Disclaimer: I don't own DP!
Thanks to GhostCore, Invader Johnny, Lilith Jae, ShadowYashi, Yasz1221, Above the Winter Moonlight, Crystalmoon39, The-Mrning-Star, Trish, Margot-Eve, Turtledude83, Africanvintage, Silverstone007, ElectricThrillsAndChills, and Bree for reviewing last time! I really appreciate it!
Africanvintage: Thanks so much for taking a chance on these crazy Dan/Val stories! I'm glad you enjoy them.
Bree: Hey, long time no see! It was great to read your long analyses and reactions once more. But if Nathan would have been into necrophilia, what exactly do we call Valerie's attraction to Dan since he's technically dead too? XD
Well, you guys lucked out today. I was supposed to go to a Christmas concert with friends, but my new medication spiraled me into a blood sugar attack while dropping my blood pressure into the 50s and my body temperature way down. I couldn't even function for a new hours. So, since I missed the concert, I figured why not finish another chapter? If there's any major grammatical mistakes or if something feels too blurred, sorry. I might still be recovering, haha. Anyway, now that it's freakin' December, let's end this Valentine thread. And then I can at least say I got something done this year (ha!).
Warnings: Language and some sexuality
Deliverance
Shot 29: Dan's Secret VALentine Plans (Part 7 – Epilogue)
Sometime later, Dan rested on an infirmary bed in the med lab, looking ill and worn. He'd vomited up the blood that had been in his stomach, along with a piece of bacon his body had yet to convert into ectoplasmic power—and the last one of Nathan's bullets. "No more stalkers," he moaned, holding his stomach. "Never again."
Valerie sat beside his bed, holding onto a wet rag as she gently dabbed away the blood trailing down his chin. His flesh was solid and cool beneath her touch. Her fingers shook as she touched him. "You're lucky you're even here to complain," she said, failing to hide the quiver in her tone.
He closed his eyes, focusing on the feeling of the warm cloth as she cleaned him up. "Yes," he said with the slightest of humors. He was hoarse, voice ragged and uneven. "I'm a wounded warrior. Care for me."
She swept the wet rag down his chest, then rung it over a bucket. The water was turning pink and green in the swirls from his blood. "You're a disaster," she retorted roughly. When she looked up at him, her eyes were pained. "Did you knowyou would wake up?"
He was silent for a minute. Then, with almost petulance, he said, "I knew youwould not."
The Red Huntress gave him a severe look to offset the tears bubbling in her gaze. "You were gone for fifteen hours. I thought you were gone forever. You son of a bitch, you scared the hell outta me."
Dan's gaze was dark with curiosity as he moved his hand to grab onto her own. "Did you cry for me this whole time?"
The touch of his hand—the solid weight of his body—made her lips quiver. "I hate you, and I swear to god if you ever make me cry like this again, I'm gonna end you myself."
His pale lips stretched. Then he squeezed her hand weakly, his calloused fingers caressing against her own. He knew the words were simply words—it was unlikely if anything, considering recent events, could permanently destroy him. But something about the threat spoke to him of his value in Valerie's eyes.
The two fell silent for a time.
Valerie returned to her task of cleaning him up. Now that Dan was awake and growing more coherent, Kwan was hesitant to touch him. Some part of her didn't mind. It gave her an excuse to touch Dan without seeming as if she needed to. Dan's earlier purging of his system had left blood trailing all the way to his waist, and he was too shaky and exhausted to clean himself up.
As she swept the rag down his chest, she felt for his power core just beneath his sternum. The thrum was but a flicker, unsteady. It seemed sluggish and weak. His half-amused voice broke into her thoughts, "Not that I don't mind you feeling me up, but I am wondering where my clothes went."
The sudden subject change left her reeling for a second, and she pulled away, cognitively realizing that Dan still had naught but the white sheet tied around his waist, his body vulnerable and exposed in more ways than she'd ever seen him.
His head tilted to the side against the pillow, mussing his thick hair even more. "My eyes are up here."
Valerie blinked again, trying to wipe away her tears. She pulled away from him entirely, feeling entrapped. ""You were a dead murder victim," she retorted, voice hardening with disapproval at his insinuation. "Your clothes were put away in Evidence."
He huffed pathetically. "I need them. Now."
She remembered that Nathan and the D.A., Lester Green, were out for her blood, and that they had confiscated all the evidence related to the case. "Well, that's going to be a problem. We'd do better to get you something out of the lost and found."
He unhappily demanded, "Tell me you did not sacrifice my other clothing in a voodoo ceremony to bring me back."
The Red Huntress, eyes red from tears and worn from bone-wrenching stress, couldn't help but allow her eyebrow to raise in a typical, challenging fashion. "Maybe I did."
He released her hand, too exhausted to hold it. "Damn you, making me run around naked."
"You're not naked," she pointed out dryly, tilting her chin to the sheet wrapped about his waist.
"Doesn't count." Those false-blue eyes of his closed, and he moaned. "Just tell me that Nathan is dead, and that you will fawn over me until I am healed."
A tension seemed to stiffen Valerie's spine at that. "…Nathan's not dead," she said flatly.
"What?" His eyes snapped open in sudden alarm. "Did you not electrocute him? I remember—"
"—Yeah, but it just injured him." She looked uncomfortable. "And he remembers what you did. He knows you're a ghost, but he doesn't know who you are. News is spreading fast."
"Has he contacted you?" Dan demanded. "Has he been arrested?"
Valerie said tentatively, "He's got a lawyer. They're going to investigate this."
Dan beheld the tight look in her eyes. "This does not bode well for you," he murmured. "If you are not arrested by tomorrow, you will be soon."
"Well, I'm not going to run like a criminal," she declared with more confidence than she felt. "I've done nothing wrong. And you're human. We convince them of that, and people are going to bury Nathan and Lester."
He gave a moan. "Convince them? You devil woman—I am hardly out of the morgue, and you want me to expend more energy for you?" A human illusion was incredibly taxing to him. His power core was barely holding onto his illusion as it was—he did not know if he could even fulfill Valerie's demand.
She looked down at him, face twitching in guilt. She did not speak for a time, but instead leaned over and grabbed onto the bucket of pinkish water with the bloodstained rag. "This is payback," she said, disgruntled. "You got a lot to make up for."
And then she scrubbed at one of his limp arms, where flecks of green and red blood had dried. Her touch was soft and tentative despite the snap of her words. He watched her with a pensive expression.
"Perhaps you should lay with me, then," he said mildly. "I need to absorb your heat to simulate normal human temperatures. And you are quite sizzling."
Her jaw set to hide the spark of amusement in her face, the tears on her face slowly beginning to dry.
Sometime later, after Valerie was convinced that Dan would be fine without her, she headed up to announce the survival of "D" to her father and higher administration. This left Dan and Kwan alone in the same room together, for which Kwan was very nervous.
Dan eyed Kwan, expression unreadable. "You helped me," he accused.
Kwan's hands jerked with a flinch, and he nearly knocked over the sample vials of Dan's blood. "Um. Uh, yes." He swallowed hard, not turning around.
"Your name is Kwan," Dan affirmed, his voice a baritone echo against the walls. "I remember your face from long ago." His head tilted. "Are you the only doctor here?"
Kwan nodded, his entire body stiff.
The disguised ghost was still unreadable, even though he looked fairly harmless propped up on the bed. "You know what I am, and yet here you are. Harboring me."
The doctor shrugged, but his body shook in fear. "You looked like you needed help. I t-took the Hippocratic Oath, to help anyone who n-needed it. I couldn't just…walk away from you and Valerie."
Dan's lips pulled back in an odd smile. "And you would include your enemies as those under the Hippocratic Oath?"
"St-standard policy." As a doctor, the oath demanded he not turn anyone away, not even criminals—although Kwan wearily supposed that no one had quite tested the fine print of that oath like Dan Phantom.
"How lucky for me that you are enslaved by an idealistic sense of morality," Dan said. He leaned back against the pillows, stretching his back a little with a wince. When he touched his tender side, he felt again the alien stitches that likely Kwan had placed to close his wounds. "When will you remove this thread from my body?"
Kwan swallowed. "Do you—um, are you healing at all?"
The disguised ghost closed his eyes, searching for his power core. It was yet a weak pulse. "Hardly," he complained. "Thanks to Nathan's bullets, I could be several days away from regaining my full power." It was an eternity compared to his usual abilities. Damn that Nathan.
Even as they spoke, Dan's wounds were beginning to bruise again, the blood blooming beneath his ruined skin as his vessels worked to repair themselves. The doctor bit the inside of his cheek in thought. He said slowly, "We should leave the stitches in for a while. Valerie would kill me if you bled out again."
Dan measured up the human male. And then he nodded. "Your logic is sound. I will accept your advice and will tolerate this miserable thread in my body for now."
Kwan looked quite relieved that he had not upset Phantom. He did not know the ghost's threshold for anger, and despite his own personal hatred of the ghost, he did not want to express it in Phantom's presence. He quickly turned around to hide the shake in his hands. "I should…let you rest, then."
As he began to quickly walk out of the med lab, the ghost called out to him.
"Wait." Dan's baritone voice was strained in an odd way as he struggled to pull himself up to eye the man. "Your justice system is corrupt and will call for the deaths of yourself and Valerie if they were ever to know who I was. Valerie says they already suspect I am a ghost. But I will not allow this to end in their favor. I will need only your basic compliance to ensure my plan going forward works."
"Your…plan?"
"Yes," the ghost affirmed, looking tiredly mischievous. "We must discredit a few humans who are not deserving of life. Namely, that worm Nathan Green and his lawyer."
Kwan looked uncomfortable. "I'm surprised you would just want to discredit them and not…kill them."
Dan looked a bit put out as he shrugged. "Now that they have publicized their suspicions, I cannot kill them without confirming the legitimacy of their worries. To save Valerie (and you by proxy), I will turn their own legal argument against them. And they will suffer at their own hand." Then he added, a miserable amusement in his eye, "And Valerie would be cross with me if I violated our nonviolence pact. You must know how she gets when she's angry."
For the first time, a genuine smile crossed Kwan's nervous lips. "Yes. She has quite a temper."
