Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom. Butch Hartman does. I would never dream of making money off his work, this is but one fanatic's homage. So please don't sic the rabid lawyer hordes upon me, there's not much for them to sue out of me.
Author's Note: Wow. One more chapter (and the epilogue) to go, and then Anathema is done. Dan really surprised me a lot this chapter, I didn't expect nearly so much broody introspection from him. I suppose even his dark little empty heart can be shaken by some time traveling goodness. Or badness. Or something. Anyhow, pay attention, those of you reading my other stories might spot a tiny little tie-in or hint toward Benediction here. And as always, your reviews are much appreciated!
Chapter 12 - Family
To Sam and Tucker's visible chagrin, Valerie picked up her tray and plunked down on the bench next to me. I noticed Sam was shooting the dark girl a look fit to burn Ember to ashes. Funny, I never recalled that much blatant disapproval for the huntress from my friend. Of course, I was hyper-alert due to the extreme proximity of my most persistent enemy, as Valerie nibbled at her fries. Perhaps in my weakness I had merely been oblivious. Yet one more failing of my useless humanity.
"I can't wait until the C.A.T. is over tomorrow." The huntress sighed, trying to diffuse the nearly tangible tension.
"Why are you worried?" Sam snapped. "You already work at Nasty Burger."
The look on Valerie's face was positively priceless. "How you do know about-" She whirled and glared at me, the expression a ghost of the glare she would hone to a lethal intensity in ten years' time. "Did you tell them? I told you not to tell anybody!"
I blinked, trying to recall the events in question. While it may have only been a matter of weeks for her, it had been ten years for me. "N-"
Thankfully, Sam spared me from fumbling for an excuse.
"Danny didn't tell us." She smirked. "It wasn't hard to figure out."
Valerie paled beneath her complexion. I suppose she was envisioning some teenage nightmare scenario. Oh no, how would the in-crowd react? Horror of horrors, she would never be able to weasel back into that obnoxious clique. Hah, not that it would matter in about two weeks. C.A.T. scores would be the least of her concerns when I returned from Wisconsin. She would have the entire city at her beck and call thanks to me. Paulina would be following her orders instead of looking disdainfully down on her. And Valerie was absolutely bent on absolutely annihilating me. Hah, that's gratitude for you.
"We haven't told anybody." Tucker broke the uneasy silence that followed.
Valerie relaxed visibly. Now if I could relax, things would have been peachy. One of my greatest enemies of the past ten years was sitting right there, right next to me and oblivious to the threat. The urge to simply blast her and be done with it was very nearly too much to resist. She was right there, and so vulnerable, so weak! ... And the way I kept seeing her looking at me, what was that?
She said... she loved me.
Was that not-a-ghost right? Had I been so stupid in my weakness to waste so much time mooning over Paulina that I didn't notice the two girls crushing on me the entire time? I narrowed my eyes warily as I considered the thought. Pheh, if Valerie had cared in the least, I rather doubt her reaction when I trusted her with my secret would have been to point a gun at me.
"Thanks." Valerie leaned back in her seat, returning her attention to her meal. "It's... well, I've gotta raise money for college somehow."
Hearing her talk so blithely about plans for a future that would never happen nearly set my teeth grinding in agitation. She was talking to her worst nightmare and two dead people! How much of a future was there to talk about in such company?
"Danny? You okay?" Valerie glanced at me.
"I'm fine." I muttered.
"... Danny, are you sure you're all right? Why's your voice sound funny?" Sam quirked an eyebrow, studying me from across the table.
I nearly froze up in a flash of panic. I'd let my voice slip, and far be it for Sam to miss such a detail! I coughed a few times as though clearing my throat, scrambling for a suitable answer.
"I think I'm just... kinda tired." I fibbed, barely keeping my voice in the proper pitch. I shot Sam and Tucker a meaningful look. "It has been an awfully long day, after all."
