valerie...he knew that he was going to regret this.
Immensely.
He should have dealt with it in a better way than yelling at her, even if it was for Sam...
Instead, he had just lit a fuse that could lead to the biggest explosion he had ever seen...and people were in the way of the destructive path...
Valerie could be thinking anything right now...his fears started growing...
And worse...no one knew about it but himself...even Jazz was oblivious to the amount of danger she was potentially in.
Her next line confirmed everything. "Please don't do something like that in the future, Danny," she said. "It only takes one choice that leads us down a destructive path."
She hugged him.
Danny tried to return it, but his fears kept him from doing so. Her words were basically echoing what he was thinking, and this moment was just like with Sam in the nurse's office. If he returned the hug, he might not be able to let go. It would have been too much for him to handle.
"You look tired," said Jazz. "You've had a long day. Maybe you should sleep right now."
He should tell her. Warn her that danger was near.
But she could get scared for his life, and then stop him from going.
Something like that couldn't happen. These battles were his own responsibilities, whether or not it was a ghost after him, or a person. He had to protect Amity Park, prove he wasn't a villain.
Remaining silent, he yawned and said, "Yeah, I guess you're right. Mom and Dad can come home to a sleeping house."
His sister laughed lightly. "Oh, Danny, I hope you never change."
As he climbed the stairs with his sister, he thought about that.
Change...he might have to, if it involved protecting his family...
Before they separated paths to go into their rooms, Jazz had one last thing to say.
"Danny?" she asked.
He peered from behind his door. "Yeah?" he asked.
"I was just thinking...I actually do have an opinion on Valerie."
"What's that?"
"Though I have an unfavorable opinion, I realized that I can't always make your decisions. So I'll do my best to cope with whatever you have to do. You call the shots."
Danny wanted to say that he now had an unfavorable opinion on Valerie, but that would also mean explaining that she could be in danger. He only nodded.
"Are you sure you don't have anything else to say to me?" asked Jazz.
"I care about you, Jazz, so be careful," he wanted to say. But instead, he shook his head.
"OK," she said, before she closed the door. "I love you. Good night."
I love you...those three haunting words. He hoped that it wouldn't be the last time he would have to hear that coming from his sister.
He closed the door, quickly dressed into his PJs, and turned out the lights. The only illumination in the room was now the soft glow of the moonlight.
It had been a long day. He went through many different emotions, from happiness with his friends, anger at the hospital, and fear just now.
He really did have choices...and he had made choices to avoid Valerie, get angry at her, and blow up at her...but now those choices could come back and smack him in the face...
What was going to happen now?
Once again, he didn't know, as drowsiness got the better of him as he lay in his bed...the misery of the choices fading into his mind...
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It was sometime during the night, but he had no clue what time it was. He assumed it was around 2:00 in the morning, due to the fact that it was nearly pitch dark.
It was raining too, and he was walking through grass. He had no idea where he was. He was freezing cold, and he had no jacket. The rain continued pouring down on him, wetting his entire body as he tried his best to combat the cold air.
He begged for a light source, just to see where he was...he was blindly moving in some random direction with some unknown purpose, with extremely dim light. He could only see about some six inches in front of his face.
A murder of crows cawed above him, in some twisted tree that he could barely see against the almost nonexistent moonlight. He was starting to have uneasiness about where he currently was...
As he continued walking for a couple of yards, he tripped over something. Falling to the grass, he bruised his knee. And at the same time, his hand also hit the ground, but it didn't hit grass. Instead, it slapped into something slick and wet. It was very smooth...some kind of rock jutting out of the ground...
Curiosity got the better of him as he traced the outlines. In doing so, he came upon something unique. It had some type of carved picture on it, with letters. Squinting closely towards it, he saw the ever-recognizable features of an angel...along with three letters.
R.I.P.
It was a gravestone.
He searched around for the thing that tripped him. His fingers touched the familiar half dome shape that resembled a flat rock sticking out of the ground...
Another gravestone.
It was a graveyard...
He was walking through a graveyard?
That familiar fear started creeping down his spine once again as he started to panic.
What was he doing here? Why was he here?
He didn't want to be here...he wanted to leave...
He started running in the same direction he was going, trying to find some sort of exit. Perhaps that was why he was walking in that direction...he was trying to find some way out. But the graveyard seemed to be of infinite size...there was no way out. The further he seemed to run, the more he continued to see graves and crosses. They seemed to be getting bigger.
If there was any point of fear above panic, Danny was feeling that emotion as he continued running through the infinite graveyard. He just kept running faster, not caring where he'd end up, not caring if the rain would make him slip and fall...
This was exactly what happened. Slipping over a flat gravestone, he fell to the ground once again, his back crashing into the stone that he had slipped upon.
The rain was pouring into his face. As he lay there face up, looking at the sky, he wished that there was some way that the rain would stop.
As soon as that thought passed through his head, however, the rain stopped.
The moon shone brighter, now shining from behind the clouds that once shielded it.
