Author's Note: I own nothing.

27 Healing

"Um." Angelica frowned down at the sight in front of her. She shook her head shoving the blaster to the side, looking for the first aid kit Dani had promised was here. She sighed pulling the small box out of the back of the cupboard, she headed back into Dani's room. The girl herself was on the bed. She wore a pair of shorts and was laying on her front so Angelica could get a good look at her back and the wound there. It ran most of the length of Dani's spine, branching out to either side in three places, just above her hipbones, right below her ribcage and right below her shoulder blades. The marks were the leftovers of the now missing Fenton Battle Suit. It had been a few days now since Dani had taken it to defeat the Ghost King Pariah Dark and save the town, returning it to Earth from where Pariah had drawn it into the Ghost Zone.

"I'm almost afraid to ask but why are there weapons in the bathroom." Angelica said by way of greeting as she stepped into Dani's room closing the door behind her. Dani turned her head to look at Angelica, but refused to meet her eyes. She hadn't wanted anyone to find out the truth, that she was Phantom. Secretly Angelica thought that Dani hadn't planned on coming back from her fight with Pariah. She wasn't sure Dani had thought she could win. The way she told it she almost hadn't.

"Never know when a ghost is gonna attack." She said turning her head away from Angelica. She shook her head. If Dani had had her way Angelica never would have found out the truth. Without Dev and Kyle she might not have. Yet here they sat with Dani staunchly refusing to answer Angelica's questions in a way that mattered. The nurse sighed turning her attention to the injury in question. The hospital really was at capacity right now with the injured from Pariah's invasion, so no one had objected to Dani to be treated at home by Angelica.

"You're healing well. Better than I expected honestly." Angelica remarked as she removed the bandages which glowed dully where the scab on Dani's back had broken and bled. Dani shrugged then flinched as the scab cracked. "Don't do that." Angelica chided gently. The house fell silent as Angelica went back to her work. Her parents were out, helping with cleanup and shoring up the defenses Amity had against ghosts. Her sister was volunteering to help with the cleanup too. Dani had already done her part, not that the town would ever know that. Angelica frowned. "Dani, I need to know. Do you have a healing factor? It'll give me a better estimate as to when this will actually be done healing." Angelica gently insisted. Dani buried her head in her pillow for a minute and Angelica was afraid she wasn't going to tell her anything.

"Yes." The response was quiet. If there had been any other noise in the house she probably wouldn't have heard it. "I heal faster than a regular human. But not significantly, without help."

"What kind of help?"

Dani responded by reaching into the wall. It was odd to watch. As her hand met the wall the tips of her fingers vanished until her entire hand up to the wrist was inside the wall. She pulled her hand back out and held up a glowing vial. Angelica stared at it. The contents were green and viscous. She'd only seen it in person a few times.

"Is that ectoplasm?" She asked lowly. Tanya had admitted that Dani's blood was somewhat dangerous to handle directly. But Angelica had never seen pure ectoplasm up close.

"Yeah. I can drink the fresh from the Zone stuff straight. It's weird though. It's easier if I can pour it onto the…" She didn't want to say wound. She held it up. "I mean I guess you could. But you should wear gloves. It causes some kind of allergic reaction for… people." Admitting any of that seemed to have drained Dani of all she wanted to say. She set the vial on the bedside table and buried her head in her pillow. Angelica nodded pulling a pair of heavy duty gloves out of the first aid kit and picking up the vial. She hesitated, unsure how exactly to handle this new substance. She tried swirling the vial. The liquid inside barely budged. It was thick enough for her to think of it as a kind of jell. So that's what she treated it as. She took a cotton pad out of the kit, poured a little bit of ectoplasm onto it and began to carefully spread it onto Dani's wound. She flinched but Angelica could literally see it working, the cracks in the scab resealing under the glowing green substance. She shook her head, glad that for the moment Dani couldn't see her. She needed to ask, but she'd been putting it off.

She had to know how it had happened. Dani had another scar Angelica didn't recognize on the side of her torso, just above her pelvic bone on her stomach. She hadn't had that last summer, the last time Angelica had taken Tanya and Dani on a weekend trip to the beach. She sighed.

"I know you probably don't want to talk about it, but I need to know how this happened." Angelica said into the silence. She needed to know if Dani had been alone in this the whole time. Had she had any help at all since she died? But no, Sam and Tanya had been there for her. After all there were clear marks that her other injury had been stitched up. Inexpertly, it also looked like they'd waited a little too long to take out the stitches. Dani was lucky she hadn't gone septic. Though maybe she just couldn't. Maybe the acidity of the ectoplasm in her system killed off anything that might try to infect and worsen an injury. Angelica wasn't taking that risk though. Dani remained silent as Angelica finished applying the ectoplasm to Dani's back and began to wrap the injury, first in gauze, then clean bandages. She had Dani sit up for that. They were pretending that Dani had broken a rib after all, they needed it to look like that as well.

"Dani please." Angelica insisted as Dani gingerly pulled on her shirt. They were interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Dani, I'm back." It was Jazz. Angelica shook her head as Jazz stuck her head around the door. "You feeling up to going to school tomorrow?" Dani nodded.

"Don't think I can carry my backpack but yeah." She said with a grin as Angelica wrapped up the bandages and gloves she'd used.

"Oh I'm sure Sam and Tanya will be willing to help. I'm dropping Tanya off at school tomorrow anyway if you two want a ride?" Dani hesitated and nodded. Jazz grinned.

"Thanks Mrs Foley. We appreciate what you helping out like this." Jazz said and something in her voice made Angelica raise an eyebrow but she let it slide. She sighed. At least she could never say life was dull.