Sam stared at the door.
It stood open, and the dull, tan lockers of the school hallway held her gaze. She drummed her black nails on her desk, nervously bouncing her knee.
She sighed for what seemed like the millionth time that day and checked her watch. School had started over three hours ago, and yet the seat next to her was still empty.
Danny was still home, then.
Sam dropped her face into her hands. Mr. Lancer was droning on about some poem that she couldn't care less about. Her eyes drifted to Danny's empty chair. I told him that wound was worse than he thought, she thought irritably. But Jazz knew about it; she most likely hasn't let him out of her sight.
With that knowledge in mind, Sam huffed out another breath and straightened in her chair, feeling a bit better. She felt eyes on her and turned to see Tucker on her other side, giving her a quick, reassuring grin.
Lancer was halfway through his next poem when there was a knock at the open door. Heads turned toward the newcomer, and Sam's heart jumped in her throat.
It was the Guys In White.
She and Tucker shared a startled glance. What the hell are these losers doing here? thought Sam nervously. Her eyes reflexively darted toward Danny's desk, but she relaxed almost instantly; Danny wasn't here. He was safe at home.
Phew.
Tucker must have made the same conclusion, for he, too, leaned comfortably back in his seat.
"Can I help you gentlemen with something?" asked Lancer, closing the book of the poetry, holding the page he was on with his thumb.
The two men—Agents O and K, Sam remembered—filed into the room and came to stand at the front, flanking Lancer. The dark skinned agent, O, stared emotionlessly at the class. Dark sunglasses hid his eyes. "Actually, yes." They nodded to the door, and the class turned to see another nameless agent enter the room and shut the door. "We apologize for the interruption," said O, "but we have reason to believe a fugitive is hiding in this classroom."
Lancer spluttered at the same time chatter broke out in whispers among the students. "Of Mice and Men, a fugitive?"
"Yes," K nodded. "Danny Phantom."
Sam's heart dropped to her boots. Tucker nearly fell out of his chair. More chatter broke out among the class, everyone suddenly looking for the infamous ghost boy.
"Woah, really?" asked Dash in awe. "He's here? Sweet!"
"No, kid," said O flatly. "It is not sweet. This entity has wreaked havoc over this town for years." He pulled out two objects from his pocket. A small, square box and a circular, metal disc, stained green.
Sam's breath hitched.
That was the disc that hit Danny last night.
Crap.
"Sam," hissed Tucker almost inaudibly. "Is that—"
"Yep," she said through clenched teeth. Thank god he's home, thank god he's home…
"We've managed to get a sample of Phantom's ectoplasm," O was saying, "and were able to trace it to this classroom."
"I assure you there are no ghosts in my classroom," said Lancer, though by the way his voice wavered and his gaze flitted around like someone paranoid of an invisible mosquito in the air, he didn't seem sure enough to assure anyone of anything.
"Maybe not visibly," K said. "We've traced his ecto-signature here."
Hah, thought Sam. Good luck finding him here, losers.
O fiddled with the box for a moment, then it started faintly beeping. He started walking slowly through the aisles, up the rows. The beeping gradually grew faster as he approached the back, where she and Tucker were sitting. She swallowed hard, leaning reflexively back in her seat. O stepped closer. The box beeped faster. He turned the box to his right. The beeping turned into one long whine. O grinned.
The box was pointing at Tucker.
"It's Foley?" said Dash incredulously. "Phantom is hiding inside Foley?!"
Tucker's eyes were wide behind his glasses. Sam dropped the pen she had been holding.
What?!
"I—I'm not—" stammered Tucker, looking wildly at Sam and all the eyes on him. "I'm not a ghost!"
"Of course you aren't," said O, pocketing the box. "You're human. There's only a ghost inside of you."
"But—but I'm not-!" said Tucker adamantly. "There's nothing inside of me! Your box must be broken!"
"And that's exactly what Phantom would want us to think," said K, pulling metal handcuffs from his pocket. He stalked down the aisle and yanked Tucker up by the arm.
"Ow!" whined Tucker, struggling against the bulky man.
"Let him go!" Sam jumped out of her own seat.
"Now, wait a moment!" Lancer quickly positioned himself between Sam and Agent O. He turned to O. "This is a child, a minor. I cannot allow you to take my student—"
"We can and we will," said K, thrusting a printed sheet of paper in front of Lancer's face. "It's for his own good; we need to knock that ghost out of him." K snapped on the handcuffs to Tucker's wrists. He squirmed in the man's grip.
"This isn't legal!" shouted Sam, lunging toward O, but Lancer grabbed her by the shoulders and held her back.
"Ms. Manson, they have the authority to treat your friend—"
"But he's not hiding Phantom!" she practically shrieked.
"If he's not hiding the ghost," said K, "then why does he have Phantom's ecto-signature reeking off of him as if he bathed in it?"
