Chapter 30 was posted yesterday. I the future, for those of you who read this story but don't have it in your alerts, if I seem to skip a day without saying anything, I probably did post something, and it just didn't move up the queue.

That being said, I'm probably going to skip tomorrow, and possibly also Wednesday. Sorry.

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Chapter 31: Signal and Noise

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"I- uh- I- um," said Valerie, flustered.

Jeez, thought Sam. She was even worse at this than Danny was, and she didn't even have the whole 'strapped to a lab table' thing to worry about.

Except... Maybe she did. Even though Valerie was human, she did have her suit, which was quite ghostly, bonded to her. There might be groups that would go after her. None of the people here would, of course, but. Still.

Sam sighed. "Look," she said interrupting Valerie's stuttered attempt at an explanation. "I'm sure that this is going to turn into a thought provoking revelation, but I'm honestly too tired to process anything right now. Can this wait until morning? Please?"

There were murmurs of agreement, but also of dispute. A number of people, including the more rabid Danny Phantom 'Phans' (aka Paulina) wanted Valerie to explain. Now. Or they were going to tear Valerie apart.

(It was getting harder and harder for Sam to believe she had ever been friends with Paulina.)

But Mr Lancer waded in to the brewing fight (and Sam had no doubt that it would have turned into a fight, considering how tired and irritable everyone was) and sent them all off to bed. Sam was both impressed and relieved. She hadn't wanted to waste time with a fight. Not when she had a pretty good idea of where that boy (and she had an inkling as to his identity) had disappeared to.

From the way he looked at her and Tucker, she suspected that Mr Lancer was having the same, or at least similar, thoughts. She pulled Tucker swiftly along behind her, back to Danny's room, wanting to have a few private moments before the teacher was free to follow them. It wasn't that she didn't trust Mr Lancer, it was just that Mr Lancer was very new to all this. She didn't know how he'd react, and she wanted to be able to assess the situation without worrying about him.

It was a good thing she did, Sam decided when she saw the scene waiting for them in the room. There was the boy, sitting in the bed, Danny's head in his lap. He was combing Danny's hair, with an actual comb no less, as if he hadn't a care in the world.

"Who are you?" asked Sam, wincing when the words came out more harshly than she intended.

The boy smiled gently. "I am the shadow that Jack and Madeline Fenton created. I think you knew that, though."

"Sorry, dude," said Tucker, pushing up his glasses. "Had to make sure." He frowned. "You aren't going to go crazy on us, like Poindexter's shadows do to him, are you?"

"Why would I do that?" said the shadow, sounding hurt. "You're his friends. Of course I wouldn't do anything like that to you. That was horrible."

"Okay," said Tucker. "Cool." He blinked. "You're bleeding."

The shadow blinked back, then looked at his shoulder. "Oh. Yeah. I guess so."

Tucker went under the bed to search for the first aid kit. Sam stepped back to the door, to keep an eye out for pesky classmates and parents.

"You don't have to do that," said the shadow, cheerfully. "I'm part of the lair. I can tell where people are, mostly."

"Oh," said Sam, not sure what else to say to that. She moved to sit on the bed. "How did that happen, anyway?"

"Madeline stabbed me with one of the kitchen knives."

"What?!" came the gasp from the doorway. Sam jerked her head towards it. It was just Jazz.

Sam relaxed, and turned back to the sha- Okay. No. Nope. That wasn't going to work anymore. "Do you have a name?"

"I've only been in existence for about four hours. You think I spent that time worrying about a name? When I'm still figuring out how my body works?"

"A 'no' would have been good enough."

"So you are the shadow from earlier," said Jazz, coming closer.

"That's me!"

"Why did Mom stab you?"

"Why does she do anything?" he asked, scowling. "Because she's nuts, that's why. I mean, look at what she put Danny through! Poor Danny." He ran his hand through Danny's hair. "Poor Danny," he repeated, sounding close to tears.

Tucker cleared his throat. "Uh. I'm gonna need you to take off your shirt."

"What? Why?"

"Because I want to sleep in this bed and I don't want you bleeding all over it."

The shadow made a whining noise in the back of his throat, but complied with Tucker's request, shrugging out of his hoodie, and then peeling off his green-stained t-shirt.

"Great," said Tucker, leaning in with a cotton swab and a bottle of antiseptic, "now hold still."

"The Corsican Brothers!"

Sam jumped.

"Hi, Mr Lancer!"

Sam turned away from the door to glare at the shadow. "I thought you said that you could tell if people were coming."

"I can. But Mr Lancer is cool. Right Mr Lancer?"

At that moment, Mr Lancer looked anything but cool. Actually, he looked as if he was about to have a heart attack. "I- I suppose. I- Who are you, exactly?"

The shadow shrugged, earning him a whack from Tucker, who was still trying to bandage the hole in the boy's shoulder. He rolled his eyes, and scratched the side of his neck with his other hand. "Again with the name thing." He sighed. "Like I said, Shadow is already taken. How about Echo? That's as good a description as any."

"So you are the shadow from earlier? But you... look different..."

The shadow, Echo, shrugged. "My body is currently based on Danny's, but when that machine forced it to coalesce, well, it wasn't something that had been expected."

"Hey, does that mean you can shapeshift? Because that would be cool," said Tucker, putting one last piece of tape on the bandages.

"Not really," said Echo, rotating his arm experimentally. "It's more... How should I put this? In the natural course of events, if that machine hadn't been activated, I would not exist. You would have encountered no shadows in this lair. The lair did not know how to make shadows." He had his hands on Danny again, softly brushing his fingers against the other boy's face. "I was forced into existence. After that, well, we do not discard useful things. The only template we have to use for a body is Danny's." He rubbed his own face, then pinched his cheek. "This is not a perfect copy, however, as I'm sure you noticed." His eyes flicked to one side, to where Jazz was raising her hand, "Yes, Jazz, I see you, what's your question?"

