I know the title of this one was probably used about a million times in other stories, but it just fit the best for this chapter. But anyway, what's happened to Danny after Operative K injected him, making him pass out? What's going to happen to Danielle, and will Sam still have her doubts about her? Find out in these next few updates. Here's chapter 22. Please enjoy.
Chapter 22: Solemn Hour
Danny's eyes slowly fluttered open as he heard voices coming from off to the side. Before his mind fully woke up with him, his vision was unfocused and he felt a bit off-balance. Where was he? How did he get here? What happened?
He felt that he was laying on his back and his head was resting on something soft. The teenage boy moaned, rubbing his head in just noticing the massive headache he had. Once his vision cleared more, he looked at his hand, seeing that it didn't have the white glove he always had while he was in his ghost form. He was Danny Fenton now. He put his hand down and found himself staring up at a metallic ceiling.
He had had many instances like this in waking up in someone's ghost experimentation lab. He sighed in annoyance at it happening again once again, until he saw Jazz's head suddenly came into his view.
"Hey, everyone. He's waking up." She called when she noticed her little brother becoming conscious. At this moment Danny finally was able to look around with more awareness. He was indeed in a lab, but in a much safer one. He was laying in a cot in the Emergency Op Center that was relocated in the new Fenton Works lab.
Danny slowly sat up as his parents crowded around him, looking relieved that he was awake. "What happened?" He asked.
"We were just about to ask you that, son." Jack said, now looking a bit concerned at him.
"When you and Danielle didn't come home from the dance last night, we went looking for you, and found you caught in a net thing in the middle of the woods." His mother explained. It was obvious that she was still surprised in finding him in such a state.
But as soon as she had mentioned Danielle's name, Danny's memory started flooding back. "Oh my gosh." He said in realization of what he was remembering. Now he understood how he got in this position. Danielle had run away from home and he had gone after her when the Guys in White attacked them. Danny wasn't the one in some ghost-hunter's lab, she was. "Danielle. She's in trouble. We've got to help her." He said urgently, swinging his feet off the cot and onto the floor.
"Oh. So it wasn't Danielle who did this to you?" Jazz said, looking relieved.
Danny's eyes widened at her. "What?" He replied, completely flabbergasted that his own sister would even suggest such a thing. "Of course not. Why would Danielle have…?" He suddenly stopped when he caught sight of Sam, who was standing a few paces behind the Fentons. That was when he remembered the argument with her that had taken place just last night: The argument that led to Danielle running off in the first place. And there was Sam standing there as if trying to look innocent.
Danny glared at her from his place on the cot and looked between her, his parents, and his college-enrolled sister. Sam had just been talking with his family about what she was trying to convince Danny of. He could tell. Why else would Jazz have asked him if it was his their cousin that had attacked him?
"Sam." Danny said angrily, through gritted teeth and standing up. "What have you telling them?" He emphasized almost every word.
"Don't worry. She hasn't told us anything we believe." Danny's father said, folding his arms, but also looking at Sam with a 'told-you-so' look.
"Don't worry?" Danny burst out, turning back to Jack. "The Guys in White have captured Dani, Sam's thinking she was the one who knocked me out and you're telling me not to worry?"
"Wait, wait, wait. Back up." Danny's mother said, holding her hands out to calm him. "The Guys in White?"
"They're still at work?" Jazz asked.
"Yes." Danny said, extending his hands out as if surprised they didn't get this before. "And they took Danielle." At this news, Danny's parents and sister exchanged surprised and terrified looks before Maddie stepped forward.
"Calm down, Danny. Just tell us what happened." She said, though still looking worried at what she was about to hear.
Danny felt his own fear for his cousin start to build as he remembered with exact precision what had happened. He took a deep breath before he began his explanation. "Dani and I were flying over the woods when the Guys in White appeared. They were the ones who caught me in that net and they were just about to take me back to their base to start doing experiments on me." Danny paused for a second not sure how the others were going to react when he told them what happened next. He looked down at the floor, regretfully, but slowly went on anyway. "Then…Danielle came in and made a deal with them to…to take my place."
His family just stared at him for a while in disbelief at what they had just heard Danny say. Now they really did seem worried.
"She just…volunteered?" Jazz asked, looking a bit anxious, but trying to act more sympathetic for her troubled little brother.
Danny didn't answer, but that was when Jack started putting in his own question anyway. "But Danny, what were you to doing out in the woods in the first place?" He inquired of his son, looking a bit confused, but astonished at just being informed of what had happened to his adopted niece all the same.
