A/N: Hey, back again with another update...
Despite the long wait, I'm back! But I really like the way this chapter came out for me...but I know that most of you will not like how I end it...
How so? I'll let you read...
Chapter 17 - Illumination
"Code blue...patient of fifth floor...code blue..."
He continued listening in shock, as everything only seemed now to be focused on that one sound...everything else didn't seem to matter at all...
A dagger...it was all he could describe it to be...a dagger through his heart...
"She can't be..." he thought, fighting back the tears that could never seem to go away. "No...she can't...she's too young...please..."
But the echoing of the "code blue" continued blaring...the worst possible thing that he could ever listen to...he had never taken a liking to death, and always despised listening to someone dying...
However, finding out that it was someone close to him was something unbearable...
Danny covered his ears and shut his eyes tightly, desperately trying to block out the voice, but it was of no use...it just seemed to pierce right through the barrier, and he could only see Jazz's face, which seemed to be fading ever slightly with the chanting...
Danny removed his hands, almost falling down towards the ground and breaking down...
He had failed her...he had always promised to himself that no one would ever get hurt...be it any friend, family member, or even personal enemy who wasn't a ghost...
Jazz seemed to be slipping away...the first tear quavered and started falling from the corner of his left eye...
But then suddenly he took the thought and grabbed hold of it...
This wasn't the right thing to do, he thought. He couldn't just stand here, crying for her...standing around had never solved anything for him in the past...
He had to see Jazz...and save her...how he was going to do that second part, he had no idea...
Forcing himself out of his mental anguish, he took his head out of his hands and quickly phased up to the fifth floor, where the chaos was just as widespread as how it was on the bottom floor...
He could hear voices all around him and the clangs of the same "code blue" that was blaring on the first floor...all of the yelling voices belonged to nurses and doctors screaming at each other, each giving directions...
There were so many there that it was extremely hard to understand anything at first...but there was one familiar voice he was able to lock in on...
"C'mon, people, we can save her! All right...her stats...who has her stats?"
It was Dr. Alan's, the one he had spoken to before he ran up to the top of the building. Sam and Jazz were apparently under his care...
He didn't seem to be looking too well. His eyes were bloodshot red and he could see on the side of his face some previous tear marks, staining the corner of his eyes and watching the dried salt slightly crusting. Thinking about his own previous actions of running up to the roof, Danny knew perfectly well what those tear marks must have been about...
"We can't lose her!" he yelled. "We can't lose her like the other one!"
That statement was wrong...that "other one" was here, currently in ghost mode...they just couldn't see him at the moment...
In fact, so much commotion was going on that he couldn't even get to see his sister...all of the doctors and nurses were surrounding her, blocking her completely from view.
Danny was doing his best to hear the heart monitor, but he couldn't hear a thing because there was so much commotion going on around him...
He literally forced his way around everyone and tried to look into the face of his sister...
But unfortunately...he only fell into shock again, as his eyes widened in horror...
It wasn't Jazz...
"We can worry about those glass particles later!" yelled Dr. Alan, commanding the frantic nurses around him about the glass. "It's her heart that is the most concerning thing right now!"
His voice seemed to far away...Danny just backed away, terrified...
"No...not Sam..." he thought, trying to fight back the usual pains. "Not Sam..."
He then suddenly thought of all the times they had spent together...every ghost they fought...every time he had shared with her...but soon the pictures were turning black and white...as if those were the last times he'd ever see her alive...
"She can't die..." he bitterly thought. "It's not fair..."
The memories seemed to keep on coming in, drowning him as if they were attempting to taunt him...
And there was nothing he could do about it...
The world started spinning around again...his memories started coinciding with the voices all around him...
"We're losing her!" screamed a nurse, trying to locate a pulse and at the same time, reading the monitor. "Patient's heart rate is dropping at alarming speed..."
Their first ghost hunt...he saved her from being hit with hundreds of plates...
"Get me a defibrillator, ASAP!" cried Dr. Alan. One of the nurses ran out of the room, phasing through Danny in the process, and wheeled in the machine. Danny was watching with horror that Sam was closing in towards the bottom...
She was blushing while looking up at him during the time Ember was free...
"Alan..." said a nurse. "The glass is really disrupting her lungs...we have to get in there and get them all out!"
