A/N: Felt like updating this, so I did. I do plan on finishing this. Just not immediately, so updates will be sporadic af.


Danny was up early the next morning. His desire was to immediately head over to the hospital. Visiting hours were at eight in the morning, while school started at eight as well. He didn't really care for getting to school on time, or at all if she was awake. The status of Sam's condition was his first priority.

In fifteen minutes, Danny showered, dressed himself, popped several pieces of gum in his mouth rather than brush his teeth before beginning to head out the door. He turned ghost before taking to the skies with his bag over his shoulder. He still actually planned on going to school. Just not until he knew how Sam was doing. It wasn't like he was a strange to being late.

Jazz saw his brother leave fly off from her window, and her curiosity was definitely peaked. She could tell his behavior seemed... off from what happened yesterday. He looked beyond stressed, and it definitely showed. Not just by the sleeping pills he took just to get some sleep. She'd ask him about it when he got back maybe.

Transforming back to his human form on the roof of the hospital and leaped down without his legs wavering when he jumped. Danny went towards the front entrance and walked up to the front desk to face the nurse from yesterday, who was asleep in front of him. Unfortunately, Danny was not in the mood to wake her up politely today. So he rang the bell in front of the desk, making her jerk awake with her hair in front of her face. Ugh, she hated the rare moments when people actually arrived this early.

"So sorry to interrupt your sleep, but visiting hours have started," Danny told her. Nurse Joyce yawned before rubbing her eyes and looking at Danny better. Then what he said finally sunk in.

"Dammit. Didn't expect him to actually know that the precise time," Joyce thought as she looked at his face, which showed pure impatience.

"Don't you have school?" she asked him with a raised brow as a way to deflect his request.

"And?" Danny questioned. As if it didn't matter. And it didn't. Why would he want to go there when one of his friends was here, fighting for her life? Sam needed his support, and he would gladly give it to her.

"And you need to go to school," Joyce said, her voice stern.

"What I need is to be here. Let me see her," Danny said before his voice softened. "Please."

The crack in his voice made Joyce soften visibly, no matter how much she thought she should keep up the stern visage. It hurt to see someone so wounded in front of her. Desperate and sad. Joyce thought she was used to looks like this.

"I'm sorry. They'll still be here when you get back. Just... go on back," she said.

Danny sighed. He internally growled, but there was a bit of resignation there as well. He should've known he couldn't just waltz in here and skip school. Anyone who had any sort of responsibility wouldn't have let him pull this off. Then he'll have to pull it off on his own then.

"Fine then," Danny said impatiently. He never saw the look of sympathy that crossed her face as she watched him walk away. Then again, she never saw the halfa turn into his ghost alter ego and phase through the wall, invisible and intangible. You learned to do both, after a while. It came in handy in the right situation.

Looking around, Danny saw that the nurse he talked to was sitting at her desk and rubbing her temples. By the looks of things, she didn't want to turn him away, but she knew she had to. It was alright. He was going to see her anyway. But the problem was that he didn't know what room she was in. Danny's eyes locked onto the filing cabinet that was behind her, and he knew he couldn't just go rustling through it. He'd need to get her away. He really didn't want the GIW, or God forbid, his parents barging into the hospital because of a ghost sighting.

Danny looked around. There had to be a way to get her to move from that spot. His eyes, as if it were a magnet to metal, locked on the coffee cup that was in front of her. There was plenty of steam coming out of it, so it would definitely hurt if it was spilled. Danny bit his lip in slight hesitation. Did he want to hurt her just to get in to see Sam? When he could just wait?

"You be the judge. She's in there dying. Besides, it's not like you enjoy school," his mind berated him for that fact that this was even a decision. So he fired a small ectoplasmic blast at the cup. It was just weak enough to not blow a hole through it, but knock it over onto her leg.

"Shit!" she exclaimed, immediately hopping up as she held her soaked and scalded leg. Danny tried to ignore her painful hissing as she got up to head towards the bathroom. That was his cue to go over to the filing cabinets.

"Manson... Manson..." he said in a voice more silent than a whisper. Luckily they were labeled, so it was only a matter of him searching through the files of one specific drawer.

"Mabe, Macal, Maddry... Come on..."

"Malvez... Manson!" He immediately started to search her file, and his grip tightened on the file he was holding after looking at the snapshots they had taken of her injuries. Scorch marks, bruises, open wounds. He didn't even want to look at the X-rays. Or anything else for that matter. All he wanted to find was what room she was in.