At his father's question, Danny shot a very dark look at Sam. She was standing behind her friend as if trying to contemplate what he had just said. At least until she noticed the look Danny was giving her.
"What?' She asked, raising her hands defensively and trying to look innocent again. She turned to the other Fentons, trying to explain herself how she had never meant any harm. "I was just expressing my concerns to Danny after the ecto-puses attacked." Now she turned back to her half-ghost friend. "You saw how she was stalling so much during that battle."
Danny's temper rose once again at Sam's ignorance and he took a few steps toward her. "The only thing I saw, Sam, was the look Danielle gave me after you insulted her!" The other Fentons looked at their youngest member in bewilderment that he would be treating his friend like this. But he and Sam just continued to argue as if they had forgotten that they weren't the only ones in the room.
Sam went on, though with a flash of intimidation at Danny's attitude in her eyes. "Danny, what real proof do you have that she really has turned away from Vlad?"
"The last time she was here, Vlad nearly destroyed her!"
Silence. For a long and dragging moment. Sam and Danny's family exchanged looks again before turning back to Danny as if waiting for him to explain a bit further. Danny looked around at them all and exhaled heavily, and with frustration. Rubbed his head, he was really hoping he wouldn't have to repeat this story. But it seemed that he had no other choice if he was going to help his friend to fully understand. "Have you noticed that Dani hasn't had any problems keeping herself stable since she's been here?" He asked, more to Sam, but directing it to everyone else as well. He said this much more calmly this time, though he himself still felt on the peek if Sam made another objecting comment.
Danny's father was the one who spoke next. "You know, that's actually crossed my mind a few times since you two explained how you met."
Danny took a deep breath before saying anything further. His voice was a bit harsh despite his efforts to keep it down. "After that first battle we had with Vlad together, Dani had been growing so weak, she could barely keep her form together. And she came back here to ask me for help." He saw Sam looking off to the side as if in thought before he went on. "Unfortunately, that was during the time that Vlad was still in office. And as soon as he found out she had returned, he came after her so he could continue his cloning research."
Sam folded her arms in skepticism. "And how exactly do you know this? Did she tell you?"
Danny clenched his fists. That did it. Sam had officially pushed him over the edge and the sudden elevation of his tone proved it as he and spun to face her. "I WAS THERE, SAM!" He shouted, scaring her and everyone else in the room. "I SAW IT, AS HE WAS MELTING HER DOWN, RIGHT BEFORE MY EYES!"
Stunned silence filled the room again. Only this time, what Danny had said seemed to finally hit the one who had the least understanding of the situation. This wasn't just an experience Danielle had just told Danny about to get him to trust her. Danny had witnessed it himself. He was living proof that Vlad was the one who had betrayed his own creation first before she had switched to Danny's side.
Danny's breath came slow and heavily now. In noticing Sam's new comprehensive expression, Danny finally withdrew from her, continuing. "And the way she was screaming as that was happening…" His sentence trailed off and he pressed the heels of his hands to his closed eyes as the echoes of Danielle's suffering cries filled his recalling mind. His relaying of the story was bringing back the memory of that time as if it had only happened a few hours ago and it was starting to get to him. He slowly walked over to the front window of the Op Center where he could see the inside of the Fenton Work's lab where the alien-looking Op Center was now. He went on, but now with much more remorse in his voice. "Mom and Dad may have once threatened to tear me apart molecule-by-molecule, but Danielle really was." The teenage boy hung his head and folded his arms, thinking back on that experience in Vlad's lab that he could only imagine must have been ten times as worse for Danielle. "Had Valerie and I not been there to save her…she would have been gone for good."
Sam and the Fentons could think of nothing to say as Danny put a hand over his eyes, trying to block out the memory he had finally finished reliving for the sake of the understanding of his peers.
Danny's mother was the first one who finally spoke, quietly, and with more realization of her own. "No wonder she was always avoiding our lab."
"Yeah." Jazz added. "Danielle said that it brought back memories she didn't want, but she never said of what."
"It's not exactly the fondest memory for either of us to look back on." Danny said. "That's why I didn't tell you before." He turned back to his peers, with a solemn look. "But it still haunts Danielle. And the very possibility that Vlad just might come back is constantly giving her nightmares."
The others looked at him solemnly as his mind now started to trail back to the events that had unfolded last night. "You should have seen her face as the Guys in White were taking her away." He started again. "She was scared to death. And she still turned herself over to them…to protect me."
