Is There Still

5

"I don't want to remember," Danny whispered to himself as he stared out into darkness that was liberally scattered with twinkling stars. He'd taken himself back up to the edge of the atmosphere, even now unwilling to take the last step into space while he fought the growing headache that was the result of trying to suppress the memories of exactly how he died.

He'd already died… how many times had he died? He thought about it and decided that it was completely wrong for anyone to have died as many times as he had. Only on a technicality, was it four times. He didn't relish adding a fifth to the number. The first and second, both when he had been electrocuted inside his parents' ghost portal and had gained his ghost powers. The third when… The third when Vlad Plasmius had killed him. The fourth the night that he'd killed Skulker, the memory of that death so vivid and real that he couldn't not add it.

If he let the memories come again it would be that much worse. It would be five times, and he'd remember it all. He didn't want to do that. He didn't want to remember the pain, the fear, the way Sam had screamed and cried. No, none of it, he didn't want any of it.

"Leave me alone!" he cried out, doubling over as his hands clutched his head. I'm dead, he thought frantically. It shouldn't still hurt, please, it can't hurt.

The air around him flickered and he groaned, unsteadiness making him drop hundreds of feet in mere moments as he tried to focus on the horizon, the curve of the earth, the way the sun was disappearing steadily behind it as the earth rotated on its axis. Twice as much as the faint taste of blood wound its way up his throat. He touched his lips and could only grimace at the green tinge across it before he lost the fight and the sky became a burnished blue instead of the night that had fallen.

"Please," he whispered one last time before blue eyes swirled into green and Danny found himself hovering above Casper High, students milling below as his body instinctively dodged an ectoblast that came close enough to try and singe hair.

He was only a passenger along for the ride, Danny realized as he shot off toward the park and away from the students who had just been released from school. The last bell had only just rung. Danny knew it somehow, knew that he'd walked out on class and would be in a lot of trouble if he survived… But he wouldn't survive, would he? No, because he was already dead, reliving a memory that had happened nearly two weeks before.

Sam. He glanced back and saw her pounding pavement after him, keeping a respectable pace up as she ducked into the park behind him, a Fenton thermos in hand and ready to be aimed if she got the chance. Sam, and not Tucker, because he was serving a detention that he'd gotten for distracting a teacher while Danny snuck out of class to deal with Skulker that morning.

A setup. Anger tore up inside of Danny as he realized it had been a setup from the very beginning. Tucker was serving detention to deprive Danny of that side of his support, Sam had… Sam hadn't gone to her detention. It was fuzzy, but it was there. Sam had been given a detention by Mr. Lancer himself because she—Skulker—had kept knocking her notes and English book off of her desk.

But Sam had followed anyway, something that hadn't been part of the plan Plasmius had made.

"Come now, little badger. Do you really think you can escape me?"

That hateful voice, the cultured tones. Danny wanted to turn back and let loose some of the power he'd gained at death on the older halfa and, even knowing that he couldn't change anything, tried. Nothing happened, he still flew on course over the park, and then he was crying out in pain as something drove down into him from above, and into the fountain, shattering the carved stone and making him shift back to human for a moment.

Blood, on his hands, across his side and left arm. Sam close enough to take a flying leap and barrel into Skulker where he was holding Danny down, and Danny jerked with the force of her tackle, blood spraying up and onto her face, smearing crimson against pale skin. That's how it happened, he thought faintly as his body regained his ghost form and shot back up into the air firing rapid ectoblasts at Plasmius.

Most went wide, but a few made it to him only to crash into a hastily erected shield. It had been on purpose, the myriad of missed shots. He'd been trying to distract Plasmius, hoped to get something through to hit him. I knew, Danny realized as he sat back in his body and watched another exchange of fire. I knew that if I didn't pull off a miracle I was going to die.

And that hurt.

"You can't protect yourself," and Danny gasped, shuddering and clutching his stomach as a well aimed shot hit him. "You can't protect your little friends."

Green eyes flashed and Danny found himself opening his mouth to fire off a sharp retort. "My friends can take care of themselves," he shot at Plasmius and dodged another blast. "At least I'm human, and not some crazed up fruit loop!" he shouted and managed to get a blast through to send Plasmius stumbling back through the air.

