.
II
"All you wanted was to make the hurt go away."
Valerie took a deep breath before rapping her knuckles against the doorframe. "Knock, knock," she called. The bunch of daffodils in her arms brushed against her chin, and she shifted their position carefully.
"Who's there?" a familiar voice responded, followed by twin groans.
"Damn it, Tucker, stop saying that!" a decidedly feminine voice snapped. Footsteps approached at a quick staccato pace, and Valerie fixed a smile on her face as Sam wrenched the door open. Perfectly shaped eyebrows met in the approximation of a frown at the sight of the newcomer before smoothing out into Sam's more familiar expression of indifference. "Uh, hi," she said, glancing back into the hospital room before stepping to one side.
"Uh hi who?" Tucker asked, mouth curving mischievously.
Sam strode towards him, snagging the beret from his head and using it to whack his shoulder. Tucker grasped the afflicted area with a theatrical whine and opened his mouth to protest before glancing at the bed's occupant and deciding against it.
Danny sat propped up against a mountain of pillows, bandages wrapping around his upper arm and disappearing beneath the sleeve of his gown. More were visible on his neck, and thin tubes of clear liquid were fasted to the back of his hand with medical tape. "Hey, Val," he greeted, sending her a smile that faded at the edges.
Valerie took a step into the room, her smile faltering at the dark circles beneath Danny's eyes. "Hey," she responded, uncertain whether to move closer. The scent of the daffodils in her arms washed over her with the sudden movement, and she held out the paper-wrapped bunch. "Um, these are for you."
The boy's tired eyes crinkled with a far more genuine smile. "Thanks, Val. You really shouldn't have!"
Valerie shrugged. "I grew them in the communal garden at our apartment," she confessed, finally walking the rest of the way to the bed. Danny reached out with his uninjured arm, drawing the flowers close and breathing deeply, his eyelids fluttering shut as he sighed. A small part of Valerie glowed at his reaction, and she mentally congratulated herself for remembering Danny's confession of loving those specific blooms.
"Thanks, Val," he said, opening his eyes again, "I really like them."
Sam shifted beside Valerie, sending Danny a glance, and at some sort of unspoken signal she tugged on the collar of Tucker's shirt. "Let's go get a vase from the kitchen," she said.
"And lunch," Tucker cried, leaping out of his chair. "I haven't eaten since breakfast!"
"It's only eleven," Sam grumbled.
Tucker tapped a finger against his forehead. "Brain food," he told her. "Never underestimate how much my genius cerebral energy drops with my blood sugar!"
The Goth groaned, shoving the beret back onto her friend's head. "You're full of hot air," she told him, brushing some errant strands of hair out of her face and towing him towards the door. "We'll be back soon!" she called to Danny before ushering Tucker out into the hallway.
The door clicked closed behind them, and Danny chuckled. "They were here as soon as visiting hours started," he said, motioning for Valerie to take Tucker's seat.
"You have good friends," she said, setting the flowers on the table before sitting. A thought crept through her, painful and harsh, but she pushed it away before it could grow.
"Yeah," Danny sighed, settling back into the pillows. When Valerie didn't respond, he glanced at her. "You're one of them, you know."
The girl sighed. "Really?"
"Yeah!" Danny's head bobbed and he winced, moving to clutch at his shoulder.
Valerie's fingers twisted together in her lap. "I shot you," she whispered.
This time, Danny's gaze was as sharp as his words. "It was an accident. You were trying to hit the ghost and I got in the way. Val… Val, look at me."
Valerie sniffed, shaking her head as tears dripped from her lashes onto her intertwined fingers.
Danny sighed, shifting with a rustle of fabric. A cool hand closed over her shoulder, and Valerie jerked her head up, blinking through the tears that slipped down her cheeks. Her friend had leaned forwards and was reaching out with the arm closest to her – the one attached to the shoulder that her blast had slammed into the previous day.
"It's not your fault," Danny repeated, tugging Valerie forwards with a harsh, pained intake of breath. His good arm slung around her back, pulling the girl into a gentle, somewhat awkward hug. "I'm fine," he breathed as Valerie trembled.
"I was up all night," she whispered, choking on the final word. Danny rubbed his hand in small circles as her voice hitched. "I kept thinking, what if I had hit your head?"
"I was up all night as well," he murmured. "Every time I closed my eyes, I could see Kwan disappearing down that ghost's throat."
