Is There Still
9
"Has he come out yet?" Sam asked Jazz from her perch at the foot of Jazz's bed.
It had been three days since Danny's near death in the park. Three days since Danny had returned from the dead and saved himself. Three days since anyone had actually seen Danny, or heard Danny. Because Danny had locked himself in his room. For three days.
Jazz shook her head miserably. "I wish you would just tell me what's going on. You keep bringing his schoolwork and I keep telling Mom and Dad that he's sick… I know you're lying to me when you say he's alright." Worried turquoise eyes lifted and narrowed at Sam and then Tucker who had hijacked Jazz's computer.
"I can see it on your faces. You're tired, you're scared. You're afraid for him, and you still won't tell me what's going on."
Sam sighed and ran a hand over her eyes. It was true that she, at least, was tired and scared. Tired enough that she had turned to actual makeup to try and cover the dark circles under her eyes. Scared because in the last three days Danny Phantom hadn't even been seen, and the Fenton's were being overworked with minor ghost breakouts.
"We can't tell you, Jazz," she finally said softly, knowing that Tucker would agree with her. "It's his secret, it's his life. When he can, if he can, I think he'll tell you." And admitted silently to herself that temporizing was the only thing she could do; how could she tell Jazz that even she and Tucker weren't exactly sure what had happened?
"I want him to tell me now," Jazz whispered. "I'm scared."
Sam grimaced and glanced over at Tucker who was trying not to look at Jazz. "I'm going to go see if Danny will let me in this time." Tucker snorted, his eyes still on Jazz. "We know he's up. We heard the shower."
She slid off the bed and shut the door behind her smiling smugly when she heard the telltale squeak of bed as Tucker settled next to Jazz. Danny's door was still shut, but she reached a hand out to try the knob anyone, nearly shouting for the other two when it turned in her hand and the door swung in. his room was dark, neater than it had been when she and Tucker had dropped him on his bed three days before.
She saw a scrap of bloodstained shirt hanging out of his hamper against the wall and frowned. He hadn't let anyone see him in three days; she could only hope he'd kept up with bandage changes himself. His desk was clean, computer powered up but the monitor was turned off. His bed was empty and made. In fact, the only evidence that Danny wasn't acting like himself was the fact that his room was cleaner than it normally was.
But it was obvious that he wasn't there, and Sam sighed. He must have gone out flying, perhaps resumed his duties as Amity's ghostly protector. Or, she realized as she glanced out the window and saw a lengthy shadow against the ground, he might just be up on the Op Center. It wouldn't be the first time he'd taken refuge there. Her boots rattled the stairs as she hurried up them and then flung the door to the Op Center's desk open, smiling in relief as she found him.
He was standing at the edge of the deck looking out over the town, jeans riding low at his hips so that she could see the band of his boxers. Shirtless, and Sam's eyes immediately sought the places she and Tucker had helped him bandage. The back of his left arm looked much better, angry red scar tissue in half a dozen places where concrete had pierced. His left side wasn't too far behind she realized with a start as she realized that even the deep gashes he'd had were already healing over.
"How are you feeling?" she asked quietly from where she stood, wondering if he would even speak.
He turned and he was startled to see his normally clear eyes still shadowed, his face looking more haggard and careworn than she had expected. "I think the worst is past," he said, not explaining it, just standing there. He smiled weakly. "I'm still alive."
Sam nodded, her eyes burning as he said it, knowing that there had been a time when he wasn't.
Danny scrubbed a hand over his face, rubbing the bridge of his nose against the headache that holding back the memories gave him. It had taken three days for him to even be able to contemplate being around anything more familiar than his room, the one place he hadn't frequented in that doomed other life. And looking out at his town, his home, his territory… The memory shock was nothing compared to looking at Sam and hearing her cries echoing in the back of his head.
"Thanks for the homework," he said softly as he dropped down from the ledge the railing was anchored to, savoring the feel of warm metal beneath his bare feet. "I actually did it. Sort of." He smiled at her crookedly. "I need you or Tucker to tell me what the hell is going on in English."
Sam laughed. "I suppose I should be relieved that that's all you need help in." She looked up at him when he stopped in front of her. "Are you really okay?"
He shook his head. "No. But I will be."
She lifted a hand and smoothed it across his forehead, smiling as his eyes slipped closed and the furrows between his eyes began to smooth away. "Can you tell us?" she asked softly. He nodded and dropped his head to her shoulder, wrapping strong arms around her and hugging her tightly.