He only floated up and spread his arms wide, laughing loudly, darkly. "You don't really think that you are still human, do you, Daniel?" A blast took him full on in the chest and Danny fell back to the ground.

He managed to regain his knees, then his hands glowed in green waves of energy as he glared up at Plasmius. "I'm more human than you are, than you ever were!" he yelled at the evil halfa with as much defiance as he could muster.

He jumped back into the air, flying up until he was even with Plasmius and shooting him a fierce look. And then the expected screaming from below. "Danny! Look out!" Sam screaming his name, trying to warn him. He tried to stop himself, tried not to turn, but his body did, disobedient to his will. Skulker was below him, still on the ground, with Sam clinging to his arm and trying to keep him from getting a lock on him to fire one of his favorite upgrades.

He fired a fairly strong blast at the ghost and Sam's eyes widened and she flung herself back just in time to avoid being sent through the tree with Skulker as the green energy his him and knocked him back. And the fire in his side that made him scream, tore a ghostly wail from his throat and uprooted more than half of the park before Plasmius let him go and he dropped to the ground weakly, struggling to stay Phantom and not lose consciousness as Fenton.

He stayed, but barely, green eyes half closed and body trembling with the strain, with the pain.

Please, I don't want to, please don't make me, Danny pled silently as his body lifted back into the air. I don't want to know, I don't want to die again, I don't want to hear her scream again, please!

And a new blast of energy that ripped across his right shoulder drawing green blood, the sudden surprise, the new pain, the fear—the terror—as he realized that he hadn't been intangible when it hit him. That he'd been trying to go intangible, sure he had gone intangible, and he was still there, as solid as Danny Phantom was. As solid as Danny Fenton was.

"Do you like?" Plasmius asked wickedly as Danny clung to the oozing wound at his shoulder. "I call it the Plasmius Mortus. It negates intangibility in ghosts. In you, Daniel."

Danny shook his head and tried again, already knowing that it wouldn't work, but unable to stop the attempt anyway. He flew higher, angrily saying, "That's not possible."

"But it is," Plasmius said with a smug chuckle, and Sam screamed again making Danny turn, ready to dive and save her if need be. That was what had done him in. that Sam was there, that Sam had distracted him. He knew it, but he didn't blame her. She was trying to help, had helped him more times than he could remember. How could they have known that she would provide the distraction to create the opening for Danny's murdered to… murder him.

"Sam!" he yelled as he Sam Skulker grabbing on to her and shoving her into the tree trunk, the thermos lost and shining in the grass several feet away.

The ectoblast took Danny in his back, low and dead center, searing a gaping wound through him. He screamed. He fell and he screamed. Tears streamed from his eyes as wind burned them, and Danny tried desperately to shut them, to block out the sensation of falling, already knowing exactly what it felt like, not wanting to see the ground that rushed closer and closer.

He hit, hard enough that he heard the actual snapping of bone, the sickening crunch as the back of his skull collided with cement. The scream was gone, the breath driven from his lungs as a stabbing pain ripped through him as ribs pierced both lungs, shredded his liver and spleen, punctured his stomach and intestines in more places that he could conceive of. It burned, ached, and he opened blood blurred eyes as he tried to make a sound, any sound, anything to express the pain.

Nothing came but a sinister, satisfied laugh above him. "You see why it is named for death, now don't you, Daniel?"

It came closer, and suddenly he felt ice cold hands on him, fluttering at his throat, smoothing hair back from his face. Sam, it was Sam, he could see her almost clearly, even if she was tinged red with blood that he couldn't blink away. She was crying. That was wrong, Sam didn't cry, she shouldn't be crying. But she was, tears were falling onto his face and mingling with the blood, and he tried to move again only to whimper with the sudden rush of agony.

And then Sam screamed, her face turned up to where he knew Plasmius had to be. "Don't touch him!" she screamed. "He's already dying."

The very words he'd already heard her scream once, and his entire body shuddered. Another whimper, and he choked on blood that rose in his throat and flooded his mouth. It was thick and harsh on his tongue, salty copper as it dripped past pale lips and trickled down his cheek to curve down his face, beneath his ear and drip to the ground, adding itself to the crimson puddle already beneath him.

