Chapter 1: The examination
When Danny woke up, he immediately realised that he was in a hospital, and shot up, but only to be pressed down again by a powerful hand. "Now, son, don't be too hasty." Jack Fenton spoke to his son, then he removed his hand from Danny's chest. "Danny!" His mother exclaimed, and hugged her son tightly to her chest. "We were so worried…" She whispered. When she let go, Jazz hugged her little brother as well, and then Jack hugged them both, nearly breaking his sons ribs in the process.
When Danny had gotten some air back into his lungs, his mother said: "Danny, dear, I'm afraid I have bad news for you. The doctors say they want to keep you here for a while to examine your DNA, and to check if you don't have any chromosomal disorders, since there are a few running in the family. That could have caused the fainting and the ill feeling you experienced earlier." Danny's face turned as pale as a sheet. At that moment, the door opened, and a Man in a white coat entered the room. He held his hands behind his back, and a bulge in his coat pocked indicated that something was in there. "Hey Kid, I see that you've woken up… I've come to get your DNA from you." The man spoke. Danny eyed him, scared. The doctor shot the boy one look, and sighed. "Oh my… You know what I'm going to do, don't you?" Danny nodded. "If I'm honest, I'd rather have come here to find you unconcious, so you wouldn't feel this. But even if you are concious, it has to happen. Sorry…" "Danny? Why are you acting so weird? He's just a doctor! What are you afr- oh!" Jazz didn't have to finish her sentence, because the Doctor pulled a long needle from behind his back, and placed it on the table. As he proceeded with taking a bottle from his pocket, uncorking it and putting this down too, he said, friendly: "But I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Doctor Andrew Redfeather, but you may call me Andrew. I'll be your doctor from now on, as long as you are in this hospital anyway." Danny swallowed and nodded weakly, not trusting his voice at all right now. "Can you tell me your name? I hate reading a patient's name in his file, especially if it's MY patient." The doctor said, and managed to look so affronted that he got a very weak smile from Danny. "I'm Danny Fenton." Danny said. The doctor held out his hand. "Nice to meet you, Danny." He said, as they shook hands. "I seriously hope you won't take this personally…" The doctor sighed. "Do you want your family to stay with you when I do this, or would you rather not?" He asked. "I-I'd rather have them leave. I don't want them to see…" "You have no idea how much I sympathise with that…" The doctor mumbled softly, so soft that only Danny heard, and then spoke aloud to the other three Fentons: "Mr Fenton, Mrs. Fenton, Miss Fenton, may I ask you friendly to leave the room for a second? I believe Danny wouldn't like you to see this ordeal." "Excuse me, doctor, but what exactly are you going to do to my son?" Maddie asked. "I'm going to take some DNA from his spine with this needle. It has to enter via the lowest point of the spine, and it's, most unfortunately, very painful." He explained. "How did you know, Danny?" Jazz asked. Her brother, who had paled even further by now, squeaked "W-well… Tucker has this hospital phobia because he had to undergo this treatment a long time ago… that's how.." "I can see his point…"Jazz mumbled. The doctor nodded in agreement. "So can I… I've had to to get this done to me five times already. But kindly leave, so we can get this over with." "Good luck, honey." Maddie whispered, and brushed her sons hair with her hand, before leaving. Jack gave his son the thumbs up and followed his wife. "Be brave like you always are, little bro. It'll be alright." Jazz whispered. Then she, too was gone, and the Doctor closed the door and locked it firmly behind her. "Okay, do you want me to do it immediately, or do you want to talk first?" He asked, while he walked over to Danny's bed and sat down on the edge of it.