"I can tell you," he said hoarsely against her shirt as he straightened. "I can tell all of you. We should go interrupt them right about now." He shot her an almost wicked smile, the first truly Danny expression she had seen on his face since the day he had killed Vlad Plasmius, and gave a strangled gasp as she found herself suddenly sinking through the ground to land lightly in Jazz's room.
"I hate it when you do that!" she yelled as she punched his shoulder. "Next time warn me!"
Danny only sighed as he absently rubbed his shoulder and plopped down at Jazz's desk, amused at her red face and Tucker's dropped jaw. They were sitting close together, but nothing that would be truly incriminating unless you already knew something. And Danny, who did actually know, could only chuckle, making Sam smile again as she watched him make another tiny shift in his mind back to the Danny Fenton she knew.
"You're feeling better?" Jazz asked, her eyes lighting up. Danny nodded once.
"First things first," he said holding a hand up at the questions he could see building up in her head. He turned to Tucker, "Damage control. I know you said he stayed invisible when he pulled you out of detention, but he wasn't being too careful about not being seen when he went up against Vlad. What's the public reaction?"
"He?" Jazz asked.
"All anyone saw," Tucker said, running right over Jazz's question, "was Danny Phantom fighting Vlad Plasmius over the park. He was joined by another Phantom—he's being rumored as your ghostly cousin or brother. No one's making the resemblance; he was too high up for them to see anything beyond he had black hair and his ectoplasmic signature was blue."
Danny let out a deep sigh. "I know if anyone had known it would've hit the news already… But for some reason I feel a lot better now."
Tucker grinned. "Told you, nothing to worry about."
"Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?" Jazz yelled as she shoved Tucker off the bed and glared at her brother.
Tucker grunted as he hit the floor and stayed there, Sam smiled as she folded herself down next to him. Danny laughed, again, and Sam closed her eyes as he did.
"I can tell you, Jazz," Danny said evenly, casting a glance at Sam and Tucker. "I can tell all of you now. Jazz," he said entreatingly as she turned furious eyes on Sam and Tucker, and he knew that they had been covering for him with her while he learned how to control his new memories and powers. "What do you know?" he asked, turning to Sam and Tucker.
Sam looked down but Tucker met his eyes. "He had a Time Medallion, he was you, he was dead. That's it, Danny." Sam nodded still refusing to meet his eyes.
"Okay," Danny said with a sigh. "So, where should I start?" He tried to smile, and Sam's eyes shot up, hurt and dark violet.
"How can you make a joke out of this? You died."
"But I didn't," he corrected gently as she dropped her face to her knees. "Somewhere, somewhen, I did die. But not here, not now. Today," and Danny closed his eyes against the sudden flash of pain as he realized it. "Today I'm being buried there. But I'm not there, I'm here, sitting with you guys. Breathing, heart beating. Alive."
He paused, unsure of how to tell them how he died, or even if he should. But when three sets of fearful, worried eyes met his in return, Danny knew that they deserved the truth, too, as much as he did. Not all of it, he told himself, but enough of it that they would understand. He sat back again, threaded his fingers together and let his head drop back against Jazz's chair.
"There," he began, "I didn't come and save myself. There, Tucker stayed in detention. There…"
It was a long time in telling.
---
"Are you really okay?" Jazz asked quietly after Danny had finished. The sun had set hours before, they'd heard his parents moving through the house, even the faint knocking at Danny's door as their mother had tried checking on him. The worried sigh when she got no answer and found the door locked once again.
Danny shrugged. "I'm doing better. It's not making me run for the toilet every time it happens anymore."
Sam smiled a little. "Can you tell me about the part where Dash cowered like a little girl again?"
Tucker laughed. "I wish you'd taken pictures and brought them with you. Wait," he said with a frown. "They wouldn't have survived outside of time. Dammit."
Danny chuckled. "Well, at least you know it happened." He stopped for a moment, his head aching a bit more. "At least there's a real plus," he said with a faint smile and raised his left arm to show how well healed the slashes from the concrete were.
Sam had already seen, but even now it was surprising to see a week's worth of healing in three days. Jazz and Tucker, however were much more impressed, and Danny made the mental note never to let Jazz have a sample of his ectoplasm for research. He was still shoving her hands away when they heard heaver footsteps on the stairs, and Jazz's door was suddenly swinging in, sending Danny invisible and intangible, falling through the chair as Jazz hit the seat.
