A/N: OK, uh...
I'm sorry about the long wait (again), but I swear that I haven't forgotten about this story, even it has been TWO months since I updated. School is really starting to get a little harder here, plus my work really isn't cutting me any slack.
I'll really try to update when I can...the problem is if I can find the time to do so.
Here's the third chapter.
Chapter 3 - Out of Focus
Whoever thought a simple sleepover would reach such lengths?
It was almost four o'clock in the morning, but with the activity going on in the Manson household, it seemed like it was the middle of the day. No more than five different cars had pulled up to the residence, some of them ambulances, followed by several firetrucks.
But of course, if there was ever someone sick the Manson household, both Mr. and Mrs. Manson made sure that everything was pretty much covered on a just-in-case basis. A great example was when Sam had the flu, when six people attended to her at the same time.
In the middle of all the chaos, three friends waited patiently, but nervously, as they waited for the condition of their friend.
"How's he doing?" asked Tucker, nervously drumming his fingers on one of his many PDA's.
"I can't hear a thing," said Valerie, pressing her ear to the door that separated them to the person they wanted to see on the other side. "All I can hear is a bunch of voices."
"Oh, that's absolutely perfect," said the other African-American, as he resumed pacing back and forth in the hallway. "He's our best friend, and we can't even get to see him."
"Well, if there weren't so many of these people, then perhaps we could actually get inside," said Valerie, still trying to hear through the door, trying every possible point to listen into. Then she stopped, and focused on one spot, her eyes widening.
"Tucker!" she said, motioning him over wildly with her arm. "Come here! I got something!"
"What is it?" he asked, hurrying over.
"You've got better hearing than me," she said, taking her ear of the wall. "Why don't you listen?"
Tucker went up to the spot and listened carefully. "Well...I can hear someone's voice...it sounds like they're doing some more tests...but I'm not sure..."
"Are they taking his blood pressure again?" asked Valerie. "They've taken it like five times!"
"You might count this one number six, then," said Tucker, chuckling quietly under his breath. "OK...he says things are looking good...but he's not sure...one more test, he says..."
"Another one?" asked Valerie incredulously. "How many do they have to do?"
"Don't know," said Tucker, still poised against the door. "Oh well, better hear if I can determine what it is..."
In deeper concentration, he listened. First there was silence...then...
...thump thump thump...
"What the heck?" asked Tucker out loud. "What are they doing to him?"
"What?" asked Valerie, curiously. "Let me hear." She pressed her ear against a spot above him.
...Thump Thump Thump...
"Whoa," she said quietly, her face slightly contorted in confusion. "What is that?"
"I don't know," said Tucker. "But whatever it is, it's getting louder..."
...THUMP THUMP THUMP...
"It's nothing I've ever heard from in a doctor's office," said Valerie, turning her head to concentrate more.
"Beats me," said Tucker, who still had that fear of the nurse's office at school. "There's just...something I think I know about it..."
...THUMP THUMP...
And suddenly Tucker found an understanding behind the thumping. Looking up at Valerie in horror, he saw in that split second that she formed a meaning behind it, as well...
The door suddenly opened into them, followed by the heavy footsteps of the doctor's boots.
"AHHH!" yelled Tucker and Valerie, as the door sent them toppling into the other direction, landing on top of each other on the ground.
"Are you all right?" asked the doctor in horror. "I'm sorry! I didn't know that there were people on the other side!"
Staggering up, Tucker brushed himself off and re-adjusted his glasses. "Yeah, we're fine. I guess we had that coming to us, trying to listen into that."
"Well, as long as you're all right," said the doctor, helping Valerie up from the ground. "The last thing we need are more patients at this time of night."
Valerie laughed. "Sure thing...and thank you."
"No problem," said the doctor, walking to his vehicle to get some equipment.
"Can we see him yet?" called out Tucker after him.
"One more thing," yelled the doctor. "Then we'll all be clear." He then disappeared to get something out of the trunk.
"Oh man, Tucker, you should've seen your face while you were falling!" said Valerie, unable to control a fit of giggles.
"Not as funny as you!" said Tucker, laughing back.
Both enjoyed a hearty spurt of laughter before Tucker saw the third member of the group behind Valerie, still looking as forlorn as ever as she was sitting on a chair staring into the fireplace.
"Uh oh," said Tucker, motioning with his head over to the girl behind Valerie. He walked over to her, Valerie close on his heels.
Tucker stopped to look at her side profile. The Goth girl looked like she was deep in thought, but she wore a look of fear on her face as she continued watching the dancing flames, not paying attention to anything else.
