Chapter Seven

CW: Description of injuries, emetophobia, brief mention of panic attacks, dehumanization

"Do you think we should let her know?" asked Tucker as he took a bite of his sandwich. A few tables over, Valerie was sitting with Star and Danny, hands moving animatedly while she spoke. He saw the Not-Danny give a half-smile as he tucked his hands into his hoodie, barely eating his food.

It had been just over two weeks since the conversation with Jazz in his room. His leg was doing better and he could walk without his crutches now, although it still ached enough that Tucker wished his Mom would let him keep taking painkillers for it for a few more days. Mostly he was glad he could walk fast enough to avoid the Not-Danny. So far it continued to give him and Sam a wide berth, clearly aware that they wanted nothing to do with it, but Tucker doubted that would last long. It would be too risky to let them continue to run around unchecked as long as they knew the truth.

At some point, the Not-Danny would make its move.

"About the Not-Danny?" sighed Sam. She rolled her eyes at the name at first, but within days both she and Jazz fell into using it. "No. The more people who know, the bigger the risk there is for everyone. Besides, I know Val carries around an ecto blaster, and she's just as likely to shoot him in the face as she is to try and help us save Danny."

"You're probably right. Any updates on Desiree?" Sam shook her head. It was stupid to ask the question, of course - she would have told him immediately - but he found himself getting impatient. Worried. And, as he watched the Not-Danny interact with Val, maybe just a little bit jealous. He missed his best friend.

Tucker felt guilty they hadn't put it together sooner, even though everything they read suggested that whatever ghost possessed Danny had full access to his thoughts, memories, feelings, and emotions. It would be able to perfectly mimic Danny with minimal effort, and it made Tucker wonder if there were more possessions out there than the ecto science community believed. After all, if it could blend in so seamlessly for so long while under the careful watch of a couple of ghost hunters, then it wasn't really a stretch to think that other cases of possession might be right under their noses. Tucker's dreams were filled with ghosts, mockeries of his friends and families as they were controlled by phantom figures, their cries echoing as they begged to know why he didn't save them, didn't help them, didn't figure it out sooner . . .

Normally Tucker had an appetite worthy of a champion eater, but today, he could barely take a bite of his sandwich and stuffed it back into his bag. Sam frowned at him as he stood up. "I forgot a book in my locker. I'll meet you in class?"

"You sure you don't want company?" Sam gave the barest hint of a nod at the Not-Danny.

"It's fine. It seems too busy, and besides, I have the specter deflector," he replied with a grin, holding up his shirt just a fraction to show it to her, but he took the long way out of the cafeteria, hoping the Not-Danny wouldn't notice that he and Sam were both on their own. They tried to stick close together most days, but even Tucker needed a moment to breathe by himself sometimes, and Sam would be fine in a cafeteria full of other people. Tucker's locker was on the other side of the building from his next-period class. He really did forget a book, but while he probably could have skated through class without it, being in the cafeteria felt suffocating as long as that thing wore his friend's face.

As he walked through the mostly empty halls, he felt an uncomfortable tingling on the back of his neck. Tucker muttered under his breath and pulled out his phone, sending a quick text to Sam to see if the Not-Danny was still in the cafeteria, hoping his uneasiness was just nerves and not someone or something stalking him.

"C'mon, Sam," he hissed softly as he watched his phone and continued his walk to his locker, occasionally glancing over his shoulder, but despite catching no glimpse of his stalker, he grew more and more certain he was being followed. The realization that they might be invisible struck then, and he swallowed as he muttered, "This isn't fair."

"You're right, it's not fair," said someone, making him jump and drop his phone just as it buzzed with a text from Sam, and whipping around he saw Valerie standing behind him, her arms crossed as she scowled. "Can I have a word, Foley?"

"You on locker stuffing duty today instead of Dash?" he snapped, picking up his phone and checking the screen. Not cracked, thank goodness, and Sam's message confirmed that the Not-Danny was still in the cafeteria. Of course, Tucker knew that now, but he felt his heartbeat slow down to a normal pace, reassured that at least he wasn't about to be jumped by some awful ghost. "How the hell are you so sneaky?"

"Black belt," she said as if that explained everything when it explained virtually nothing. "Look, I know it's not really my business, but Danny's been pretty depressed lately. Like, worse than usual since your friendship break-up a couple of weeks ago. And he says it's fine and that he wants to give you space or whatever, but it's clearly not fine, and I never took you and Manson as the type to bail on Danny like Paulina and the others did on me."

The comparison stung, despite the reality of the situation. "This isn't the same thing at all."

