Disclaimer: I don't own DP.
Thanks to the following awesome people for reviewing last time: Invader Johnny, DP-Marvvel94, Deuteransichten, Lady Audentium, KraZiiePyrozHavemoreFun, Chrysanthemum9884, Guest, JadeliketheGem, Guest, Roses-R-Rosie, Mr. Aanonymous, and Serra Kato! I know this collection has been very inconsistently updated lately, and so it means a lot that you took time to read and review still!
Hey, all. I'm really sorry that it's taken me so long to update Deliverance, and that I dropped off the radar entirely for several months. I've had a rough time lately irl, and honestly in fandom spaces (not necessarily DP but across the various fandoms I'm in), I have just begun to feel increasingly irrelevant or not wanted. A lot of stories have been posted with just very little interaction at all on them, and I feel like my writing has stagnated. So when I lost the first opening pages to this chapter in a computer glitch (I was in the middle of writing, my computer shut off, and I lost everything), I just broke down some. It took me a really long time to get the heart back up to even try, knowing that so few people are probably left that enjoy my work. So if you've been waiting or came back to read this chapter, thank you!
Deliverance
Shot 78: Karma Part 12
Soon, the newly crowned Ghost King Dan Phantom arrived back in the human world with Valerie Gray protectively cradled in his arms. Time blurred as Kwan attended to Valerie's wounds and shoved away the universe's most powerful being—in an irritation that Dan could not simply let him work.
Instead of leaving, the ghost haunted the infirmary room, his red eyes dark in fear.
Kwan pulled away Valerie's battered armor, quickly inserting an IV into her arm. "Do you have to stand there and just stare at me?" he called out irritably. "If you're going to haunt like a ghost, at least be helpful. Hand me that gauze tape."
Dan's eye twitched, but he moved forward, grabbing for the requested item. "Her heart," he said roughly, his deep voice halted with worry. "The pulse is weak and fast."
"I know, she's lost a lot of blood. The IV will help—we'll need at least three units of blood. Type A+." Already at Kwan's side on a crash cart, several additional blood packets rested.
"A+?" the ghost king echoed. Despite his tight expression, he managed a huff. "Of course, it would be." He moved forward again, his white hair glowing with great power, having fallen out of the braid that Nina had given him. "I would help you further." He still wore a half-ruined flannel shirt—and for all of his power—appeared worn and haggard.
"You've done enough." Kwan's voice was a distracted snap. His gloved hands pulled back some of Valerie's curls to reveal the cut behind her ear that was bleeding.
Suddenly, Valerie's slack face pinched. Her lips cracked open, and her eyes opened. Her teal irises were nearly black from a concussion, her pupils fully dilated. She stared up listlessly in pain.
Dan moved to her on instinct, face tightening. "I will not leave her here."
Her bruised fingers twitched in his direction, as if she could feel him. The pulse of her own human energy weakly reached out to his vast glow of power.
Kwan turned to look at them, surprised. He eyed Dan's hand as it began to glow brighter. "What are you doing?"
The ghost did not look up, his vision focused entirely on Valerie. "I may be able to heal her," he murmured. "Her energy once healed me." His large, blue hand intertwined around her bruised fingers. It was there that the Ghost King kneeled at the bed of the human woman.
His white hair flickered against the edge of the bed, slipping against her burnt armor. His deep voice carried a distant pain. "We are connected, though we are different."
Kwan stilled. "You and Valerie?"
"No." Dan's brows knitted together, and he closed his eyes. "Ghosts and humans."
Bright, white power began to flow from his fingers into Valerie's. Her hand twitched. Her wide, unfocused eyes blinked.
Her cracked, bloodied lips opened as she inhaled shakily. Her dilated eyes turned to him.
And then she closed her eyes, breathing out in a sigh of relief as his power washed over her.
The Ghost King sat with Valerie Gray for the rest of the night, his lips pressed together tightly as he focused on the long task of feeding energy into her. Ghost anatomy was significantly more pliant and lighter than a human body, which meant that healing her required more output than it took for her to affect him.
His form remained stiff at her side, hardly moving as he concentrated. His face grew worn as time passed. The bright glow of his form dampened, his flickering white hair falling past his shoulders in his exhaustion.
"Did you ever anticipate," he murmured, "that our roles would be reversed?"
Dan received no answer.
Red Huntress lay silent upon the infirmary bed, sleeping peacefully. Kwan had helped her into a hospital gown. Her dark curls spilled over a white bandage, tickling Dan's fingers. On occasion, he broke from healing her to give her body a chance to rest. In those times, he brushed back her curls from her bruised cheek with a level of care that belied his strange relationship with her—that despite holding all the power in the universe, he could be gentle yet.
Dan's face tightened as he stroked her cheek.