"Sam?" asked Tucker, trying to get her attention by touching her on the shoulder.
Not expecting it, she gasped a bit when she felt a hand on her shoulder, but then quickly relaxed when she saw it belonged to a friend. "Hi, Tucker," she said, with a bit of glumness behind her voice.
"Are you OK?" asked Tucker, crossing in front of her and slightly blocking the television of flames.
"Huh?" she asked, a bit surprised. "Oh yeah, I'm OK..."
Her voice trailed off. An obvious sign something was up.
"Sam," said Valerie, causing her to glance in her direction. "You haven't talked ever since all these people started coming. Something's up with you."
"No," she said, but knowing from the look of her friends' faces that they weren't buying into it. "It's nothing..."
"Is it Danny?" asked Tucker automatically.
She was trapped, and she started looking for ways out "Well...I...no...it's not like that...y-you see...I..."
"Sam..." said Tucker and Valerie at the same time.
Finding herself caught in her own words, Sam put her head down. "Guys...I'm sorry...I just..."
"You have nothing to be sorry about, Sam," said Valerie. "We're just as worried about him as you are."
"But you don't understand," said Sam. "I was the first one to see him..."
"We called for help," said Tucker. "And from what I see, it looks like things are pretty much under control." He paused to laugh quietly for a second as he thought of all those doctors on one person.
"Yeah," said Valerie, "just as long they don't do a test that accidentally figures out that he's, well...you know..."
Sam smiled a bit, knowing that Valerie didn't have to finish. Ever since those fateful days, she had been a perfect keeper of Danny's secret ever since she found out about it. She and Danny seemed to have patched things up pretty well, as they were a good team for catching ghosts. She and her father were also doing well financially finally. But what still bugged her was the exact details of how it happened - how Valerie found herself on the spot of first knowing about him.
But that was well beyond the point of interest.
"But I've almost never heard such a thing in my life..." she said, worry returning to her voice. "His screams...they were just, so..."
Her voice trailed off again as Tucker and Valerie exchanged worried glances.
"You know perfectly well that I'm used to his Ghostly Wail," said Sam. Tucker and Valerie slightly agreed. "But I just heard something else in that voice of his...something I know he'd been trying to hold back..."
"What is it?" asked Tucker.
Sam raised her head and once again stared at her friend directly in the eye.
"Jazz," she said simply.
The name caused memory shifts in all three friends' minds, as somehow they felt a creeping shiver run down their spines.
"But I'm sure he's fine..." said Valerie.
"It's been quite a while since the accident," said Sam, interrupting. "I just...can't stop thinking...how things must've been..."
"But that was almost half a year ago," said Tucker. "He's learned to move on..."
"But he lost someone in the process," said Sam, her voice quavering. "I know that he may seem fine to us, but there was just...something in that scream of his that summed up everything. You two have no idea what it was like...being the first to wake up, just listening to him...it was...just horrible..."
"It might have been something different," said Valerie. "You know dreams...they're almost never real..."
"Not from before," said Tucker, remembering the harsh past.
"What are you talking about?" asked Valerie.
Sam spoke softly. "A while back, Danny started having visions in his sleep. And for some reason, they seemed to have some connection with a person around him. He never told us about them in detail, but I first never believed him that they could actually be some type of calling...some premonition..."
"Wait," said Valerie. "Are you saying that Danny found some ability to see the future?"
"Not just a future," said Sam. "A foretelling of a tragedy."
"Foretelling?" repeated Valerie. "You mean, he knew that Jazz was going to die?"
"Not consciously," said Sam. "But...you know how it went..."
"But...how can we be sure that it wasn't coincidence?" asked Tucker, suddenly trying to erase that memory in his head.
"Because Danny had something exactly like this like before!" said Sam, her hands coming up to her face. Her voice had now risen, making Tucker and Valerie jump back a bit.
Quickly, she recognized her mistake, as her voice went back down once again. "I'm sorry..." she said. "This is...just too much for me right now...I'm scared."
"Scared?" asked Tucker. "Is this is the reason you've holed yourself up over here? Why are you so scared? What makes you scared?"
Sam glanced up as if she going to say it outright, but then quickly reneged as she buried her face back into her hands. "No," she said. "You two will probably just think that I'm just being paranoid."
"No, we won't," said Valerie, trying to reassure her. "What's on your mind?"
Sam looked back up once again, trying to see if she could actually say the words that she was currently thinking. When she saw from her friends that she had the ability to say anything, she decided to go along with it.
