Danny has enough bad dreams about being dissected. Waking up on an autopsy table is not going to help with that.
Chapter 3: Too Close to an Autopsy for Comfort
The first thing Danny becomes aware of is the pain. It permeates his entire body. A pounding in his head. An ache in his shoulder. A plethora of burning patches across his torso. Not to mention all the little bruises and cuts he got before the building came down on him. He wishes it could all combine into one big ignorable ache, but no, he has to feel every little thing, and every little thing hurts.
Stupid ghosts. Stupid structurally unsound buildings. Stupid doctors not letting him go home.
Danny's eyes fly open. Stupid doctors. Where is the doctor? Where is he? A concrete ceiling greets him first, along with bright fluorescent lights. Danny squints as his eyes adjust and takes in his surroundings. A wall of cabinets lines one side of the room, although the doors have funny handles, like industrial fridges. He sees sinks, some kind of backlit board on an empty wall, a sanitizing station. Across from him, in the middle of the room, is a thick metal table with what looks like a grocery store scale and another sink.
Danny tilts his head back and finds the same scale hanging above him.
"Oh, God, I'm dead." This is a morgue. Those aren't cabinets, those are where dead people go, and Danny is a dead person. He is on a mortician's table and he is going to get sliced open and autopsied like a moron. What is it people always say? Stranger danger? Danny doesn't want to learn that lesson the hard and painful way.
"Sam and Tucker are going to kill me." Danny tries to sit up, but a stabbing pain lays him flat in an instant. "Fuuuuuuuck." He groans, curling an arm around his stomach.
Okay, Fenton. Think this through. He is in pain. Dead people don't feel pain, at least not this kind of pain. This is very much a living, breathing, human kind of pain where he feels like he's dying but isn't dead yet. Good. Dying is better than dead. Raising his good arm, he holds his hand above his head. His human hand. Another wave of panic crashes through him. Whipping his head from side to side, ignoring how the throb behind his eyes turns to an angry stab, he searches for any sign of the doctor. She's gone. He's alone. He can work with that.
Danny closes his eyes and concentrates. He barely feels rested, which means he can't have been asleep for long. Certainly not long enough for his ghost half to recharge. Reaching for his core, he pokes at it, getting a tremble in response. There's not a lot of power left, but he doesn't need a lot, just enough. Pulling on his core, he drags his ghost half to the surface, relaxing as the cold sensation washes over him with the change. It soothes his aches somewhat and being a ghost always numbs the pain more than being human does.
The change comes just in time. Danny hears a door open and shut, and when he looks toward the noise, he finds the doctor on a small landing, wearing a white coat and scrubs, and carrying an armful of medical supplies. She locks the door before hurrying down the steps, muttering something under her breath.
"Lidocaine, sutures, bandages, what else?" She dumps everything on the empty table across from Danny and picks up a box from the pile. From it, she pulls out a pair of plastic gloves.
"Scrub!" the doctor blurts out, dropping the gloves back onto the table. "Oh, no, that's not good." She tosses the gloves out before going to the nearest sink and washing her hands and arms, giving them a thorough scrub. Seventy-nine seconds in all. Danny counts.
"Can ghosts get sick? What about infections? I can't order antibiotics..." The stream of words continues until she finishes washing, grabs a fresh pair of gloves, and finally looks in Danny's direction.
The most nerve-wracking staring contest of Danny's life begins. He waits for her to say something, to scream out "You're a freak!", to confess that she has called the Guys in White and they are coming to take him away. Why does he have to be lying down? It makes him feel more exposed, especially in a place like this. This is, quite literally, one of Danny's worst nightmares. He has woken in a cold sweat, aching from the pain of phantom scalpels. On the worst days, he wakes up feeling empty, as if all his insides had been removed while he was asleep.
The seconds drag on until, finally, thankfully, the doctor blurts out: "You're alive! Awake, I mean!"
"I'm actually very dead, thank you." Danny can't help the tremble in his voice. The doctor could be faking, and he can't show that he has let on if that's the case.
That question flushes out the last of Danny's nerves. It seems that, by some miracle, she was gone when he changed back to human and she didn't notice a thing. Good. That's one less thing for him to worry about.
"You brought me to the morgue."
"Only place I could think of where no one would bother us. We're replacing some old equipment, so the morgue isn't in use right now. There's another one down the hall that's already been renovated."
"Thank you." Danny studies the wall of cabinets, unable to meet the doctor's eyes. "I'm not... I'm not exactly normal, as far as ghosts go. I'm sure you can see that. Most ghosts don't exactly bleed like this. Bad things would happen if the wrong people saw me. So, thank you."
"Yeah, that's... the bleeding. That's exactly why I brought you here." The doctor stares at him and then shakes her head. "You have a lot of injuries. The laceration on your shoulder needs stitches. It will probably scar; sorry in advance about that. You need someone with a delicate touch to fix a wound like that without leaving a mark. You have some other cuts I'd also like to take a look at. Being caught under a building isn't a sanitary environment, either, so I want to clean your wounds thoroughly and make sure you won't get any infections." She pauses and tilts her head. "Can ghosts get infections?"
