Author's Note: I own nothing. This is story number four in my Dani Phantom series. I hope you enjoy.
A Crisis of Self
1 A Weekend Off
Dev stared at Kyle's desk. It was a very good thing almost no one came down to the morgue these days. If they had they might be wondering exactly what he was wondering.
"Um Kyle…"
"Yeah?" The coroner called from the other room where he was finishing up an autopsy.
"Dare I ask why you have a bowl full of souls on your desk?" Dev said staring at what appeared to be a clear fishbowl full to the brim with the little green blobs that sometimes wandered the air in Amity Park after nightfall. Kyle stepped back into the room pulling off his gloves and tossing them into the biohazard bin.
"Oh that, well technically they aren't really souls. At least that's what Dani said." Dev raised an eyebrow.
"You've talked to Dani?" He was surprised. It had been near two weeks since the entire town had been sucked into the Ghost Zone by the Ghost King. Only through Dani's intervention had everyone been returned, mostly unharmed. Dani herself and Vincent Grey had been the only ones injured severely. Most of the rest of the injuries had been incidentals caused by the interdimensional travel or were shock related. But Dev had not seen Dani herself since leaving her house the night after it had all gone down. Kyle nodded.
"Angelica brought her in. She wanted a second opinion." He said unlocking a drawer on his desk and, with some difficulty, pulling out a file with a picture of Dani Phantom paper clipped to the front. On the cover was written 'Dani Phantom: Report'. Dev frowned.
"Please tell me you didn't autopsy a somewhat living teen. I don't think I can morally cover that up Kyle." He said and Kyle shook his head.
"It's me, you'd find a way. But that's not the point since there was no autopsy. More of a physical, no scalpels involved in that and something I swear I haven't done since Med school. Most of my patients can't tell me if they feel something after all." He pointed out and Dev nodded.
"If they do start telling you how they feel you'll call me, right? Also, this does not explain the soul bowl." He pointed out. Kyle tapped the side of the bowl with a fingernail, sending the little blobs inside spinning around in the bowl blinking open tiny red eyes. They shifted for a moment and settled again.
"They've been hanging out ever since we got back to Earth." He said. "I asked Dani about it when she and Angelica came by. Apparently, these guys are all over the Ghost Zone, but they're completely harmless. She says they don't really have much of a will behind them, but they like to congregate around areas that have massive amounts of corpses. My bet is they're here and in the graveyard but I haven't checked there yet. I didn't ask how she knows that, and she didn't tell me why. But they like a place to sort of puddle and it keeps them out of my way during autopsies. They just sort of wander in and out on their own." He said with a shrug. Dev shook his head. This town was only going to get weirder from here. Kyle pulled his attention away from the bowl of little green blobs and back to the file on his desk. Dev frowned.
"What did you find out?" He asked leaning forward, glancing again at the bowl, a bit worried about touching the desk in case they took it as an invasion. Kyle grinned slightly.
"Wouldn't you like to know Officer?" He teased and Dev thought for a moment about threatening to sic the Captain on Kyle but then he would have to explain everything he knew about Phantom to the police captain, and he wasn't willing to do that anymore. Though the Captain's attitude towards Phantom had warmed after she saved the whole town Dev didn't think he would take the existence of Halfas well. Kyle continued though before he could be prodded.
"Dani said it was ok if I shared with you, but this goes no further." He said and Dev nodded. Satisfied Kyle laid down the open file and pushed it across the desk to Dev. He skimmed it and frowned.
"That can't be right."
"That would be why Angelica wanted a second opinion." Kyle said. "But those vitals are correct. Dani Fenton has the vitals of a coma patient when she's sitting up completely alert and honestly pretty nervous."
"But I was in the back of the ambulance with her after that whole thing with Freakshow, she was stable." He said shaking his head.