"Guys...we haven't heard from any major ghost in quite a while," she said. "I've just got this fear that something's going to happen at any point right now."
Tucker and Valerie once again exchanged quick glances.
"Those dreams...those premonitions...what if this whole process repeats itself...?"
The whole concept became clear to the ones listening. Was she talking about...?
Valerie's voice was shaky. "Y-You mean...to one of u-us?"
Sam nodded coherently.
"But you can't be," said Tucker. "What are the odds of that whole thing being copied once again?"
Sam dropped her head down back to the floor, as she knew she was getting the drawbacks she was expecting. "Tucker, like I said, it's only what I think. I know it's completely unlikely, but still..."
"I know that was a horrible event," said Tucker, still trying to use the same reassuring tones Sam desperately needed, yet at the same time feeling some reassurance to himself. "But only the most evil thing could ever attack in the healing process."
"But we don't know how these ghosts are," said Sam. "They could be thinking anything right now..."
"Danny's strong," said Valerie. "I can see what you're saying, Sam, but I know he can do this...no matter what the odds, whatever thing is thrown at him...I think he's amazing at what he does..."
The Goth girl looked up surprisingly at Valerie, who then quickly turned a shade of crimson.
"Whoa," she thought.
"Well..." said the hunter girl, still crimson, "I have been fighting with him for quite a while now...and you guys, being his friends and all, I thought you could be thinking along the same lines?"
Sam and Tucker chuckled a bit.
"I guess," said Sam, feeling a bit better after that laugh. "I'm sorry to worry you two...maybe that was out of the blue..."
"No, it wasn't," said Tucker, giving her a pat on the back. "You're just worried about him, that's all..."
"Yeah," she said, putting her head back down. "But now there's something else that's bugging me?"
"What's that?" asked Valerie.
"It's about Jazz...I can't help thinking about that night when she passed..."
"What about it?" said Valerie.
Sam once again claimed her innocence as she asked out loud, "Danny's new power...there's still something that he's still not telling me..."
Valerie felt her heart sink down to her shoes. She knew this was coming...
"Did Jazz...want to die that night? Was there something that she was trying to accomplish, enough to push me out of the way before she and I accidentally got in the way of Danny's Ghostly Wail?"
"But why would anyone want to die?" asked Tucker. "It doesn't make any sense."
"I know it doesn't," said Sam. "But it's...just too coincidental..."
Valerie could remember that whole thing, as the flashbacks passed through her head, tuning out Sam's questions...
"I'll never be able to thank Danny properly for that, but at the same time I can't even mention it to him...I just have this feeling that he could be hiding something...and it involves Jazz..."
Valerie's memories recalled words...
"Jazz..." said Danny. "You...put...your life essence into them...
"I knew I couldn't let her fate become mine..."
Part of Jazz was living inside her...and Danny didn't want Sam to know any of that...because telling her that truth would end up leading to a waterfall of other truths...
The ghost hunter was about to say something, perhaps to change the subject, until Sam said something that was like a godsend.
"Or maybe I'm just overthinking this thing way too much..."
Tucker started laughing. "Yeah, Sam, I think you're thinking about Danny a little too much these days..." He nudged her in the ribcage, to which she quickly responded by playfully pushing him off balance.
"AHH!" he quickly yelled, as he felt himself fall against the hard floor.
Valerie took the time of confusion to quickly enter back into the conversation, covering up her previous fears.
"I agree with Tucker," she said. "Perhaps I see something..."
"Hey, watch it or else!" said Sam, feeling herself redden.
Valerie laughed. "Heh heh...I'm just kidding, Sam. You know that."
Sam got off her defensive stance and soon started laughing herself. "Yeah, I know."
As her face lightened up, Tucker and Valerie knew that they had done their job.
"Thanks, guys," she said. "I feel a lot better."
"Anytime," said Tucker, straightening his glasses for a second time.
"That was close," said Valerie, breathing a sigh of relief on the inside. But she knew that Sam would most likely end up uncovering that truth any time now. It was only a matter of when...
At that point, the door suddenly opened to reveal the doctor that accidentally ran into Tucker and Valerie from earlier
"You can see him now," he said.
"Thanks," said all three at once, walking inside at the same time.
And there he sat on the bed, looking a bit delirious, but still fine.
"Just a bit of a shock," he said. "He should be perfectly fine...all I would like to know is why you had to summon so many of us..."
"Yeah," said Danny playfully. "I had so many people around me - it felt like I was on display at a museum!"