"I thought you said that you've pumped oxygen into her system!" he yelled.
She was falling off the Freakshow's train...he dove after her and caught her before she reached the bottom of the ravine...the crystal orb smashing to pieces...
"Too much oxygen would have given her brain defects! She can't breathe on her own! We have to get those glass particles out of there...or she'll be lost, too..."
"Don't say that, dang it!" screamed Dr. Alan. He was close to tears again, just hearing the word "too..."
Danny was now starting to shake with fear as he realized the news he had just received...
That wasn't Jazz...it was Sam they were operating on...
Then...where was Jazz...? The question seemed to grip at his insides, continuing to back away in fright...
But as he continued backing away intangible, Danny soon found his answer...the open door of Room 520 was right behind him...
Did he dare?
He didn't want to enter...he didn't want to know the whole truth...the room looked so ominous...but he knew that he would never find out if he never entered it...
This was it...
Preparing himself, and taking a deep breath, he entered the room of the unknown...
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Valerie traced Danny's flying patterns back to the hospital eventually...for some reason, she knew he'd find him there...
Her first suspicion was that Danny was up on the roof again, attempting another stunt. But she knew that he would never do that again...luckily she didn't find him up there even when she did search...
So he had to be in the hospital...
Flying behind a bush, she quickly released the outfit around her, paying no attention to the fact that she had no coat to combat her against the continuing storm.
Entering the hospital, she heard the wailings of "code blue" all around her. Knowing what she had just seen, she knew who it belonged to...
Valerie's eyes started to water, as she started feeling pains for her friend, knowing that he must have been taking this quite harshly...
She knew she had to find him...but she didn't know what floor that Sam and Jazz were on...she tried asking someone, but everything was so rushed...it seemed like there were a million cases that night...
She was also met with, "Where are your parents at this hour, young lady?" and "You're soaking wet! You could catch pneumonia!"
Valerie was getting quite angry. Neither of those questions mattered, and she was only concerned with trying to find her best friend.
After a while of trying to talk to some people about the whereabouts of two girls, Valerie could see that she had no choice...she had to do it all by trial and error.
Quickly sneaking into an elevator, she was presented with floors from 2-11.
Following her instincts, she pressed 5.
The ride seemed to take forever...she was afraid that Danny could be doing what she was currently fearing right now...
An abrupt halt followed by a ding signaled the end of the ride. She tried to get out, but was met with an oncoming rush of more nurses and doctors trying to go between floors back and forth...
"Is this the floor where Sam...?" she tried saying, but once again, her questions had fallen on deaf ears. No one seemed to be listening...everyone seemed to be in another room, working on some patient in the far corner...
Nothing seemed to be there...she only walked as far as she could before she was stopped by people telling her she couldn't go down any further...and the usual sort of questions that she had heard downstairs...
Frustrated with the same results, she decided that Danny wasn't on this level...she couldn't hear anything, anyway...
The crew left her as she started walking away in, past certain rooms, reading the golden numbers on the doors angrily as she passed by...
"Why can't they just listen to me?" she wondered aloud. "Why can't they just say something...one sentence...like, 'Oh, they're in Room 520, right here?'" she said, pointing to the door.
But then suddenly she stopped in front of the darkened door. Putting her head close to it, she could hear something in there...it sounded like weeping...
"My God..." she thought. "Could I really be this lucky?"
Looking around to make sure that no one was watching her, she silently opened the door and closed it softly behind her. The room was barely lighted, and most of the source was mainly from the moon itself, trying to pierce its way through the storm clouds. She walked into the room, where the weeping got louder the further she walked...it sounded like a boy...
"Danny?" she thought.
Heart racing, she peered behind the red curtain...
And found him...there was Danny in his ghost form, curled up on a chair, weeping...
She was about to run up to him, glad he wasn't on the roof, but then she noticed the reason why he was there...
Next to him, covered by a sheet that only reached up to her head, was Jazz...
She was wondering why she couldn't hear anything on the heart monitor, but then she saw the whole picture...
The monitor was muted...primarily to drown out the accompanying sound of a dead, straight green line...
Valerie couldn't believe it...Jazz had flatlined...