They stayed like that for several moments before Valerie pulled away, guiding her friend to lie back against the pillows. He hissed at the movement, and a tear slipped from the corner of his eye that probably didn't have much to do with the pain. Neither of them mentioned it, and Valerie grabbed a tissue from the box on the desk, dabbing at her cheeks. All night, she had told herself that she would come here, she would apologise, and she would absolutely, under all circumstances, not cry. Not when her friend was sitting in a hospital bed with possible ectoplasm poisoning from the blast. If only she had aimed truer, or has actually paid attention to what the people around her were doing before she pulled the trigger…
She had to stop thinking about that.
"Do you know how Kwan is?" Valerie asked after regaining her seat and sniffing one last time. She tucked her tissue into the pocket of her jeans, rubbing a hand across her eyes.
Danny shook his head slightly, picking absently at a corner of the tape that held the IV to his skin. "He's alive," he said, "but nobody'll tell me anything else. He's in a different part of the hospital – Sam asked, but administration said that he's not receiving any visitors right now."
Valerie noticed that she had been mirroring Danny's motions, picking at one of her torn fingernails in lieu of the tape. "So will you be back at school on Monday?" she asked, forcing herself to stop fiddling.
Danny raised and lowered his uninjured shoulder. "We just have to wait for a couple more test results," he explained, "but as far as everything's going right now, things are looking good. There's a bit of ectoplasm in my blood, but it's benign, and my body should naturally flush it out over the next few weeks. Unless any unpleasant symptoms show up, I think I'm pretty much cleared of the suspected poisoning." He grinned. "The burn'll also get me out of sport and driving lessons for several weeks!"
Valerie felt her face slacken. "Oh, no! It's that bad?"
Danny lightly tapped the afflicted spot. "It covers most of my shoulder and a bit of my neck," he said proudly. "It's mostly first and second degree, with a little bit of third in the middle."
Valerie took a shaky breath, her hands twisting around the hem of her shirt. "I'm so sorry!" she blurted, feeling the threat of tears heat her eyelids once more.
Danny shrugged with one shoulder again. "Nah, it's fine. Usually ectoblasts don't hurt people like this, but it reacted with the ghost's spit that had dripped all over my sleeve. It's actually pretty cool since it's the first time something like this has happened, so my dad's been running all over town trying to find any samples the ghost might have left behind."
Valerie swallowed hard through the tightness of her throat. "Did he find anything?"
Danny crinkled his nose in amusement. "The rain's washed it all away," he said, motioning to the window. Beyond the glass, the deluge from the previous afternoon steadily continued. "Mum stayed here overnight, and at about eight this morning Dad called her all excited because he thought he'd finally found some."
"Let me guess," Valerie said with a faint smile, "he hadn't?"
Danny chuckled. "He'd found one of his own silly ghost traps that's sort of like those sticky pieces of flypaper lying on the ground in a corner of the park. He'd forgotten that it was there, and it was so waterlogged that he thought it was something left behind by the ghost. He pretty much hauled it into the RV and drove it directly to the hospital, and he stood in the car park just outside and apparently held it high above his head so Mum could see it through the window. She laughed so hard that she cried."
Valerie chuckled as well, picturing Jack waving around one of those huge, ineffective traps that she'd watched him place a few months ago as she hovered in the sky and drank hot chocolate during a clear winter night.
Her watch buzzed against her skin, and Valerie stood up as Danny shifted uncomfortably. "You're going?" he asked.
She nodded. "Sorry, but I have to be somewhere."
The look he gave her was unreadable. "Be careful out there."
"What?" Valerie asked, starting at the unexpected comment.
Danny grimaced. "I heard thunder a little while ago," he said. "You probably shouldn't walk home."
"I won't be walking."
The boy's eyes were momentarily dark. "Yeah," he said, "I didn't think you would be."
Valerie nodded, unsettled. She strode towards the door before pausing and glancing back at her friend. "Get better soon," she said. "If you don't stay in our driving lessons, it'll reshuffle, and I don't want to get stuck with Dash or Paulina."
Danny rolled his eyes. "Oh, the horror," he drawled.
She smiled at him. "See you soon?"
"Yeah," Danny sighed, "I'll see you soon."
She lingered for a heartbeat longer, taking in the sight of the slight, pale teen against his pile of pillows, before her watch buzzed again, more insistently this time.
"Alright, alright," she mumbled, striding through the door and walking as quickly as she dared in the direction of the exit.
If Valerie attacked the Box Ghost a bit more viciously than necessary before he managed to flee back into the Ghost Zone, it didn't really matter since there was no sarcastic spook in spandex to criticise her behaviour. Valerie almost wondered where Phantom had gone off to this time, before banishing the thought and instead heading home for a hot shower and maybe a nap before her evening shift at work.