Hello! I'm back! Or at least Mortified is. I've decided to post this a little early, so happy All Souls Day! Did you have a good Halloween?
I've started in on NaNoWriMo. I'm super excited. I've already got 1800 words written, so wish me luck.
Reviews are always appreciated! Thank you for all your feedback! I'm glad you guys don't mind my world building.
Just a warning before you start this chapter, I did say that Mortified was my attempt at squishing together as many DP storylines as possible. This does mean that some of them play out very slowly, especially as I add more. You'll see me start to squish in another one in this chapter.
Thank you for reading. See you on Sunday!
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Chapter 82: Informed Consent
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Maddie had, of course, tried to escape. She had even managed to get out of the room, once, by passing through the wall, a bizarre experience. However, she had been found, and brought back, this time with a beady-eyed orderly to watch her. They glared at one another for hours. Maddie was sure that she would have won the staring contest, if ghosts had to sleep.
Unfortunately, they either did not, or this one was just particularly well rested.
(Maddie found herself questioning all her assumptions about ghosts. Danny slept. Perhaps others did, too.)
Maddie found herself nodding off.
She wasn't sure how long she had slept before the door of her makeshift prison opened. She started, awake and wary.
"Hey, Mom," said Jazz dully. She had great, dark circles under her eyes, and her long red hair was half-tucked into the back of her shirt, which was new, as were her pants. She supposed that she should have expected that. The clothes that Jazz had been wearing earlier had been blood spattered, as were the clothes that Maddie was still wearing.
"Jazz," said Maddie, rising from the uncomfortable chair she had been given. "What's going on? How is Danny?"
"He's being transferred to a different hospital," said Jazz. "He can get better treatment there."
"What, where? When are we leaving?"
"We aren't. Danny asked me to stay with you. So I will. I think that Libra's going to send people to pick us up."
Maddie sat down, heavily, disappointed. "Danny is alright, though, isn't he?"
"He isn't well," said Jazz. "Everything that happened to him these past few days, it's catching up with him. He isn't pushing it back anymore."
"But, he'll be okay?"
"I think so."
Maddie ran her hands down her face. "Thank goodness." She paused. "What do you mean, it's catching up with him?"
"He isn't entirely in his right mind," said Jazz, a little reluctantly, glancing at the orderly. "He was having nightmares, earlier. Bad ones. Even Clockwork wasn't able to completely close all of his wounds. They keep opening back up. He got a nosebleed, earlier, too. They've got him on an IV, blood and nutrients. They've taken him off the sedatives, though, so that's good. He has a fever. They think that something might be infected, but they can't tell what."
"What do- What are they- What are they going to do for him? He isn't a ghost, they can't treat him like one."
"They aren't going to. They know about Danny. Just about everyone knows about Danny."
"Except us," said Maddie.
"Yeah, well." Jazz shrugged, bit her lip, and crossed her arms. She refused to look away, though. "The main problem is all the damage to his core, so they're going to fix that first. The concussion is a major complication, but that will heal on its own, as long as he doesn't get hit in the head again. The swelling is already going down."
"How?" asked Maddie.
"Honestly, I don't know. I don't think that they do, either."
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The carriage was painted red and white, and was drawn by two pairs of fiery white horses. It was large, wide, and there was a bed bolted to the floor between two sets of plush benches. There was no driver.
"It's an ambulance," said Danny. He was a little more lucid now than he had been earlier, he didn't feel so hot, so feverish, now that Frostbite was near, but his tone was still distinctly dreamy.
"It does look like one, doesn't it?" said Clockwork, taking a moment to ruffle Danny's hair. Danny wondered if he was pleased because of the buttons. That didn't sound right, though. Danny frowned. No, it didn't make sense, for Clockwork to be interested in elevator buttons. Clockwork was the Master of Time, not the Master of Buttons. That sounded like something Technus would say.
(Speaking of Technus, Danny was displeased with him. He couldn't quite recall why, but it must be serious. Something about the gym?)
(Did clocks even have buttons? Or just those little knob thingies?)
"Stopwatches have buttons," he said out loud. His frown deepened. "That didn't make much sense did it? When did you get me into bed?" (Unspoken: How did they get him into bed? He didn't want to go back to sleep.)
"No," said Sam, "and a couple of minutes ago."
"Oh. Okay. Grandfather, I think that I'm more awake, now. Probably."
"Yes," said Clockwork, "you are. But let us bide a moment longer. There is no hurry."