Dan measured up the half-terrified man. "But what of you? You are obviously weak," he said, "and yet you are able to withstand my presence beyond most. Tell me, what drives you to neither cower before nor spit upon me?"
Kwan swallowed hard. "I am afraid," he admitted freely. "You killed my friends, a lot of my family."
The disguised ghost tilted his head, and a little demonic smile raised on his pale face. "Such things usually do not inspire tolerance."
"Valerie…says you've changed."
"Valerie is a manipulator like me," Dan admitted proudly. "She told you those things so you would bend your moral constitution with more ease. I do not care for those I killed, and I find the rest of the living to be a nuisance. Much like am I finding this conversation."
A spark of fear wavered through the doctor. "Oh." Kwan bit his lip, turning away. His heart sparked with anger against Dan Phantom once more. "But…n-not even the children? You don't feel regret about that?"
The most powerful ghost leaned back tiredly against his pillows, but his face twitched with an odd agony that was not from physical pain. "Why do you people always harp on the sanctity of children? Is it because they have not had a chance to corrupt themselves fully, and that you want to give them an opportunity to be corrupted?"
Kwan gave him a confused, embarrassed look. "N-no, that's not…it. It's the opportunity to live."
Dan's eyes grew sharp, and they narrowed. "Life is corruption. Children always grow to become monsters, abusers, murderers..." A mocking tone entered his voice. "Had someone killed me as a small child, I would not have existed like this to kill your family. What of that, good doctor?"
Kwan began to back away. "Not everyone becomes a monster," he said shakily.
The ghost's lips twisted into a dark smile, which was frail with sickness. "Yes, they do. Nathan is a brilliant example. Valerie is a monster in her own class with that wicked temper and her love for revenge. I imagine, if the right buttons are pushed, even you become monstrous."
The two fell silent at that. Kwan felt distant from himself, almost in awe that he was holding a fairly civil conversation with Dan Phantom, the Ravager of Worlds—a conversation about morality, no less. He swallowed hard. "And wh-what makes it right for you to punish or hurt people on your terms? You're not a s-saint. You call people monsters for the s-same crimes you c-commit."
Dan raised a brow. "Bold words from a small man."
Kwan understood he had pushed too far, but he stared at the ghost nevertheless, a hard line in his mouth. "Valerie really believed you were changing," he pressed softly. "After years of patching her up, I can tell when she's lying. I just wanted to…know if you'd just deceived her. I guess you did."
The ghost's face twitched with irritation. Something about Kwan's words did not sit well with him. "What, am I to fall sobbing with repentance? I have not killed one human soul in days. I have walked among your people and garnered respect from your elders. Is that not enough?"
The doctor grew more hesitant. "It doesn't bring back my family. Or the other five billion people you killed."
Dan's nose scrunched, and his lip curled in a snarl. "And how odd that you've become a more moral person because of it." He sat up a bit, arms shaking. "If not for me, you would have remained the lackadaisical servant of some idiot like Dash Baster. Easily swayed by the commands of your superiors. Valerie tells me you used to beat others at her commands. You monster, you. Where was your Hippocratic Oath then?"
Kwan's face flamed red.
"Do not speak to me with such hypocrisy again," Dan hissed, voice halted. "I am currently in a nonviolence pact, relearning human patterns. That is all you need to know. If you continue to leverage my past actions against me, then I will do the same to you, and I will enjoy tormenting you."
But then Dan's face twisted, and he gave an uneasy cough that reddened his lips with blood he struggled to swallow back. He could not allow himself to grow too angry—it seemed his body would not allow it. When he wiped away the blood with shaking fingers, he realized it glowed green. His control over his human illusion was tenuous at best. This was not good.
Dan closed his tired eyes, and with great focus, managed to cover the blood on his fingers with his illusionary power once more. The drain left him barely able to hold himself up. "I need your help," he said, voice rough with pain as he leaned back hard against the pillows. "If you do as I ask, I will repay you greatly in the future."
Kwan hesitated. It was always dangerous to make deals with devils—especially one as evil as Dan Phantom…
Rumors that D was a ghost had spread in hours, raising great heights of confusion and internal strife. People stared in fear and suspicion at Valerie, feeling at once deep sympathy about Nathan's horrific stalking and terror that Valerie was hiding just as big of a secret.
"A ghost?"
"Oh my god, I mean, he was kinda distant but he just looked so human—is that really possible?"
"It's the age of illusion, I'm telling you! Just when you think you know people—"
"—Green is saying that Nathan might have saved us all. That he knew Valerie had brought in a ghost?"
"—Was D dangerous? Did he possess Valerie?"
"Damn, I know Nathan's a creep, but if he saved us…"
"—Says that D was planning some kind of internal takeover! Maybe he was even working with Phantom to take us down!"
Those who had not seen Nathan's shrine fell for it. Lester Green, the portly D.A., carried the torch of Nathan's defense, demanding that Valerie reveal herself to be a fraud.
And then when Valerie and Kwan openly confirmed that D had reawakened from a "coma," the resistance erupted into total chaos. The jailed Nathan Green raised immediate suspicions, gathering supporters in a desperate plea that he had shot at D and Valerie to protect the resistance from its largest security breech ever. That his secret room with cameras and Valerie's pictures was actually an attempt to gather information about the conspiracy.
Lester Green remained adamant that Dan's "miraculous awakening" was all a trick, and that this merely confirmed D was not human. "I want an immediate ENA analysis," he demanded to Valerie's father in the sanctity of a private conference room. "My client is on trial for murder, and you're harboring a ghost and a traitor for a daughter."
Damien Gray's lips tightened in great displeasure. "Mr. Green, I understand you got a lot of responsibility in the civilian sector, but you are out of line with these kinds of accusations. Your nephew stalked my daughter and attempted to kill her and D."
"Mr. Gray," Lester said, voice a hard edge, "how much do you even know about D? You were looking to integrate him into your position, based off the recorded task logs I can find assigned to him. Did you even think to consider background checks, to question your daughter about his character? …Or were you also in on the takeover?"
The father's jaw dropped. "Now that's too far. I didn't know D very well, but I know there's no greater love than for someone to lay down their life for another. My opinion of D is far greater than my opinion of you right now. This is all just a smear campaign to hide your own family's problems."
"Then you are terribly deceived," Lester sniffed. "D is a ghost, and I am going now to obtain evidence to submit to the courts for an official hearing."
The father laughed, but it was bitter. "You're going to pointlessly try my daughter for treason and you're gonna torture the love of her life, who's barely woken up out of a coma—for what, Lester? Think this through. You're hurting yourself. This is just insane."
Lester Green gave him a falsely sympathetic look. "I'm afraid, Mr. Gray, you're only injuring yourself. I already have a warrant to run tests, and it will be tragic when you discover the truth. The law will require you to put your daughter to death for her crimes."
And then the overweight lawyer left him, out for D's blood and the preservation of the Green family name.
Dan was lying upon an infirmary bed, propped up by many pillows, wearing a shirt that was baggy even on him. The outline of heavy bandages ghosted down his torso. A sheen of sweat beaded at his temples, and he looked ill and weak as Kwan madly scribbled notes on a clipboard. Valerie paced before them before, her hair in a wild frizz from stress.
"You sure this will work?" she asked, voice hardly above a whisper.
Dan tiredly moved to gaze at her, his fully-black hair in an unkempt twist about his head. "Don't make me think," he moaned. "Your beloved doctor injected me with something."
"You asked me to make you look more human and sick," Kwan defended himself nervously. "It's just a harmless chemical to make you nauseated and give you a cold sweat."
The disguised ghost blearily looked up at Kwan and gave him an evil look. "You are enjoying this. I know you are."
The doctor seemed to hesitate with a stutter, then helplessly turned to Valerie. "When will Lester arrive?"
Valerie did not look up from her pacing. "Soon." Her heart was pounding madly. If anything went wrong, Dan would likely be captured and torn apart and she would likely be taken prisoner for crimes against Amity Park. "Lester's gonna come down here anytime and demand evidence."
"I will vomit upon his shoes," Dan promised airily, holding onto his stomach again, closing his eyes tight. "And in his briefcase. I'm sure he has one."
When Valerie measured up Dan, she realized the ghost was truly in pain. His breath was hitched oddly, his face haggard. He looked human in that moment. Helpless. It welled up something she did not want to admit she had for him. It was a deep protectiveness, even though she knew he deserved every ounce of pain he was feeling.
Damn him for compromising her sense of revenge. That puppy-dog expression on his face took away the fun it could have been to tease him for weakness.
Just then, Lester slammed open the door, carrying a recorder and his briefcase. Several people appeared behind him—resistance members with ecto-blasters.
Valerie stood before Dan's bed and crossed her arms. Her battle suit instinctively flooded over her body, the panels locking in tight. "Lester," she greeted in a spat, as if he were a disease.
Without any warning, Lester launched forward, moving his large self in a dark wheeze. "I need blood samples," he declared. "On behalf of the Amity Park counter-prosecution military courts."
"You have no right," Valerie cut in, eyes fiery, "to come in here and make any demands from anyone in the name of anything, do you understand me?"
Lester Green waved a paper in Valerie's face. "We have a warrant. And as you're likely a traitor anyway, you have no right to obstruct justice. Unless you'd like to be tried for that as well?"
Her face darkened, hackles rising. It took her every ounce of control not to strike at the man in whom she saw the same snake-like tendencies that Nathan had. The sudden similarity sent cold water storming down her spine. "You son of a bitch, you know I'm not a traitor."
The lawyer wheezed a bit as he walked his way to Dan's bed. "Then let's test that theory, shall we? Hello, D, is it?"
Dan eyed Lester Green as if he were struggling not to surge from the bed to choke him. "You look as if you'll die from a heart attack," he said blandly, arm shaking as he wiped sweat from his brow. His pale lips twitched in hard smile despite his nausea. "How nice."
"And you're looking a little more human than the last time I saw you," the lawyer said, beady eyes narrowed. "Regaining your power?"
The disguised ghost sniffed. "You're a lawyer," he accused. "What do you know of being human, you blood-sucking—"
"—So you admit to not being human?" the D.A. interrupted casually, unaffected by the insult.
