A/N: Here you go! This is the chapter I promised, although it's a bit late due to a dismal net connection. Unfortunately, I won't be updating this quickly in the future. Only a couple more chapters are written out. The rest are sitting patiently inside my imagination. Thank you, though, to all the awesome reviewers, and this one here is for the story alerters, because I know what it's like to find a story I enjoy on this site and to hope that the author will continue. I'm humbled that you're as excited about this story as I am.
Oh, and in case it wasn't obvious, I don't own a thing. Danny Phantom belongs to...whoever it belongs to.
Chapter 5
It's been a long day
And all I've got to say is "Make it strong"
It's been a long day
And all I've got to say is I've been wrong
So take a leave of absence
Tell me you'll be gone
I don't want to see your face
It's been a long day
And I just wanna hide away
Been a long day
Rosi Golan
.
Danny sat on the covered toilet seat and checked his messages. There was no text from Valerie. There was nothing on FaceSpace either, although she had already managed to upload last night's photos. He stared and stared at the contact picture of her winking at him and could feel his resolve thinning. It was all he could do to stop himself from dialing her number.
He stuffed the phone back into his pocket and flushed the toilet. After washing his hands, he exited the restroom and returned to the Foleys' den where his friends were sprawled on beanbags eagerly jabbing at their game controllers. He paused under the arched entrance and watched them play for a moment.
"Hey, guys," he piped up. "I think I'm going to go."
"What!" Tucker exclaimed, dodging an attack from Sam's starship, "you can't leave. It's only, like, seven o'clock!"
"Sorry man," Danny shrugged. "It's just that my mom has this new rule where we all have to eat together as a family once a week."
"Why would she want to do that?" Sam sneered, pausing the game and earning a glare from Tucker. She hadn't sat down to a meal with her parents since she was ten years old.
Danny shook his head. "I don't know. I think she watched it on Oprah or something. Either way, I can't get out of it."
"Just don't go," Sam advised him. "Say you can't eat as a family unless Jazz is there." Jazz was away at college in Maine.
Danny chuckled. "I think I'll go anyway. It's the first time and it means a lot to Mom."
Reluctantly, his friends let him go. Ordinarily he would have just slept over at Tucker's but the feeling that something might be wrong with Valerie was gnawing at him. For their sakes, he'd managed to pretend that he had forgotten all about it. He hadn't wanted his friends to feel like he was dissing them for his girlfriend so he'd stayed and ignored the churning in his stomach. But deep inside he'd known that he couldn't let this day end without confirming that Valerie was fine. And technically, he would still win the bet since nobody had said anything about him seeing her face-to-face.
He drove to her place and took the stairs two at a time to her floor. Her door stood shut looking so normal and innocuous that he almost felt foolish for worrying. He knocked and waited. Nothing. He knocked again, called her name but there was no answer. Maybe she wasn't in. Disappointed, he turned to leave then stopped midstride. It wouldn't hurt to check, to be sure that she wasn't home. At the very least, it might begin to calm his nerves. He snuck a quick look around the hallway and listened keenly for any noise, then hastily morphed to Phantom. He went intangible and poked his head through the wall. The living room was dark but there was nothing amiss. However, light from Valerie's room spilled into the hallway through her door, which was ajar. Danny phased through fully and floated towards the light. If he had been in human form his heart would have been thudding in his throat. He neared, dreading what he might see.
Peeking into the room, he saw that it was a total mess. There were clothes strewn everywhere, papers, the bed spread had been pulled down, the writing desk and chair had been turned over and there in the midst of it all, facedown, laid the girl he had come to see. Danny was so scared that he could hardly concentrate enough to quickly change back to human. He pushed the door open and ran to her.
"Valerie!" He knelt beside her. "Valerie, are you alright? Please, talk to me!"
As soon as his hand touched her back, Valerie flinched. She raised her head and blinked like someone who'd just stepped out of a tunnel into direct sunlight. She looked awful: her dark curly hair was unkempt, her skin looked dry and blotchy and there were dark lines of dried mascara running down her cheeks. She wiped her nose with the heel of her palm and scowled.
"What are you doing here?" she hissed. Her throat must have been sore.
"I haven't heard from you all day. I was worried. What happened? Are you okay?" He tried to put an arm around her so he could help her up but she shook him off so violently that it gave him pause. "Valerie?"
"How did you get in here? The door is locked."
