Danny learns a slightly horrifying fact about his internal organs and falls asleep in a car for the second time that day.
Chapter 5: The Soothing Effects of Cars on Ghost Boys
Danny likes cold things. He thinks it's because of his ice powers, but even before the accident, he liked sleeping in a cold room better than a warm one. The cold is comforting in a way he can't quite describe. It reminds him of sitting in his parent's lab as a child, fenced in by his playpen. It's always cold down there, has to be to help keep their specimens preserved. Cold floor. Cold walls. Cold parents. He shakes his head at that last thought. His parents try their best, really. Even if they aren't perfect, they love him. They just love their work as much as they love their children.
When the doctor presses the ultrasound wand to his chest, he shivers at the coolness of the gel but doesn't complain. The numbing cream she gave him for his bruises has done wonders for his aches and pains. Cold room. Cold table. Cold gel. Numb and cold, exactly how Danny likes to be.
"Are you alright?"
He opens his eyes and looks at Mr. Lancer. A part of him is surprised that his teacher actually showed up. Lancer is just that good of a person, even if he wasn't the greatest to Danny freshman year.
"You were shaking your head," Lancer elaborates. "Headache?"
"No. The doc gave me something for that." At this point, it feels like she has given him something for everything. Another shot of lidocaine for his arm, plus a dose of epinephrine that apparently makes the lidocaine last longer. Some kind of pain pill, he doesn't know what. An anti-inflammatory for the headache and his concussion. An antibiotic.
Never take drugs from strangers, adults always say. And yet, here Danny is, taking them by the handful because some intern told him to. The intern in question has all her attention on the ultrasound monitor. Danny squints at the screen, trying to make sense of the pulsating lights, but he can't make anything out. Apparently, neither can the doctor.
She grabs the screen and pulls it closer. Her eyes dart back and forth and she takes it in, occasionally landing on Danny. A deep frown etches itself onto her face as the seconds pass.
"You've definitely got some kind of internals, but they don't follow typical human specs. If you were human," the doctor pauses longer than necessary, "I would be very concerned with what I'm seeing and I would recommend getting some proper care. But since you aren't, I don't know enough about your biology to make a judgement. I can't tell what ectoplasm is supposed to be there and what isn't. Unless you pass out or start throwing up blood—ectoplasm—I guess we won't know if there's anything wrong."
Danny folds an arm over his face, hiding his expression. He can't show it to either the doctor or Lancer, but the discovery rattles him. He has known, as the years have gone by, that the boundary between human and ghost that once so clearly defined him has blurred. He can use most of his powers in either form and can hold his ghost form for days. Even sleep in it. The only times he finds himself forced back to human now are when he is pushed to the brink of exhaustion. For example, when he has to hold up a collapsed building after fighting a powerful ghost. But the change, to him, was always cosmetic. A colour swap. Black to white. Blue to green. He better not end up in the hospital as a human for something serious, or else whatever doctor he gets will find a nasty surprise when they cut him open.
The doctor packs the machine back up and wipes the gel off Danny's abdomen. "Take it easy for a few days, for a week, two weeks. No ghost fighting. I doubt this is your first concussion and getting them frequently can lead to permanent damage. I'm serious when I say no fighting. You hurt yourself again and I'll need more than some stitches and bruise cream to fix you up."
Danny wrinkles his nose. "Why would you need to fix me up again?"
"You're my patient. Deal with it. Now, Mr. Lancer. How was his coordination when you checked it?"
"Uh..." Lancer glances at Danny.
"Oh." Danny goes to rub the back of his head but freezes when he touches the tender spot. His fingers ghost over the few stitches there. "We kind of forgot to check that."
"Mr. Lancer, is that the kind of care I can expect you to give my patient when I leave him in your hands?"
"You're only an intern," Danny mutters. The doctor frantically waves her arms, telling Danny to stop, but it's too late. Lancer looks at the doctor, aghast. Whoops. Danny assumed he knew. To escape the doctor's ire, he busies himself with pulling his jumpsuit back up. It's no easy feat on his own, but it keeps him busy while Lancer explodes.
"An intern?!" Lancer shouts. "Are you sure you checked for everything? You didn't leave anything out, did you? I'm not suggesting you don't know how to do your job, but if you're only an intern..."
"Yes, I checked for everything. Except for his coordination, which I asked you to check." A chirp comes from the doctor's coat pocket. "Oh, geez." She pulls out her phone and turns the screen on, checking the time. "My shift starts in two minutes. Listen, stay with him for the rest of the day. And overnight. I'd prefer if you stayed tomorrow, too. If any coordination or vision issues last more than a day, you know where to find me. And you!" She points a finger at Danny. "Take your medicine! It's only a little bit to boost your immune system, just in case. If you make it through tomorrow okay, then come back the next day for a checkup. If something happens, come back here immediately."
