A/N: Hello, back again with the 18th chapter of this story...
Once again, I have to apologize for the ridiculous amount of waiting time between chapters. I've been pressed for studying for my finals and had almost no time to write this...
Well, this chapter turned out a lot better than I had anticipated. I thought it was going to be hard, and well, uhh...well...OK, it was still hard, but I liked how everything turned out...
No warnings here...I'd like to see some of your reactions through a review after this chapter, however...
Chapter 18 - A Greater Bond
Danny's hands were in place, as he continued concentrating on those two areas...
And Valerie was waiting behind him, with nervous anticipation...
"C'mon Jazz..." he continued praying. "Come back..."
He looked at the monitor to see if there was any change in rhythm...but it still remained a flat line...
A line that continued to torture him...
Danny tried again, wiping off more tears than before, feeling their warmth between his fingers...placing them on the chest of his sister...
No change...
"No..." he thought. "Work, please WORK! Why isn't it working?" More tears fell down from his cheeks, and he continued collecting them with his hands and replacing them back on his sister.
Several more seconds passed...still no change...
Danny was now starting to grow frustrated, as his tears fell even more futilely down and he kept chanting in his head. "Jazz...come back...please come back..."
The usual warmth that he had felt when his hands touched his tears seemed to automatically turn cold once he placed them upon his sister...her skin remained cold...the torturing flatline remained...
He continued staring, hoping, praying, that some change was going to occur...but he never got one...
His tears were flowing even faster than the speed that he could wipe them off, where they landed and splashed on her face, giving off little sparks as they exploded on impact. Then the sparks just seemed to fade, as they then disappeared into her skin, turning from a sparkle to a lusterless grey...
"Wake up Jazz..." he pleaded, his thoughts now desperate. "Don't leave..."
She wouldn't wake up...it wasn't working...
No frenzied effort could ever cause a change in her lifeless body...a body that was now nonexistent of life, nonexistent of a soul...
Even with some power of healing could he not help people...he felt absolutely worthless...
Jazz was gone...there was no reversing it...
And Valerie looked on with horror and false hope on her face as she realized too that it wasn't going to work after all...she knew that Danny had now lost his sister, and knowing that she had something to do with the whole thing just made her feel even worse...
After one final attempt at reviving his sister and feeling the tears grow cold once again on her skin, his shaking hands slid off of her chest, and he broke down once again as his hand rested upon her cold hand...
"Jazz..." he said softly, feeling her name reverberating hundreds of times in his head.
He sat there on the ground on his knees, kneeling next to his sister, his hand firmly clamped upon hers...
Valerie wanted to go over to him, but there was only so much that gesture would do...so she decided not to...it probably would have made him feel worse. So she watched from afar, sadly watching Danny holding Jazz's lifeless hand...
It remained that way...until something else happened...
The moonlight shining through the window suddenly grew even brighter, illuminating the room even more intense than before. Her hands automatically jerked up to her face, shielding her eyes from the sudden brilliance.
But as quickly as the sudden change of brightness came into view, it quickly faded. As Valerie brought her hands down once again, nothing else seemed to be different, until she gasped at another surprise...
But Danny never saw it; he was into his miseries so much that he didn't even notice when a hand was on his shoulder...
"Danny..." echoed a voice from the far distance from his hearing range. "Look up..."
"That voice..." he thought. There was no other voice like it...
Did he...just...?
His head raised instantly, hoping to see the sight he desperately wanted to see...
But all he saw in front of him was his dead sister once again, accompanied with that flatlining that was torturing him so much, still clutching her hand that was now caught in eternal sleep...there had been no change; his sister had not been resurrected...
But where did that voice come from...?
Was that voice just in his thoughts? Was he going mad now from the loss of his sister that he was beginning to hear things?
Another line sent him back to reality. "Behind you..." said the same echoing voice.
Turning around, Danny copied the same gasp emitted from Valerie. Now he knew that he couldn't be hearing things, because Valerie was also staring at the same thing that he was staring at.
"Hi Danny," said the new form in the room, the voice being echoed as the words left her mouth...
"Jazz?" he said.
It was Jazz...now as the ghost that he had foreseen.