Sam froze.
The blood.
Danny's blood.
Tucker had been covered in Danny's ectoplasm; he must not have been able to get it all off.
She and Tucker locked eyes; the recognition seemed to hit them both simultaneously.
"We need to get him contained," said K, yanking Tucker away from his desk.
"Sam!" yelled Tucker, digging his heels into the tile floor.
"Tucker!" Sam struggled in Lancer's surprisingly strong grip.
"Ms. Manson, please!" scolded Lancer. "Those government agents are trying to help your friend! Mr. Foley is going to be just fine."Agent K yanked harder, dragging Tucker with him into the hallway. The door swung shut behind the agents. Sam stopped fighting, chest heaving. There was no way she was going to single handedly take down all of those agents to save Tucker. And no way they were going to listen to reason until they were convinced—through whatever awful ideas they had about de-overshadowing humans—that Phantom really wasn't inside Tucker.
There was no telling what kind of danger he was in.
The bell rang. Still stunned, the students awkwardly packed up their things to move on to the next class. Lancer let go of Sam's shoulders. "Now, Ms. Man—" he began, but the moment he let her go, she was gone.
Danny groaned, his abdomen burning in pain as he reached across the table for the cereal.
He'd been woken up by Jazz early in the morning, and quickly realized that the simple act of sitting up and breathing were practically agony. Jazz told him to stay in bed and sleep it off, give himself more time to heal and she would take the day off as well to look after him. To the latter, Danny profusely tried to convince her it was unnecessary, but he hadn't been able to wear her down.
Finally reaching the cereal box, Danny grunted, sliding it toward himself. He dumped flakes of it into his waiting bowl. Man, he thought irritably, as his abdomen stung. Maybe Sam was right. I should have tried harder to stay in ghost form yesterday so I could heal faster.
But even Danny knew that he should be healing faster than this, human or not. He looked down at his t-shirt, and lifted it to stare at the gauze Jazz had wrapped around him this morning. It shouldn't still be this bad. But the only other times he's been given an injury that lasted this long was when he cut himself with one of his parents' weapons. It had some sort of addition that somehow blocked his super-healing. Maybe whatever hit him did something similar.
"You okay, Danny?"
Danny dropped his shirt and looked up. Jazz slipped into the seat across from him at the table. Danny shoveled a spoonful of cereal into his mouth and chewed carefully. "Fine." He took another bite. "You don't have to be here, Jazz."
Danny saw the hurt flit over her face.
"Not that I don't want you here," he said quickly. "I just… don't want to be a burden, that's all."
"Danny," said Jazz lightly, in a very similar tone to his mother. It was scary how much she had taken after Maddie. "Stop it. You know that's not true."
Danny nodded glumly, taking another bite of the cereal. "Where are Mom and Dad?"
Jazz shrugged. "I don't know. They both went somewhere in a hurry this morning, weapons blaring." Jazz reached for the newspaper on the table and flipped to a page. "Probably having to do with a ghost.
Ghost? thought Danny with piqued interest, but immediately deflated. He was in no shape to go take care of even the Box Ghost right now. Besides, his ghost sense didn't go off; his parents were probably chasing another false alarm.
Danny ate the rest of the cereal in silence, listening to the crinkling of pages Jazz turned in the newspaper. That is, until someone started knocking incessantly at the door.
"I'll get it," said Jazz, placing the paper back to the table.
As she got up to get the door, Danny slowly stood and brought his bowl to the sink to rinse it. He heard Jazz open the door, and a familiar voice shout his name.
"Danny!"
Danny turned. "Sam?"
Sam tore through the door, nearly knocking Jazz over. She flew into the kitchen, eyes wide with—Danny's heart stuttered. Was that fear?
"They have Tucker!" she said breathlessly, her chest heaving.
Danny's eyebrows soared, something dark settling into his eyes. His voice sharpened. "Who has Tucker?"
"The Guys In White." she said, grasping the kitchen chair, her knuckles white.
Danny's jaw dropped. "Wait—what?"
"Why would they take Tucker?" asked Jazz, rushing back into the kitchen.
"That disc that hit you last night was an invention of theirs," explained Sam in a rush, her hand gesturing toward Danny's abdomen. "They just wanted a sample of your blood."
"My blood?" echoed Danny. He leaned back into the counter behind him. The Guys In White had been hunting him for years. They finally got the sample they'd wanted—the puzzle piece they'd been looking for—to track him down. But… "What does Tucker have to do with that?"
"Last night, Danny!" said Sam, running a nervous hand through her hair. "You were hit and then you fell and when Tucker caught you—"
Danny groaned into his hand. "He got drenched in my blood." Danny's heart jumped into his throat. Of course Tucker would be radiating his ecto-signature. Crud. "Not good, this is so not good…"
"Hang on!" said Jazz, throwing her hands up between them in what she seemed to hope was a placating gesture. "We… we don't need to freak out," she said, though her voice definitely screamed let's freak out. "Tucker isn't Danny, so they're just going to realize he's human and let him go."