They caught my meaning, given they exchanged looks and shrugged. I had to wonder if they were suspicious. We were all idiots at times when I was still weak, but had they figured me out? I had very nearly blown it too many times, I had to get away from these memories before I simply threw caution to the wind and vaporized Valerie. She would die eventually, I would make sure of that. But she had to survive until at least two days after the C.A.T., otherwise my very existence could be jeopardized. While I loathed her with every fiber of my being, she did serve a vital role in making me shed my weakness.
"Maybe you should get some rest?" Valerie frowned at me. "You do look a little pale."
Aside from the fact I utterly despised her, I could very nearly have kissed her for providing me a plausible excuse for ditching the three of them. I forced an awkward smile. "Yeah, I probably should head home. I want to do some more studying before the big test."
Sam shot me a wary look as I got to my feet. I suppose she was still fixated on those test answers that she knew were still in my possession. I grabbed my tray and jammed the garbage into the nearest trash can. I had to get away, the sooner the better.
"See you tomorrow, Danny!" Valerie said cheerfully with a friendly wave. It's a good thing I wasn't facing her or the others, I know my eye color would have without a doubt revealed me.
"Right. See you tomorrow." Without looking back, I managed an easy wave as I forced myself to walk away at a relaxed pace. I wanted desperately to simply take off, fly through the roof, and lay flaming waste to the entire mall. The entire afternoon was nearly suffocating, masquerading as that weak child, surrounded by the very memories I wished so dearly to vaporize. When I had set out on my scheme to ensure that everything went the way it was supposed to, I hadn't realized how hard it would actually be to experience events all over again. Those people, my friends were doomed to die for my weakness, and now that I was strong enough to save them, I couldn't lest I trigger some catastrophic paradox. How terribly infuriating.
I fought down the destructive craving, opting to walk to FentonWorks though it would take considerably longer than flying. The last thing I needed was past-Valerie coming after me with her toys, even if she was laughably unable to so much as scratch my jumpsuit. I jammed my hands into the pockets of my jeans to hide clenched fists, stalking through the city streets. I'm sure I left Sam, Tucker, and Valerie in an awkward situation, given my two friends clearly didn't much care for her and her ghost hunting, a sentiment I agreed quite violently with. They could handle her for the time being; it isn't as though she had a reason to attack them. No, her beef was with the ghost-kid.
I scowled at pedestrians as I passed by, passing the time by trying to place faces and recall where I may have killed them. When there was a lack of those, I turned my attention to the streets and buildings. It was so very surreal to see such quaint old architecture, old buildings that had quickly fallen out of fashion after I started blowing them up. With the exceptions of FentonWorks, Casper High, the Nasty Burger, and just a handful of other old buildings, the Amity Park I destroyed had been vastly in favor of the high-tech office and apartment towers. Not that it had mattered much in the end. Advanced steel and fiberglass fell to pieces as easily as old fashioned brick and mortar.
I paused at the front stoop of FentonWorks, gazing up at the painfully familiar building. The last time I had been inside was ten years ago, when Valerie shot me through the ghost portal. The home that had been denied me for years, an empty shell of a life I no longer could live. Pheh, I didn't need it, a place to hide in weakness. Ten years from now, I had finally destroyed the place, I had no attachment left to this past.
Not entirely sure what to expect, though I still remembered the night before the exam quite clearly, I shoved the door open and walked inside. I'm not sure why I remained so tense, half expecting to see my parents waiting in ambush with guns. They didn't know, and within the next twenty-four hours they would be dead anyway.
Needless to say, I nearly blew my cover when my father lumbered over, pointing a very gun-like contraption at me. "Danny, check it out!"
I hurriedly hid my decidedly glowing fist behind my back, taking several deep breaths to force myself to calm down. All these people from memory had my nerves on absolute edge. Not even being on the run from Pariah had left me feeling so high-strung. I took a step back from the large man, eyeing the weapon in his hands warily and squeaking out, "What... is it?"