And while Valerie slept, her lips stretched with the smallest smile.
The little girl named Nina peeked her head through the door that night, after Amity Park had breathed a sigh of relief that they would not be overtaken by the Ghost Zone, and that only a clear Earth sky hovered above them. That meant the orphanages and daycares allowed children to roam free again—largely forgotten.
Her coiled hair bounced around her shoulders in a halo as she wiggled through the door. "Phantom?" she squeaked. "Is she okay? Is Valerie going to make it?"
The ghost's red eyes snapped to her. His face was haggard and shadowed with exhaustion. "Yes," he declared sharply. "She will live. I would not allow any other outcome."
Nina paused, searching him. She swallowed hard, her throat visibly tightening up. Her eyes began to water. She nodded as she quietly entered the room, readjusting her thick sweater. "Everybody's saying she's gonna die."
Dan raised his chin. Nina was an odd ally of sorts—a little child with the strangest mannerisms he had seen. She had no fear of him, and yet the entirety of all other things scared her. "Do you see Valerie as your great protector, like the other humans do?"
The girl slipped up to the empty infirmary bed beside Valerie's, her hair bouncing. She tightened her fingers into the baggy material of her sweater. "She always protects everybody," she whispered softly. "She's my hero."
By that time, the sun had set. The fluorescent lights above cast harsh shadows on the sleeping Valerie, and on the sharp planes of Dan's face.
Nina added, voice catching with hope, "But you're protecting her, right?"
Dan looked back down at Valerie, then at his own hands, which glowed with a far greater power than he'd ever known. In the back of his mind, he knew that with a single wave of his hand, he could decimate Amity Park. Kill everything.
"Yes," he said eventually. "I am…protecting her."
The little girl's face stretched wide with a bright, hopeful smile. "Can I protect her too?"
Dan searched her eyes, quirking a brow. Nina had the bones of a bird, and one of her shoelaces had come undone. In the past, he might have seen her a little more than an insect undeserving of his attention—or of life. But he told her, raising his chin, "You may protect her by drawing her many pictures."
Nina made a happy noise and pulled out a pencil she'd been hiding in her sweater.
Well after Nina had covered a whole wall with drawings of flowers and teddy bears, Valerie Gray woke up in a drifting haze. She felt cool hands against her temple, which felt heavenly. Her head pounded in pain.
"—alerie?" some deep voice wavered in and out for a second. It sounded concerned and familiar. "Valerie?"
She groaned. "What?" Her voice felt like gravel and paper shredding together. She had a horrible feeling that Kwan or some other doctor had stuck tubes down her nose, because her whole face felt raw. What a nightmare.
The voice sounded almost amused, if not still concerned. "Come on, I need you to wake up. It's been three days."
Then everything hit her. Cutting off Pariah Dark's hand. Being slammed back.
Her eyes snapped open to unfocused blurs, and panic hit her. She nearly shot up from the bed, only to feel pain wrack her entire body. Whoever was with her gently eased her back.
She felt nauseated and confused. Her eyes darted. And then her vision began to recalibrate. The lightness separated from darkness. She realized that Dan Phantom was leaning over her, his hair spilling over his shoulders as he pressed his cold hands against her throbbing head. His red eyes were trained on hers, searching.
"Do you remember me?" he asked hesitantly. His cold breath billowed against her burning face, and she nearly groaned in want for it, because every part of her felt too hot, too torn. His touch was a soothing relief in comparison.
With a wince, she raised her arm to push his hand up so that his cold hand would emanate into the pressure point of her temple. "Hold it there," she demanded, closing her eyes.
A brilliant smile cracked Dan's face with happiness, revealing his sharp fangs. "Oh good," he breathed in relief. "You're in a bad mood. That must mean you'll be okay."
Her nose began to scrunch in dislike, but it hurt her face to move it. "Fuck you," she moaned. "I don't have energy for this."
His cool fingers softly stroked her temples, and she leaned into his touch. "I imagine not. Just…tell me you remember me," he pressed again. "Your human friend said you had a bad concussion."
She opened up one irritable eye. "Don't make me think right now." Her split lip cracked open and shined red. She was starting to feel woozy again and nauseated, and the world was spinning. She closed her eyes and missed the concerned frown begin to tighten Dan's face.
"No, stay awake. Kwan said we need to check your brain function."
"Wanna sleep," she complained, suddenly eyeing him in a glare. She felt him stroking her hair, calling to her in fear until blissful darkness overwhelmed her again. And all she heard was the sound of a string of curses from Dan's mouth as he pressed the emergency button by her bedside.
The second time Valerie woke up, she felt much better, if not still in pain. She thought perhaps they had upped her drug dose or put her on something bigger, like morphine.
She realized she was in the same hospital bed, wearing the same hospital gown. And Dan Phantom was staring intently at her, red eyes narrowed.