Dan coughed in pain, leaning back hard against the pillows. He allowed himself to show great weakness, knowing that Valerie's future rested on his ability to deceive this man. "If I were a ghost, maybe I could've avoided being shot five times by your beloved nephew." A wave of nausea swept through him—damn that Kwan—and it forced him to close his eyes to recalibrate.
Lester's eyes narrowed. "Nathan says you quite…swooped in to save Miss Gray."
"It's Commander Gray," he corrected, voice lowering with a hard edge. He coughed again, only to wince when it pulled at his wounds.
The lawyer's smiling lips thinned. "Tell me, what does the D stand for in your name? Do you have a last name, or did you not think through your cover?"
The disguised ghost opened his eyes to glare. "If you knew the Fentons, you wouldn't admit your identity either."
Lester sneered, "I have many reasons to accuse you of fraud, forgery, espionage, conspiracy against Amity Park, and falsifying your own identity. Your simple existence as a ghost invokes the wrath of the Anti-Ecto Acts, through which we can detain you indefinitely and perform incredibly painful experiments until you fade out in misery."
Dan laughed, but it was a weak, harsh sound. Then, he reached for one of Kwan's scalpels on the nearby examination table. Valerie surged forward, fearing that Dan would kill Lester. But instead, the ghost flipped the blade, and without breaking eye contact with Lester, slit up his own arm.
Immediately, the hard cut welled a deep, vibrant red against his pale skin. "You want proof of my humanity?" Dan challenged, voice dark despite the tinge of pain. He held his bleeding arm out. The blood began to trail in rivulets down his wrist. "Take it."
Valerie looked at the blood, staring in fear as it trailed down from Dan's pale skin to drip to the floor. It would turn green. It would turn green.
But it didn't.
Lester narrowed his eyes at the sight. "I want DNA tests run, now," he said, turning to Kwan. "Cold hard proof. Just because I've never seen a ghost bleed red doesn't mean they can't."
Kwan moved forward. "Sir, when I performed an autopsy on D, all of his internal structures were—"
"—I don't care," Lester cut in. "The safety of my client and of Amity Park rests on this. Blood samples, now."
Kwan looked at Valerie for a second, then attempted to look professional and distant. "Of course."
And so the doctor tentatively approached Dan, who was still holding out his bleeding arm and looking almost as if he would rub it against Lester's fine tweed suit just to destroy the pattern. Kwan gently moved between the two, grabbing a towel to wrap Dan's injured arm. "If you don't mind, D."
"I hate tweed," he muttered, feeling ill. His body was not handling even the slightest drain of blood very well. That was good, he supposed. It would be more convincing. "Fuck tweed. And lawyers. Blood-sucking, mother-fu—"
"—Okay," Kwan cut in nervously, "I'm just going to take a sample here."
Dan barely felt the needle that Kwan inserted into his arm vein, but he watched his blood drain into the vial with half-lidded eyes. "Gonna drain me?" he complained, becoming more and more dizzy.
"You slit your arm," Kwan said, voice carrying a tinge of well-practiced, professional disappointment. "You're feeling that more than this." Then the doctor pulled away, unscrewing the needle. The blood in the vial remained a vibrant, dark red, same as the spots of blood leeching through the towel around Dan's slit forearm. "Here we go," Kwan said. He gave a worried glance at Dan's arm, then looked to Valerie. "Can you help him keep pressure on that cut?"
Without hesitation, Valerie moved forward, nearly shoving Lester out of the way. She gently grabbed onto Dan's injured arm, giving him a sore look to say, Why the hell would you do this, you idiot?
The look he gave her in return was almost mischievous. Theatrics, dear Watson, he seemed to tell her. The warmth and touch of Valerie again was, of course, a hidden benefit to slicing himself open. Maybe he'd do it again, just to watch Valerie worry over him.
At the door, the group of five or six stood with all of their weapons and ecto-blasts, waiting in great apprehension. Kwan inserted the vial into his analysis machine and flipped the switch. For a time, the silence was deafening. Then the machine whined up—the only noise in the room.
Analyzing. Running protein analysis.
The vial turned within the machine, then stopped with a harsh squeak. Analysis complete. Human DNA detected.
Dan was staring hard at the machine, as if in great concentration. The sweat upon his brow began to slip down his temple and into his hair.
Lester blinked at the screen, as if not quite registering yet that it had said "human" and not "ghost."
Running HUMAN database, the readout on the machine flashed, and the people at the doorway with their weapons and apprehension began to lower their barrels, looking surprised. Some looked guilty.
No 100% matches in HUMAN database. Closest relations: Unknown. Encoding sample to HUMAN database for storage.
Valerie stared with a clenched jaw to hide her amazement. It was working. Whatever illusion Dan had concocted with Kwan's help—it was working. That damn machine was classifying Phantom as a normal human.
Kwan, pulling on his typical professionalism with patients, managed to hold a steady persona as began to type on the computer to print out the test results. "Well, I think this is what you were looking for, Mr. Green," he said. "This blood sample is consistent with the protein matrix in normal human DNA—there's no ghost ENA in it."
The District Attorney, his reputation on the online, stared at Kwan in sudden, deep betrayal. When Kwan handed him the papers with Dan's test results, the man snatched them away. His black eyes read over the results once, then twice. "This is a mistake," he sputtered. "I want a second test—a second opinion. A new analysis machine."
Kwan pushed up his glasses, then turned off the machine and pulled out the vial of red blood. "The only other place on the planet with DNA analysis technology is Russia—and I built that machine too. If you'd like, we can arrange to have a blood sample shipped there? It could take a few business days."
The several resistance members bordering the room knew of Kwan's diligence as a doctor, and his machine was the final nail in their convictions. One by one, they began to leave, their expressions a twist of confusion and great guilt upon staring at both Valerie and Dan.
Lester could feel the air from the hallway at their departure. He turned around, realized he was the only one remaining, then wheeled back. His thin, aged lips tightened. "This is not the stone age," he hissed. "Surely there's a machine otherwise not built by you."
Kwan tried to give him a sympathetic look. "And we're not exactly living like we used to. Without Valerie scavenging for tech outside the Shield—" he nodded her way—"we would have lost gene tech entirely. I've spent the last two years trying to rebuild the databases."
The old lawyer sniffed at that, mostly to hide his ever-growing panic. When he glanced at Dan, he noticed the man looked even more ill than before, as if bordering on death. Valerie stood over her boyfriend's bed protectively, still holding pressure to his cut arm.
Valerie's eyes met Lester's and narrowed to slits. She snapped, "What, you happy with all the shit you and Nathan have made me go through? You gonna rail on Kwan for your own problems with believing Nathan's stories?" Her voice broke. "You've got your proof. Now just leave us alone."
Lester Green, considered a highly respectable man by most, realized that his reputation would not hold for long. Not if D were truly human. Not if Nathan had lied or had hallucinated D were a ghost. Not if Valerie played the victim card and revealed the truth behind Nathan's stalking.
He began to back away in racing thought. His (knowingly slim) chances of running the resistance were impossible now. Once the truth came out (those staunch supporters who had seen the test were probably already spreading the news), no one would ever trust the name of Lester Green again.
"If D is really human," he said slowly, calculating his future, "then it is best I drop the counter-prosecution. I suppose…these are dangerous times, with how easily false information gets spread."
Valerie's face twisted, and her whole body stiffened in anger at Lester's sudden switch in loyalties. "Oh please. You know Nathan lied to you. You just thought you could get something out of it."
"And you drove him to madness," the lawyer said, sniffing. "As he is my client, it was my duty to analyze all possible motivations for his actions. With this DNA test, I can now confirm that Nathan has been suffering from delusions and is not in his right mind. A plea of insanity is likely in order to save the poor boy."
The woman's voice grew harsh. "You do that, and I'll counter-sue for defamation of character. If you were just doing analysis on whether to believe Nathan, you wouldn't have dragged my name through the mud. You did this all on purpose."
Lester's eyes hardened. He never quite enjoyed losing a negotiation. "Would you have me watch my last family member die, Miss Gray?"
"—Commander Gray," she snarled. "Dammit, it's Commander Gray—and you know the rules better than anyone else. He stalked me. God knows what he did in that room of his. He tried to kill me. And you're just lucky that D woke up—or Nathan really would face a death sentence."
The lawyer held that snake-like glint in his eyes, calculating how to leverage for preservation of his image. "Yes, it is incredibly fortunate that D has awakened. Thank god." He could begin to see his own explanations for raising hell against Valerie and D. Nathan was his only nephew—his only family he had left. It was a cheap play, but everyone understood family loyalties and the need to protect family. And then the information leak of D potentially being a ghost, of course, could have been the result of an overzealous eavesdropper, who then spread the belief as if were true instead of Nathan's delusion….
Yes. Lester believed he could still save his image. All the pieces were clicking into place, even if it meant throwing Nathan lovingly under a bus.
Dan groaned on the bed, trying to pull himself up to eye the lawyer. "You…" His false-blue eyes, feverish and bright, stared hard at the man before him. Lester Green carried a darkness and hypocrisy in everything he did. It raised his anger. "Get out," he snarled. A vein appeared down his neck with the strain of his illusions and the sickness and the attempt to withhold his desire to slay the lawyer into bloody pieces. "Get away from Valerie and me. Now."
He appeared as if he had more to say, but then he felt something wet down his lips, and he realized his nose was bleeding. His vision pixelated, and suddenly his chest hurt so much that tears instinctively rose to his eyes. His entire stomach heaved; he began to gag up bile.
Valerie panicked, flinching away and then moving forward again to steady Dan. Lester backed away. Kwan moved forward, rushing to the bed in a flurry of movement.
"You should go!" Kwan called out Lester. "D's having a relapse—!"
The lawyer looked uneasy and nervous. "Yes. I see." And then he turned around and wheezed his way out the door, still carrying Dan's DNA tests.
The door slammed shut.
And then hell broke loose.