Thankfully he hefted the weapon so it wasn't pointed right at me, beaming with pride and clearly quite content to blather at me about the contraption. "I call it the Ghost Crammer! When this baby is all done it should be able to shrink a ghost both in size and power!"
"... You're building a shrink ray?" A weapon to shrink ghosts? How ludicrous an idea was that? But then again, this was a man who'd built a ghost-seeking boomerang.
"Just think!" Dad draped one massive arm across my shoulders, gesturing with the incomplete gun in his free hand. "We'll shrink those ghosts, and then your mother and I can tear them apart, molecule by molecule!"
I slid away from the physical contact, trying not to cringe too much. Part of me was filled with merely an exasperated annoyance with the man, the other part bristled with absolute utter loathing for the idiot. I suppose it made sense, given the circumstances of my existence. In any case, he was an idiot who would be so much Nasty Sauce scented ash by this time tomorrow. I merely had to bide my time.
"You do that." I muttered, heading for the kitchen. "I'll be in the kitchen."
I thought I had been ready for anything after dealing with my friends and Valerie at the mall, but the sight of Maddie, of my mother standing at the sink cleaning up from preparing dinner froze me in my tracks. I felt myself very nearly blow my cover as I watched her attack the dishes with some sort of chrome and green scrubbing device.
"Uh..." I caught sight of Jazz sitting at the table and finishing her dinner, giving me a stern frown. What was with her? "I'll just... eat upstairs."
"Oh, Danny! When did you sneak in?" My mom realized I was home and dished up a plate full of what appeared to be some sort of meatloaf. "Still studying for the big test?"
I accepted the plate, taking great interest in the contents and avoiding her gaze. She was just as doomed as the rest of them, there was no sense in getting wastefully sentimental about anyone in the house. The sooner I could get away from them and hide out in my old bedroom, the better. I felt nearly ready to explode from having to maintain my disguise all day.
"Yeah. I'll be... studying."
I ducked out of the room and stealthily dumped the food into the trash, scowling as I invisibly avoided having to hear more about that Ghost Crammer. You really would think that the world's so-called leading experts on the paranormal would have detection systems in the house. I suppose I was fortunate both now and in my weakness that their ghost-detecting technology wasn't entirely perfected.
I didn't bother with the stairs, flying invisible and intangible right through the floor of my old bedroom, scowling at the childish decor. "My old room." I muttered, voice still pitched higher, just in case someone might overhear me. How many nights had I snuck out of those four walls during my weakness, looking for an outlet for the stress of fighting ghosts? I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror and walked over, one hand briefly running across my presently hairless chin. I had to resist smashing the mirror, I couldn't stand it, that weak child reflected back at me. "And my old face."
"Danny?" I was jostled from my musing by the sound of the bedroom door clicking open, Jazz standing in the doorway with a stern look on her face and my old backpack in hand. "We need to talk."
And my old sister, Jazz. I mused, moderately annoyed. I was hoping to go the rest of the night without dealing with family members, but the girl seemed adamant about something. "What do you want, Jazz?" I barely kept my voice in line, but gladly pumped the words full of disdain and irritation, a poor outlet for my frustration. "I'm busy."
"Yeah, busy cheating! Lancer was right, you did steal the answers!" She walked into the room, pulling a familiar manilla envelope out of my old backpack. The test answers that I would need in the morning. Apparently ignoring my glare, her expression softened along with her tone. "Don't you understand?"
"That I'll be destroying my future?" I interrupted her, not particularly in the mood for being lectured by a dead teen about ethics and the future. I laughed once, the sound bitter even to me as I grabbed the backpack and answers from her. None of this had happened in my recollection of events. What else was changed just by my presence? "You don't know the half of it."
She glared at me for a moment, which I had expected. She probably wasn't used to being so bluntly disregarded. I had been so very meek in my weakness, yet another undesirable trait that was purged ten years ago. But abruptly, like a deflating balloon, she slumped, expression shifting to something I simply couldn't read. "Danny... I know all of it. About everything."