Time had passed—it was morning, and he was wearing a different flannel shirt.
"Are you Valerie Gray?" he said slowly.
She gave him a weird look. "Yes?"
He leaned forward. "And me? Do you know me?"
"The hell?" she asked. "Because you haven't been the biggest ectoplasmic pain in my butt for years?" She huffed, wincing in pain from her battered, healing body. "I'm not stupid."
He looked greatly relieved, leaning back into the bedside chair. "You should know that I waited like a dog for days," he moaned. "Kwan said you might have amnesia."
She felt weak and strangely stretched. "Amnesia?" Her dark brows furrowed. "I know who you are. And who I am." She sunk her cheek against the soft pillow. "But I'm tired." She tried to shift her legs, only to feel an odd weight on them. She shifted slightly to look down. "And what the…hell—?"
On her lap was the Ring of Rage and Crown of Fire. They hummed out a strange aura that even she could feel.
Dan raised his hand to the relics, daring to run his finger along the Ring of Rage. "—Pariah Dark is gone," he said roughly. "Amity Park is no longer tied to the Ghost Zone, and so I have brought the relics to you."
Valerie stared up at him, blinking in confusion. It seemed she did have some memory loss, for it took her several seconds to recall the name of Pariah Dark.
"If you hadn't come back for me," Dan said, voice halted, "I would have failed to return. You were right that I was not…ready yet, for battle."
Her fingers bunched into the bedsheets. "I don't remember." Her face tightened with stress. "The battle? What battle?"
"The one where you cut off Pariah Dark's hand in the name of freeing Amity Park," the ghost retorted dryly. A worry edge in his voice. "Have you no memory of it at all?"
Her eyes slid back to the relics in her lap. Her face began to pale as she remembered flashes of war. Fallen soldiers. Pariah Dark's unsetting laugh.
The crunch of bone as he broke her leg.
Her fingers grabbed onto the cold metal of the Crown of Fire, trembling. "This is…" Her voice caught. "We did it."
The new Ghost King stared at her, his lips pressed tightly together. He tilted his head before begrudgingly confessing, "You did it. I was merely your backup."
Valerie pulled the crown closer to inspect it. When she raised it up, her tired arm trembled. The object slipped from her grasp, the ghostly flames merely a cold flicker against her bedsheets. Her breath hitched. "Oh." She looked back up at Dan, eyes wide in full realization. "You brought these to me?"
His red eyes lowered. Then, he leaned his elbow against the edge of her bed, tiredly declaring, "I wore them for a brief time to end Pariah Dark. But they are your spoils of war, not mine."
The confession dropped hard between them, the air thickening with a tension. A disbelief. Valerie searched his face in awe. "So you would give them to me, just like that?"
The ghost's sharp cheeks twitched with a self-consciousness. He huffed and looked away at the corner of the room, where Nina had drawn a happy little teddy bear across several pieces of paper. "What else am I to do with them? I owe you my afterlife. This is my repayment to you, that you should have them."
Valerie paused for a time. Her eyes brightened with tears as she shakily raised up her hand to turn his chin back to her. Her grip was weak but determined.
His hesitant eyes met hers.
She whispered, voice catching oddly with a tearful humor, "You idiot. I can't use them." Her hand fell away. She weakly shoved the crown toward him.
Dan's eyes widened. "What am I to do with them?"
She tiredly rolled her eyes, then closed them to hide her rising tears. She felt oddly raw as she retorted, "It'd be helpful if you'd protect people with them. It's not that hard to figure out."
With Valerie awake and Dan Phantom still oddly her faithful shadow, the whole city began to celebrate. Damon Gray swept into the room, crying over his daughter in relief as she tried to calm down his frayed nerves that—yes, she had taken quite a hit but that she simply needed time to rest and heal.
It was over the course of the day that Valerie realized something unnatural had occurred, for her x-rays showed a level of healing beyond what a human body could do in less than a few days. Her leg was fully healed, as if it had never been broken. Her skull was no longer fractured.
Which suggested that something, or rather someone, had tipped the scales in her favor.
By that time, Dan had helped her to sit up in bed, propped against several soft pillows. He'd taken to mother-henning her out of some fear that she would still die. As delighted as she was by his transformation in character, she also found it…
…a bit annoying.
Dan had procured a bowl of soup and gently pressed the edge of the spoon against her cracked lips, as if to entice her to open her mouth and drink the both. "It has been several days since you ate. You need to eat, or else you will lose further strength."
Valerie gave him a tired, unamused look and weakly turned her head away. "I'm really not hungry. Just…tired."
He face-faulted and huffed at her, then tried again. He eyed her hard. "You need to eat," he demanded shortly.