"Valerie, what happened here?" Danny persisted. "Did someone do this to you?"
Valerie cocked her head and narrowed her eyes, studying him in silence before letting out a snort of deranged laughter. She bowed her head and dug her fingers into her scalp. "So it's true," she muttered. "It really is true."
Danny was well and truly afraid now. His girlfriend was acting crazy: rocking back and forth, mumbling to herself, pulling her hair. He couldn't imagine what must have happened to put her in this state. His mind began concocting a dozen scenarios, all sordid and terrifying. He could feel the pulsing of arteries in his temple. If someone had laid a finger on her, specter or otherwise, they were going to pay dearly. That was a promise.
He took a step toward her but she backed away. "Baby, please, if something is wrong let me help you," he said gently. She stood and hung her head, her curls falling over her face. Her shoulders were quaking now. He reached out and took her hand. She recoiled and tucked her hand close to her body like a snake had bitten her.
"Don't touch me!" she yelled hoarsely. Her green eyes flashed. "Never touch me! You disgusting ghost!"
Danny's hand went limp and he froze.
Valerie jabbed a finger at him. "Yes, I know all about you, Danny Phantom." She spat out his name like word-sludge. She grabbed the camcorder off the bed. "Here's a tip: next time you go all ghost, make sure you don't get caught on tape!" She let the camera roll off her fingers. It landed on her messy floor with a soft thud.
She went on about how he had tricked her, how he and his friends had probably laughed at stupid Valerie for not seeing the truth when it was right under her nose, about what a fabulous actor he had been and how she'd fallen for his innocent act hook, line and sinker, what a fool she was, so stupid stupid stupid … The young man towards whom the tirade was aimed could only gape. He knew he should say something and oh, how he wanted to, but his ability to construct even a remotely cogent sentence seemed to have escaped him.
It was the air bending inches from his ear and the crash of glass into the wall behind him that snapped him out of his stupor. A picture frame that held a photo of the couple in happier times now lay shattered on the ground.
"Get out!"
Danny raised his hands, palms outwards in a gesture of peace. "Valerie, please, hear me out. I'm sorry I didn't tell you but I just didn't know how. I love you—"
"No!" she covered her ears. "No more lies. No more meaningless words. Just get out!" She threw her alarm clock at him. He ducked and she backed him out of her room, throwing everything from pillows to a lamp at him. "You ruined my life!"
He ducked behind the kitchen counter as her hair dryer bounced off the tiled-surface. "That was an accident, Valerie," Danny tried to explain. "I swear I never, ever meant to hurt you."
"I've heard it all before," she countered.
He carefully peeked and then straightened up. "Then you need to listen, just this one time. That day in the lab I was trying to stop that ghost dog. I never meant for anything bad to happen, for your dad to lose his job. I am so, so sorry for everything you suffered because of me, Valerie. Only heaven knows how much. And I wanted to tell you so many times, but I was afraid I'd lose you. I may be half-ghost, but I love you with every part of me."
Valerie knit her eyebrows, her green eyes reflecting the turmoil in her heart. Her shoulders were slumped and her hands limp by her sides. She sighed through trembling lips. She looked so fragile, so defeated right then that the only thing Danny wanted to do was put his arms around her.
He began to advance tentatively. He'd scarcely taken three steps when she pulled out a blaster from seemingly nowhere and aimed it at his head. He froze in his tracks.
"I should shoot you where you stand," she growled. Her expression had darkened. The whole apartment was deathly silent, save for the muffled whirr of the fridge. Tension enveloped them both.
Valerie's finger moved to the trigger. The two continued to eye each other. She wanted nothing more than to punish him for what he'd done to her. He had made her suffer, lied to her for two years – he deserved to pay. But try as she might, she couldn't do it. If he had been in ghost form, maybe. But while he was standing there, looking at her like that, his beautiful blue eyes shining with tears and his stance one of total surrender, she couldn't do it. Some stubborn corner of her heart still held on to the feelings she had for him.
"Get out," she ordered him in a low voice. She still had the weapon leveled at him. "Don't ever come near me again." He didn't try to protest this time, just communicated infinite sadness with one final look and quietly walked out. She went to the window and watched him get into his car. He stole one more glance up at the apartment and turned the key in the ignition. As he pulled away from the curb, a line from a poem she had read in English class came to mind: What's the sound of two hearts breaking?
The purr of his engine faded into the night and suddenly she knew the answer.