What was she talking about? I jammed the test answers back into my old backpack, glaring in confusion as she bent down and picked up that stupid boomerang, looking at the weapon with that same strange expression. What was she blathering about? She couldn't possibly have meant-?
"That you're part ghost, that you were always doing the right thing with your powers." Her expression turned slightly stern, hands again on her hips. "Until now."
Even ten years free of those weak emotions couldn't have prepared me for that. She had known all this time about that? How had she even found out about my secret, and why hadn't she mentioned it before now? My surprised expression and even gasp of shock were entirely genuine, I'm ashamed to admit.
"You knew-?"
"I know." She reiterated the point, gesturing at me with the boomerang for emphasis. "And I've been covering for you with Mom and Dad because I'm proud of you, and the good that you do."
She had been proud of me? Well why hadn't she said something sooner? I considered my options. If she ratted me out, I might not even be able to take the exam, and no one would be meeting at the Nasty Burger at the time of the explosion. I considered my course of action. Acting hastily, though satisfying, would probably put my entire plan at risk.
She leveled an impressively disappointed glare at me. It was almost painful to know that she was going to have to die knowing her brother was a failure. "But not anymore."
Well, that clearly put me in a tight spot. I would have to do something about her so she wouldn't ruin my plans, or my future. She thought she knew it all, did she? I couldn't resist, I simply had to show her that she didn't know everything.
"You always were smarter than I gave you credit for." I let my voice barely start to slip as I glared at her, wide white rings flashing into existence as I very nearly burst out of my disguise, smirking down at her as I resumed my real form. It felt so good to be back in my real skin after trying to play the part of my weakness for the past several hours.
Her expression was wonderfully stunned, aqua eyes nearly the size of dinner plates as she looked up at me. If she knew I had been half-ghost in my weakness, she clearly knew what "Danny Phantom" was supposed to look like. And ten years later, I bear only a passing semblance to that scrawny fool. Perhaps she had thought to exchange the safety of my secret for blackmail, hence her clearly implied threat to tell Mom and Dad about my powers. The nerve, I wouldn't have thought her capable of such treachery. Such tactics would have been far more becoming of the cheesehead than her.
"You're... you're not Danny! That's why the boomerang wasn't homing in on your ecto-signature." She gasped, backing away and dropping the weapon in shock. Revealing myself to her seemed to be having the desired effect; she was too stunned to raise the alarm. And shortly she wouldn't be able to do anything to stop my plan. Still, it almost hurt when she pointed accusingly at me, voice terrified as she squeaked out, "You're not Danny!"
"I was." I remarked dryly, forcing a twisted smirk. "But I grew out of it."
Ah, witty banter, how I had missed it over the past few months of dealing with Valerie. Ever since the shield came down, she had lost all her flair for snappy banter. The huntress had become impressively ruthless, her hatred for me quite possibly an equal match for my own loathing of her. I would be able to return to the present day with some interesting new memories to blow to pieces. Perhaps taunting Valerie with that would pull her kicking and screaming from whatever holes she would be hiding in. Jazz continued to gape at me, still too shocked to think of raising the alarm or calling for help.
"The Danny you know is floating helplessly in the Ghost Zone ten years in the future." I growled at her, rubbing some imagined dust from my glove before clenching a fist. I'm not sure why I revealed so much. After all, I wouldn't be able to babysit her the entire amount of time remaining until the test. If she knew I was from ten years in the future, she might still be able to do something.
"He'll escape." Jazz declared, fists clenched. Clearly she had gotten over some of her shock, enough to stand defiant with such faith in my weakness. How could he escape? He was trussed up and trapped in the Ghost Zone with every ghost I had let get away. Really, vaporizing them had gotten quite dull in those last few years. "He'll beat you!"
I nearly laughed outright at that declaration. "How? Is the answer A- the Fenton Portal?" I grinned wickedly at that particular memory. "Destroyed it."