"Actually, I'd like to ask you some things first. One: Why did you lock the door?" The doctor sighed. "So your family won't come in when you scream. It happened to me once… very embarrassing." Danny smiled. "Tell me about it ?" He asked. The doctor smiled. "If that'll lift your spirit a bit… It was my first time, so I wasn't prepared for the pain yet. I must have screamed bloody murder, because my mom, two aunts and three sisters came running in as fast as they could, and got a nice shot of me with my pants off and that needle sticking about halfway into my rear. That hurt… I was 15 at the time…" The doctor flinched at the memory, and Danny smiled. "Must have sucked…" "You have no idea…" The doctor mumbled. "Okay, question number two: why aren't you all serious and gloomy, like most doctors? " "Because I'm not like most doctors. For one, I'm the youngest here, with my mere 26 years, two, I'm crazy, three, I don't believe scaring people with a stick-up-your-ass, sorry, attitude is going to help them relax under the needle. So please, take a minute to calm yourself completely, it'll hurt less that way." Danny closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. "Okay, I'm ready." He said, Opening his eyes again. "Okay. Take off your pants and lay down on your stomach. Don't worry. I might be young, but I have experience. I won't say that I wont hurt you, because I'd hate to lie to you, but I'll try to make it as bearable as possible." Danny nodded, and the doctor closed the rooms curtains and switched on the lights. Danny then did as he was told, and The doctor picked up the needle. "Listen to me." He said to the shivering boy on the bed. "Take a deep breath and relax, I'm going to talk you through this. Grab a hold of your pillow with your hands, and stretch your legs backward. I'm going to sit on your legs so you wont kick out and do serious damage to yourself, and you make sure to hold your upper body still, okay? Just nod." Danny nodded. "Good. Now, I won't say that you can't scream, in fact, I'd like you to scream all you want, it makes this more bearable. I'll count to three, then to five while I stick it in, then to thirty while filling it, and to five again when I pull the needle out. Okay?" "Okay…" "Good. You are very brave, kid. Any last words?" "Yeah.. I'm so lucky to have you for a doctor." The doctor grinned. "Thank you. I appreciate that. Now, don't take this too personal… One… two… Relax… Three" "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" Danny yelled , as a terrible pain made its way through his body. He vaguely remembered that he wasn't allowed to move, so he held onto the pillow and sobbed into it. The pain was much worse than any pain he had felt before, even worse than the time he turned ghost for the first time. Through the mist of pain and the sound of his own screams, which he didn't even realise were his anymore, he heard the calm voice of the doctor. "Five. Next phase… one, two, three… you're doing great… six, seven, eight. You can do it, Danny… hang on. It'll be over before you know it… fourteen… fifteen… sixteen… you are strong… you can do it… it's okay… scream it all out… twenty-one… twenty-two… come one! Twenty-four… twenty-five… twenty-six… hey, that's my age… twenty-eight… almost there… thirty! Okay last phase… one… two… it's nearly over… four… five! There, done. Are you okay?" Danny sobbed into the pillow as the pain slowly died away, and was very grateful that he got a nice doctor, and that he'd sent his family away. He would most certainly not have liked them to see this. "Are you okay?" The doctor asked again. "Well, as far as you can be okay after that… It's quite an ordeal, isn't it?" "Y-yeah…"Danny managed. The doctor smiled at him. "Good. You can relax now, it's over. You were very brave… Braver than I was, that's for sure… The doctor had to chase me around the room for fifteen minutes before he actually pinned me onto the bed… Then I kicked him in the balls, and it took another twenty minutes for him to catch himself and to catch me again…" Danny laughed a little, despite the pain, and the doctor shot him a mock-upset look. "Yeah, that's right, laugh at me." He pouted. "My doctor happened to be a real pain in the ass… literally… and he's now… My boss! I think he still hasn't forgiven me for kicking him that day…He always looks at me like I'm a piece of shit he just stepped in…" The doctor looked at Danny, who was grinning by now. "Are you ready to see your family again and wait for the results? Or do you want to have a little more time to recover?" "Give me another minute…" Danny muttered, hands slowly unclenching as the tension drained from his body. "Hey, let me tell you something else that might cheer you up… The result will be brought here in about three hours, counting from the moment I present it to the lab, so you won't have to stay in here for all too long." The doctor said, cheerfully, as he transferred Danny's spinal marrow into the bottle. "Oh, yay…" Danny exclaimed, mock-enthusiastic. The doctor smiled. "I think you can meet with your family now." He walked over to the bed, helped Danny turn around and pulled the covers over him. Then he drew the curtains and went to open the door. "Danny! Danny, are you all right! We heard you scream… Did it hurt?" Maddie exclaimed, as she ran in and hugged her son. Danny flinched as the impact made his spine hurt. "Mom… you're hurting me…" Maddie quickly let go. "I'm sorry…"She muttered. "It's just…" "Mom... I know.." "Danny, I'm taking this to the lab." The doctor's voice sounded from around the corner of the door. "Then I'll get you some food. Oh yeah, and your friends have come to see