"Jazz?" Jack Fenton poked his head through and looked curiously at Sam and Tucker, not expecting to find them with his daughter. "I thought I heard Danny."
Jazz shook her head. "No, he's not in here. Sam and Tucker were just dropping off his homework."
"Oh."
Jazz winced at the painful sigh her father gave, and reached under the chair, giving Danny's now tangible but still invisible leg a painful pinch. She smiled smugly at the faint pained sound. "Don't worry about him, daddy. I saw him this afternoon, and he said he was feeling much better." She smiled brightly. "Danny even aid he'd go to school tomorrow!"
The pained sound wasn't as muffled this time, and Jazz managed to contain her laughter until she'd ushered her father from the room and closed the door behind him securely and Danny phased back up into the chair with an annoyed scowl on his face. "I'm not going to school tomorrow, Jazz."
"And why not, brother mine?" she asked, half curious, half amused.
Danny shifted in the chair, and then stood, heading for the door. "Because I still have questions that need to be answered." Without another word he walked through the door, Sam and Tucker following wordlessly as Jazz only sighed and sat back on her bed, most of the tension seeping out of her as she did.
"Danny?" Sam called as she saw him phase through his own door. She was surprised when it opened and he reached an arm to grab her, then Tucker, and drag them in before shutting and relocking the door. "You're still being weird," she muttered as Danny tugged a drawer open and pulled a shirt out, slipping it on and then following suit with socks and shoes.
He shrugged. "I'm not ready to see them yet," he said quietly. She saw a faint worried look on his face and realized that he wanted to tell his parents the truth. And a heartbeat later she realized what he already knew: that he couldn't. Without a life changing catalyst like Danny's death, or even the way he had been exposed the summer following their freshman year, there was no basis for them to be as accepting.
There was hope, but more uncertainty. And it hurt him.
Silence remained as Danny finished dressing before grabbing Sam and Tucker by the waist and transforming to Phantom, phasing them up through the roof and into the sky. Out of habit he angled himself towards Tucker's house and touched down lightly minutes later, glancing around quickly before shifting back to Fenton and turning to smirk at Tucker.
"What?" Tucker immediately asked, unnerved by Danny's grin.
"Dude. Quit sneaking around with my sister."
There were several moments of silence before the quiet was burst by Sam's laughter, and Tucker's vehement exclamations.
"How'd you know? You never said anything about that!" Tucker said.
Danny laughed. "I told you everything you know. That doesn't mean I told you everything that I know."
"Look, Tuck," Danny said as he grabbed Tucker's shoulder and looked him in the eye. "I don't care if you date her. You make her really happy," he informed the other boy, and Tucker flushed happily. Then Danny's eyes narrowed and flared green, sparking and beginning to leak tiny wisps of ghostly fire. "But hurt her, and they will never find the pieces."
"I would never," Tucker said evenly. He shot a glance at Sam who was nearly collapsed in mirth. "I could say the same."
Danny shrugged. "Just as long as we understand each other. I'll see you when I get back."
Danny let Tucker go and grabbed Sam, lifting them up into the air and making it out of earshot before Tucker had the presence of mind to shout, "Wait, where are you going?"
There were no words as Danny took Sam home, phasing through her bedroom window and setting her down on the floor before shifting back to his human self. The urge to touch her was an itch in his fingers, and unbearable ache that was echoed by the pounding in his skull as he remembered what she had felt like, though it had been gloved ghostly hands and not warm, living ones. The memory of her lips on his, the taste, the smell, the touch. It was driving him crazy.
"There are so many things I want to say to you, Sam," he said softly as he closed his eyes, letting a memory come to far into his mind and shuddering at the imagined feather soft touch of her fingers against his cheek.
Blue eyes flashed open suddenly, startled, grateful that it wasn't just a memory. Her hand really was on his cheek, and she was so close. "So say them," she whispered, lip held between teeth as she worried the flesh.
"I-I can't. I don't know how. Not yet." But oh, how he wanted to. But so many questions still left unanswered, and he was expected. That he knew without reason, beyond a shadow of a doubt. "Sam, I… I'll be back. I promise."
She nodded, eyes dark and uncertain. "I'll wait."