"Location: Previously in room 326. Will be transferred once parents are notified of COD," he read in his mind. "COD? Stupid hospital lingo. Can't they just say what they mean? What does COD even..."

Then the word "previously" was highlighted in his mind. It was like playing a game of truth or dare, and this was a dare, but his eyes wandered up to the sections he overlooked because of his priority to find her current location.

"Sam Manson, age 15. Hospitalized after an encounter with a ghost... Status is..." His brain paused as he read the last word. "Deceased."

The moment of disbelief was there for a few seconds. It didn't even matter that the nurse could be coming back any second. His brain just paused from "Sam Manson" and "deceased" used in the same description. This was not how their ghost hunting was supposed to go. He insisted on letting them help because at times, he needed the help. And the company. If he had known it would lead to... this, he would've frozen them to their beds if necessary.

His knees nearly gave out on him, and he dropped the file while putting a hand on the filing cabinet for support. He hadn't even noticed that he had reverted to his human form in his grief, his eyes shut tightly while his head was moving from side to side as some reflex of denying that this is actually happening. They couldn't have been dead. He saved them. Or Clockwork did, gave him a second chance! And he blew it. It was a couple of lives short, but it still hurt. It was still nothing less than crippling.

Tears leaked out of his face as he sunk to his knees, the file dropping to his side. He didn't want to believe that this was happening to him, but there was the blatant evidence right there. Hospital records don't lie to mess with half ghosts they don't even know are half ghosts. This was actually happening. A nightmare, except he was awake. There was no going back from this.

"Stupid coffee. Those burns..." Joyce stopped at the crouching teen near her filing cabinet. She was about to open her mouth to tell him off, but her eyes laid on the file that was next to him first. He obviously read it. And he obviously knew what she didn't want to tell him. Any thought of telling him off died on her lips.

"Um... kid?" Joyce said hesitantly. He suddenly stiffened as if he was paralyzed, but then his face turned towards her. Eyes tear-stained, but glowing a bright green. Wait, weren't they blue? Was her memory getting short or something?

"Leave. Me. Alone," Danny ground out. The anger in his voice was misplaced, he knew that. But he wanted to focus his sadness on something, anything that was more distracting.

"Listen... I know..."

"Do you?" he cut her off. "Do you know what I'm going through?" Joyce was silent, and Danny couldn't stop a humorless laugh from passing through his lips. People will say anything in some vain attempt that you'll feel better about the situation. Pointless. Absolutely pointless.

"That's what I thought," Danny said, furiously wiping a hand across his face and heading towards the exit. He transformed and flew off. He had no idea where he was going. He just wanted to go somewhere. Anywhere that wasn't here. He didn't want to focus on the here and now. The here and now was too painful to think about.

Somehow, Danny found his feet landing on a rock. He looked up, and found himself in a valley. No plant life, no animals. Just... nothing but rocks. A feeling rose up in the back of his throat, and before he knew it, he started wailing. Not a crying wailing, mind you. No, his Ghostly Wail was released full force on rocky plain that was inhabited by no one. Powerful ectoplasmic waves shot out of his mouth and impacted everything within range. And it had a lot of range.

He didn't know how long he kept up the wail. It could've been seconds, minutes, hours. He wouldn't have known the difference. The Wail itself was fueled by raw emotion; internal pain that needed an outlet. And this was his outlet. A power of indescribable destruction.

And then he stopped as he sunk to his knees. Danny didn't know whether his voice just got tired or just the full on ache traveling through his body made him stop. But as soon as he did, there was nothing to stop him from crying again. The palms of his hands pounded against his forehead repeatedly as hot tears leaked from his eyes and onto his pants.

"This was not how it was supposed to go," he sobbed aloud in chokes. Before knew he knew it, he said it again. And again. And again. It became a mantra for him to say, and it was true. He expected to have to deal with the ghost fighting until... well, he never really thought about it. He thought that they would eventually get tired. Ghosts didn't get old, but humans did. What would he have done? Well, it didn't really matter, now did it? His friends were dead. All because of...

Danny scraped his fingers on the ground beneath him, but that was because past the sadness, there was anger; furious and white-hot anger bubbling in the back of his brain. His head pounded with the two emotions battling in his brain, but pain was something he was used to. He had nothing to really direct that anger towards. More specifically, the person he really wanted to release his anger on. Regardless if he did, it wouldn't make him feel better. With that depressing thought, Danny deflated as if he were a popped balloon, shoulders slumping and looking at the destroyed rocks dejectedly.