One of Dan's eyes turned a hot, bright red as his body rebelled against him. And for the second time that day, he found himself gasping for air as his stomach heaved. Only Valerie's strong hands kept him sitting up, one hand sweeping his unkempt hair from his face. The bile he gagged transformed into pure ectoplasmic blood.
It'd been all he could do to focus on the vial and mask its real contents. Such an action was bridging into telekinetic abilities—something he'd never quite understood or been able to perfect.
The instant his attention broke, the vial in Kwan's hand began to glow green, and Kwan nearly dropped it in surprise. "Oh my god," the doctor breathed, somewhat stunned at the sight of the disguised Dan Phantom vomiting up glowing blood and at the further proof in his own hands that they had all successfully managed to lie to a District Attorney. He shakily set the vial aside to help Valerie with Dan.
That frazzled fear had tightened Valerie's face again. "Kwan," she begged. "What the hell—?"
"—I don't know," Kwan snapped back, hands shaking as he searched for an anti-nausea shot in his storage cabinets. "He worked himself up. That shot shouldn't have done this to him."
Dan gasped, his red eye re-dilating to blue. Valerie helped him lean back against the pillows, and he sunk into them. As he breathed raggedly, he reached for Valerie. His shaking fingers latched onto her arm to hold tight. He seemed as if he wished to say many things, but he looked too green in the face to speak.
Something about him seemed to say, For you. Only for you.
With the confirmation that D was in fact human, the military courts charged Lester Green with defamation of character (on behalf of Valerie and D) and with having faulty judgment while representing a family member. But the slime of a man managed to maintain his credentials as a lawyer, spewing a heartfelt story over trying to help Nathan overcome his delusions by providing solid proof against them. Lester argued that someone overheard their conversation and went wild with believing Nathan, which Lester then used for leverage to get blood samples as quickly as possible.
It was a Machiavellian attempt, but it worked.
The courts maintained Nathan's charges, which included stalking, harassment, attempted murder of Valerie Gray, and the excessively more violent attempt to murder D (supposedly Fenton, even though there was no identification to be found—what with the end of the world and all). Nathan refused to speak to his uncle again but still took the advice to plead insanity before the courts.
While the courts debated Nathan's punishment for his numerous transgressions, Dan recuperated. It took him two days to heal to any degree, with Valerie apprehensively guarding him. But by the third night, Kwan told Valerie that Dan could finish healing in her room instead of the med lab or infirmary.
"You sure that's a good idea?" Valerie asked Kwan, crossing her arms. "He can barely walk."
Kwan lowered his voice, nervous. "He's getting more powerful and irritated. I want him out of here before something happens or someone sees something, you know? You can handle him."
"I heard that." Dan sat on the infirmary bed, looking pale and shaken. There was an awareness of frailty within him now that had not existed before. An understanding that even his ghost body had limits. That he could bleed and feel pain. He tried to hide it with a wane smirk. "Did I hear something about Valerie handling me?"
The woman glared at him. "Dammit, this is serious. Stop scaring Kwan so you can stay here."
His face fell a bit in irritation. "Scaring him? I made two measly comments about the particular snap a head makes when being smashed by—"
"—He's leaving with you," Kwan declared firmly. "He's well enough that he just needs rest, so I'm saying he's fit to leave and rest back in his own room. Or yours." He gave a sideways glance at Dan, still somewhat uncomfortable with him. "I'm sure he wants to be with you instead of me anyway."
Dan nodded to that. The full locks of his dark hair brushed against the sides of his face as he tilted his head. "You hardly left my side while I lay upon the bed, Valerie dear. Why the hesitance to take me with you now?"
"Because you're still healing," Valerie argued, eyes hot. "If something goes wrong with you again, you think my room's gonna have ectoplasm and transfusion equipment?"
That old glint appeared in Dan's eye, his thin lips stretching. "Your room will have you and a bed. What more do I need?"
"Legs that work," Valerie retorted. "And energy."
His smirk faltered. "I have legs that work," he argued. "And I am more than energetic today." He slipped off the edge of the bed, his feet planting firmly on the tiles. For a second or two, he looked almost back to his old self. And then the strain of standing began to wear at him. He struggled to hide a grimace, his right hand moving to cover his left side where his wounds were still healing.
Damn the Greens, he swore internally for the thousandth time. He was still feeling the effects of those bullets and his later illusions, which had wiped out every energy reserve he'd had. His physical injuries were tender and pulled with even the slightest of movements.
In that second, the concept of walking down that long hall to Valerie's room seemed dreadful. He knew that his wounds would reopen and he would collapse somewhere in the hall. He just didn't want to admit it.
He leaned against the bed again, nearly panting.
Valerie raised a brow. "Oh, yeah. You're the posterchild of health right now." She turned to Kwan and said, "He's not walking there or doing anything to pull those stitches."
Kwan said nervously, "And if we could get him out with no pulled stitches?" His eyes tilted toward the large storage closet behind Valerie. "What about that? If anything went wrong tonight, you know I could be there in a minute."
She looked pensive. "Well." She was getting tired seeing the infirmary. "What are your ideas?"
Kwan walked forward around Valerie, entering in a code for the storage closet. The electronic doors slid away, and he rummaged, pulling a few boxes off a larger item before rolling it out. It was a black wheelchair.
Dan's entire face fell into a twist of anger. "No," he said. "Absolutely not."
Valerie rubbed her chin. "I thought that thing broke. When did we get it fixed?"
Kwan shrugged. "This baby's brand new. Thought it'd be a good investment."
"No," Dan said more forcefully, nearly recoiling closer against the bed.
The Red Huntress made up her mind. She turned around to face him, chin raised high. "Well, you're the one who wants out. So it's either I take you out of here like this, or you stay longer. Your choice."
He huffed at her, hardly even able to eye the wheelchair. "This is an insult," he whispered lowly. "That you would even consider my acceptance of such—"
"—It's logical," Valerie declared. "You were shot five times. No one's expecting you to walk right now. This is just playing the part of D. Think of it that way."
His eyes narrowed against her. "Surely, you are gaining great enjoyment in my weakness."
"This isn't enjoyment," she said flatly. "This is necessary."
His lips curled in a snarl, and for a time he fell into a tantrum-like silence, as if he were a sullen, reprimanded child. He shakily kicked off the bed again, but it left him winded. As he stood, the wheelchair began to seem less and less intimidating. His resolve faltered. "And this is the only way you will allow me entrance to your room?"
Valerie nodded, eyes hard.
"…Fine." Eventually, he leaned forward and situated himself upon the wheelchair, trying to imagine it was not a wheelchair. It was cold if not entirely uncomfortable. A loss of control and a sudden sense of inadequacy swept through him. "You happy?" he grumbled. "Just get me out of here and back to your room. No stops. None of this ever again."
"Deal," she said. Dan looked excessively grumpy as he squirmed a bit in the wheelchair seat, and she had to press her lips together hard to hide a smile that would most certainly raise his ire.
"The cold, cruel universe," he complained darkly, tapping his fingers on the armrest. "That it should deem this my due—a wheelchair my throne."
Valerie walked forward and grabbed onto the wheelchair bars. "You're lucky you're not still in the morgue."
"Yes," he muttered. "At least I was unaware then." His fingers tightened on the armrest at the feeling of Valerie moving the wheelchair forward. He was not moving on his own power. This was a loss of control far beyond anything he had felt in years. "Do not run me into a wall," he demanded, almost panicked.
Valerie huffed. "I wasn't planning on it." But she continued to wheel forward.
"Now you're going too fast," he complained. When she slowed down, he then added, "And now you're too slow."
He heard Valerie inhale sharply. "Oh my god," she said. "Can't you just trust me?"
He nearly snarled at her to hide the sudden wave of uncertainty that swept through him. No, he couldn't trust Valerie, was his instinctive reaction. He could trust no one implicitly. But then…It was Valerie. The vengeful and hot-tempered woman for whom he felt great emotion.
Dan pressed his lips tightly to keep silent. At some level, he knew he could trust her. She had slept in the same room as him without stabbing him. She had opened her mouth to his own and run her fingers down his skin. She had worried over him for days and not once taken advantage of his weakness.
Valerie pushed along his wheelchair without waiting for an answer from him, and Dan dully watched the familiar scenery of the infirmary transform into the hall, then the atrium. Figures of others—some people he recognized—came into view, and he had to remind himself that this was all a game and that playing the part of an invalid human was not shameful if it were a game.
But instead of the pitying looks that Dan expected, he noticed people stared at him and Valerie in awe. They saluted Valerie first, then saluted him and stood at attention until they passed by.
Dan's grumpiness gave way to amazement. They would hold respect for an invalid human? "They are saluting me," he murmured.
"Yep," Valerie retorted dryly.
The look of respect in people's eyes left Dan somewhat unbalanced, and he looked away, feeling self-conscious. "But I did not exercise my power against them," he muttered in confusion.
The woman huffed, half-amused. "No, you did something better."
A great cognitive dissonance came over him. He had not beat them all into submission or decimate their lives, and yet here they were—their faces shining with an inspired delight to salute him. To salute D.
That he had gained power over them by simply raising Valerie's life over his own made him feel odd and small. That these people saluted him now in a wheelchair while still carrying weapons to defend their city against the agile and powerful Phantom—it made no sense—! Only the powerful had the guts to wring such obedience and awe from strangers! What was this? Why did they salute D, a powerless stranger in their midst still bleeding from his side and unclean with dirt and sweat, as if he were a commanding officer like Valerie?
Some part of him acknowledged that this was awe. For the first time in years, he felt awe.
Valerie shut the door of her room. "I took out the cameras," she said as she locked the door behind her, "and crushed them, so you don't have to worry about anything in here."
Dan still sat in the black wheelchair, looking somewhat lost. "Yes," he said distantly. "It is well you did so."
A silence came over them as she turned around to eye him. "You okay?" she asked. He looked pensive, and she worried that he would explode in anger for being paraded in a wheelchair. Or that he would relapse into sickness. Maybe they shouldn't have left the infirmary after all.
"No," Dan said. He looked down at his hand and shakily clenched his fist. His baritone voice was filled with an odd wonder. He did not feel like D nor Dan Phantom in that moment. His body was weak, but his mind was bursting with thoughts. Questions.