"But I thought-"
"Shut up, Tucker. Everyone knows that you don't think."
"Hey," complained Tucker.
"Tucker thinks!" protested Danny. "He's a member of homo sapiens sapiens! I know I said sapiens twice, but that's the full designation! That means that he thinks! Unless he's brain dead. Or secretly a robot." He turned wide, frightened eyes towards Tucker.
"Dude, I can't tell if you're joking or not. Also, why do you even know this stuff?"
"I don't know!" exclaimed Danny. Then he whimpered, pressing hands over his ears. "My head hurts."
"Sorry," said Sam, "are we too loud?"
"No," said Danny. "Just hurts." He pulled the blankets of the bed up around himself, and was pleased to find a block of ice at the foot of the bed. He put his feet on it and mumbled contentedly, his discomfort momentarily forgotten.
He did doze off, though he didn't mean to, and he didn't notice until he woke up, screaming about white suits and the smell of bleach. He decided that he must have been dreaming with his other brain, and left it at that. (How many of those did he have at this point? And he teased Jazz for being brainy.)
"What's going on?" he asked, fuzzily, once he got his emotions under control. "Are we there yet?"
"Almost," said Frostbite, peering out the window.
"I'm thirsty," said Danny. It really was more of an observation than a request, but he was pleased when a glass of water was pressed into his hands. He drank it, slowly, savoring the soothing effect it had on his throat. He must have been screaming for a while. "I think I'm awake, now. I want to know what you needed permission for."
"In order to repair your core," said Clockwork, his tone resigned, but patient, "we must touch it. We may even have to remove it from your body for an extended period of time."
Danny blanched, mid-sip, almost sucking water up his nose. "That hasn't really worked out for me in the past."
"I know," said the ghost, patting Danny's knee. "That's why we have to ask. Still, this won't be like those times. We would remove your core from your body, but we would not attempt to disconnect it, as you have noted, that would not go well, and we will not be attempting to separate the ectoplasmic and material parts of your body, which is what causes most of the other problems."
"You'd better not let my parents hear this," said Danny, voice soft.
"Yes, well, that isn't to say that such an arrangement would be at all healthy in the long term. Without your core in close proximity, the ectoplasmic components of your body would begin to break down, despite your formidable will, you would be unable to maintain the focus, and the division of attention preserving them would require. Not to mention the issues that your core would have, suddenly exposed like that."
"A temporary ectoplasmic body would provide some relief for that problem," said Frostbite. From his tone, this wasn't the first time they had discussed this.
"Yes, but the instructions his core would be trying to carry out all incorporate, all rely on, a partially material body, and on the excess emotional produced by his human half. Without those components, he would, again, in the long term, become quite ill, or perhaps even starve. Then there are the mental issues..."
"What if you fed him, the second body, human food?" asked Sam. She glanced at Danny and shrugged. "Just curious."
Frostbite laughed. "Then you might wind up with two Great Ones!"
"I don't like the sound of that," said Danny.
"It would act more as a duplicate than anything else," said Clockwork, reassuringly. "With a bit of effort, you could reabsorb such a temporary body, even if it had gained material components. The mental side of things, the lack of close communication between your two 'halves,'" Clockwork, amusingly, used air-quotes, "would be the real issue. Your human qualities temper your ghostly ones, and vice versa."
"So we'd get super Danny and fun Danny again?" asked Tucker.
"No," said Clockwork. "Those personas were the result of another factor, one not at play here. No, what would most likely occur would be that those ghostly qualities that you suppress most often would come to the fore."
"What about the human qualities that I repress?" Danny said, only half-joking.
"You have more experience being human. You know how to deal with those."
"Oh. Okay. Do we have to do this second body thing?"
"Not necessarily," said Clockwork. "It is possible that your core will respond quickly to treatment, but, otherwise, if we anticipate the need for multiple treatments, over a period of time, it would be better to house your core in a temporary body, rather than subject you to the trauma of having your core removed repeatedly." He squeezed Danny's knee, somehow avoiding the bruise Danny knew was there. "Do we have your permission, Daniel?"
"Okay, but what are you going to do to, you know, treat it? My core, I mean."
"A number of things. Mostly, just providing your core with the energy it needs to repair itself. Perhaps removing the equivalent of scar tissue, soothing areas that are inflamed, providing structure in places where gaps or chips have appeared, setting and sealing fractures."
"You could change a person entirely, like that," observed Danny.
"Yes, we are aware."
"Okay," said Danny. He swirled the last drops of water in his cup. "I give you permission."