Given the horrified and worried look starting to creep across my sister's face, the declaration clearly gave her some distasteful mental image. Well, she didn't know that she would be long dead by the time that happens.
"B- The only remaining portal, the one my idiot cheesehead archenemy has?" I sneered. With Amity Park out of the way, I would need to redouble my efforts to find and dismember that old fool. I stepped closer to Jazz, nearly within arms' reach of the frightened teen. How strange to be looking down on my older sister. Payback for years of her nosiness and meddling. "Soon as I find it, that's going too."
I suppose the day was just full of surprises for the girl, that last declaration shook her momentarily from her fear. "Cheesehead-? Vlad Masters? He's your archenemy?"
I raised an eyebrow and ignored the interruption. "Is it C- You? No. You can't stop me from cheating on the C.A.T. and solidifying my future." I gestured, my hand surrounded by a green glow. Not enough to do any real damage. A loud explosion would have been sure to get unwanted attention. "So it must be D! None of the above!"
She didn't have a chance to cry out when I blasted her, the beam a fusion of the energy field I had used on Sam and Tucker and the charge I had zapped my past self with. She gaped briefly as I used the blast to lift her off the ground. In seconds she was unconscious, falling senseless to the floor. She would likely be dead to the world for the next several hours, and even if she tried to tell Mom and Dad, it was unlikely they would believe her story.
Feeling vastly refreshed by the exercise, I grudgingly changed form again, fishing the test answers from the old backpack. I was fairly certain I still recalled some of the test answers correctly, I just had to check to see if I was right.
"Well, what do you know?" I told my unconscious sister while I glanced over the answer sheet, laughing. I didn't even bother to mask my voice just yet. My parents were sure to be occupied downstairs. "The answer to the first question is D!"
I put the pack down and grabbed Jazz, positioning her leaning against the headboard of my old bed, a study guide tucked neatly under her hand. It wouldn't do for my parents to start getting suspicious. Knocking Jazz out was one thing. They had to remain oblivious until the critical moment.
I went over the test answers for a few hours. It had been far too early in the evening for Jazz to doze off studying even the most boring of subjects. I found my gaze drawn to the sleeping form of my sister, mixed disgust and annoyance dominating my thoughts. How dare she try to manipulate me, holding my old secret hostage like that? What business was it of hers whether I cheated on a stupid test or not?
Once I felt it was sufficiently late enough, I crept back downstairs, mentally braced for a second encounter with my mother. I had to be convincing, and in my weakness I would not have simply shoved her off my bed. I would have gone to my parents and gotten them to move the redhead.
"Hey, Mad-... Mom?" I mentally smacked myself for the near slip.
"Is something wrong, sweetie?" She looked over at me, shutting off the mini-welder she was holding. "Worried about the C.A.T.?"
"Oh, heh, no." I chuckled nervously. "Y'see... Well, Jazz was... she was helping me study, but I guess she was pretty tired."
"Did she doze off?" Maddie smiled slightly, clearly amused at the display of sibling devotion. Hah, if she only knew the truth of the matter!
"Yeah, and I'm about ready to go to sleep, but she's kinda on my bed." I fibbed. I didn't need to sleep, but if they thought I was done for the night, I would be able to get out of the house without worrying too much about them barging into my old room.
"Well you just go get ready for bed then, Danny." Maddie got up, Dad just a moment behind her as he finished the bit of needlepoint he was working on. "Your father and I will go make sure your sister is all tucked in, okay?"
I grinned at the pair. "Right."
I ducked into the bathroom upstairs to supposedly get ready for bed. Funny how years later I still knew exactly where the toothbrush and paste were kept. It nearly felt natural as I watched Dad walk out of my room, Jazz cradled in his arms and Maddie following close by. Finally, I would have some peace and quiet as I slipped into the room.
"Goodnight Danny, see you in the morning!" Maddie smiled at me as I shut the door, muttering a semi-legible response to the sentiment.