He braced himself to stand up from the wheelchair and did so with a grimace, his wounds catching. The tender skin erupted with a painful fire in protest of his movements. The next thing he knew, Valerie was by his side, catching him from falling to the floor.
"Dammit, don't move so fast," she hissed at him, taking on his weight. He leaned heavy on her, and she helped him to sit down upon her bed.
Great frustration wavered through him. "I tire of these wounds," he complained, fully worn out from his racing thoughts and the pain in his body. "This is ridiculous." He groaned as he leaned sideways on her bed, breath catching in a gasp of pain as his bullet wounds caught oddly. He hid his face in her pillow as he turned on his stomach to relieve the pressure on his injuries.
"Did you hurt anything?" she demanded. Her warm fingers pulled up his shirt without warning to view his bare side and back.
His lip curled in a hopeless disgust. "It was that worm," he moaned, voice muffled by the pillow. "Permanently crippled me."
"Oh, shut up," she said. "You're not crippled." She trailed her fingers down his pale back. Despite having healed, he had five scars—the skin raised and depressed in areas, rougher to the touch and still puffed from the removal of his stitches only a day ago. The injuries spiraled from his left side to up his shoulder blade. She pulled away from him, still looking at the scars bored into his back in the name of her protection. She swallowed hard. "And why would they be permanent? You can regenerate anything."
His face twitched. "Until today." He seemed almost depressed and had barely even acknowledged that he was lying upon Valerie's personal bed. He groaned as he turned over on the bed to face her. His whole body was sore and tender.
Valerie gently placed her hand over his power core beneath his heart, where he had showed her several days ago. She could feel its tired rev. "Your system had the shock of its afterlife; give it time to build back up."
Dan glared at her, huffing to blow away a strand of hair that was in his eyes. "I have had the patience of a saint for three days," he complained darkly. "I have given it ample time."
"And you're also using just as much energy as you're rebuilding, with this illusion," she said, raising a brow. "You're safe here. Stop looking human for a while."
He knew she was right, but he hesitated, hiding a small blip of self-consciousness with a tired scoff. "And then you will turn from me, for your affections are for D and not for your enemy."
Valerie crossed her arms and raised a brow. She was half-tempted to remind him that she'd admitted once to missing his blue skin and white hair—but then he would grow vain and arrogant, and she did not want to stoke his narcissism any more than necessary. "Just change back," she deadpanned. "Okay? I promise I won't turn away or whatever."
"I don't hold much stock in promises," he muttered, narrowing his false-blue eyes at her. Nevertheless, he allowed his illusion to lift. Bright, white rings appeared at his waist and swept up his body.
The next thing Valerie knew, she was staring at a blood-eyed Dan Phantom, whose blue skin was stark against her bed sheets, his limp, white hair spilling down her pillow. The true Ravager of Worlds. The sight was a bit startling after having seen him with pale skin and black hair for days.
A great relief came over Dan at the transformation, and he sunk into the bed . His natural form required far less energy than his human illusion. "Mmh," he moaned in delight, as if a fever were breaking. He could feel his body unburden itself, his tired power core re-diverting energy back to his injuries, beginning the slow process of healing. But he watched Valerie closely, his red eyes locked with hers to search for signs of a recoil or fright. Instead, he saw only a curious puzzlement.
"What, no jumpsuit?" Valerie asked suddenly, her warm fingers pulling at the loose hem of his shirt.
He raised his hand to grip onto her wrist. She was burning hot compared to the cool of his ghost skin. Her warmth was alien and beautiful to him. "It requires more energy to manifest it," he admitted easily, his calloused fingers running down the strong bones of her wrist. He did not want to let go. "The clothes you have given me are suitable enough."
His fingers made Valerie's dark cheeks tinge a bit red, as the smallest touch from him always seemed to convey such intimacy. It was as if a touch from him held more desire in it than all the moans she'd ever heard in dark corners of Amity Park. The ice of his skin crept goose-bumps upon hers, and she swallowed hard. "Well, you're keeping those clothes on if you stay on my bed."
A glint sparked his red eyes, which somehow seemed less demonic a color and more the color of roses and sunsets. "If I stay on your bed, where will you sleep?"
She paused, pressing her full lips together tightly. "I'll take the floor," she said. "You're the injured one."
"How chivalrous of you," he teased. "But Valerie dear—as your bed is suited for two, I believe you could lie beside me just fine."
She slipped away from him at that, her face flaming hot. For a time, she looked as if she would deny his request entirely. And then she realized that there were several tactical advantages to lying beside him while he healed. If he relapsed, she would be right there instead of on the ground where she could not see him. She could keep an eye on him for the sake of her own peace of mind. He could touch her with those damnably covenantal caresses, and she could touch him with the excuse that she was checking his wounds.
She sighed, and then kicked off her boots and climbed over him. "You're on my side," she complained. The mattress dipped with her weight. "And that's my pillow you're using." She collapsed down in a huff, feeling uneasy at lying on the right side of the bed instead of the left—and having a docile Dan Phantom stare back at her from the other side.
A sharp-tipped fang shined from his lips, which stretched into a genuine smile. "I almost get annihilated for you—and you complain about the position in which I've collapsed on your bed?"
"Hey, don't turn this relationship into an exchange," she warned. "You're not even supposed to be up here. It's only cause you're injured."
His red eyes turned to her, tired but just as mischievous. "Is that why you're lying next to me and comforting me in my hour of need?"
"Something like that," she said, raising a sculpted eyebrow as she pulled out her ponytail. Her frizzed ringlet curls bounced down her shoulders and onto the pillow, and Dan found the small action to be more interesting than even the limitless worlds of the Ghost Zone. He imagined it was because Valerie was not limitless. That this was a sacred, irreplaceable moment, and that the exact way her curls fell across those pillows would never be replicated again.
He nuzzled into her pillow, breathing deep her well-imprinted scent of sand and exotic flowers. He suddenly felt content in odd ways. "How delightful that you bend your morality to lay with me."
She raised a brow. "I'm not exactly bending my morality here. I just know you're too wasted to try anything."
The sight of her face next to his put thoughts into his head of the things two people could do on a bed. "Hmm. I don't know about that."
"The minute you get frisky, I'm shoving you off this bed, so keep that in mind." She poked his good side hard. "You're here to heal, ya got that?"
With a bit of a pained sigh, Dan pouted. "You're evil, more so than I am. If you were injured because of me—"
"—Don't you dare finish that sentence," she deadpanned, "unless you want to forget the last ten years of our lives and all the scars I've got from you."
He contemplated the truth in that, and then argued, "I have not intentionally harmed you in years."
"Doesn't get rid of the scars I got before you stopped," she muttered tiredly. Something about her words jogged Dan's memory of Kwan saying his current actions did not erase the deaths of his family or the five billion humans. It was a resigned judgment. "Lucky you, at least you can heal shit like that."
His face twisted. He tended to forget that Valerie was not physically able to heal all of her scars in the same way he could heal most of the devastating hits she'd placed upon him. He could vaguely remember the sight of puckered, silver scars upon her shoulder and was now curious of what other history she hid beneath her usual uniform.
"How many?" he demanded softly, his baritone voice a dark chill across her face. "How many scars are from me?"
Her lips pressed together. "Hell if I know—most of them."
"Then one day," he declared, "you're going to show me all these scars, and I shall count them."
The thought made her blush, as some of her scars were in intimate places. "Why you gotta count them?" she complained.
With a grimace, he turned on his side to face her fully, then leaned his head against hers so that their noses brushed. "I want to know," he whispered, his breath intermingling with hers, "so that I can lavish you with pleasures for each one."
Her teal eyes widened a fraction, and something in her stomach dropped hard. The blush on her face swept to the tips of her ears and down her whole body. She had odd images of her and Dan on a bed again, and his mouth doing something more than just speaking words. It was all she could do to sputter back, "I told you not to get frisky."
A devilish smile stretched his lips. "Ah, did I specify the kind of pleasure? Valerie, you dirty mind, you. What are you thinking?"
She narrowed her gaze at him. "You're supposed to be focusing on healing, not entrapping me." She pulled away from him, then turned on her said so that she no longer faced him. "Go to sleep or something, will you? It's my bedtime anyway."
The action twirled some of her curls into his face, and he sputtered, the hairs tickling his jaw. "It is not entrapment if we are thinking the same thing," he complained.
"Go to sleep," her voice was a groan. "Seriously."
He pouted at her, then winced as he readjusted on the bed, his back and shoulder protesting the action. "Will you sleep in your uniform, Valerie dear? And atop the bedsheets, of all things? It does not appear you've thought this out."
The lines of her body tightened in half-amused irritation. "Dammit," she breathed, squeezing her eyes shut. Her face flamed up again. "Can you just…not say anything?" She huffed a bit as she sat up, scooting herself beneath the blankets and grumbling under her breath. "You're throwing off everything I usually do, and it's all wrong, and…." Her voice trailed into a unintelligible mutters.
His lips stretched in a smirk as he watched her undo the buckle of her uniform's jacket and slip out of it. On some level, the two had become more comfortable with varying stages of undress, but Dan lying upon her bed made Valerie more self-conscious.
"Stop looking," she snapped. "Or close your eyes or something. And don't you dare say anything."
He closed his eyes, and then his smirk stretched wider into a delighted smile as he listened to the rustle of Valerie casting away her jacket, then wrapping herself in bed sheets and turning away on her side. The world fell silent for a time.
Tentatively he opened his eyes to a mass of black curls and a bare, dark shoulder. The lines of her body were hidden beneath the heavy winter blankets. And as he rested only inches away, he began to feel her warmth radiate into the bed. It crept into his skin, his power core drinking in the warmth as another energy to heal itself.
He cleaved closer to her, half-subconsciously nuzzling into her hair, breathing deep her scent.
Valerie's eyes snapped open, then narrowed. "What are you doing?" she demanded hotly. "You're already on my side and hoggin' all the space."
Dan's baritone voice was a vibration against her ear. "My side is cold," he murmured, almost petulant.