His eyes slipped back closed and he tried to force them open, barely hearing Sam as she whispered, "He's dying." He tried to breathe and couldn't even begin catching his breath, caught between the fierce aches throughout his body, and the burning pain that radiated from his back through him. He was crying. He knew it, knew that hot tears were sliding down his temples and mingling with his hair, with his blood.

Her hands were sliding along his face now, he could feel the warmth of blood smearing as she tried to wipe it away, her lavender eyes wet and pained. "Please, Danny, please hold on. Help is coming, please, just don't die," she whispered frantically, desperately to him.

He tried moving again, lifted a hand and dropped it as he realized it was red, bloody, coated, and he didn't really have the strength to move it any higher than he had. "Sam," he choked, using the last breath he had. Then his eyes slid closed, blue disappearing as blood flowed from his mouth, from his head, from his body. From enough places that he knew there was no way anyone could save him, even if he had crashed right into an emergency room, the best emergency room in the country, with the best doctors and the best equipment.

No, he'd been dead the moment Plasmius had shot him in the back.

"Sam," he tried to say again, knowing that if he did say it wouldn't be understandable. Oh god, he'd been so stupid. He'd never told her how much he cared, how much he loved her. That he would willingly give up his life if he thought it would save her.

She would blame herself. She did blame herself, Danny thought as he tried to pull himself out of the dying Danny's mind. She did blame herself, no matter what he'd thought.

"Oh, Sam," he whispered, and realized that he wasn't staring at darkness anymore, that he wasn't trapped inside himself anymore.

He tried to move, tried to leave, to go back to the night he had flown in to, nearly to the stars, and the bitter realization came that he was still trapped. Only now, he was in his new ghostly form, looking down at Sam, at his broken body.

I didn't know that the human body held so much blood.

It was bad. It was worse than bad and Danny's stomach roiled as he looked at his bleeding and broken body where it was caved into concrete rubble. The sidewalk had imploded under the impact of his body falling from so high above. There was blood everywhere. Splattered out in a gruesome spray, dotting his face, coating the ground beneath his body.

On Sam. Her hands, smeared on her face.

On Sam, who was only now realizing that Danny's chest wasn't moving, wasn't even trying to rise for one more desperate breath. On Sam, who was only now realizing that the blood wasn't pumping out of the gaping wound in Danny's abdomen, that it was only flowing sluggishly. On Sam, who was only now realizing that Danny's eyes weren't closed, but were half lidded and hazy, bright blue now a faded blue-gray in death.

"No." It was faint, it was terrible. Danny closed his eyes, not wanting to see the scene that might now play out in front of him, Sam and… Not him. Not him ever again. "Oh, no, Danny, no," she whispered, and it tore a gasping sob from Danny's throat as blurry eyes opened unwillingly.

"Sam," he tried to say, tried to touch her, but he couldn't. He still wasn't in control; he was still bound by whatever the Danny-that-had-been had done. It didn't include reacting out to Sam. It didn't include anything but the despair of floating there watching Sam as she collapsed across his bloodstained body and wept.

"Don't, Danny," she pleaded as Danny wished desperately that he could be anywhere but where he was. "Don't leave me, Danny. I need you," and she sat up, pushing lank dark hair back from dead eyes, blood staining a few pale patches of skin that remained at his forehead, underneath one eye. "Please, I love you," she whispered as she let her head drop back to his chest, oblivious of congealing blood that turned her hair sticky and damp.

"No." And this time Danny said it out loud.

The only other sounds were the faint but rising wail of sirens, the steadily hysterical sound of Sam's crying. And then no sound at all as Danny found himself floating back above the curve of the earth, his eyes staring blindly out into the darkness beyond the edge of the atmosphere. Ragged, choking sobs surrounded him, and Danny's gloved fingers felt at his cheeks, coming away damp as he realized he was crying.

Five times, he thought dully. Now I've died five times.

Aloud, "Oh, Sam," as the full weight of what he'd seen, what he'd relived fell across his shoulders with a sudden backbreaking intensity that threatened to drive him back down to the ground. "Oh, Sam," he said again, and the roiling in his gut doubled him over with violently painful heaves, nonexistent bile trying to force itself out as he tried to purge more than just the sick feeling inside him.

Then he floated at the edge of the world, silent and sad, body still aching and heart ripped and bleeding.