It was pretty much the same outfit that he had dreamt with the shining black long coat that once protected her body, which was now ragged and torn from the billboard falling on top of her. She had the same gloved fingertips as well.
But there were changes...despite her current visibility of being only slightly opaque, she pretty much looked the same if she were alive...he could see her long red hair that trailed down to her waist, all straightened out with the blue ribbon. And her eyes were still blue.
As much as Danny wanted to say many certain things right now, everything got lost on the way to his mouth, he just stared there in shock, looking at his sister's new form...
But then he was able to say some words, as he sputtered out, "Jazz...I'm sorry...I was trying to..."
She didn't let him finish. "I know what you're trying to do, Danny," she said in a matter-of-fact kind of voice. "But please...don't..."
No? Then did this mean she wanted to...?
"But Jazz..." he started. "I can't let you die..."
"Danny, death is not the end of everything, and even you, almost having experienced it, have now grown stronger..."
He wasn't sure about the meaning of those words, but then he started thinking about the accident. He remembered how it was in that chamber, feeling all that energy surging within him as he lost half of his humanity to a ghost...
And as he continued thinking, growing stronger must have meant how he was doing so well in his battles...
"But as for me...I've already been separated...you saw me in that grove, and you're looking at me right now...there's nothing you can do for me, even with those tears..."
"But..." he said, wiping away a stray tear and watching it sparkle on his hand, "I thought that I had the power to heal..."
Watching that quavering drop on his hand suddenly disappear into a puddle, he felt as if he had been cheated...these tears couldn't heal...they couldn't do a single thing...
"But you do have the power..." said Jazz, now walking up to him. "But...unfortunately..." she paused for a second, looking at her own semi-opaque hand before she continued, "...this power only works for the living...it worked on you because you're half-alive..."
"But what about the ground?" he asked, looking for that crack that he had previously smoothed over with his hand.
But as he looked at the spot, he saw that the crack had reappeared.
"It's only temporary on that..." she said. "It reappeared at around the time that you tried using it for me..."
That was true...
But then there was another thing...
"How do you know so much about these?" he asked, pointing slightly to some more escapee tears flowing down his face. It was as if she knew what he was talking about from the very beginning, although they had seen each other for only a few minutes.
Jazz gave a slight smile. She seemed to be building some slight suspense before she spoke her five-word answer.
"I gave that to you..."
He, of course, wasn't expecting this answer. "What?"
She chuckled slightly. "Remember when you were in the grove, after I disappeared, there was some mist that appeared in the spot where I once stood?"
"No," he said. He revisited the painful memory in his head, remembering when he attempted to hug her for helping him defeat Spectra, only to just pass right through her...
Jazz continued, as some sadness suddenly drifted into her echoing voice. "I knew that I was beyond it...there was no chance that I was going to survive...but i just remembered, looking at you, watching you cry, hoping that things would come back to normal. It was all of that faith in your tears...I knew I had to do something, but I couldn't tell you what I was going to do..."
Danny touched his face once more, and Jazz nodded slightly, as she continued.
"Because I knew that I could not be revived, I remembered that Sam was in the same predicament...and I couldn't let her fate become mine..."
And suddenly it became clear...
"Then these tears...when you died, you put your...life essence...into them?" he asked.
Jazz, knowing that her brother had figured it out, smiled and nodded yes.
"Then..." said the forgotten voice in the room, belonging to Valerie. "It was meant for Sam?"
"Yes..." said Jazz, her voice trailing off.
"But Danny was crying earlier...and he wasn't glowing...how come it didn't work before?" asked Valerie.
It didn't come quickly to Danny, but then he realized the one thing that happened when he and Valerie were in the room alone consoling each other earlier...
The moonlight through the clouds...
A symbol of his hope, trying to pierce its way through the grey, stormy clouds of misery, finally coming to rest upon him. It was like the ray of light activating the true brilliance within him...
The brilliance, overshadowed by tears...
Tears, overshadowed by hope...
Hope, overshadowed by misery...
He was finally able to let it go when Valerie was able to get through by saying it was never his fault...then came that ray of light...
It wasn't known if the timing was perfect or if it was mere coincidence...