"Isn't it? He mentioned he opened up to you and Sam about something and that the two of you totally freaked and couldn't accept it. Kind of sounds a lot like my ex-friends who couldn't accept my being poor after my Daddy lost his job." She tossed her curls over her shoulder as she fell into step beside him on the way to his locker.

"It's still not the same," said Tucker. "I know it probably seems that way to you, but it's not."

Val rolled her eyes."Fine. But look, I care about Danny a lot. He's a good friend."

"I can tell. You two seem pretty chummy lately." He couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice despite how much he wanted to. He hated feeling jealous of something that wasn't even Danny abandoning him and Sam for Valerie, but he couldn't help it.

"It's a show," said Val.

"So you're not his friend? You're just stringing him along for some reason?" snapped Tucker. His phone buzzed and glancing down he saw a text from Sam. The Not-Danny was on the move, apparently, but she didn't think it was headed in his direction right now. Crud.

"Wow, you hold a grudge, don't you?" she said, crossing his arms over her chest. "Because no, I'm not. I meant it's a show on his part, not mine. The smiles, the laughs . . . it's fake. I know what it's like to put on a brave face when you're hurting, and Danny's hurting badly right now. He'll never trust me the way he trusts you and Sam. He's only sitting with me and Star because his only other option is to be alone, and right now, at least, I guess that's worse. But at some point, that mask he's wearing is going to get too heavy and I think he'll stop talking even to me, and when that happens, I'm worried, Tucker. I just . . . I don't want to see him do something stupid. I don't want him to get hurt."

The use of his first name jarred him, and as he walked over to his locker he spun the combination on auto-pilot. Although he knew Sam had suggested he not give a warning, well . . . he had to let her know something, right? Val was clearly super worried, and he genuinely believed that she cared deeply about Danny despite everything. "Look, I promise you that we haven't abandoned him. The things going on right now are way worse and way weirder than you think."

Valerie chuckled as he pulled his missing book out of his locker and then slammed the door shut, his nerves getting the better of him. "Y'know, he said almost the exact same thing when I talked to him about it a couple of weeks ago. Kind of crazy how that–"

She stopped when suddenly her watch beeped. "Ghost?" he whispered, and Valerie nodded as she grabbed his hand and pulled him underneath the stairwell nearby and largely out of sight from the hallway. "Any idea who?" His stomach twisted into a knot. Her watch never picked up the Not-Danny before. It couldn't have, or she would have noticed long ago that something was wrong with Danny even if Sam and Tucker hadn't. But what ghost, then?

"I don't know. I can't tell that from my watch," she whispered, fidgeting with it for a minute. "Why hasn't the school alarm been triggered already? This one's super close by. Maybe I should–" Suddenly her watch beeped again, and she scowled at it. "That's gotta be Phantom. How the heck does he always know about the ghost attacks so quickly?"

Hiding behind the stairwell, Tucker listened and watched the hallway as best he could, peeking uneasily from beneath the stairs. About a minute went by before the ghost alarm finally went off, and the halls were filled with flashing lights and the sounds of the other students evacuating. "Come on," said Val, grabbing his hand, and he shook his head, pulling back stubbornly. "What? Are you–you literally could've died in the attack a few weeks ago! What are you thinking?!"

"I need to find a ghost - Desiree," he said quickly. "There's a chance this is her."

"Are you hoping to wish for a prom date, Foley, because that's not a thing you want to ask her for. She'll twist whatever wish you're going to make," said Val, pulling at his hand again, but he continued to resist. Barely, though. Val's muscles were not for show. "Seriously?! Phantom's already here, you're not going to be able to–

"-I have to try!" he hissed. "You don't get it! It's for - it's because of Danny, okay?! I promise I'll explain after, just don't force me to leave!"

Valerie stared at him for a moment before biting her lower lip and sitting back under the stairs. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out an ecto gun along with what looked like a modified Fenton thermos. "You'll start explaining now," she demanded quietly as the number of kids in the hallway began to dwindle, and they crouched back further under the stairs to make sure they were out of sight of any passing teachers. She glanced at her watch uneasily, eyes on the two dots.

So Tucker launched into an explanation he didn't want to give about their theory around the Not-Danny, brushing past most of the critical points and boiling it down to the most basic parts. "Why not try wishing it out of him?" asked Valerie immediately, as if they hadn't already considered it a dozen times, and Tucker pushed down the urge to scream and pull his own hair out as he tugged on his beret.

"We don't know how strong the ghost in Danny is, and like you said, Desiree always tries to twist the wishes she grants," whispered Tucker. "We don't want to take the chance that she hurts Danny somehow or makes it worse."