No sooner was the door closed and the light turned out than I was back to myself in that dark room, surveying the dimmed surroundings. In the dark I could still make out the features of the room easily with just the orange glow of streetlights outside. Trinkets and tidbits of a life I had long since outgrown. Funny how clearly I recalled each of those posters, that limited edition blueprint poster of the Explorer Hartman spacecraft, assorted space camp and rocket posters, telescope images of space. A shame I would never be able to actually make it into space, even ten years later I still occasionally wondered what that would be like. With the city destroyed, one could see countless stars in the night sky.
I shook my head, there was no point to getting sentimental about things that could never be. Come tomorrow afternoon, it would all be gone for good, the memories could be buried and left to rot undisturbed. I kicked back on the bed, the mattress creaking ominously under my weight as I listened to the sounds downstairs of my parents closing down for the night. Soon all would be silent, a poor mockery of that first night. Tomorrow night, I would be ten years away, and my weakness would be going through that long night of loathing; the silence then absolute and final.
I considered how I would pass the night. Like so many years ago, I could fly out the window and enjoy the night air a few hundred feet above the city. But I found myself unwilling to bother getting off the bed. I suppose I knew subconsciously that I wouldn't be able to restrain myself if I saw the city lights spread out so oblivious below me. So instead I leaned back on a bed too-small for my size and stared at the ceiling. Now that I was on the brink of witnessing that explosion, that old guilt I thought I had been free of was returning to plague me. Why was I so bothered? The past was dead, and I'd shed my weak human emotions years ago.
I growled at nothing and flew through the ceiling to perch atop the ops center. The vantage was displeasing, though since I couldn't see too much of the city, the urge to merely start blasting away was lessened. Even with the city lights, I could see a few stars overhead, visible around the absurd protrusions and devices jutting from the roof at bizarre angles. Ten years from now, I had to keep reminding myself. Ten years, and it would be so much broken rubble dashed across the ground. I would be truly free of those displeasing memories attached to the building, to those faces.
It was strange, I realized as the sky eventually began to lighten with the promise of dawn. This little time traveling jaunt was the longest I had gone in some time without actively destroying everything in sight. A temporary hiatus, borne only out of desperation to ensure my future. Everything would be back to normal, the way it should be when I discarded the time medallion stuffed under my jumpsuit and returned to the shattered present day.
I hopped from the roof and hovered, peering in Jazz's bedroom. Sure enough, she was still unconscious. Perfect; she would likely wake up well after I'd left for school. Hah, ten years later, and what am I planning to do? Go back to school. The thought was amusing in a dark sort of way as I phased back into my old bedroom and changed form. With any luck, it was the last time I would ever need to wear that disguise. I crept downstairs, the first one in the house to be up and about.
When my parents came downstairs, both bleary and in search of coffee, I was already supposedly done with breakfast, nose buried intently in a textbook so I wouldn't need to actually look at them. In less than ten hours, it would be all over and they would be in oblivion.
"Morning Dad, Mom." I muttered, pleased that I hadn't stammered or nearly slipped up.
"Danny?" My dad seemed surprised even through the morning brain-haze. "Why, you're up early."
"I..." I paused, chuckling slightly. "Just want to make sure I'm ready for the test."
"Well don't you sound confident?" Mom walked by, patting me affectionately on the head. "I'm sure you'll do fine sweetie."
Of course I will. I thought, grinning with anticipation. I'll just get caught cheating in the process.
"By the way." I addressed the two adults as I grabbed the backpack. "Tell Jazz I said thanks for the help studying last night. It was very... insightful."
"No problem, Danny!" My dad beamed at me over a cup of coffee. "You show those cats what for!"
I quirked an eyebrow as I walked out the door. He really was a most astounding idiot. I strolled at an easy pace through the streets, heading for my old alma mater. It was such a bright morning, with no hint of the dark clouds nor the disaster that awaited my family and friends at day's end.
I passed several familiar faces as I entered the school grounds, smiling darkly. Soon it would all be over, my future secure.
Soon...