"How separate are you from Danny? I mean, how autonomous are you?"

Echo made a face. "Wow, Jazz, way to break out the fancy words."

"Don't give me that. If you have access to Danny's memories, your vocabulary is twice as big as mine, even if we limit the count to just English words."

"That's a gross exaggeration. Besides, you've got all that psychology terminology."

"Stop avoiding the subject."

"Fine," groaned Echo. "I am, like any shadow, part of the lair. Like the lair, therefore, I am subject and subservient to Danny's will. I do not have free will, and, in that sense, do not have a soul. As for whether or not I have my own mind, separate from Danny's..." Echo shrugged. "I don't have a core. Or, one could say, that Danny's core is my core. On the other hand," he tapped one temple, "Danny's core being what it is, I do have a brain." He seemed pleased about this. "Most ghosts don't, you see," he explained. "Their cores don't know how to make them, or most internal features of human anatomy, for that matter. But Danny's core retains a near-perfect memory of his human body."

"Human body?" asked Mr Lancer, faintly.

"That's right," said Echo.

Mr Lancer opened his mouth, as if to ask a question, but shut it again, opting instead to chew his bottom lip. Finally, he asked, "You are part of this... Lair?"

"That is correct."

"Then you must know the way out."

"Yes," said Echo.

Silence, except for breathing.

(Which, Sam noticed, was something that Echo was doing, and not just to speak.)

"Could you... Tell us?" asked Mr Lancer.

Echo tilted his head all the way over to one side. "Why?"

"So- So that we can go home."

A frown was added to Echo's face. "Why?"

Mr Lancer opened and closed his mouth several times. "I-" he said, "you- What?"

"What?" repeated Echo, clearly confused.

"Mr Lancer," said Jazz, interrupting the meaningful exchange, "I think it's best if we stepped outside. Maybe I can explain things to you a little more clearly."

"I..." Mr Lancer trailed off. "Maybe that would be... Yes. Let's."

Jazz lead Mr Lancer out of the room. Sam wished her luck.

"Did I say something wrong?" asked Echo, frown still etched into his face.

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Jazz lead Mr Lancer out of the room, and into the adjacent one, the one with all the black hangings, keeping an eye out for her mother, or other (late night? What time even was it?) wanderers in the hall (on the walkway, whatever, whichever). Once inside, she turned to face Mr Lancer, trying to figure out what to say. He seemed to be having a similar dilemma.

"You know why- why Echo doesn't want us to leave." It was a statement, not a question.

"I have a- Call it a suspicion." She resisted the urge to rub her eyes. She was too tired for this. "You know- You know he's not entirely human, right?" she asked, hesitantly, not at all sure that Mr Lancer had made that connection.

"It had crossed my mind, but I thought that he would still want to go home. I'm not sure how his... life status changes that."

"It doesn't really, it's just... I'm sorry I'm not doing this very well."

"We're all tired," said Mr Lancer. "I'm sorry for pushing this, but I need something, here."

"Okay," said Jazz. "Have you heard of ghostly obsessions?"

"In passing," allowed Mr Lancer. "They're what binds a ghost to the Earth, correct? Unfinished business, or something like that."

"Kind of. It's more like a purpose. A reason to exist. Danny told me once that an obsession is why a ghost exists. Most ghosts have more than one. I don't suppose you can hazard a guess at one of Danny's?" asked Jazz. She wasn't comfortable telling Mr Lancer Danny's obsessions, that would be beyond rude, but if he could guess, that would be fine.

Mr Lancer blinked, and ran his hand over his face. "Protecting people, I suppose, considering what he spends his time doing."

Jazz sighed in relief. "Yes. Now, usually, Danny filters his obsessions through, uh, I guess you could call it a human perspective. But Echo isn't human at all."

"So you're saying that this is what Danny's ghost side wants?"

Jazz grimaced. "Saying it like that makes it sound like Danny has DID. He doesn't. It's more like... Look, for one of the Dead," Mr Lancer flinched, and Jazz realized they hadn't really touched on the subject of Danny's death at all, but she pressed on, "their obsessions have to come from somewhere. Danny's been hurt. Hurt really badly. For him, this is a safe place. A place to heal. A place he controls. This feels like home to him. Add in his obsession, and the mess we left back home..."

"He feels like we're safe here, too," concluded Mr Lancer.

"Right. And it doesn't matter if, consciously, he knows that it would be better if we were all back in Amity Park, because this, the lair, and Echo, and any other shadows we might encounter, they're all governed subconsciously, and by his more ghostly impulses."

Mr Lancer frowned. "This isn't going to become... Daniel... Echo isn't going to try to keep us here, is he?"

"I doubt it. He might try to convince us to stay, bribe us, somehow, maybe even lie to us, but he won't use force."

"What happened with your mother-"

"She stabbed him," Jazz snapped, suddenly annoyed. "Valerie shot at him. You notice he didn't actually hurt either one of them. I'm sorry," she said, the anger draining out of her, "I'm tired. You're tired. We're all tired. I need to sleep."

"I'm sorry, Jasmine. I'll get out of your way," said Mr Lancer. He paused in the doorway. "'Other shadows?'"

"When my brother learns a new trick, he uses it," said Jazz. "Goodnight, Mr Lancer."

Mr Lancer's reply was distinctly haunted. "Goodnight, Jasmine."