"But you all think you're like masters of the occult? Sam attempted like a half-dozen seances and summonings and stuff that never worked in middle school and she never got it to work right," said Val.

"How'd you know about that?"

"She and Paulina and I all used to get stuck going to ritzy parties and each other's sleepovers," she shrugged. "We'd hang out sometimes because hanging out with our parents' rich friends was way worse. We did a lot of weird, dumb stuff back then. Paulina and I eventually grew out of it. Manson didn't."

Tucker tried hard not to roll his eyes at that even as he found himself grappling with the idea that Sam might have been friends with Paulina and Valerie once. She only started really hanging out with him and Danny during the last year of middle school. But despite what Val thought, there was no growing out of the paranormal, not in Amity Park, or at least not anymore. "Where are the ghosts?" The other students were gone, having all evacuated by now. No doubt Tucker and Val's teachers were panicking since they weren't at their class meeting spots. Poor Sam probably thought that the Not-Danny was murdering him in a closet, and realizing that, he pulled out his phone and sent her a quick text to let her know that he was fine and currently hiding with Valerie.

"They're close. So be quiet, and be ready," she instructed, and Tucker nodded as he watched Val aim the blaster carefully. It felt like they sat there for an eternity when suddenly a white and black streak went by and there was a loud smashing sound as something crunched into the nearby lockers. "Shit, that was Phantom."

"Wait, seriously?" Tucker had no idea how she could tell - the blur was too fast for his eyes to follow - and he was halfway out from under the stairs when suddenly a giant, mechanical ghost with fiery green hair appeared in their line of sight. Skulker. Tucker never felt as foolish in his life as he did in that moment as the ghost locked eyes on the two of them. The likelihood of a ghost being Desiree–of any ghost being her–was too slim. This idea was appallingly stupid, and as Skulker gave them a wicked grin, he realized they both might be about to die for his mistake.

"Stay there, whelps. This is not your fight. I come seeking a different prey today," he said as he turned back towards the main hall and, if Val was right, to Phantom. Tucker wished that made him feel remotely better, but his heart continued to hammer away in his chest, his palms sweating uncomfortably. "I will have your pelt on my wall."

"Unlikely," replied Phantom curtly, the static crackling over his radio, and there was a brilliant flash of light as Phantom released a massive ecto blast, pushing Skulker backward as the hunter ghosts's hastily constructed ecto shield shattered from the blast. For a moment there was silence, and then Tucker heard Skulker's jets fire as he charged.

"I've been analyzing our fights," he said, and Tucker peeked out just in time to see him fly at Phantom as the ghost readied another blast. Before Phantom could release it, Skulker grasped his wrist and forced it towards the ceiling with a horrible snapping sound, the ecto blast fizzling out. Tucker and Valerie both flinched as Phantom screamed, his voice echoing and static crackling in the dim hallway as Skulker chuckled.

"I've noticed, prey, that you only attack with your left hand." He smirked as he pushed the arm back harder, making Phantom cry out again in agony as his knees buckled beneath him, and Tucker forced his hands over his own mouth as he tried to muffle his own cries. There was nothing he could do to help Phantom. He knew ecto blasters like Val's would be lucky to make a dent in that armor. But he had to do something, didn't he?

Didn't he?

"It's the little tear in your glove. That's the only outlet for your powers, isn't it? Everything else is blocked by the suit, which means that if I immobilize you there, then you can't do anything." Skulker leaned in closer, then, and with his free hand, he smashed a fist hard into Phantom's face shield and the permanently broken respirator. "My employer would love it if I would bring you to him. You're quite the curiosity, and I have to admit, prey, that even I want to know what's under that hood."

Please, please escape, Tucker mentally pleaded as he looked around, desperate for something that would let him help. He didn't want to die, but he couldn't sit here and keep letting Phantom be tortured, and from the muffled sobs coming over the radio, Tucker could tell he wasn't doing so good. Was this what Danny felt like when he heard the sounds of his parents hunting ghosts and then experimenting on them in their basement?

No, the Not-Danny. The real Danny had never heard it or was too suppressed for Tucker to know what he thought about it. But still, Tucker needed to do something. He didn't believe most of the ghosts were good, but Phantom saved them countless times. If any ghost deserved his assistance, just once, it was him.

"I'm going to shoot him in the back. You stay here," hissed Val, her thinking surprisingly in sync with his own, but at least she had a way to make a difference. Unlike him. Why was he always so useless?

"What? I thought you hated Phantom!"