Danny eyes the bottle of pills on the table beside him. The doctor said it was amoxicillin. It supposedly has dosage instructions for him, but the tiny letters are too blurred for him to read right now. He goes to ask her, but before even a syllable can leave his mouth, he hears the slam of the morgue door, signalling the doctor's exit. Danny and Lancer are alone again. They exist in silence, neither one willing to speak first. Danny feels his cheeks warming when he thinks about the moment the doctor interrupted when she first returned. Danny didn't mean to be so vulnerable, especially not around Lancer of all people. But he meant everything he said. Lancer is a good teacher. For all the times Danny has struggled with school, Lancer has helped him the most. Even if he also dishes out the most detentions.
Danny squints at the floor. If he didn't know any better, he would almost say those detentions were excuses to give Danny more homework time. Especially since Lance usually offers to help him during that time, even if Danny doesn't always accept it. Suspicious indeed.
When he gets bored of the floor, Danny picks up the pill bottle the doctor left him. A good shake makes the pills inside rattle. There must only be a few because the noise isn't loud. Holding the bottle up to the light, he sees that it isn't even half full. He wonders how the doctor got them since she said she couldn't order them on her own. Whatever she did, Danny hopes she won't get in trouble for it. She's nice. Even if she's also pushy and stubborn. Danny could have bandaged himself up at home with no problem.
Danny opens the bottle and shakes a pill out onto his palm. The doctor had admitted that she wouldn't know what infection looks like in a ghost, so the prescription is just to cover all the bases. Danny slides off the table, shying away from Lancer's outstretched hand, and floats toward the sink. His powers are still low, but over the last hour, he has recovered enough for something simple like that. He takes the pill by popping it in his mouth and slurping the water out of his hand.
"I don't think that's sanitary," Lancer says.
"If it's good enough to scrub with, it's good enough to drink." Danny tucks his pills away in one of the many pockets on his jumpsuit. One of the things has parents always do right: lots of hidden storage space on their clothes. Danny pats himself down a couple of times, scans the room, and busies himself for as long as possible before he has no choice but to look at Lancer. "So. Thanks for coming and getting her off my back. I guess I'll be seeing you around?"
"Oh, no you don't. You asked me here to be your guardian for the day, and that's what I'm going to do," Lancer says.
"Are you sure? You really don't have to."
"Phantom—Danny. The doctor doesn't want you to be alone, and I'm not going to go against her wishes. I can finish whatever work I had at home, and I can keep an eye on you there."
Danny smiles. "In that case, where did you park?"
William brings his car around to the ambulance bay Dr. Alejo had mentioned earlier, silently praying that there isn't an emergency right then. A part of him expects Phantom to be gone, having slipped away while William got his car. The bay is empty when he pulls in. It stays empty for the next two minutes while he waits. Phantom had insisted on staying inside rather than following him invisibly to the car and said he would meet William out here. He may have lied, though. Just when William starts to consider getting out and checking inside, his car moves, the familiar dip of a passenger getting in. Phantom turns visible.
"Sorry," he says. "I needed a moment."
"It's alright." Despite his assurance, William is plagued with the same concerns when he pulls up outside Casper High. It takes him a couple of minutes to get to his classroom, gather the assignments he was working on, along with anything else he might need, and head back out to the car. When he steps out the back door, he can't see Phantom in his passenger seat. As he approaches, however, he notices that the seat is down. Only once he's right next to the car can he see Phantom lying flat, eyes closed, injured arm folded over his stomach. William watches him. The jumpsuit covers most of his injuries. It had been ripped and stained when he first walked into the morgue, but it's good as new now. A ghost thing, perhaps. He can't recall ever seeing Phantom in anything but his jumpsuit.
William snorts at the sudden thought of Phantom having a whole closet full of the same outfit. If ghosts even have closets. He shakes his head. They should get going. Phantom will be far more comfortable laying on the couch in his den. But he doesn't move. Something keeps him rooted in place, still staring, and it takes him a while to figure out what. Phantom's chest moves, expanding and contracting as he sleeps, as he breathes.
The car jolts when William gets in, dropping heavily into the driver's seat. Phantom startles, arms flailing.
"Oh, bad idea. Very bad." He grabs his injured shoulder and peers at William with one open eye. "Something wrong?"
"I– no." William twists and puts his papers in the backseat. "Everything's alright. It will be a bit of a drive to my house. I live on the edge of the city, so you might want to get comfortable.
"Okay." Phantom lays his head back down and closes his eyes.
For the rest of the car ride, William can't stop thinking about it. Is it some leftover instinct from when he was alive? That seems like the most logical explanation. Dr. Alejo confirmed that Phantom doesn't have lungs or any other recognizable internal organs, so he shouldn't need to breathe. Not to mention that breathing is a signal of life, and if Phantom does need to breathe, then, to speak plainly, he isn't dead. Which is impossible. The very idea sounds like crackpot science. If such a thing were possible, even theoretically, the Fentons surely would have published a dozen papers on the topic, graphically detailing all the ways they would dissect such a specimen.
William turns the radio on. This time, he can actually focus on it now that he isn't concerned for his student's well-being. It feels silly now that he ever thought Dr. Alejo was talking about Danny Fenton. Everything she said makes it seem so obvious in hindsight.
William chuckles to himself. What a silly thing to do, confusing Danny Phantom for Danny Fenton.
