Chapter 13 - The Ray of Light
A/N: Oh man, what to say? I'm sorry for the long update! I could sit here and explain every single event that has happened to me over these past two weeks of leaving you all in suspense, but that would take way too long...
This chapter is a bit shorter than the earlier ones, and perhaps for good reason...it has an ending (not the end of the story, of course) that...well...I'll let you read.
Chapter 13!
10 minutes earlier...
"I can't believe this..."
Valerie was sitting in her room, still in shock of all the events she had gone through...
"All this time...him..."
None of this was believable...since when was a person half-ghost? She was blinded by the truth...
"Everything...I...he...AHHHHH! I can't take this anymore!"
Soon, that truth was too much for her...her fears, her anger...
Everything went out in the wrong direction, as she started taking her frustration on the things in her room.
She turned over a desk that had papers with information of every ghost that she had ever fought, letting them fly all over the room, creating a huge mess...
And when there was nothing left to turn over, she started taking it out on the scientific experiments she had done in order to figure out who the ghost kid was...
Why not? Not like it made any difference anymore...she knew the whole truth, as she flung a jar of ectoplasmic samples across the room, watching it shatter against the wall and splattering its contents everywhere...
Why...?
She ripped up some reports she had typed up...screaming as she did it...yelling obscenities with every single ripping of the sheet of paper...all of this work, for nothing! What she had done with these stupid papers was all answered in a matter of seconds...
Danny...
It was him the whole time...
She lived a cursed life...she could never have a normal one...
Danny...the ghost kid...
Why Danny? Why did he have to be the half-ghost, her best friend?
Why did he try to befriend her? Why did he ruin everything?
No...he didn't ruin it all...he said it was that dog...but then he could have...no, it made no sense...
Nothing made any sense!
It was too much for her. In her rage, she ripped up another picture of Danny in his ghost form...
"YOU!" she screamed, turning the photo into confetti...
There was so much information to sink in...she wanted to blame him for everything that happened to her, after all, he was the one who ruined her...he destroyed her house...that was the reason she wanted to get ghosts...so that people wouldn't have to go through the same thing she went through...
She hated him...she didn't want to have anything to do with him...he was her enemy...
She had to destroy every possible thing there was about him, so that there would be no remorse for his other side, the side that she knew was deceiving her the whole time with this secret that he kept...
Deceit...who knew what he was thinking...probably knew about her all along...was probably waiting for that perfect moment to destroy her...so he could accomplish that task that he had started all that time back...starting with her possessions...
"I..." - she flew another sample across the room - "...HATE..." - she punched the wall, creating a dent inside in its already worn-out state - "YOU!" - she threw one of her weapons against the wall, watching it break into many pieces.
How could he do this to her? Show her his true colors? A person that she had hated with all her heart and trying to destroy for almost a whole year now?
She paused to take a breath from her destruction, breaking down in her state of rage, misery taking over its place, as she curled up into a ball and wept in the middle of her shambled room, hating life and every single turn that it had made her go through...
After weeping, something stuck to her face.
It was another photograph of Danny. But it was Danny in his human form.
Her favorite photo of him...
Rage drove her again as she was about to rip the photo into shreds...
But she had faced the photo the wrong way...the smiling Danny in the middle of the picture seemed to be staring straight at her in the face...
Her hands started quivering as she continued staring at his face, her eyes full of tears filled with the emotions of hate and sorrow...she couldn't do it while he was staring at her...she turned the photo over...
She took one corner and was about to rip it diagonally...
...What was taking so long? She wasn't staring at his face anymore...but her hands were still shaking...
She couldn't do it...instead, she let the photo fall from her hands and wept once again in her hands...
She had two sides of her now...and both were equally losing. She wanted to destroy him, but at the same time, couldn't find the strength to do so, as her own feelings of the Danny she had started to know came rising to the surface...
Someone please...she wanted someone, anyone, to give her a way out, as she bawled uncontrollably...
Why couldn't Danny just tell her? He had all the time in the world in order to tell her that he was this ghost...
And she started arguing with herself again...
"You know, he probably was meaning to tell you the whole time..."
No, he wasn't! He decided that it was time only because he had a perfect reason...in order to extract pity...
"YOU ARE SO THICK! LISTEN TO YOURSELF!"
What are you talking about?
"Have you ever noticed that during your encounters, he wasn't trying to fight you?"
Of course he was! Why else would he be around?
"You idiot! Will you just listen to me for a second?"
Listen to herself? Why would I want to?
"So you will remove that stupid mask of yours and finally see the truth! Think about the first fight, the dog! Did it not look like he really didn't have any control over it? Did it not look like they weren't getting along?"
Hmph...as much as she hated to admit it, that was true...half the time he was screaming while it was dragging him either by the ankle or by a leash he had...
