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In other news, I am super sick right now. I am sorry if any of you left questions in the comments. I will try to get to them later, but I am too sick right now. I do love reading your reviews. Sorry.

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Chapter 75: Not Dead to the World

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Tess brought them, sans Maddie, to a small waiting room. Adrestia and Alex were waiting there, the later flipping through a magazine.

"Hey," said Tess. "I got hospital security to put Maddie Fenton in custody. You're welcome."

"Thanks, Tess."

"Yeah, whatever. Where's Meg?"

"Sent her to the High Council meeting. You know, Alex, you can go try to catch up with her, seeing as you were so up in arms before."

"Nah. I'm kinda abrasive, if you haven't noticed."

"Trust me, I've noticed."

"Yeah, Meg is more calm. Like, you know, soothing."

"Okay, that's great," said Sam. "Really, but I want to know how Danny's doing."

Alex and Adrestia shared a glance. "We don't really know. Imhotep took one look at him, and carried him off to an operating room."

"Actually," said a smooth, deep voice, "I go by Dr Hope, now, Adrestia, if you don't mind. I take it that you four are his fraidmates?"

Jeremy shook his head. "I have no idea what that means."

"'Fraid' was originally a word for a group of ghosts," explained Sam, quickly, "but it refers to a more specific relationship. It's kind of a family by choice thing. But, yeah, the three of us are his fraidmates. Jazz is actually his biological sister, too."

"It's true," said Adrestia, leaning back in her chair, and putting one of her hands over her eyes. "Vetted by Hades themselves."

The tall, bald, teal-skinned ghost smiled gently at Jazz. "It's always a pleasure to meet one of the steadfast," he said. "If you three would like to come with me to a private room, we can discuss his condition. I'm afraid that the rest of you will have to stay here. Hospital regulations."

"No problem," said Adrestia. "We want to pick this guys brain, anyway."

"Hey," said Alex, frowning, "didn't you write the regulations? I mean, bein' in charge and all?"

The doctor gave her a blinding smile. "Which is why it would be so terrible for me to break them. This way, please."

Jazz, Sam, and Tucker then followed Dr Hope to yet another room, this one smaller, but with more comfortable looking chairs, more muted decor, and no magazines. A large window looked out over a courtyard with bright red trees and a blue pond. There was some kind of giant water snake in the pond. Jazz could see its coils. Typical Ghost Zone nonsense.

"Alright," said Dr Hope, settling into one of the chairs, and motioning for the others to do the same. "We have managed to stabilize Daniel's human half, however, we have yet to fully treat his wounds, and we simply do not have the ability to repair his core. Do you know of any adult ghosts in his fraid that we can contact?"

"Well," said Jazz, "there's Clockwork."

"Pandora," said Tucker.

"Frostbite," said Sam.

"Ah," said Dr Hope. "I won't ask how two of the seven Ancients is on your list. Unfortunately, we cannot contact them. They are in seclusion, in the High Council. Chief Frostbite on the other hand... I will have to send someone to him as soon as possible. Does Daniel have any allergies that you know of, or unusual reactions to substances? Or are there specific substances that he reacts well to? Substances that he has taken in the past?"

"I've got a list that I can give you," said Tucker, lifting his PDA slightly. "I, um, need a power socket, or something, though. This is about to run out of juice."

"There is one behind your chair," said Dr Hope, handing Tucker a pad of paper. "Would any of you three consent to donating blood? We have been supplying him with ectoplasm and saline solution, but that will only last for so long."

"Well, yeah," said Sam. "Sure. We're all type O, right?"

"Uh, yeah, I think so. I'm O-positive, though."

"I'm O-positive, too. Danny's O-negative," said Jazz.

"I'm O-negative," said Sam.

"Alright, we'll get a nurse in here to draw blood. In the meantime, Jazz, correct?"

"Yes?"

"I want to ask you to accompany me back to the operating room. We are still working on removing all the foreign objects in his system, and we have been considering some rather... aggressive techniques to solve some other issues. His brain is suffering from mild swelling, and we believe that he is also suffering from internal bleeding. The issue is that, not knowing what his unique physiology will accept, we have not been able to sedate him properly. We hope that your presence will help to calm him, until we have found something that we can use."

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When the doctors set up the ectoplasm IV, inserting the needle in Danny's arm, Danny began to regain a small sliver of consciousness. The ectoplasm, while not highly energized, carried enough energy to do that. It wasn't even as strong as it had been when the ghost had taken him from his friends. His senses were scrambled, dim. His memory of events leading up to this was all but nonexistent, blurred images of home, of school, of his lair.