Sam reddened once again. "Well, my parents...you know how they are..."
"Well, I know now," said Danny, but at the same time laughing it all off.
"Anything else we can do for you, Mr. Fenton?" asked another doctor in the room. "Call your parents, perhaps?"
"NO!" shouted Danny, Sam, Tucker, and Valerie all at the same time. Then they all looked at each other, wild-eyed, making everyone else around them wondering.
"Uhh, sorry..." said Danny speaking up for the four of them. "My parents...their ghost obsessions...well, do you get my idea?"
Thinking for a second, the doctor just put his mind around the time his parents made a whole deal of putting their entire ghost house under quarantine because of some "ghost ecto-acne." It was quite an eyesore.
He laughed slightly. "I think I know what you mean," he said.
All four friends laughed. "Yeah," said Danny.
"Well, thank you, Mr. Fenton," he said. And he left along with others, leaving the four of them alone in the room.
"So, uh..." said Tucker. "How're you feeling?"
"I'm feeling OK," said Danny, putting his head down in a bit of embarrassment. "Sorry I caused such a ruckus."
"I'll say," said Valerie. "After Sam woke me up, I saw you screaming at the top of your lungs in your sleep!"
And Danny suddenly felt himself shiver. Everything about his visions came back in quick flashes to haunt him...
Including what happened after that...and that person he definitely wasn't wanting to see...
Dreaming within a dream...so cliché, yet something he didn't want to go through again...
The scary thing that continued haunting him...what was that message from Jazz all about?
And was this happening again?
"Sorry about that," he said, sheepishly, snapping out of his own reverie. "But I did kinda warn you guys that if we were all sleeping over, then I might end up talking in my sleep..."
"Well, we know that now," said Sam, sarcastically.
"What were you dreaming about?" asked Valerie.
This was it...
Would he tell them that he had seen himself dead, possibly bringing back up the facts that he could be seeing these things again?
...Or lie?
The first one seemed like a possibility, but then he started thinking.
When Jazz found out Spectra was after him that one time, she wanted to help him out.
And look what happened to her...
Did he dare risk it all once again? Have a person close to him just fade away once again?
He wanted so much to explain, but...no...he couldn't let it come out.
He didn't want them to get involved in that case it could have happened. History repeating itself, a loss of a person, was definitely not something he wanted to occur. And to one of his best friends, the only ones in the entire world who could understand his situation, that was to be an even fiercer dagger through his heart.
As much as he hated to, he had to keep it a secret...for now. Whatever it was, he had to duke this one out alone.
But the problem was coming up with a good lie.
"I...was just dreaming about Jazz...watching her last actions..."
He looked up, watching their reactions, hoping he had pulled it off. From the looks of his friends' faces, he knew he had them fooled. But then he felt a bit ashamed, feeling he had to use that as an example...
To help it along, he said, "Please...I don't want to talk about it anymore..."
"We understand," said Sam, her head down, imagining what she thought he dreamt about. "This isn't something you'd be wanting to say, anyway..."
"Yeah, I know," said Danny.
"Well, since we're all up," said Tucker, "how about trying to make breakfast or something?"
"Good idea," said Valerie. "All of that adrenaline made me hungry."
Sam laughed. "I think after that, we could all use something to eat. You with us, Danny?"
He smiled, as he slowly got up. "That sounds like a good idea to me."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
He watched, as all four of them went out of the room and into the kitchen.
When the last person left the room, he decided that he had seen enough.
Sighing, he shut out the image, and he took the opportunity to take a second and think about the whole thing. But unfortunately, he wasn't liking what he was seeing, as he put a hand to his scarred eye, feeling a bit disappointed.
"Ignorance through falsehood..." he thought. "This isn't the best way to solve this..."
Of course it wasn't...it was exactly the thing he feared to happen...he was just hoping that Danny would be able to figure this out for himself.
...because if he didn't...
...well, he hoped that he would find out by that time...
Again, sighing, he busied himself with his staff, which needed another winding. He could only keep wondering if there was a clue that he could make blatantly obvious to Danny.
But in doing so, suddenly flashes of an unknown event came to his head.
A dark night, followed by a rustling of the leaves...
...a brilliant ray of light...
...she, coming down to help...
"But is it enough?" he thought, as he let it continue flowing through his head.
He could only hope that it was.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
A/N: And there it ends. I would like to see if anyone out there can figure this riddle out...but of course, I hope you don't say any "spoiler" views out loud.
Reviews, please!