It really did look like he had no control over it...
"Skulker's Lair! Think about that!"
Next she thought of the time trapped with him in Skulker's Lair...though they fought a lot during that crisis, in the end, it seemed like they got the idea of teamwork down...
They really were working together...in fact, that was when the truce started, and that quote about all ghosts not being the same...she actually felt some small connection with him...
OK, this was weird...
But then a countering to that argument flashed into her mind. She remembered Pariah Dark...the moment in her head, the stinging moment when he pulled off her mask in front of her father...and also the ending of the truce...
She, of course, hated him for that, but then...
...then...
...hey, wait a minute...
Was that really the end of that truce?
No, it wasn't...in fact, it was just her who decided to end it...because he pulled off her mask...
And he knew her father was in the room, so that he could protect her...
Suddenly, another reason for his stunt came to her head...
It was his way of protecting her...
As harsh as that was, she realized that in those days, she was extremely inexperienced...if she had entered that suit...she had heard that it drained the power of the person wearing it...she could have died within minutes...
The different perspective burning in her head, things were starting to take shape...
No...she couldn't be that blind, could she?
And then that other voice in her head suddenly screamed out, "And these current fights! What was he saying?"
Valerie remembered the fights...and finally saw what that half of her mind was thinking about...
Both fights, his hands were in some form of surrendering gesture...and he was trying to coax her out of it the whole time...
She...just never thought about it that way...she assumed it probably just had something to do with the fact that he was just intimidated...
In fact, she was the one who kind of started those fights, in fact, he was just flying overhead, or just fought off some ghost...she had came in, and that was how those fights started...after she yelled at him before he could say anything...
And finally, the truth hit her.
She never really gave him a chance to explain anything...during those times she had fought with him twice this month, he had actually tried to talk to her...
And at the hospital, she was the one who forced him into the decision about choosing someone...between her and Sam.
Valerie then realized her own words...she had called Sam a Goth geek...
If she were looking at herself, even she would have been insulted at that comment...
This whole fault wasn't Danny's after all...she had contributed to it...
She never let him explain...
All this time, when she thought she was fighting ghosts in order to protect this town, she now saw that this was her act of revenge for something that she was blind to...blind to the fact of the truth...
Danny was right...not all ghosts were the same...she was just too idiotic to accept that fact...until now...
Although she was no longer that rich girl she had always wanted to have back, she saw that she still was that girl. She didn't have money, but she still attained those characteristics, the arrogant and extremely self-centered person that she was...but now she hid it all behind a mask...
A stupid ghost-hunting mask she was using to destroy the person that gave her hope for a new life...
Danny, the person behind the ghost...
What had she done? Her anger...it consumed her from everything...except the truth...
And as the ray of truth finally set inside of her, she started crying again, but now for a different reason, the reason that she had just thought up...
Her curse wasn't Danny...
...it was her own arrogant ways...she saw that she really was pretty bad back then...and it took everything she owned before she finally saw the light...and Danny was the one, though indirectly (and accidentally), the one who got her to take a better glance at herself...
Danny really was there for her, whether or not he was that ghost...
"Oh, my God..." she thought, "...it really was me...I drove him to a lot of this..."
Everything had led up to this...if they didn't have this fight...he wouldn't be the one grieving for Sam and Jazz right now...they would have been safe...but instead, this fight drew them to that area...and that's when it happened...
It was already too late to take it back...the damage had already been done...
But her mind had other plans.
"You can apologize..."
What? Apologize? What good would that do?
"Hey, Danny, listen, I'm sorry I never listened to you and that Sam and Jazz are almost dead. Can we still be friends?" Even just thinking that up sounded stupid...he'd probably just blast her with one of his rays...
"Speak with the heart..."
The heart? What did that mean?
"You'll know...you will eventually know what to do..."
But she was still scared...what would she say? In fact, how would she do it?
Explain that she was too thick to let him say anything? Explain that she...
No...forget the questions...none of that mattered anymore...she finally knew what she had to do...she just hoped that it wasn't too late to start...
She donned her ghost hunter suit and jumped out the window, the jetsled coming out of her shoes...
She started in the direction of the hospital. She didn't care if he never forgave her...she just had to tell him what she finally saw...and that she would be willing to do anything to set things on the right track...
It seemed like it was taking forever to get there...after all, the rain was completely blocking her vision...the howling wind kept throwing her off course...but she would stop at nothing in order to set everything straight...to clean up from the mistakes in the past...
To set a course for a better future...
Finally, she saw the hospital in sight...it was just as gloomy as ever, since the last time she visited it...
But that was strange, since when was there an extra antenna on the roof? In fact...it looked a lot different than the other ones...it looked like it was moving...