Instead of running to him, Valerie gasped at the sight...and almost felt the tears fall from her own face...it wasn't a trick that they had seen in the woods after all...
But she had gasped too loud...Danny quickly jumped at the sudden noise behind him and had started to freak out about being caught in the room, but the found out that it was Valerie. But it still didn't stop the tears from falling down.
Valerie wanted to say many things, but her mind settled on one phrase, looking at the forlorn sight in front of her.
"Danny..." she whispered, tears now starting to fall from her own eyes... "I'm so sorry..."
She had more to say, but she never finished. Danny flew up at her all of a sudden and wept on her shoulder, now completely distraught from the fact that what he and she had seen in the grove of trees was not an illusion...
"Jazz..." he whimpered, choking on his own shortened breath. "She's gone..."
Valerie tried her best to console him, but she had that horrible thought that no amount of words could ever do the job...she only held him back, but at the same time crying as well, feeling the exact same pain that he was holding within him.
"I'm so sorry, Danny..." she repeated.
"And Sam..." he whispered again, and at the same time trying to convey the whole picture. "They're operating on her outside...she's dying..."
Valerie twinged at the thought...that's was the reason for all the action on the level...
"It's not fair..." he whimpered, choking on his tears. "I can't lose them...I can't..."
She could definitely feel his pain now...losing his best friend and sister in one night...it was something that was hard to imagine...but here he was, in that very position. She just did the only possible thing she could do right now...console him. But in doing so, Valerie didn't know if she would ever have the same friend she had known for all this time...
And once again, he repeated the same words that he had said over and over again. "This is my fault..."
But she wasn't going to start by letting him say those words...
"Don't say that!" she yelled back, trying to force those words out of his head. "You didn't know! Stop saying that!"
"But..." he said, pulling away from her, "...her death was caused by my actions..."
"...Which was brought on by a bunch of links that caused you to react in that manner!" she yelled. "Those links had nothing to do with you, you hear me? Nothing to do with you! You just reacted in the natural way that you would usually act, and unfortunately..." her voice trailed off before she guiltily gulped before saying her next words. "...Sam and Jazz accidentally got caught in the crossfire..."
"But..." he started, but she cut him off before she continued.
Her head went down as she then said, "It was mine, as well...I was the one who never listened to you in the first place...the reason why we have been fighting for all this time...the one who then forced you into the position of choosing between friends (her mind shuddered at the mentioning of her own actions)."
"And then I was the idiot chasing you, while you were going after the true enemy all along, forcing your friends and Jazz to aid you because I decided to go after you..."
Danny found the strength to look at her. Though he was still crying, it was sensed that he was, at least, listening to her confessions.
"This was not your fault, Danny, and it never was...please...don't blame yourself over something that barely involved you to start with in the first place..."
Hearing things from someone else seemed to be a breath of fresh air...yes, he had heard the similarity from Tucker before...but now he was listening to this from a person he had once considered an enemy...but was now deflected onto his side...
"Danny..." she continued, walking closer to him. "I know that this is hard, but please...don't do the same actions that you did before...I would never live it down if you did...please..."
She slowly outstretched her arms, hoping he'd walk toward her...
He was a bit hesitant in the beginning...he just stared at her, wondering if he could trust her...
But other than Tucker, what other person did he have left to trust that knew of his secret?
It was enough...he slowly walked towards her...finally accepting everything...knowing that he had a friend there to help him...
"Valerie..." he said softly, finally letting go of his guilt. "I'm sorry..."
She decided not to answer right away...she was just finally glad that she had gotten through to him, as she continued consoling him...crying at the same time he was, feeling all the pain that he was currently feeling...
"What am I going to do...?" he asked, through tears. "I wish they weren't this way...what am I going to say...?"
"I don't know, Danny..." said Valerie. "I'm sorry...I don't know..."
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Neither noticed the weather outside...
The storm had slowed down to a crawl, and then it was absolutely nothing. The clouds passing overhead were blown away from the night wind, emptying out their final water droplets. The moon, previously hidden behind the clouds, now made its full presence, as it shone, absolutely bright after the tempest...
The rays of the moon were now shining through the window, now lighting the room with an even brighter illumination, hitting the spot where the two friends were...
Danny continued clinging onto his faith...he was hoping that somehow, something would give him an answer...anything...