"I don't trust Phantom, but he's our best chance at getting out of this alive. I don't think my blaster will do much to Skulker, but it might distract him long enough for Phantom to break free," she whispered, and Tucker nodded as he followed her. She rolled her eyes, but continued to carefully sneak into the hall behind Skulker, holding up a finger for him to stay back. As she did, he noticed something odd creeping from the tear in Phantom's glove and rapidly down the arm of his suit. It looked like weird, glowing, bluish white vines. Ice, maybe? So far Skulker hadn't noticed it as he pulled back a fist and slammed it hard into Phantom's face shield again. The surface cracked as the static roared over Phantom's radio for a moment before going silent, making Tucker wince as Valerie lined up her shot and fired.

Valerie aimed perfectly, hitting Skulker directly in the back of his thick skull, but as Tucker suspected, it didn't do a damn thing. The ghost turned and smirked at her, his hand never letting go of Phantom's wrist. "Sorry, whelp, but it'll take more than a pathetic little blaster to stop me from collecting my prize at long last."

"As if you could ever be strong enough," hissed Phantom, his voice echoing in the hallway and sounding wrong, somehow, and then it clicked. The static was gone, Phantom's radio broken. Skulker's blows successfully cracked Phantom's face shield, breaking off pieces and leaving large cracks. Greenish smoke hissed out from the cracks as Phantom's eyes glowed an eerie, pale blue, and it was only then that Skulker finally noticed that the ice that had been creeping up Phantom's own arm now encased his own.

The ice suddenly crystallized, sharply and perfectly, before shattering like a tree exploding in the middle of winter. Skulker's arm fell to pieces to the ground with Phantom's glove, but Phantom's hand, at least, appeared to still be intact as blue mist swirled around it. Howling, Skulker jerked backward, almost stepping on Valerie before she nimbly dodged out of the way, and then Phantom slammed his exposed hand through Skulker's chest plate.

Everyone in school had always heard the rumors that the real Skulker was nothing more than a tiny little blob ghost, but before this moment Tucker had never seen it for himself. Skulker shrieked as Phantom carefully plucked him out and sucked him up with his thermos while the metal suit crashed to the ground and smashed to bits.

"You both okay?" Phantom asked as Tucker helped Valerie to her feet.

"Are you seriously asking us if we're okay after all that? You're the one that's hurt!" Tucker gestured at Phantom's arm hanging limply at his side. Despite the cracks in his face shield, Tucker struggled to get a good look at his face, but he caught the faintest hint of snowy, white hair and intense green eyes. His exposed hand, though . . . he'd never seen anything quite like it. It looked like Phantom had dipped it into the night sky and pulled the inky darkness and tiny, blinking stars onto his own skin like a glaze, and the blue mist he saw coming off it a minute ago was now the same green as the smoke leaking from his helmet. The palm of his hand was a swirling galaxy in miniature with glowing threads trailing like lightning up his arm as far as he could see, and his claw-like fingers sent a shiver down his spine. Like most of the students at Casper, Tucker always imagined that underneath the hood would be someone human, not whatever this was.

Tucker forced down a shudder. People thought Sam looked creepy and judged her harshly for it despite most of her free time being spent reading and writing poetry, organizing rallies to save animals, and doing what she could to help the planet. If he could give Sam the benefit of the doubt, he could do the same for Phantom, especially since despite how creepy it looked there was still something oddly familiar about the ghost that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Valerie, though . . . he watched as she stepped closer and reached out, surprised at how gentle she was. "How bad is it?"

"Partially dislocated shoulder, I think," he mumbled. "I almost threw up. Can't imagine doing that inside a hazmat suit would be pleasant."

"Ghosts can throw up?" He could see a small smile around the broken respirator as Phantom laughed softly.

"Maybe? I don't actually know if I can. It just felt like I would," he said. His voice sounded so young. Through the radio it was always hard to tell and because of the hazmat suit everyone assumed he was an adult that died in some chemical spill or something, but now? He couldn't have been much older than him or Valerie. Just how young was he when he died? Eighteen? Maybe twenty, at best? "Thanks for, um, distracting Skulker like that, Valerie, but I wouldn't recommend jumping into a fight again. You could've been seriously hurt."

Valerie sighed as she crossed her arms in front of her. "I know it was stupid, but I couldn't let him keep hurting you like that."

"But I'm a ghost. It doesn't matter."

"It does, though - even if you can't die again, it definitely hurts, right?" said Tucker as he walked forward and then stopped just before touching his hand. The specter deflector was still on, and if he touched him, no doubt it would injure Phantom. For the first time since he was injured, though, Phantom glanced down at his exposed arm. Phantom flinched away from them, his hand twitching as he stared at it.