That didn't look like an antenna at all, actually...
And then, her heart stopped as she took a second look...
That wasn't an antenna...that was a person...about to jump off...
And then her heart went from no beats to a heart attack...and the blood through it ran cold...
It wasn't just any person...that was...
"OH, MY GOD, DANNY!" she screamed...
He was about to kill himself!
"But why would..." she began, but then another horrible mind came to her head...
Sam and Jazz...they might...have been...
"Oh no," she said. "I'm sorry, Danny..." she said. Sam and Jazz were gone...and now he was taking it out on himself...
She started to cry...however, she remembered something, as her heart beat faster...
Looking back down, her worst thoughts imaginable took place...
Danny had already jumped off...
"NOOO!" she screamed. "DANNY!"
Increasing the speed of her jetsled, she flew as fast as she could to catch him...
"Please..." she begged. "Let me catch him!"
He was nearing the ground...but she was also nearing him...she could make it...
"DANNY!" she screamed.
She reached with a desperate hand to grab his before it fell out of reach...
...But his hand slipped through her fingers...
"Oh, no..." she said, as she missed. "NOOO!"
She watched helplessly from above as Danny's body fell into a rose bush, which deflected him back towards the wet grass, sprawled face-up.
He wasn't moving.
"NO!" she yelled out, flying down towards him.
He was a wreck...after falling on the rose bush, it completely tore up his clothing and he was covered in cuts and bruises...
No...he couldn't die...Valerie went next to him and tried calling out to him...
"Danny? DANNY? Can you hear me, Danny? Please! Show me any sign! PLEASE!"
After what seemed like years, there was no response...fearing his death, she fell towards the ground next to him, sobbing.
But as she did so, she found something...
His hand...it was raising!
"Danny..." she said, her voice quavering and her heart beating quickly, "Oh, my God...your hand...it moved...please, show me you're all right...oh God, this is all my fault...I did this to you..."
His fingers on his hand abruptly started slacking down...he was losing it...
"I'M NOT GIVING UP HERE, DANNY!" she screamed. "FIGHT, DANNY!"
But Danny remained silent...she was about to throw her head down into her own hands...until she realized something else...
His eyes...they were open!
Her heart skipping a beat, she automatically threw herself in his line of sight, praying he wasn't what she thought he was...
The ghost hunter suit disappeared, so she could she him more clearly...
"DANNY!" she screamed. "Can you hear me? Please! Say something!" Her tears fell down as she shivered both from the cold and nervous anticipation.
She watched as his mouth opened, trying to form some word around it...it looked like he was struggling with it...
"...V-v-v-Val?" she heard him say, in a voice so faint that she could barely hear him.
"Danny?" she said, with the same whisper, holding her breath...
"Val..." he said again, but with less strength and sign of life showing...
Valerie was shaking and crying. "Danny? Don't worry...you're going to be all right..."
But she could sense the doubt in her own voice...
Danny tried to say something again, but she watched as he couldn't find the strength to do so...instead of attempting to say something, his body did something else, as his eyes started rolling backwards in his head...
Valerie watched the event in horror, as she watched his breathing suddenly slow down...
...soon Danny lost his consciousness, and his eyes closed altogether.
"No..." she said, watching them close. "NO!"
She tried giving him encouragement. "Danny...hold on, you have to hold on...please...don't leave!"
Danny's arm, the one that had tried to reach for the light, suddenly went slack.
"NO! DANNY!" she screamed. "NO! YOU'RE NOT DYING ON ME!"
Valerie's hands went towards his shoulders and violently shook him, as if trying to extract any sign of life that could be within him. When he failed to respond, her hands lost their grip on his shoulders as her head fell on top of his chest, proceeding to cry over his body.
"DANNY!" she screamed. "YOU CAN'T GO LIKE THIS! PLEASE, BE ALIVE!"
She felt his heart...it was extremely faint...and it was only getting slower.
"NO, DANNY, PLEASE!" she screamed, violently shaking him again. "DON'T LEAVE!"
She felt his pulse again.
But now there was no heartbeat...
Lying across him again, she acted like a shield sheltering his lifeless body from the rain, crying over the one thing that she had a chance to set right...but she had waited too long, and now he was gone.
"Danny..." she repeated through tears, over and over, "I'm so sorry...oh my God...what did I do?"
As her tears fell, however, they were lost, mixing with the surrounding rain, getting washed away...and her cries of agony were drowned out by the thunder and lightning that flashed overhead...
She had failed...but no one would know it...
Because no one could hear her at all...in fact, there was a good reason no one could hear her...
At that exact moment, one thing was said which stopped everything altogether...
"TIME OUT!"
A/N: Yes, unfortunately, from one cliffhanger to the other...I'm sorry!