"But that's just it!" exclaimed Sam, throwing her hands up. "They think Tucker's being overshadowed by Danny Phantom!"
Danny groaned again. Double crud. "Those morons aren't going to stop until they…" He swallowed hard. He's had enough Guys In White induced nightmares to imagine what they might do to Tucker to drag a ghost out of him.
"I know," said Sam, obviously already having made the same assumption he had. "What are we going to do?"
Danny's eyes flashed. "We're going to save him; that's what we're going to do." He pushed away from the cabinets but his abdomen flared up with pain. He stumbled with a groan, barely catching himself on the kitchen table for support.
Jazz grabbed him before he could fall, pushing him gently into the chair. "No, you're not, Danny! You can hardly walk!"
"Well, I'm not gonna walk, am I?" he countered, eyes flashing green.
"Danny, she's right!" said Sam firmly. "First of all, I'm not letting you fly straight into a facility full of people who want to destroy you!"
"Well, if we don't bust in there, they're going to destroy Tucker!"
"Hang on a second!" yelled Jazz, putting firm hands on her little brother's shoulders. The three teenagers stewed in the tense silence. Jazz sighed. "Where is the facility we think they took Tucker to?"
"The Guys In White have a lab outside of Amity Park, pretty much in the middle of nowhere," said Danny dully. "It's a bit of a flight, so I'd say it's little over an hour drive out of town. They built it last year sometime when they started catching wind of me and the other ghosts." He eyed her suspiciously. "Why?"
"Look, Danny," she said, crossing her arms. "Sam and I aren't letting you get anywhere near that place. We're just going to have to go rescue Tucker ourselves."
"That's a high-level secure building that I doubt even Valerie could break into!" said Danny. "Jazz—"
"I'm in." said Sam matter-of-factly.
Danny glared at her. "Sam—"
"Kids!"
Danny, Jazz and Sam whipped around. Maddie and Jack Fenton were standing in the doorway to the kitchen. All three teenagers stiffened, wondering how much they had heard.
"Danny-boy!" bellowed Jack. "What are you doing home?"
So, they didn't hear anything.
Phew.
"Sweetie," said Maddie, giving Jazz a look, "what are you and Danny doing home from school?"
"They must have heard the news and came rushing home to share in our victory!" said Jack.
"Victory?" asked Jazz uncertainly.
"They've cornered that scum-sucking ghost kid, Danny Phantom!" exclaimed Jack, pumping a fist through the air. "Man, I want to see them knock it out of that friend of yours."
"Jack!" scolded Maddie.
"Tucker isn't being overshadowed!" said Sam exasperatedly.
"Oh, Sam," said Maddie, placing her ectogun on the table and taking her mask down from her face. "We designed the Fenton Frisbee to strike a ghost and save its ectoplasm so the GIW could use it for their trackers. It's one-hundred percent foolproof and unfortunately they traced Phantom's exact signature to Tucker."
Maddie reached out a hand to Sam's shoulder. "He'll be just fine! Those agents are very good!"
Sam shrugged off Maddie's hand. "No, he—"
Jazz elbowed her in the gut. They shared a look. Sam cleared her throat, and reluctantly said, "Oh, Mrs. Fenton, you are probably right. I'm so glad your disc thingie caught that evil ghost once and for all."
"That's the spirit, kiddo!" said Jack, patting Sam harshly on the back, nearly sending her flying into the kitchen table.
"Uh," said Jazz, eyes flitting to the door. "Sam and I really need to, uh, get back to… celebrating."
"Yeah," growled Danny. "We do."
Jazz quickly slipped back next to Danny, briefly whispering to him, "I'm sorry for this, little brother, but it's for your own good." She cleared her throat awkwardly. "Uh, no, Danny can't come! He's—uh—sick."
Danny clenched his teeth. Thanks a lot, Jazz. "I am not—" But he didn't get far because Jazz gave him a quick shove and he slipped out of the chair to the floor, his wound stinging painfully. He couldn't hold in a groan of pain as he clutched his stomach.
"Danny!"
Maddie was beside him in seconds. As the pain subsided, Danny glanced up to see Sam and Jazz tiptoeing to the door, both with incredibly guilty expressions on their faces. Sam gave him an apologetic smile before they slipped through the doorway.
"Mom, I'm fine—" he tried, but Maddie didn't let him go.
"Danny, I want you to go straight upstairs, Mister. You can stay there until your tummy feels better."
"Mom—" Danny ground out through his teeth.
"Don't worry, sweetie!" she gushed. "I won't let you out of my sight!"
Danny glared at the door, dropping his head in defeat.
Triple crud.