"You're cold," she scoffed, but she did not pull away. In truth, Dan carried a pleasant coolness in his touch which seemed to temper the heat that always left her burning up. Somewhere in her, she half-wished Dan would move closer and anchor tight against her—but she knew he was favoring his side and that such actions would cause him more pain than contentment.
The ghost closed his eyes, relaxing against the mattress and the curls of her hair. "Good night, Valerie."
"Yeah. Whatever," she muttered, shouldering her blankets, her body stiff with self-consciousness and anxiety in the silence between them. Silence was unnatural to her. It reminded her of the silence of Dan's body in the morgue and of the soundless recordings in Nathan's basement room, and of the silence when Nathan had stared at her in the court room…
But before long, the exhausted and injured ghost fell into a sound sleep, his breath a rhythmic lullaby against her neck and down her curls. Something about his presence carried enough vibration that Valerie began to relax, her fingers slipping from their tight grasp against the sheets, her eyes dully closing into slits. If she listened, she could almost hear his power core's hum and the way strands of his hair flickered against each other.
She tumbled into sleep, exhausted.
As they slept, the glow of Dan's blue skin began to steadily inch outward, his power core revving until he could have outshone the moon, the white locks of his hair flickering up. He burrowed tighter to orbit against the heat that was Valerie, which radiated stronger to him than even the sun.
And he dreamt of nothing.
The next day, Dan woke up late. He opened his red eyes to a curiously empty white pillow and an even more empty bedside. Something about this seemed wrong to him, although he did not know why.
Blearily, he wrestled against sheets (how on earth did he get beneath them?) until he managed to pull them off and sit up. And then he caught sight of his blue hands, the glow upon his body, the mundane humanity of the room. Instinctive panic overcame him. He activated his illusion without thinking, his red eyes turning to blue, his fangs sinking back into human teeth. Had he lost so much control that his illusion had gone? What had he done?
And then he remembered the events of the previous evening...as well as the sound of a spoon scrapping against plastic.
He snapped his neck to the side, and he saw Valerie sitting on a chair, eating out of a small cup of yogurt. He blinked at her in surprise. She looked fairly well-put together, her wild hair pulled into a low ponytail, a clean uniform and polished boots tight against her body.
"You missed breakfast," she said, licking the spoon clean. "And lunch. But I'm sure if I wheeled you down to Margie's, you'd break enough of her heart to get bacon."
His face twisted in confusion. "…How long have you been there?"
She shrugged. "Like, thirty seconds." Something in her teal gaze seemed to be measuring him with suspicion. "You were drooling on my pillow, you know. And this morning, I woke up with you practically on top of me."
Dan scratched at his face, feeling tired already from his illusion of human skin. "I do not drool," he argued, false-blue eyes flashing. "And you love me on top."
She swept the last of the strawberry yogurt onto her spoon and into her mouth. Her voice was muffled. "You do drool. And if anyone's gonna be on top, it's gonna be me."
Despite the well of exhaustion still within him, a smirk lit up his face. He regarded the strong resolve in her shoulders and nearly began to comment upon other positions he believed Valerie would find enjoyable. "Well," he said, tilting his head as he considered her, "variety is everything."
Her face faulted. "I was talking about sleeping."
"I was as well."
She fell silent at that, a damnable blush creeping across her nose and cheeks. "Aren't you supposed to be all injured and stuff right now? How can you even think of that right now?"
A genuine smile stretched his lips. "Ah, it is such thoughts that revive my strength." He clenched his left fist, which was significantly weaker from the bullet wounds up his shoulder. Two days ago, he'd hardly been able to move it without pain. "I need something to look forward to."
"You're ridiculous," she deadpanned.
In that moment, Dan in his illusion looked to be almost cute—his black hair wild and matted from sleep, his blue eyes narrowing. "I'm wounded on your behalf," he answered smartly. "At least pretend to care for my well-being."
"Pretend to care?" she retorted, standing up. "Oh yeah, because sitting at your bedside every day and ignoring my work was really just me pretending to care." Before he could open his mouth, she pointed at him. "I mopped up your blood and held your hair back as you upchucked your stomach. I gave you my bed and bought you new clothes. Don't you dare try to pull a guilt trip on me. I think you just like being injured so you can whine and complain."
He blinked at that. And then an awful, devilish look overcame him. "Well, I do enjoy your fretting about on my behalf."
After a few more days, the disguised Dan Phantom felt his power core kick up into full gear, releasing him from his state of weakness. He had experienced enough of a wheelchair to last the remainder of his afterlife, and he still found himself at odds with the reality that Amity Park humans felt the need to approach "D" in his wheelchair and respect him with salutes and speeches of hope and well-being. Valerie's father was entirely teary-eyed in D's presence, at loss of words for the preserved life of his baby girl.
Dan played the game of the weak but moral and taciturn D, and no one but Kwan or Valerie would have suspected he was anything but human. But whether in his natural form or within his illusion, five starbursts of permanently mottled skin ran up his side and shoulder blade, the skin hardening over as scars usually did. He said nothing of it, and so neither did Valerie.
By the fifth night, he lay atop Valerie's bed, where he'd so smugly stolen her usual sleep spot, healed.
"I can't stay here forever," he murmured to her. "I can feel the tension—there is an expectation for Phantom to attack again, and other ghosts are entering the dimension. "
"Fuck expectations," Valerie said sleepily. She was beyond worn out, hardly able to even keep her eyes open. She'd grown somewhat used to Dan lying beside her, and now his presence was an odd comfort. "And who cares about the other ghosts. They can't break my Shield."
He huffed in amusement, running his fingers through her ringlet curls. "We have images to maintain," he told her softly. "I have a world to conquer."
She stiffened, pulling herself up to eye him hard. "No, you don't."
His dark brow raised. "Yes, I do."
Her eyes narrowed. "You have a world to help rebuild."
His smile stretched, "Yes, in my own image."
Valerie stared at him for a second, and then she rolled her eyes and sunk back down against him. "I hate you," she muttered darkly. "You mean after all this, you're gonna make me fight you?" Some part of her knew that Dan had little concept of a moral conscience. She threw an arm around his waist, as if to anchor him to her, and she activated her battle suit. The panels swept over her, and the heavy metal weight sunk them both deeper against the mattress. "No. Absolutely not."
He exhaled in amusement, stroking his thumb across the hot metal of her arm. "What do you fear—that I might eradicate pointless worms like Nathan?"
She fell silent, not answering. She did not defend Nathan anymore, who had been punished to a lifetime in prison for all he had done. Even the thought of Nathan left her feeling ill.
Dan declared, "And what has the human race done to elicit my respect or remorse? I arrive at Amity Park only to discover you have been deceived by your own kind. They're parasites, Valerie. They're sucking your time and energy away with their purposeless lives. And you're letting them."
She inhaled sharply, pulling away to sit up. "No," she said. "Life is sacred."
"Why?" he demanded shortly, growing frustrated with her. "Why do you think that? Because some brainwashed preacher threw those words at you? Because a monk said so? What is your proof?" He grabbed her chin to stare at her hard. "Have you any idea what Nathan might have done to you had his plan succeeded? And is he not alive?"
Valerie pulled away from his touch. "Amity Park's got a death penalty and jail for people who murder other people. But that policy is for people who don't respect life. It's not for people just trying to get by or raise a family. It's not for innocent people."
He sat up from the bed with a stiff spine, feeling caged and judged. "You do not get to lecture me," he hissed. "I am permanently scarred on your behalf, on your demand that I do not snuff a life you thought was harmless."
"You wanna compare scars?" she challenged, eyes narrowing. "Go ahead. But you're not the one who has to go to families to tell little kids that their mom and dad just died in an attack, or a mother that her baby just died from trauma. You're not the one who has to identify friends down at the morgue." Her voice broke. "You gave me all those scars on purpose. A bunch of scars you can't even see."
His false-blue eyes pulsed in anger. "It is your fault only for feeling attachment to such pointless lives. Do not cast your pearls to swine."
Valerie's full lips pressed together so hard that they bled white. That moralistic fire raged within her, and she hated suddenly that she felt any attachment to Dan at all. He was a void. An expanse of space that reflected nothing but itself. "You quotin' the Bible on me, now? Do you have any idea what that verse means in context?" She poked his chest. "It's talking about people like you who only give a shit about destroying everything good."
He grabbed her hand, his long fingers sinking against her skin tightly. "Usually, I enjoy our literary discussions," he said, his voice carrying a hard edge. "But not this one. Good is a relative term. Destruction is creation. If you want to really chat about context, how about when it says to die to self to be reborn?" His smile was practically demonic. "As I have died to self and been reborn a god, perhaps I'm simply…helping along the process for others."
She snatched her hand away. "You tell yourself that when I die," she accused shakily. "Tell that to yourself when everything is gone and you're the only person left. And you'll regret saying that."
The thought of Valerie's death—so permanent, so inevitable—made him feel constricted and powerless. He seemed frustrated. "You are not pointless like everyone else. You are not them. You do not need to be freed from a lack of purpose like they do."
She moved off the bed entirely, widening the chasm between them. "No," she said, voice hardening. "They're not purposeless; you just don't know them. Whatever you feel when you think of my death? That's what every human felt when you killed their family. Whatever you felt when you were bleeding out from Nathan's bullets? That's what every human felt when you killed them."
The thought—that humans were as complex as himself—was contrary to his mindset, and it made him reel in anger against Valerie. "They're insects," he hissed. "They turn on each other and abuse one another until they all fall into a pit. I merely expedited the end of their misery. Human life is misery. I cannot stand it. I exist to end it."
It had been some time since Dan had blown up at her. The last several days of his gentle teases, genuine weakness, and intensive advances had lowered her guard. This was the old Dan. The regular Phantom who had murdered billions. His face twitched with something demonic. "You are attempting to make me feel guilty for killing your fellow humans. But I do not." His thin lips twisted into a dark smile. "If I am honest, I enjoyed their pain. I enjoyed it."
"Why?" she demanded. "What the hell makes you do this? To think I'm alright, but to justify murdering five billion people?"
He pushed himself off the bed and stood before her. "You are not pointless. You aren't a sniveling, cowardly, static being. You are not a waste of space, incapable of moving forward." Something in his face twisted with too personal of a hatred, and for a second, Valerie did not know if Dan was speaking against humanity or against himself. "Those people are weak. A drain."