One more tear fell from his eye - a sparkling, fragile diamond shining in the moonlight, full of his hoping...watching it splash to the ground...
But then he noticed something...as it fell to the ground, some wisp-like eminence broke free from it, sending off little sparks that he had never seen before...
Valerie suddenly felt odd...her friend was in ghost mode, but there was something funny going on...unlike other stories she had read about in her books, ghosts were the undead, always cold to the touch...
But this was different...she felt warm...
And Danny, at the same time, was feeling a bit odd, too, as he finally took a look outside. As the moon shone through the window, it was as if he could feel something stirring within him...a new feeling...
A new power...
Valerie lifted her head so she could figure out what was going on...and then once again, put her hand to her mouth, as she stared at his face.
"Danny..." she said, shocked. "You...you're glowing!"
"What?" he asked. "How could...?"
But he never finished...he was now staring at himself in amazement. He assumed it to be the rays of the moon, but he knew that they couldn't be that powerful. His black suit was actually shining with some brightness he had never seen before, and the D insignia on his chest was sparkling very brightly like it was its own sun...
Danny put his hands to his face, and then took a second glance to see if it was actually happening. When it remained, he remained stunned, but he still couldn't believe it.
"No..." he said, backing away from the window in terror. But in doing so, he accidentally walked against the edge of Jazz's bed post and toppled backwards, scraping his knee.
"Ouch!" he said, falling down in a darkened area, but still glowing.
"Danny!" said Valerie, running to him. "Are you OK?"
"Yes..." he said, putting a hand on his new wound. "I'm OK...it's just a scratch..."
But then another surprise happened. The palm of his hand resting on the wound suddenly started glowing with even more light. It flashed quickly, and then he could see some red droplets over it. Then finally, he felt something merge beneath it, before it finally died down to its "normal" sheen.
Valerie's eyes were wide open, as she took in all the events she just saw. "Danny..." she said, breathlessly. "What was that?"
Danny had an answer, but he didn't know if he could trust it. Did he really...do what he thought he did?
He removed his hand, and Valerie just gasped again.
"You...you healed it..." she said.
Danny was now even more confused...he healed his own wound...but what made him heal it?
He looked at his other hand, which was resting on the ground. But as he removed it, he saw something else. There was a crack in the tile that ran along the room lengthwise, but where his hand had rested, the crack had simply stopped for a few inches, then continued again...
This was happening too fast...he put his hands to his face...was this actually happening to him?
It was then he noticed that his right hand, previously on the cold tile, had now turned warm...Danny slowly took his hand off his face, and looked at them...
They were stained with his tears...which were sparkling...
"Valerie..." he said, looking at his hands, and forcing himself to believe it. "It's my tears..."
"Your tears?" she asked. "But how?"
He wasn't even sure how he could answer that question. In fact, he had been crying so much these past couple of weeks that it seemed impossible that these things could heal...
But then he started thinking...all the times it had occurred it was because of some emotion...some yearning...
The time that he first felt after seeing the first dream...his yearning that Spectra would leave him alone during his fight...the time when he saw Sam's body in the old building after she had fallen through its window...and now, crying because he was hoping that Sam and Jazz were somehow going to live...
It was his faith...
And it was all during the time he was in ghost mode...
Were his tears...a new power? A power to fix how things were the way before?
He then looked back over at his sister...and another idea flew into his head...
The power to resurrect?
"Valerie..." he said in shock at his sudden understanding. "Do you think...?"
She didn't let him finish...she had exactly the same thing in her head when she suddenly lifted him up and screamed. "Oh my God...Danny...I don't know...but it might work! Do it!"
He knew that this was the moment of truth. His heart skipped a beat as he slowly walked over to Jazz. He gently pulled off some of the covers over chest, so that her heart was exposed.
Wiping some tears away from his face, he looked at his hands, as they gave off that same strange sparkle.
He prayed with everything he had that it was going to work, as he then placed his hand on Jazz's forehead and heart...
A/N: Send a review, please...and yes, most of you are wondering...I leave it there!
I did warn at the start that there was some way I had to end it, and unfortunately, this is where it had to be done, in order to keep the chapters at around the same length of each other...and to sort of keep people guessing...I hope you all understand...