Danny's father came up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "We'll find her, son. In fact we'll get to work on it right now."
Danny just looked down at the floor and quietly started walking towards the exit of the Op Center.
"Where are you going?" Danny's mother asked, looking a bit worried.
"My room." Danny simply replied as he left the room, leaving everyone staring after him in silence before Mr. and Mrs. Fenton started getting to work on the controls to do as they had promised.
Sam watched from the window as Danny was crossing the floor of the lab to the doorway that led to the stairs.
The young Goth started to hear footsteps coming up behind her. She turned, seeing it was Jazz, and she was giving her a stern look. "Now Sam, do you really think Danielle would still be on Vlad's side after he had put her through something like that?" she asked her, folding her arms as if waiting for a confession.
Sam, out of ignorance, just returned the look to Jazz, not saying a word before she too headed out of the Op Center. She caught up with Danny, who was just in the upstairs hall, where his bedroom was located. "Danny, wait." She called after him.
In hearing her, the hybrid boy had stopped, just as he had put his hand on the handle of his door. "What now, Sam?" He asked, not even looking at her. "I suppose since it's now impossible that Danielle's working with Vlad, she could be working with the Guys in White. That she knows where I live, could tell them, and that they'll be at my doorstep at any minute."
"No…I wasn't going to…" Sam began to say, trying to find the right words. She had now caught up with him and stood perhaps only three feet behind him as she talked. "Danny I…what you said just now and…what I had said last night, I…I'm really sorry."
"Oh, I forgive you, Sam. Really." Danny said, now facing her and saying this with a trace of angered sarcasm still in his voice. "But who you really need to apologize to is the other Danny who's feelings you have hurt." He opened the door to his room and stepped inside, before finishing with, "Assuming you can find her in time before The Guys in White tear her apart." Then he slammed the door behind him, startling Sam.
She just stood there, staring at the door behind where Danny had just disappeared, feeling guiltier by the minute. After he had just told her and the others his story, how could she have even questioned Danielle's trust? Who was she to do that anyway? Sam was never around her as much as Danny had been: Especially lately. And she had done so much more good than the minor hints of evil Sam just had to emphasize. How could she have been so stupid not to see that a long time ago? She may have been a Goth and always finding fault in the world, but she, of all people, should have realized that she shouldn't be judging people by their background or by appearance.
Even after such a frightful incident that was painful for even Danny to talk about, Danielle had still willingly given herself up to save him from having to go through what she had already hoped she would never have to go through again. No one working for Vlad, or anyone else who was an enemy of Danny's, would have even considered such a noble act.
And now Danny was mad at her for being so stubborn and he had to tell her about something that he was probably trying to forget about: even more so, Danielle, who was perhaps being forced to relive such an awful nightmare right now. All because of her.
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Meanwhile, Danny had his ear pressed against the door he had just slammed in his friends face, listening intently, and solemnly for what was happing outside. A few moments went by and he didn't even hear Sam move. There was only the sound of booted footsteps heading back through the hall and down the stairs after he started to hear the soft gasps of Sam beginning to cry.
Danny felt his own guilt starting to build as he put his back against the door and slid down to the floor with a very heavy sigh. He and Sam may have had arguments before, but none of them had ever ended with Sam walking away crying. He couldn't help but feel that he was being a bit too harsh with Sam. She was his friend. She had a right to be concerned about him, especially when it came to subjects that had anything to do with Vlad. It was Danny who should have given her and the others the full story from the start instead of holding back on some of it just because he and Danielle didn't like telling it. Even to each other. Sam wouldn't have doubted her otherwise. They wouldn't have had that fight that she had overheard, and she wouldn't have sped off, heartbroken and feeling so rejected. Leading her into the fix she was in now.
But it was already too late. The damage had been done to more than one person, and in more than one way. Danny felt a strangely noticeable jolt in his stomach as he thought of how Danielle was probably being strapped down to some examination table, if she hadn't been already, being put through some kind of torture by the Guys in White. He curled up against the locked door, clutching his head in his hands as he almost started to hear her screaming again.
He couldn't let anything happen to her. He had to find her. And soon.
I know this chapter is a whole lot shorter than most of the others I've done, but I just couldn't think of a better way to end it. I still need some help with chapter 18 though. I wonder if it's worth keeping or if it just needs a bit more editing. Please let me know what you think by reviewing it.