But that didn't matter right now...all he knew was that this was all real...his tears, full of hope, had the power to heal...
Danny felt ecstatic, but then he felt a bit of sorrow as another thing then came to light.
"But Jazz...you sacrificed yourself...to help me...?"
He thought of the time when his ghostly wail hit her and then accidentally force her towards that old building...all of that was for nothing? It made no sense at all to him...
She smiled sadly, knowing that sooner or later she would have to answer that question. And knowing that Valerie was in the room, it now became even harder to say...
"Remember what I said, Danny?" she asked. "I promised to always help you...and I know that your friends have always been there for you, so they qualify as a part of you...as you share in their same feelings...in a way, saving them means saving you..."
"But what about you?" asked Danny.
"Don't worry about me..." said Jazz rather quickly, smiling sadly as she looked at herself in the bed. "I have been watching you...even seen it over the past year...you can go on because you're a strong person...it didn't take these powers for you to fit these characteristics, but I have always known this to be true...and look at you now, fighting to save an entire city even with people believing you're evil..."
Valerie felt a twinge of guilt, knowing that she used to be one of those people...
"Even with all these hardships, you never give up the fight...I always admired that in you, Danny...and now look what you've done on your own..." she said, looking in the direction of the ghost hunter. "You made another friend..."
Danny looked behind him, looking at Valerie, who was now blushing...and for some reason, he felt himself blush as well...
"There have been many times...where I know that you didn't need me at all..." she said.
However, he continued to have doubts...
"But...you've helped me so much...I could have have never been this way if it wasn't for you many times! I...I...can't let you go like this..." Danny said, tears falling at a faster rate with even more sparks coming off.
Jazz looked up and smiled slightly at her brother, at a slight loss for words.
"But remember that bond, Danny?" she asked. "I said I'll always be there, living or not...like a guardian...and I've always promised that..."
Danny's head gazed in her direction when she finally finished with "...Nothing changes this Danny...even in death, you're still my brother..."
She tried to rest her gloved hand on his shivering shoulder once again, but unfortunately her hand just phased right through him once again. But the gesture made Danny feel warm inside, as if she was able to still touch him...at this moment, he had never felt a greater bond with his sister until now...he smiled back at her, even though tears were still falling...
And Valerie seemed to be taking in the poignant moment as she watched the ghostly brother and sister. She was experiencing a mix of happiness and slight jealousy, because she knew that no one could do that for her...
Danny was completely lucky to have a sister like her...even in light of Jazz's death, it seemed that their bond had grown stronger...and she was sacrificing herself so Danny could save his best friend...and Jazz didn't even mention her own actions as part of anything...
The tears falling from her own face seemed to contain of those mixes of emotions, as she continued watching them...
She could have just watched them right there, but a loud noise interrupted the moment, as a woman's voice blared on the intercom, "Code blue...code blue..."
It took less than three seconds for Valerie to realize what was most likely happening.
"Oh no, Sam!" yelled Valerie. "Danny...you have to save her!"
Danny was caught between going after Sam and saying goodbye to the other ghost in front of him. It was hard to make a decision...
"Jazz..." he said. "I..."
"You don't have a lot of time..." said Jazz, smiling, her voice seeming to echo away even further. "Go..."
"But what if...?" he tried asking, but once again, was interrupted.
"I love you, Danny..." she said, now starting to fade. "Please...go...save Sam..."
Danny wanted to say something else, but he seemed tongue-tied.
"I'm always here...Danny..." she said, now completely gone from view, her echoing voice remaining. "Always..."
Then it all came to a rest...her ghost was gone...
"Jazz..." he said softly, begging her not to leave...
Danny was about to pine for the second loss of his sister, but then Valerie was tugging at his silver glove.
"C'mon, Danny..." she said, her voice now starting to panic. "We have to save Sam!"
He sadly took one last look at Jazz's body on the bed, but then he had to realize that there was no saving her...remembering Clockwork's words, he remembered that things could only be saved in the present, not the past...
"DANNY!" yelled Valerie.
He forced his gaze away from Jazz and left the room quickly with Valerie, closing the door swiftly behind them.