Danny's head reels. To be completely honest, he only caught some of what the doctor said. She rattled everything off so fast he didn't have time to absorb it all, except for a few words. Stitches. Laceration. Infection. Very fun words.
"If any ghost could get an infection, it would be me."
"Right, okay. Antibiotics, then. I'll get some. Somehow."
Danny raises an eyebrow at her. "You're a doctor, aren't you? Don't you have total access to that kind of stuff?"
"Well..." Now it's the doctor that won't meet Danny's gaze. It concerns him almost as much as the possibility of her knowing his secret. Moreso, since he is no longer worried about the latter. He has never been to the doctor before, but Danny is certain it's not good when your healthcare provider makes a face like that. "Hospitals keep track of those things, you know. But..." The doctor plucks a fresh set of gloves from her box and pulls on the fingers. "Technically speaking? I'm an intern. Pathology."
Danny processes that. "Pathology. Like, the doctors that do autopsies."
"Yeah."
Danny laughs. "Oh, that's just perfect. What else?"
"What?"
"Besides the big cut and smaller cuts."
"You have a head wound. It doesn't look like your skull is cracked, but there's some bleeding and a sizeable bump. If you were a regular patient, I would get you a head CT, but I don't think that's an option here. You almost definitely have a concussion. I'm worried about internal bleeding, too, because of the sizeable contusion on your torso. We would also need a CT for that. I might be able to sneak out a portable ultrasound if necessary."
"I don't know what half those words mean."
"Then I'm afraid you have a very serious head injury and possible brain damage if you don't know what 'we' or 'I' means."
"Shut up, you know what I mean. Isn't an ultrasound something for pregnant ladies?"
"Ultrasounds use sound waves to create an image of your internal organs. It's used on pregnant women, yes, but we use it for lots of other things, too." The doctor's hand hovers over her array of medical supplies. Danny can't see what exactly she's looking at, partly because her body blocks his view, but mostly because raising his head hurts and he would rather not do that right now. She turns back to him without grabbing anything, although the gloves she had been toying with are now properly on her hands.
"Before I start, is there anyone I can contact?" she asks.
Danny stares at her blankly.
"Next of kin? Sorry, that's what we say about dead people... living family? Ghost family? You're a minor. There should be someone here with you."
That is a thing hospitals do, isn't it? It hadn't crossed Danny's mind that she could ask. He didn't think it would cross her mind to ask. "Maybe I've been dead for thirty years, you don't know."
"Have you?"
"... No."
"Listen, I'll treat you no matter what, but if you do have a serious head injury, not to mention potential internal bleeding, then I can't leave you alone once we're done here. I have to get to work at some point today, but you need to stay with someone who can watch you if something happens. Help me get your jumpsuit off while you think."
Danny gives her an affronted look.
"Oh, don't look at me like that. How am I supposed to treat you through your clothes? Sit up, strip, and think."
Danny hesitates. No names come to mind, none that would satisfy the doctor, at least. He could stay with Sam and Tucker, the same way he always does when he gets seriously hurt, but they aren't adults either. Jazz... besides the fact that she's at college, Danny would rather not let her see how hurt he is right now. He almost suggests Tucker's parents, but that comes too close to exposing his secret. His own parents are a big no. Vlad, an even bigger no. Danny has known before that there are no adults that he trusts, but it's something of a slap in the face to really think about it. When it comes down to it, besides his friends and his sister, there's no one in his corner.
Wow, that's all kinds of sad, isn't it?
"You don't have anyone?" the doctor asks. She holds his sleeve while he struggles to work his injured arm out. It's not an easy feat, especially while he is still laying down, but when he tries to sit up, she pushes him right back down with a single finger against his chest. Danny can't stand watching as she presses the flap of skin down so it doesn't get caught while he pulls. He resorts to glaring at her, instead, because no, he does have people, just not adult people that won't tear him apart molecule by molecule if they catch him.
"I resent your pity." His arm comes free and Danny sags with relief. The doctor grabs his good hand and brings it over to his laceration, pressing it over the wound where her hand had been. The feeling of cold ectoplasm dripping over his fingers makes him grimace.
"You don't even need to be related to them," the doctor says with her back to him. She grabs a plastic pack and a needle from her supplies. "You're around the city enough, there must be someone you know who could help you."
Danny studies the ceiling. Help him. Not too many people have tried to help him since this whole ghost thing started. They have accused him of acting out, of becoming a troubled, at-risk teen, but helped him? He can't think of anyone who has done that. Except for one person.
"You'll feel a pinch." The doctor injects something into his injured arm Danny barely feels it, too focused on the name floating through his head.
"Actually..." It sounds crazy, it is crazy, but it just might work. "There is one person."