"Oh . . . oh . . ." he whispered, gently rubbing the spot on his palm, and something about the familiar gesture nagged at him but he couldn't place it. "I . . . um . . . sorry, it's just–I've never–I didn't know."

"Didn't know what?"

"That underneath it, that my hand and stuff . . . it's kind of creepy, isn't it?" His voice raised in pitch as he chuckled uncomfortably, and if Tucker didn't know better, he would almost swear that Phantom was starting to have a panic attack. Didn't he say he experienced them before when he helped Sam? Tucker couldn't remember.

"Dude, that's not even like the fifth creepiest thing I've seen this week." Tucker smiled, a futile effort to cheer him up, but he had to try. If nothing else, that, at least, was something he could do. "Seriously, are you gonna be okay? Is there, like, a ghost doctor we should call or something?"

"No-no, I'm fine," stuttered Phantom. "And, um, Valerie? Thanks again for the save. I do appreciate it even if I wouldn't recommend doing it twice."

"If you really appreciate it, maybe you can help us with something," said Val. "We need help for a friend. We think he's possessed, but we don't know the name of the ghost doing it."

Phantom was silent for a long time, then, and as Tucker watched the weird energy around his hands began to slowly dissipate, the claw-like hand becoming more human-like by the minute. "Possessions are rare. Ghosts need a sympathetic host."

"You mean like Danny wanted this to happen?" blurted out Tucker, and Phantom flinched.

"Danny? As in Danny Fenton?"

"Yeah, he–look, we know it sounds crazy, but it makes sense. Kind of." He felt so sure, but Phantom's reaction unsettled him. Maybe possession was as hard as the Fentons and the ecto scientist community thought after all.

"How? His parents are world-renowned ghost hunters. They would have noticed," said Phantom.

"Not if they didn't want to notice it," said Val quietly. "Kind of like me."

For some reason, Phantom seemed to give this statement much more weight than Tucker expected, and eventually the ghost sighed. "Listen . . . when I say sympathetic, I don't necessarily mean that Danny wanted to become possessed. It just means his body was a good host candidate for the ghost that attempted it. Depending on how long this has been happening, removing the ghost might not be possible. You could end up hurting or killing your friend in the attempt."

"We know, but the alternative is worse, isn't it? Being a puppet inside your own body or whatever while that ghost does who knows what? No offense, but that sounds like a nightmare," said Tucker. "We've talked about it a lot. If we could ask Danny what he wants us to do, we would, but we can't. And his parents, well, getting them involved seems worse. They love him and their intentions are good, but, uh, y'know. Road to hell and all that."

"But for us to figure this out, we need Desiree," said Val. "No one has seen her in weeks. Have you?"

Phantom went quiet again for a minute, and when he finally spoke it wasn't an answer to their question at all. "She'll twist your wish, you know. You'll just hurt Danny."

"We're not going to ask her to end the possession. Just a name, and then we can use that to free Danny," said Tucker. "And maybe she'll find a way to twist that, but we don't have a better option unless you know the name of the ghost possessing Danny or know some other way to fix possession that doesn't involve his parents."

"Even just a name . . . you don't . . . Are you sure this is really what you want to do?" Phantom glanced down at his hand again. At this point it looked mostly like an ordinary human hand outside of the strange, swirling galaxy on his palm and the glowing, fern-like scar spreading up from it.

"It's the only thing we've got," said Val.

"Danny's my friend. I'd risk pretty much everything for him," added Tucker.

Phantom studied them for a moment before he grasped at the strap around his neck holding his thermos. Unclipping it, he held it out to the two of them. "She's in here. I caught her this morning at a car dealership. Skulker's in there, too, but he shouldn't be too much of a threat without his suit. You should make sure you figure out a way to properly contain Desiree, though, if you're really going to go through with this."

"Thank you, Phantom," said Valerie.

"Don't thank me. This won't end the way that you think," he snapped as he turned away from them, but then he paused. "I am sorry, though. About Danny."

"You don't need to be worried about him. We're going to save him," said Tucker with a confidence he did not truly feel.

"No," said Phantom as he walked away and disappeared, but his last words echoed ominously through the hallway as the ghost alarm ceased at last. "You won't."

A/N: Thanks for the favorites, follows, etc - it's still very much appreciated!

A fair bit of the design for Danny and his ghost form in this fic is inspired by something very specific from Hazmat AU - while I've made quite a few changes to it, it's still pretty recognizable what the inspiration is if you've seen it before. Eventually I'll credit it here in the fic, but I haven't done so yet mostly due to not wanting to spoil too much.