Jazz walked in the house while rubbing her neck. There wasn't commotion in the kitchen, so her parents must've been down in the lab. Then she reminded herself about Danny's attitude yesterday. She would have to ask him about that when he got here. Very little got to her brother, she knew that. So something definitely had to be wrong.

She opened her door and was about to walk in when a crack of light caught her eye. She turned around and saw that Danny's door was cracked open. If memory served, which in her case was pretty accurate, that door was closed when she left. In her mind, it was worth checking out.

Walking up to the door, she simply eased the door open and saw her brother lying his bed and staring at the ceiling without movement. He barely blinked the entire time he was lying there. She didn't think he knew she was there until he spoke up.

"If you're gonna stare, at least close the door," Danny said tonelessly. He didn't even look at her.

"You should be at school. Did something happen?" Jazz asked.

"There are a lot of things that we should do, but don't. It's how it works," Danny said, still not taking his eyes of the ceiling and talking in the same toneless voice. Judging by that statement, he skipped off.

"Alright, what's the matter?" Jazz asked.

"Do me a favor and please don't try to get inside my head, Miss Psychiatrist. Not right now," Danny said with the same demeanor and tone.

"That only tells me something's wrong," Jazz said, undeterred by her brother's attitude.

"Get out Jazz," Danny said, his voice still toneless.

"Why should I? You're supposed to be at school," Jazz said, her tone suddenly stern.

"And I can gladly tell you that I don't care right now," Danny said, heat worming its way into his tone.

"You will if I tell mom and dad," Jazz said with a raised brow.

"Like I care about that. I'll just go off during a break between classes if they try and take me there," Danny said, the toneless tone returning. The tone made Jazz uneasy. It wasn't like Danny to sound so... detached.

"What's wrong Danny?" Jazz said, her tone getting softer as she sat down on his bed. Something was definitely wrong with him.

"I'm fine," he said, not making eye contact with her.

"Regardless of everything that happens at that school, you've never once taken off a day. Why now?" she asked him.

"Because I needed a break," Danny said simply.

"Superheroes don't take breaks, Danny," Jazz reminded him, making Danny laugh hollowly. The heavy feeling in his chest intensified as he rolled over on his side.

"Some hero I am," he said bitterly as his grip tightened around the covers.

"What are you on about? You've helped lots of people, you know," Jazz said. "Bad day?"

"Get. Out," Danny ground out angrily. Jazz opened her mouth to argue, but then she saw his eyes. They were green, which really showed that he was upset. But this was no different than how she usually bugged him. Why was he so upset at her now?

"Fine then. Maybe Sam and Tucker can get through to you," Jazz said, starting to head towards the door.

That did it. That one sentence did it. Against everything in his body screaming for him not too, a choked sob escaped from his mouth. He muffled it with the pillow before it made any real noise, but it was there.

"Idiot. You really wanna be by yourself thinking about this? She's part of this too if the future is anything to show," his mind told him. His fingers gripped the pillow he was covering his mouth with tighter, imprints making their mark from how hard he was gripping. Suddenly has was back at the Nasty Burger, everyone he cared about, trapped... about to go up in flames...

"Stop," Danny said, suddenly sitting up. Jazz had almost closed the door when she heard her brother's voice. And unless her ears were deceiving her, she heard a crack in it. "Don't leave. Not like..."

Her ears definitely weren't deceiving her now. His voice cracked and there was a... choked sob? All thoughts of leaving were left somewhere else. She turned back around and saw him sitting on the side of his bed, seemingly fighting back tears. She saw all the signs with the way he tensed, his head turned the other way. Seeing him cry was strangely like seeing her parents cry, even though they never have. It's just something that should never happen.

"They're dead..." Danny said, his voice somehow managing to sound hollow and sorrowful at the same time. He shook his head as if trying to dispel memories, but the attempt seemed to make him more hysteric. He looked to be on the verge of a breakdown. Without hesitation, she sat down and pulled him close to comfort him. Someone must've died today and he couldn't stop them in time. This type of lifestyle was something no one should have to deal with, let alone her little brother.

Danny was a silent crier, it seemed. He made no audible sound, but she could feel her shoulder getting moist from tears. She hadn't seen him cry it ages. Again, considering the circumstances, it was something that just shouldn't happen. She was here, though. At the very least. And she that Danny would be too stubborn to tell Sam and Tucker. She would do it for him then.


A/N: Don't know when I'm going to update this again, but I will update it. Can't wait to get to the parts I have planned. They'll be... interesting, to say the least. Hope you enjoyed!