you." Danny looked past his mother, who was still crying and being comforted by his dad, to see Sam, Tucker and Jazz enter the room. "I thought we'd best wait a bit." Jazz answered his questioning glance. Sam and tucker ran to Danny's bed and looked at him. "WHAT THE HELL" Sam started "DID THOSE BASTARDS DO TO YOU, MAN?" Tucker finished. "When we arrived, the first thing we heard was your scream…""Tuck… they took my DNA…"Danny said, smirking evilly as tuckers face paled. "Oh…" He said, and fainted. Sam checked his pulse, and then looked up to Danny again. "Did they really?" "Yeah… Man, it hurt like hell. The needle was this long, and he stuck it right up my spine…" "Ugh… asshole!" "N-""No he's not." A squeaky voice sounded from around the corner of the door. "The doctor is a very nice, handsome, friendly man, who has a knack for annoying his colleagues, supporting his tribe and being nice to his patients, and their friends." The doctor peeked his head around the corner of the door. "Miss Manson, right? You came here once with that evil little git of a cousin of yours, the one that looked like a fat, walking ice cake…" He whispered, so only Danny and Sam could hear it. "Yeah… but how do you know that?" "Well… I used to be the assistant of her doctor, the only man known to the world to survive a five-foot stick up his ass for over 20 years… Doctor Mustard." He said, making a face. "I was the one who stuck that needle in her arm." "What? She went completely maniac after you did that!" "I know… It placed the head wrong… silly me…" Sam grinned, but Danny paled. "Wh- why did you do that?" "Relax Danny, she deserved it." Sam answered, grinning. The doctor nodded in agreement. "She came here with a small cat scratch on her hand and insisted it would be disinfected and plastered up. She made the assistant -your doctor- drop the medicine on purpose, and screamed the entire hospital out of its bed." "Yeah, so I figured I'd give her something to scream for." The doctor filled in dryly. "Besides, that feels like a mosquito bite compared to what you just went through, and I won't do anything to any patient of mine which could cause serious unnecessary pain or damage, so relax, okay?" "Okay… Shees, you had me worried for a while there…" Danny shifted, and made a face. "Ow… it still hurts." The doctor sighed. "I can imagine. It's probably started bleeding too by now… I'll get you something to eat first, seeing as you might be able to handle me bandaging you up after that. So, can I interest you in a meal consisting of lovely, slaughtered salad, with brutally butchered potatoes, fried in the blood of a sunflower, and a piece of a dead and rotting chicken?" "Will there be smashed apple heads with that?" Sam asked cynically, suppressing a grin. The doctor nodded and smiled brightly. "Yup. That's our speciality… smashing things. So what do you say?" Okay, why not?' Danny grinned widely, and the doctor skipped away to get Danny some dinner. When the doctor left, Maddie and Jack, who had gone into the hallway to calm Maddie down a bit, re-entered the room. "I'm sorry Danny…"She apologised. " It's just… I can't stand to hear my boy screaming like that, to know that he's in pain and I can do nothing…" Danny smiled. "It's okay mom, I get it. Don't worry." When the doctor returned a few minutes later, he saw that the air was a lot more clear. "Hey people, I have good news and bad news." He exclaimed, as he dramatically entered the room and peered around with an (obviously fake) air of supremacy "The bad news is that today's menu is exactly as I predicted. The good news is that the cooks don't mind I you all have dinner here. So…" He made a gallant gesture towards the door, where a young nurse entered with a cart, loaded with food. "Oh, miss Manson, I saw the sticker on your bag, and assumed that I wasn't the only Ultra-recyclo vegetarian in the room anymore. Am I correct?" "Yeah, you are! Danny, your doctor's so cool…" "Tell me… He sat on my legs to stop me from kicking him…"
After dinner, the doctor ushered everyone out of the room again, using 'doing the dishes' as a threat. After locking the door again, he smiled at Danny. "Now, let me check up on the needlehole." He said, bluntly flipping Danny to his stomach, causing the boy to grin and flinch at the same time. "You know, if more doctors were like you, hospitals would have a much better name." He said, as the doctor inspected the small, round hole in Danny's skin, just above his tail bone. "Nah… it would become a complete and utter chaos… let the world stay as it is…" The doctor replied, absentmindedly, as he applied some alcohol to the wound, and pressed a gauze onto it as it started bleeding again. "It looks good. I'll re-sterilise it in a few hours, that way I'll be sure that it's healing okay." The doctor explained, as he handed Danny a bandage roll. "Here, add the finishing touch yourself. If you indeed have the sickness they think you have, you'll have to do this many more times…" Danny got off the bed and did as he was told, while the doctor pulled the soiled sheets from the bed, and dropped them in the laundry basket. "will you help me make the bed again?" He asked, and Danny nodded. They made the bed, and Danny collapsed on top of it, he felt very wobbly by now. "It sucks, the way this takes your energy, huh?" "Tell me about it…" "Okay, if you insist… The first time again… During recovery, I fainted in the toilet. That was not a very pleasant experience…" "I didn't mean it like that, but you make me feel better. Thanks." "Welcome. Now, you go to sleep. I'll wake you up once the results come in, or, almost come in." Danny nodded, closed his eyes and fell asleep…