The same doctors and nurses were huddled in the same corner, trying to revive Sam's body, which was starting to flatline just now. Valerie was about to run up there with a start, pulling him along, but Danny stayed rooted where he was.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"They're still after me!" he yelled. "I can't just go waltzing up there while I'm Danny Phantom!"
He had a good point. Frantically searching around for something, Valerie finally found an doctor's coat, and a surgical mask and cap hanging near a door.
Snatching it, she said, "Here, put all of these on! I'll get them to think that you're one of the doctors on this floor and that will give you the chance to save Sam!"
"Thank you, Val," he said, putting on the quick disguise.
"Don't mention it..." she said. "Now hurry!"
Danny quickly tied the coat tightly around his body, hiding all signs of his outfit. Then he and Valerie rushed over to the corner where they were operating on Sam.
But when they got there, they realized that things were a lot worse off than they had thought...Sam was actually already flatlining...and all of the nurses and doctors were already using defibrilators to try and revive Sam's heart...
Just the sight of her body was making Danny cry...but he knew that he had to save all of them for Sam's possible revival from the brink of death...
A voice behind Valerie and Danny made them jump. "What are you doing up here, young lady?" yelled a nurse behind them.
"I'm a friend of hers," said Valerie, pointing to Sam.
"Sorry, I was showing her here," said Danny, nervously, at the same time.
"You know the rules, doctor!" said the nurse. "No visitors up here!"
"Oh my God, who cares about the rules right now?" thought Danny. In fact, both weren't listening to her anymore...time was literally of the essence right now...they had to get out of this conversation!
"Sorry..." said Danny, pushing past the nurse and into the room. "Stay out here," he said, pointing to Valerie.
"Y-yes..." she said, giving him a shaky thumbs-up. "Good luck," she thought.
Danny gave her a wink and headed into the room.
There was much chaos inside. Everyone was panicking, trying to save the Goth girl from the same fate as Jazz, trying to restart her heart, some trying to clear the glass out of her lungs...he could hear everyone's voices as they all gave commands to each other, completely oblivious to the fact that there was a fake doctor in the room...
This was Danny's chance when everyone wasn't looking...he wiped away some tears from his face and started towards Sam...
"CLEAR!" a nurse shouted one more time, pressing the defibrilator to Sam's heart. Danny watched as the monitor blinked once or twice, then go to a flatline...
The sight of her nearly-ruined body was making him cry...but he knew that he had a job to do, so he stepped even closer to the action...
"Who are you?" asked a voice behind him suddenly, making him jump. Turning around, he found himself face-to-face with Dr. Alan himself, who didn't look too pleased...
"Who are you, and what are you doing, wearing my things?" he asked.
Danny quickly glanced at the nametag on the doctor's coat. It had "ALAN" etched into it...
Taking the head doctor's coat...smart...
Every eye in the room was on him...in fact, no one seemed to be paying attention to the dying girl currently in the center of the room. Knowing he didn't have much time, he quickly tried to get past everyone, but soon people started boxing him in.
"Take off those clothes immediately!" yelled Dr. Alan. "And come with this guard here," he said, pointing. "I'm putting you under arrest for breaking and entering this floor...no one can be here!"
"Please..." said Danny, muffling his voice that he couldn't be recognized. He looked at Sam sadly before he then said, "I know how to save this girl...please...I know how she can be saved!"
"How do I know that you're not just trying to do something else?" asked Alan.
"Because..." said Danny, another tear falling from his eye. "I need to prove to you all that I'm not a bad guy..."
"Bad guy?" asked Alan. "Just who are you, anyway?"
After hearing this, he knew that there was only one way that the question could be answered. Taking off the coat, cap, and mask, he revealed himself.
A gasp came from every corner in the room as they were now looking at the glowing figure that stood before them.
"DANNY PHANTOM!" shrieked one of the nurses. "He's the one that did this horrible thing to these girls!"
"No, please..." he begged. "I did not do this to them...I never would! Please!"
"Why did you make up that story?" asked Dr. Alan, his voice rising.