Valerie crossed her arms and suddenly, something became very clear to her. "Is that how you felt about Danny Fenton?" she asked, her voice a quick whip. "Is it some kinda release for you to kill people you think are weak? Like you're reliving the moment?"
He stepped away. The killings—they were an adrenaline rush. An addiction. It calmed down his soul when he gave in. He did not know how to speak of such things. He did not know what drove him to even have that need. But even the name Danny Fenton twisted his face with such disgust that he snarled at her. "This is who I am now," he told her. "I'm what the fire left behind. I'm the god from the ashes, and Danny Fenton was a weak, sorry bastard."
Valerie stomped forward around the bed, and she stood before him, unafraid. "I got a newsflash for you," she whispered hotly, eyes narrowed. "Danny Fenton was a hell of a lot stronger than you, and I bet if he could hear you right now, he'd whip your ass. It was when he got low that he became you."
Dan's eyes bled purple through his illusion. He was losing control and looked angry enough to kill. "He shook in my presence and begged for life after spending months of not wanting it. And he is your hero? No, he would be in awe of me. Of what he became through me."
Valerie gave him a hard look. "What about all those people who salute D now and ask after him and care about him? You think they love him because he's Phantom? They love him because it goes against every human instinct to take a bullet for someone else. People can respect that. I used to respect that kind of selflessness in Danny."
For a second, Dan looked frozen. And then that demonic dark cloud came over him again. The next thing Valerie knew, he had shoved her against the wall, the metal of her battle suit making an odd screech. "Respect is won through power."
Valerie was unfazed by his intimidation attempts. "Respect is earned," she hissed at him, eyes flaming hot in anger. "And you're losing it, buddy." She shoved him away hard. "Get off of me."
That was not acceptable. Valerie's opinion was the only one on the planet about which he cared. He skidded to a halt, blue eyes dark. "You would deny me, after all I've done for you." His hackles began to rise, and his dark hair began to flicker up. "I've lived in the slums of Amity Park alongside your precious humanity without killing one. I submitted to your will that Nathan live. I took upon myself a death meant for you. I made myself ill to simulate being human. I allowed other people to touch me." His desperate need for Valerie's companionship and his deep attraction to her bucked hard against his fury. "I hate you sometimes," he seethed. "Truly, I do."
"Glad it's mutual," she sneered. "Now get out of here. I don't wanna see your face right now."
He bared his teeth at her, which were suddenly fanged and sharp, and everything about him rippled with an inhuman energy. "I should walk out of here and slay everyone in the city for this," he growled. "To show you the natural order of things."
In that moment, Valerie tensed. But then she knew that was what he wanted. Violence was a release for her too. Instead, she challenged, "Go ahead. It'll only prove you're the swine I was stupid enough to cast pearls to. Hell, you'll be right up there with Nathan!"
That did it. Dan's entire illusion flickered away, and suddenly Dan Phantom, the Ravager of Worlds, stood before her. His face was so twisted with fury and hate that even the shadows of the room shifted for him. "You would dare call me swine," he said, baritone voice a soft echo of anger.
"What, you gonna kill me like Nathan wanted to?" She crossed her arms, raising her chin. "Put some holes in me 'cause you don't like what I have to say? Go ahead, sweetheart. Eat your fucking heart out. I'll laugh from the other side when you're all alone forever."
Phantom's entire body darkened to a pure black shadow.
And then suddenly, he was gone. Her room was empty, the air before her entirely unoccupied but for the harsh exhale of her own breath.
For a time, she felt nothing. There was a silence with the loss of his presence, almost a relief now that she was fully angered against him. And then a sudden, horrific panic overwhelmed her.
She'd just challenged Dan Phantom to kill everyone.
Dan reappeared in the darkness of a main street in Amity Park. He had not been outside in several days, and now it was the first week of March. The heavy banks of snow that had enveloped Amity Park were fading. Ugly, brown chunks and piles hung off hovercrafts and the sides of buildings. The human rot that was mid-winter urban blight stung his vision.
"That woman," he growled, unable to even speak her name. Valerie was an idea too powerful to cage in or make sense of. But a woman? She was at least that, which was less of an idea and more of something physical and tangible.
He was mulling over her words. Why did he even desire her? They were fully incompatible, on every physical and spiritual level. She understood everything that made him tick, and instead she refused to partake with his views. Their tempers were unprecedented. He could not save her from her morality, and she could not save him from his.
"Oh, I know you're screwed up. But wanting to be with people who understand you? That's kind of…human."
The old memory burned him in that moment, raising a flush to his cheeks. He was Dan Phantom. He desired Valerie because she was his match—but Valerie had stated time and again that he desired companionship because he was human. That he did everything because of his humanity. That even his desire for violence was a human reaction.
He gazed out at the world, staring at the patterns of humanity uninterrupted. Families walked hand-in-hand, single people pushed through, laughing on phones. Dogs barked. Hover cars flew with a reverberating hum. It was an ugly cacophony. A small boy threw dirty snow at his baby sister, and the baby began to cry.
His eyes narrowed. What did Valerie see that was so worth protecting? What was it about humanity that desired his remorse for snuffing five billion souls?
"Whatever you feel when you think of my death? That's what every human felt when you killed their family. Whatever you felt when you were bleeding out from Nathan's bullets? That's what every human felt when you killed them."
He could still recall the intense panic he'd felt when he'd seen Nathan pull the trigger of that fusion gun. It was a deep fear—some kind of primal understanding that Valerie was about to die. He did not think of it much. It was painful to think about and gave him a headache.
An ugly feeling welled within him, which was a knowledge that he would lose Valerie if he did not show remorse in some way. Perhaps he felt remorse about that. A regret that he did not feel regret. If he could feel regret, Valerie would most certainly be happy and soft with him as she had been the last few days, stroking his face and his body, kissing him to affirm that she did not think him a lost cause—
He touched his side, where he could feel his scars even through his jumpsuit. He grimaced. Perhaps if the human race did everything he said and made him bacon and bowed to his every whim, he would feel regret for killing five billion of them. He certainly regretted those five billion now standing between him and Valerie.
And Valerie—his memory felt burnt with the knowledge of her heat and the smell of sand and exotic flowers. A walking paradise that always seemed out of reach.
Valerie knew Phantom was still within the Shield. She searched high and low, trying not to call attention to her panic. But it was only until much later, after having lost hope, that she trudged back to her room. Her eyes were welling with tears of frustration and anger. She didn't know what he'd do. She had no way to track him. Perhaps he'd stay beneath the Shield for days until she let her guard down. Perhaps he'd attack right when she fell asleep.
A part of her did not care. She felt deceived by him—thinking that he was changing, when in fact he'd simply found a way to excuse her from his scorched earth policy. Her vision blurred with tears as she recalled the heavy weight of his body lying beside her, the callouses of his fingers as he touched her skin in soft ways. There was something in him that was not evil. She knew it.
But it was just…too far away. He liked his loop of violence too much.
Valerie was so lost in thought that she paid no mind as she shut the bedroom door behind her and turned around. Even then, she still had no attention for her surroundings. She pulled her hair out of its messy bun and stepped out of her combat boots.
It wasn't until she turned on the overhead light that she realized what was in her room.
The lights bled softly, outlining the usual suspects in her room—the bed, the walls, the dresser….And there she found the infamous Dan Phantom, oddly enough back in his human illusion. He sat upon the black wheelchair he'd used for days, one foot on the ground to listlessly rock the wheels. His long, dark hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, his blue eyes tired.
"Hello, Valerie." His baritone voice was distant and cold.
Her jaw dropped for a time, and the two of them stared at each other in the silence. "What are you doing here?" she whispered suddenly, voice wavering. Her heart pounded at the sight of him—in anger, fear, or joy, she didn't know.
His head tilted. "You called me Nathan," he accused. "You've never flung a more vile insult at me."
Her eyes, bright and bloodshot with tears, hardened. "So what? You here to finish me off or something?"
He looked away from her, down to the fine welding of the wheelchair's armrest. He ran his finger along the rivets, as he had done when Valerie had wheeled him about while his body healed. "I have completed my mission here," he said. "Which was to stop Nathan. At this point, I know he will be imprisoned for life—which I suppose is your society's highest punishment for an attempted murder."
Valerie swallowed hard, waiting for Dan to continue.
"But my intentions in stopping Nathan were intimately tied to you," he said, looking back up at her, blue eyes dark. "You are going to die, Valerie. It is not if; it's when. And I will exist for millennia with your death upon my mind. I might even survive to the end of the universe, when everything stops in the final oblivion." He swallowed hard. The thought left him with a dreadful anxiety. "But you could die tomorrow for a slew of reasons."
The Red Huntress beheld her enemy as one would a cornered animal. She sat down upon the edge of her bed. Her voice was hesitant. "Why are you telling me this?"
The disguised ghost raised his chin. "I will not have any final interaction with you end as our previous conversation did. I am selfish. At the end of the world, when I face my oblivion, I wish to remember pleasant things about you." He seemed so nonchalant in that moment, but his voice was strained. "It was unpleasant for you to mock me with your own death."
She fell silent. In some way, his words sparked her anger. Of course he would think of himself. Of course he would be selfish. But something about his selfishness felt like something else. She didn't know how to handle it besides being abrasive. "Well," she sniffed, her teal eyes flashing, "maybe if you had enough of a conscience to know killing is wrong, I wouldn't be mad."
His eye twitched. The hand that had wrapped around the armrest bled white as he gripped onto the metal. The armrest squeaked as the metal bent from the force. "You do not understand," he said in irritation. "You judge what you don't know."
She brushed the tears from her face and attempted to look intimidating as she crossed her arms. "Oh, I think I understand just fine. You're a ghost. You won't stop killing because you can't."
Dan nearly snarled again. "I'm not like the others," he seethed. "I am superior. I am the master of my every action." He stood up from the wheelchair. "And I will not have you slander me."
Her dark eyebrows flew up as she stood up as well, not to be intimidated. "What does that mean?"