"What the hell?" he thought. "What are the odds of that happening?"
As he got up from the ground, he began to see the reason.
The moonlight shone it such a way through a tree that it branched into several different rays of light, resembling shafts. There were three, in fact, as those three shafts of light happened to converge on one spot on the ground that caused Danny's stomach to churn unpleasantly.
The shafts were hitting one lone grave.
And that grave was covered in mud, preventing him from seeing its owner.
He didn't know what was happening to him, but though he wanted to stay where he was, some force attracted him to the grave, making him walk towards it. Fear tugged at his back as he literally felt his hair stand on end...
Danny stopped in front of it. For a moment, he just stood there, staring at the mud-covered grave. It looked brand new...like it had been a recent burial, due to the evidence of non-erosion. Something strange settled in his mind...something that wanted him to find things out...
He knelt by the stone and started wiping off the mud, working his way from the right...
Danny revealed the letter N.
"Stop it!" screamed one half of his mind. "Don't reveal it!"
He paid no attention as he revealed the next letter...
It was an O...
Danny suddenly stopped...at the moment, he only thought of several names that ended with those two letters.
"No," he said, softly. Then it progressed to a higher pitch, more emotion building behind it...
"No..."
He clutched his throbbing head...the graveyard started to spin around him like he was hallucinating. No, this whole thing was a hallucination...
Some large weight in him lifted as he yelled out the same word one last time...
"NOOO!"
But as he said that...another thing came out other than his cry...
His ghostly wail...
Erupting from his mouth...it destroyed everything in its path, taking graves and trees with it...
This included the grave he was about to uncover.
The power was too much for him...he was about to pass out...
The wail ended, leaving a weak Danny gasping for breath on his knees.
He glanced around in horror at the damage that had been created. Disturbing grounds of rest and destroying gravestones...What had he done?
More questions built up in his head as he futilely searched for an answer as to what happened...
How did he summon up his ghostly wail without going ghost in the first place? Whose grave was he about to see?
And more importantly, Why was he here?
Once again, neither question was answered as the ground below him shook violently. Trying to stand, he leaned against a stone that was out of range of his destructive wail.
"What's going on?" he thought.
The ground suddenly split apart, emitting brilliant rays of green light.
He watched in frozen terror as he saw something lurking in the light, some spirit that started flowing up to the surface...
The ghost's features were starting to become visible...but once again, the face was cloaked with some strange black cloth...
The mystery ghost spoke in a booming voice.
"How dare you defile my grave!" it said, shooting a ghost ray directly at him.
Danny was so terrified that he didn't bother moving out of the way. The attack hit him square on in the face as he was thrown back against something. To his horror, it was something black...and it had hands.
It was Spectra.
She said nothing to him...she only smiled. As he struggled to get free, he found himself glowing green as she started absorbing his misery. Going ghost wasn't going to work...as she turned into a young woman...
And her power...she must have absorbed so much misery that she was almost unstoppable...he could barely move in her death-like grip.
Spectra spoke to him. "Always thought I'd get you in some place like this," she said. "What better place to absorb misery than a graveyard?"
Danny glared at her in anger. But that was all he could do.
"Let go of me!" he yelled. "Now!"
Spectra smiled a bit, then said, "Fine."
"Fine? Since when did she become so agreeable?"
When she continued smiling, however, he looked behind him to see what she was so happy about.
The ghost from the grave was right behind him.
Spectra yelled. "It's him! He's the one that betrayed you! He's the one that destroyed your grave!"
Bright red and glowing eyes started flashing from behind the black veil.
Before Danny knew what was happening, the Spectral ghost behind him yelled out one last thing. "FINISH HIM!" she yelled.
And the ghost started charging Danny.
And with all the emotions seeming to weigh him down, it seemed like he had an inability to move...
He made no effort to get out of the way...he stood there, as time slowed to a standstill...it let him think about all the things he had just done...
The force of her speed caused a draft to blow, unfurling his hair...she was getting closer and closer...
Danny blinked his eyes, preparing for the end...tears welling up in them...
"What have I done?" he thought, awaiting the charge. "What have I done?"
The ghost's eyes...they were the last thing he saw before time shifted back to normal...
Along with some strange light...
It was the sun...
But the sun was speaking...yelling something at him
"Danny! Wake up! You're dreaming!"
He squinted closer into the blinding light...the sun soon turned into a face...
And it had eyes that resembled the eyes of his attacker.
Danny's vision got clearer and clearer as the last traces of sleep escaped his eyes. His mind slowly transformed the surroundings of a graveyard to that of his own room.
When everything settled back into place, the face suddenly became clear.
If it were in any other circumstance, he would have been glad to see her. But Danny's panicking heart was beating at 100 miles per hour as he glanced in horror at the smiling person that was currently staring at him.
"You're finally up! Geez, it took you a while...didn't you remember that we were supposed to hang out today?"
It was Sam.
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A/N: Yeah, I know...but review, please.