"The reason I had to make up that story is because it was the only way that I knew it would get them into the hospital without having their parents around. I did it so that you could have all of that time in order to save them! I never meant to make you think that I was the one who dropped them off...it was the only thing I could think of at that point...Please...you have to believe me...I would never do this to them..."
Precious tears continued falling from his face, splashing against the ground giving off sparks, his emotions starting to overwhelm him once again as he found himself in the middle of a circle of terrified and angry nurses and doctors.
"Please...believe me..." he said, getting on his knees. "I'm not a killer..."
And for a few seconds, everyone seemed to just stare at each other, wondering what to think...
Until one person came forward from the surrounding circle and knelt down next to him.
"I believe you..." said the nurse, trying to look at him.
Danny looked up, and was staring into the face of a young woman he had never met before. Though he knew that he didn't know her personally, for some reason he felt that he knew her before...
But then, somehow, he remembered something he had done quite a while back...something involving black ice...
"I was on that bus you saved from careening off the cliff those many weeks ago," she said, putting her hand on his shoulder. "But you flew away so fast that I was never able to thank you for saving my life..."
Danny gave a weak, but assuring, smile back at her.
The nurse helped him stand up while he wiped away more tears.
"I believe him..." she said, facing the rest of the surprised doctors and nurses. "I believe that he can save this girl, because he helped me..."
And after that statement, more support started coming out of the woodwork. More nurses and doctors came out from the group and shielded him from the security staff.
"Some of the people on that bus were some of my patients that couldn't stop thanking that he was there to save him," said another. " I believe him, too..."
"And he saved my niece from another incident," said one of the assistants. "He is a hero..."
The actions really stirred some of the doubts away in the half-ghost.
In fact, just hearing those words from that first woman gave Danny the confidence he was begging to feel...many times it was from his friends, but now hearing it from an outsider was like another breath of fresh air...he knew, absolutely, for the first time in his life, he had supporters...
And finally, it was all sealed away when Alan spoke, in the new light of all of the support. "All right..." he said, dismissing the confused staff. They left slowly, still baffled by the turn of events, completely speechless.
Then Alan turned to Danny. "But I'm afraid that Ms. Manson is almost lost," he said, looking at Sam's monitor. "We can't seem to clear away the glass in her lungs and start her heart at the same time. What did you have in mind?"
Danny slowly motioned for the surrounding people to part, which they all did, slowly.
He took a second to glance at Sam's face...though he knew that it was possible, he still had that sinking feeling that it wasn't going to work. But he couldn't think that way...he knew that he had the confidence to save her life...and all it took was faith...
Concentrating, he made his hand intangible, as he gingerly brought up the glass out of her lungs in very small batches, making sure not to damage any other part of her accidentally. He was mostly met with surprise and short shrieks around him, as they did not know what he was capable of.
When another person read on the monitor that all of the particles had been lifted out, it was then realized that her lungs were damaged extensively from all of the shards of glass.
"No amount of surgery could ever fix those without killing her..." said Alan, looking at the clock. "I'm afraid that Ms. Manson's death will be -"
"I'm not done yet..." said Danny, wiping off some of the blood from his hand carefully.
He knew he had one tactic left...and he knew that it was his only hope...and Sam's.
Danny very carefully wiped away some of the tears on his face, feeling their usual warmth has they connected with his gloved fingertips. Looking at them one last time before he placed them, he could think of one line.
"This will work..."
He knew that the spirit of life lay inside of them...all he had to do was believe...
Closing his eyes, he placed his hands on Sam's chest and forehead...
At first, nothing seemed to be happening, as the warmth of his tears suddenly faded after touching her skin, turning cold...
But then, another unexpected warmness emanated from his palms, along with another strange brilliance that he had saw after healing his own wound. The light was so bright that he could not look at it...but one thing was for sure...
For some reason, it was painful...the warmth was now like a searing oven as his hands remained there, while he started screaming.
"I don't believe it!" said the same person at the monitor. "She's gaining a pulse! The wounds on her lungs are clearing up!"
"Danny!" yelled Valerie, basically bursting into the room with other people behind her. She wanted to see if everything was all right, but then she shielded her own face from the brilliant light. But she could see the outlining of Danny's contorted face, which was howling in pain...