Valerie looked pale at the thought. "No," she complained, shifting against her pillows.
The ghost tried again, stressing, "It's healthy."
"It's shit," she deadpanned. The circles under her eyes were dark, her arms thinner. It seemed her time asleep had atrophied much of her strength—but it had done absolutely nothing to cow her caustic spirit.
Dan levitated beside her bed, cross-legged as he placed the spoon back into the broth, his mouth a thin line of displeasure. Something about him seemed offended. Once, she had made him eat disgusting ectoplasm in the name of keeping him existent—surely, she deserved to endure the same if it meant her life. "I am the Ghost King," he declared, setting his jaw, "and I demand that you eat this soup."
"Or what?" she huffed, raising a brow. "Gonna kill me, Ghost King?"
He spun the spoon around in the broth, then perked up as a new, devious idea struck him. He suddenly dematerialized into a wisp of smoke, his body surging toward the resistance's cafeteria. He knew exactly where the storage fridge was at where they held their more prized types of foods and desserts.
A short time later, he materialized back into Valerie's infirmary room. In his hand was a spoon and a small cup of highly prized chocolate pudding.
Valerie's feverish eyes landed upon the treat, and he raised a brow as he sat down beside her bed.
She set her mouth into an awkward line, saying nothing.
Dan pulled off the top of the cup and scooped some of the pudding onto the spoon—but instead of offering it to her, he licked the spoon slowly with his long snake tongue. He gave a noise of great satisfaction. He had forgotten the taste of chocolate, which was sweet and full.
Valerie's eyes narrowed to slits, watching him in increasing jealousy. "Hey," she complained. "You can't do that—pudding's for special occasions only."
He rolled his eyes as he continued to contentedly eat the pudding.
"That's not fair," she said, voice halted. "Dammit, you know I like pudding."
He flickered his gaze up to her. Will you eat it?
Valerie looked uncomfortable. Most of her was still too exhausted to move much—lifting her arms pained her to the point where it brought tears to her eyes. Even her voice was beginning to wear out. But she was too prideful to ask for help.
A moment of silence stretched between them until Dan sighed like a suffering saint and leaned forward in the chair. His softly flickering hair spilled over his shoulder as he eyed her. Without words, he scooped up a dollop of the pudding and moved the spoon to her pale lips. I won't tell anyone if you won't, he seemed to say.
The position oddly reminded her of a time when she had fed him in a similar way. She gave him a dark look and then bit down hesitantly, her gaunt face tinging with a blush of embarrassment.
Dan preened in delight at his manipulation. Of all the things he knew Valerie could not resist, one of them was chocolate pudding. He was so proud of himself that for a moment, he forgot he had offered her the same spoon he'd used, but it seemed she did not care.
Valerie watched him with a miserable sort of amusement as she swallowed the soft dessert. "You're enjoying this," she accused weakly.
He flashed bright fangs, which to anyone else would appear intimidating. But to her, it seemed playful. She could see the prideful lilt of his lips and the flash of satisfaction in his eyes. He offered her another small spoonful of pudding, dutifully holding it up. "It's revenge for the past."
The woman huffed weakly. "Figures." With as much grace as she could manage, she bit down on the spoon again, watching him watch her. Her face was lit with a blush, her thoughts both damning her own invalidity and praising it. Despite unfettered access to the relics of the Ghost King, the great Dan Phantom was fluffing her pillows every two hours and spoon-feeding her chocolate pudding—in the heart of Amity Park itself.
If ever there was a sign that he had softened, this was it.
A/N: Wow, hi all! I'm so, so sorry that I was gone for almost a year. I lost all concept of time with the pandemic and have been really down lately about my writing, about what I'm doing with my life, etc. But I realized I'd left Karma off on a fairly disheartening note (Valerie is just not allowed to die in this story, guh), and I really, really want to finish this story. This chapter doesn't represent the end of Karma, but I think we're starting to wind down to the final chapters for this particular drabble.
I wanted to update in time for Lady Audentium's birthday as well. Happy birthday, Lady Audentium! Even though our interests are stretched across different fandoms at this point, she's been a friend for many years at this point, and I've always been thankful for her presence in my life!
Also! I do still have my E-rated Dark Gray story, The Exchange, on AO3 under my account Bijali_Lightning. I'm planning to work on it next, if anyone's still interested! It has 3 chapters currently.
One of the reviewers asked if there was a way for Deliverance to be more organized, and to be honest, I think this collection is stuck as it is, because I can't rearrange chapters without really disrupting things. However, on AO3, I've begun to separate out the individual story threads into their own unique story for easier access!
Sorry again about my absence here on this website, but thanks to everyone who has read or reviewed or come back to these stories over time. If you still like these stories, please read and review this latest update and let me know if there's anything you'd like to see! Thanks!