"Yeah, your mistake was putting the tech genius in the back with her and not the front seat, at least according to Angelica. Her daughter's developed a device to keep Dani's vitals looking normal if they get checked. Don't ask me how it works that shit flew way over my head. She slipped it into Dani's hand while you weren't looking." Dev shook his head moving on down the file. Dani's injury, sustained from her parent's glitchy battle suit, was finally fully healed, though apparently it had been sped along by copious amounts of ectoplasm Dani had in her words 'borrowed' from her parent's lab. She had two other scars, as Fenton, one on her side just above her hip an inexpertly stitched slash wound about two inches across, and a perfectly circular spray of lightning in the center of her palm. Phantom was a different story though. According to Angelica's notes, she had much neater handwriting than Kyle did, as Phantom Dani had a Lichtenburg scar that ran from her fingertips all the way to her heart. They were a toxic green and the only part of that arm not covered in those scars was the same circle where they appeared on Fenton. Dev shook his head.
"Angie figures she was electrocuted. To death. But she still won't talk about it." Kyle said with a frown. Silence fell between them. "A lot of things you could get electrocuted on in the Fenton's Lab." Kyle pointed out. He didn't need to. Dev had been thinking something similar.
"Yeah, but there's never been an accident like this before."
"If it happened once, it could happen again!" Kyle pointed out.
"Technically it's happened twice." A voice above them spoke startling them both and sending the little blob ghosts spinning up out of the bowl as a figure resolved on the ceiling. Phantom laughed as the little ghosts spun around her in lazy circles. "Guys I'm trying to have a serious conversation." She said with a laugh in her voice. The little ghosts chirped as she floated down to sit in the second chair in the room. Dev shook his head as Dani shooed the little ghosts back into the bowl where they settled back down making a hum not unlike a cat purring.
"Twice?" He asked. Dani nodded.
"You both saw Vlad transform back from Plasmius to Masters, no point hiding it now, Sam heard you." She said and white lights flashed. Dev stared as the lights moved over her, the black hazmat suit vanished, replaced with jeans and a t-shirt. The white hair darkened and toxic green eyes shifted to blue. He hadn't actually seen the transition before, just the result, and it was slightly jarring. He shook his head.
"So, this could happen again?" Dev pushed. Dani frowned. Kyle shot Dev a look. He pulled the book Dani had recommended to Dev out of his desk.
"It says here to never ask a ghost how they died. It's rude." Kyle pointed out. Dev rolled his eyes.
"Can you stop stealing my book?" He grouched and Kyle lifted an eyebrow at him.
"Can you stop leaving it on my nightstand?" He asked wiggling his raised eyebrow and Dani threw up her hands.
"Ok, way more information than I needed. I don't really know if it's rude, but it's hard to talk about. Like there's something stopping me from talking about it." She said rubbing her chest, just above where her heart was.
"We could ask Tanya or Sam." Kyle suggested, and Dani shook her head.
"No, Tanya doesn't like talking about it and Sam still feels guilty." She said then scrambled to speak again as Kyle and Dev stared at her. "It wasn't really his fault, it was an accident."
"One that could happen again." That wasn't really a question this time. Dani shook her head.
"Not unless someone else decides to build a Ghost Portal with the stupid on switch inside it." She muttered and both of the adults blinked at her. The implication behind her words was enormous. An error in engineering on the part of the Fenton's had killed their youngest daughter, even only halfway. Dani shook her head.
"Not what I wanted to talk about. Look Sam said you were willing to help out." She said turning to Dev who nodded.
"Any way I can." He said and she grinned.
"Great, I'm off the clock this weekend." She said and he blinked. "Sam, Tanya, and I haven't had a weekend off since I died. We're taking this weekend to just be teens again, unless someone big breaks out. You have a Fenton Thermos right?" She asked and Dev nodded patting the device that now hung on his belt just to the left of his side holster. "Good. You should be able to deal with minor things like the Box Ghost with just that. I'm outa here." She said grinning and blinking out of sight. Silence fell and Dev turned back to Kyle.
"Why do I have a feeling this will not go the way she wants?" He asked shaking his head lightly.
"Because you're a cynic. You're cute but you're a cynic." Kyle shrugged and Dev couldn't help but grin.
"I should get back to the bull pen before the Captain starts to wonder where I've gone. Keep that file on lock down, will you?" He asked and Kyle nodded opening the once locked drawer and pulling up a false bottom, slipping the file under it and closing and locking the drawer again. He leaned back in his chair and flipped open the book.
"You got it Officer." He teased as Dev shook his head, a fond smile playing at his lips as he left.