The brilliant light show lasted for another ten seconds until the sheen then seemed to die down, as now red droplets formed above Sam's body, finding their way into the body that people once believed was lost...
Finally, Danny's body couldn't take it anymore...the glow seemed to die down from his own body, as the world now started to spin around him...his eyes rolled into the back of his head, as his eyelids grew heavy at the same time...
His legs didn't seem to be working...he lost balance and started falling towards the cold tile floor...
"Danny!" yelled Valerie again, but her voice just seemed to a blurring echo that he wasn't able to understand...
The last thing he remembered at that point was someone catching him before he fell to the floor, and losing consciousness all together, his world once again going black...
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Voices...
He could hear them in the distance...it was impossible to tell who they belonged to, but either way, it didn't seem to matter. Once again, it was some strange world he was in...a place he had never thought to visit so many times...
Danny tried opening his eyes to see where he was, but was met with even more difficulty...he just seemed to see black no matter where he was looking...
Then the blackness started clearing away, as he began to see outlines...the voices now stronger, and seeming to radiating out of them...
"...anny!" yelled the figure he was looking at. "Danny!"
The black slowly left his cloudy and fuzzy vision, as the details of the face now came into a better light.
"T...Tucker?" he said, slowly.
The African-American gave a yelp of joy, but then almost fell off-balance after forgetting to hold the crutch in his hand.
"Dude!" he yelled. "You're awake! I can't believe it...you're awake!"
"Huh? What's happening?" Danny asked, confused. He had no idea what was going on...he had forgotten everything before he had fallen unconscious.
But Tucker didn't answer. He just hugged his friend, laughed, and then screamed in another direction, "HEY! HE'S AWAKE!"
No less than ten people rushed inside the door. Among them were Dr. Alan and the nurse he had remembered, but then he saw the ever-recognizable faces of his own parents, who were crying with joy. Also among them were Tucker's parents, also waving at him. Damon and Valerie Gray finished out the group, also happy to see him awake.
"How are you doing, son?" asked Maddie, shakily, as if she couldn't believe it was happening.
"I don't...remember..." he said truthfully. It was all a blur...
"Valerie said that she found you outside the hospital lying on the grass face-down," said Damon. "Are you all right?"
And everything seemed to quickly slam into place for Danny's memories...it came with such rushed speed that he couldn't tell them all apart from one another...
Danny looked at Tucker, who gave him a quick wink with his left eye. He then looked at Valerie, who also gave him a quick wink, but with her right eye.
"We thought we lost you!" said Jack, now hugging his son in possibly one of the most air-constricting bear hugs that he could ever imagine.
"Jack!" said Maddie, trying to make him let go. "Give him some breathing room!"
"Sorry," he said, relinquishing his death grip on Danny's lungs. Gasping for some air, it was then Danny took a look at himself. His arm wasn't in a cast, but in tight-fitting support that extended up to his shoulder. There were some stitches on his forehead and his legs were currently being elevated, but for some reason, he seemed perfectly fine...
"You seemed to be in a bad shape when Valerie found you," said Dr. Alan, "...but in the end, you seemed perfectly fine afterwards. That rose bush sure did a deal on your legs, though..."
Danny tried moving his legs. He could almost move them, but not much...they were covered with cuts and bruises...
"We're just all glad that you're all right, man," said Tucker, giving Danny a slap on the back.
"Ouch!" he said, feeling its impact.
"Oh, sorry, I forgot..." he said, blushing while the rest of the group laughed at him...
"So everything seems to be all right currently..." Danny thought. "No one seems to know anything else about me...but why do I have the feeling something's missing?"
He looked around the group, and sure enough, found the spot vacant...
He was about to point this out, but then a voice called outside the door, "Can I see him?"
Before he could ask who, it was Valerie that quickly bounded towards the door, peered outside, and said to the mystery person, "Are you OK?"
"I'm better now..." said the voice. "Can I see him?"
Danny could see her nodding as she then looked back inside, faced him and said with a smile on her face, "Danny, you've got a visitor."
A/N: I'll bet you all know who it is! I'm sorry I had to end it right there, however...I'll make it up to you after my finals, I promise!