He could feel pain. (Always, always, pain. Pain everywhere.). He could tell that he was lying on something hard and flat. He could tell that his clothes had been removed. He felt exposed, vulnerable. He could feel people touching him. People he didn't know. Touching him everywhere.

There was no way that he could move. He could hardly even conceive of movement. Instead, he curled, terrified, in the darkest, deepest corners of his mind, trying to hide, trying to protect himself. Almost, he tried to bury himself, but, despite his fear, he couldn't bring himself to cut even this tenuous connection to reality, to willingly blind himself, to render himself ignorant.

Unknown to Danny, the doctors operating on him paused. They were ghosts, after all. They could feel fear, and a variety of other emotions. But, in this case, fear.

This surprised them. They rarely had the opportunity to treat a liminal spirit, but even in their limited experience, they knew that they should not be able to feel his emotions this strongly. For a full ghost, they definitely wouldn't be able to feel them. Normally, a ghost re-absorbed almost all of their excess emotional energy before it even left their body. Yes, a liminal spirit was a bit different, but these waves of fear couldn't be accounted for with just that.

They could not stop entirely, however, despite how frightened the child was. They had to stem the bleeding first. They had no way to calm him.

They checked his pulse. It was fast. Too fast. Another problem. They checked his temperature. They hadn't the slightest idea what it was supposed to be. Too many questions, not enough answers, and the child was bleeding out on their table.

The operating room phone, a new addition, lit up. It didn't ring, that could startle the doctors, instead, it was attached to a bright red light. The doctors ignored it, a nurse answered it.

"Some of his fraidmates have arrived," he said. "Humans. They're sending them over."

Dr Hope nodded, and stepped away, pulling off his gloves. "I will talk to them. Hopefully, they can tell us something about his history."

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A nurse helped Jazz get into a set of pale green medical scrubs, and gave her a mask, and a cap to cover her hair. Their color was just a little more vibrant than the scrubs used in the human world, a little closer to ectoplasm green.

The nurse then led Jazz into the operating room.

Her breath caught in her throat. Danny looked terrible, worse than she had ever seen him, and he had been pretty bad the last few days. He was bleeding, his blood glittering, inhuman, swirling with ectoplasm. His scars were livid, pulsing, weeping clear, greenish fluid where they were cut shallowly, and thicker ectoplasm where they were cut deeply. His skin was pale, his body patchworked with ugly bruises, bullet holes, gashes, burns, and tiny splinters of metal. There wasn't a clear square inch of skin on his arms and hands, and little more than that on his torso. His face was only a little clearer, earlier, most of the cuts had been partially hidden by the tears his eyes had shed. Or maybe Jazz just hadn't had the time to register them. The ghost women had spirited him away almost immediately after he had collapsed.

"Here," said Dr Hope, motioning her over with one hand. "You can stand here. Hold his hand."

"He'll know I'm here?" she asked, her voice cracking, her gloved fingers wrapping around his bruised ones.

"Almost certainly," confirmed Dr Hope. "Please do not move, we are still trying to close these wounds."

"Dr Hope," said one of the other doctors. "We've brought the lapis forceps and the," the ghost's speech devolved into something complex and foreign-sounding.

"Excellent. These are to remove the bullets," said Dr Hope. "Our initial examination revealed that they are constructed of highly toxic materials. We wanted to remove them immediately, however, we had to consider our own safety." He picked up the first tool, which looked like a long pair of tongs with small, thin, square, blue stone plaques stuck to the ends instead of normal grippers. "You should talk to him," he said.

"I'm here, Danny," said Jazz. "It's going to be okay, we're going to help you." Then, realizing what would most care about. "You did it, Danny. You stopped them. We're all safe, now." She continued to ramble on, giving Danny what she hoped were gentle reassurances.

Dr Hope's hand hovered over Danny's chest. "There we go," he said, softly. "That's it, that's good, keep on like that." He lowered a visor over his eyes, adjusted the lamp over the operating table, and leaned over Danny.

He carefully inserted the forceps into one of the bullet holes in Danny's shoulder. There was an uncomfortable squelching sound, and Jazz cringed, her hands tightening around Danny's. A moment later, Dr Hope pulled a green-gray bullet from the wound, and dropped it in the equally blue receptacle that the other doctor had brought. That doctor began to pack the wound, and tape a bandage into place.

"There is one," said Dr Hope. "Eight more to go."

"Eight? He was shot eight times?"

"Thirteen," said the doctor. "The other five passed through. We marked the ones with bullets still inside with pink. He's doing awfully well. Don't worry. Don't worry." He went after another bullet. "It looks like the amount of toxic substance in these is very small. He is doing very well. You are both doing very well. Sana, how is that gash on his leg doing?"

"I almost have it stitched up," said the third doctor.

"Good," said Dr Hope.