He moved closer to her. "The first massacres were for fun, I'll admit," he whispered hotly to her, "just to see what I could do. I hardly remember it; I was not in control yet. But the moment I took life, I crossed into a new reality. One without forgiveness."
Her full lips went flat with displeasure. "This isn't helping the whole, 'I think you're the biggest asshole on the planet' thing."
Dan's face twitched. He leaned in closer, his cool breath brushing against her skin. His voice was strained. "My destiny was to take from the world what it had taken from me. You have no idea what bore me. Taking life—it was compensation. A way to make sense of the world and subdue it from ever exerting force upon me again."
His fingers looped into one of her curls gently stroking against her neck. "And then you came along," he accused. "You devil woman. Forged by revenge and hate as I had, and yet my opposite in every way."
Valerie began to feel the tension between them again. She backed away a step to keep herself from leaning into his touch, and he followed.
"You complicate me," he whispered, his lips brushing against hers. "I do not feel a need to take from the world when I am in your presence."
"Why?" she whispered, half-afraid of the answer.
His fingers slipped from her hair. "Because the world gave me you," he said. "It forged you to challenge me. To dominate me." His cool lips touched her warm ear. "And I have lost my will to fight such sweet submission," he breathed. "I desire to submit to your companionship for however long I can."
Valerie swallowed hard, her eyes dilating in lust for the man before her. His tongue was dangerous. He seemed to know exactly what to say to make her stomach drop hard with desire. "I can't be…like that with you if you're still killing and destroying everything."
He murmured, "Then be with me in any way you will, and I shall have no desire for such."
She blinked, and something in her heart pulled with pain and fear and desire. "Yeah? And for how long?" she demanded. "You said it yourself, I'll get old and die, and then you'll conquer Amity Park."
Dan rolled his eyes, setting his forehead against hers. "What would you have me do," he complained. "You will haunt me with nothing to replace you. Rulership is simply compensation."
The thought was almost romantic, that he would see her as more valuable than power or ruling. But it still twisted her stomach with unease. "Not good enough," she retorted, sweeping her fingers into his thick hair to anchor him to her. "I know you don't got a conscience, but you better stop forever with this killing and enslavement kick."
He almost whined. "Why?"
She brushed her nose against his, her hands moving to cradle the back of his neck. This man was an impossible, incorrigible mess—talking his language would require an affront upon his honor and pride. "Because I can't respect a murderer," she whispered. Her fingers caressed the strong line of his jaw. "You can go into oblivion knowing that you'll have my respect forever, that I gave you all my time….or you can go into oblivion knowing that I wouldn't respect you at all, and that the best you got was the last few days." Her full lips ghosted against his, then she pulled away entirely. "Your choice."
His face had tightened in want for her. "Oh, you bitch," he moaned. "This is manipulation. You would wish to control my actions for all time. Is fifty years not enough for you?"
A dark smile crossed her face. "No," she said. She grabbed onto his shirt collar and dragged him down to her level. "You said it yourself, this world forged me to dominate you, right? So then submit to my will, and you won't regret it."
He seemed almost surprised at that, his false-blue eyes widening. And then, slowly, a sleek, dark smile stretched his lips. "Hmm. I love when you talk dirty to me. Demand that I submit to you again, so that I might savor the way it sounds from you."
Her heart was pounding, and something in her spine chilled with the danger of tying herself to such a man as Dan Phantom. But in that moment, she felt a great anticipation toward seeing him tie himself to her. That maybe she could tame him yet—create some kind of structure to keep him in line even upon her death.
With an almost tentativeness, she brushed her fingers beneath the hem of his shirt. Upon his muscled side was the mottled and ruined flesh that was one of his scars. The skin was sensitive there for him in ways it had never been before, heightening the electricity of touch itself. Her soft, trailing fingers on his bare body made him almost hazy with desire, his false-blue eyes tightening.
Her voice was a whisper, her eyes glinting. "You a masochist underneath all that sadism or something? I kinda have to ask, with all this submission being thrown around."
Dan moaned in delight. "And are you a sadist underneath all that masochism? Good god, woman. You are tormenting me." He captured her lips with his, stretching their mouths together as his hands tightened upon her hips.
Valerie's hands slipped up higher beneath his shirt, stroking his scars. Kissing him felt too natural to be anything less, but now his guard was down with her and it felt more natural to touch him with as much fervor as he touched her.
He moaned into their kiss, his baritone voice a vibration of pleasure. He was quickly losing his ability to think with her—and Valerie's touch had always been so rare, it was as if the sun were bursting upon his skin with every caress. He broke away with incredible regret, his eyes tight. "I need time," he said roughly, voice husked. "You know that I feel no regret for the past and no love for humanity, but your demands require that I…adjust my empires. I must also recalculate the uses of D and the ways I might yet enjoy your company in my natural form. This will take time."
Some kind of satisfaction smoothed the purse of her lips. "When will you be back?" she whispered.
"Soon," he promised. And he meant it. He leaned in for another kiss, but then Valerie pressed her fingers against his lips in objection.
"What'll I tell people about D?" she demanded suddenly. "It'll seem weird if you disappear for no reason."
His mind raced for a second. "I am having difficulties healing from Nathan Green's technology," he said slowly. "The good doctor of Amity Park arranged for my transportation to the Australian Resistance for advanced medical care and analysis."
"…Australia?" Valerie deadpanned.
"Yes," he said airily. "I once decapitated a man there, and they reattached his head and retaught him to speak. They are quite advanced."
"…Wait, you decapitated someone?"
His voice was merry. "It was an accident."
The next day, Valerie found herself at the farthest edge of the Shield, where human transportation often entered and left Amity Park. To keep up appearances, Dan sat upon the black wheelchair as D, the illusion tired and worn. The world about them was dreary with a spring not yet obtained, the fog thick as a blanket.
"I can't believe you made my dad cry," Valerie was saying as she wheeled him down the abandoned road, her face flushed with the cool of the morning. She wore her thick jacket over her uniform to avoid calling attention to themselves. "Seriously, what the hell did you tell him?"
Dan leaned his elbow against the wheelchair's armrest. A sleek, mischievous smile stretched his lips. "Ah, yes. I simply told him that I was not healing anymore, and that my only hope would be Australia. He said me he wished me great luck, for he believed he might yet have me as a son-in-law. I quite enjoy that he is so fond of the very enemy he blasphemes."
For a second, Valerie thought to tease Dan for enjoying her father's fondness—as her father was most certainly a human he had wronged in the past, which contradicted his declarations against other humans. But then her face twisted. "Son-in-law? He talked about you marrying me?"
"Oh yes," he nodded seriously. "And us providing him grandchildren. I carefully skirted that topic, but someone will have to break to him that I cannot give you children and that you did not necessarily want any anyway."
She huffed. "Thanks a lot for leaving that to me."
He smiled brightly. "You are welcome."
As they approached the Shield's edge, a 3D command box appeared before Valerie. "Please enter credentials to access transport facilities," a male, robotic voice echoed from the hologram.
Without thinking much of it, Valerie began to punch in her military numbers. "Don't look," she said out of habit rather than need.
Dan rolled his eyes. "It is not as if I cannot access your entire town already.'
The instant she entered her code, the hologram pinged. "Credentials accepted," it said. And then the road shook with a great vibration. The asphalt began to split, and their section of the road began to lower down as a ramp would. The asphalt layer around them turned into a well-lit, sleek tunnel with large, Maglev train tracks, roads, and some kind of tube-like structure that stood above closed off tunnels going straight into the earth.
Dan looked about in great interest, for a moment struck by the ingenuity of the system. A spark of wonder lit his eyes. "So this is how you transport supplies without my knowledge," he murmured. "Beneath the earth. Like mole-people."
She rolled her eyes. "Yes," she said flatly. "Lucky you, all the mole supplies don't get here until noon."
He hummed. "Yes, lucky me." He wheeled forward out of habit (damn, his life as the temporarily injured D was becoming a second nature) and tapped one of the nearby structures. "Can you truly transport anything to any part of the standing world?"
"Yep."
"Even Australia?"
"…Yep." Her lips twitched.
"Fascinating," he said distantly. "You must have been building this for years. Tell me, what powers this?"
"Human intelligence," Valerie deadpanned, crossed her arms.
Here, so early in the morning, they were safe from prying eyes, with Valerie's alibi that she was going to use the underground transports to get D safely to Australia. The light and fog of the natural world above them struck his form, and he looked to be almost glowing. He stood up from the wheelchair, his illusion of sickness bleeding away into crisp health.
"I will return to you soon in this form," he declared, "through which we can be together without fear of discovery." He walked forward and kissed her hard, as if it were his last chance to feel Valerie in such a way. "Goodbye, Valerie," he breathed, caressing her curls. He hesitated. Then he kissed her again.
Her fingers easily latched onto the buckles of his jacket, pulling him closer to her. A rumble of satisfaction vibrated from his lips to hers, and he moved forward, weaving his fingers in her hair. He deepened their kiss, feeling whole in that moment.
When Valerie pulled away, she looked slightly breathless. "Goodbye." She tilted her head. "Now get out of here before we get all emotional about it."
His lips twitched up.
And then D, the mysterious boyfriend of Defense Commander Valerie Gray, dematerialized into the mists of the morning and the dark tunnels.
A/N: And thus ends the Valentine thread! It might reappear in different ways going forward. I had an odd thought about this thread. What would happen if Clockwork temporarily sent Jax, Val and Dan's son from the Aftermath universe, to the Valentine universe to protect the baby? This is, of course, assuming that all of the larger ficlets/miniseries in Deliverance are a part of a connected multiverse…Just a very odd thought that I don't know is worth pursuing at all…
Some questions for you:
1. How would you feel about more experimental/radical alternate universe (AU) one-shots?
2. I'll be moving onto some new stuff for now, but I'll circle back to Aftermath and Karma as I always do. Any opinion on which miniseries you'd like to see updated next in that near future? Aftermath or Karma?
3. Would you like to see the Valentine universe reappear for another holiday, or would you rather have holiday stories not connected?
Please give me your thoughts on this chapter, as well as your opinions on those questions above! I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
