This has no connection to, but is inspired by a line from chapter three of Pearl and truephan's Seeing is disBelieving. Vlad: "I think a few years locked up heaven-knows-where will make you change your mind [about joining me]."
Steadfast
November 20, 2011
They were all gathered in front of FentonWorks, shuffling anxiously as they peered down the street, each hoping to be the first to see the vehicle bringing him back to them.
Danny was coming home.
Everyone— Jack and Maddie, Jazz, Sam and Tucker, along with their respective parents, Valerie and her Dad, and even Mr. Lancer— was making an appearance on the curb.
Vlad was there too. But that was hardly surprising, seeing as he was the one who had finally located Danny after his four year absence.
His loved ones didn't know whether to be incredibly relieved or even more worried than they had been to have their fears confirmed and find that Danny hadn't left Amity without a word of his own free will.
Nobody had really thought so, but even so, the whisper of doubt had crept into their minds unbidden. What if he had actually chosen to leave, abandon them all? What if he couldn't take the pressures and connections anymore? What if they had finally driven him away?
They were not sure they could live with themselves knowing that was true, so the fact that he was being held in a top secret government facility came as surprisingly good news, despite everything that fact entailed.
They did not know how Danny had been targeted and taken in the first place, where he had been shipped to, or what torturous experimentation he had undergone in the dark recesses of governmental holding facilities.
Only Vlad had any clue as to any of the details. They were sure that he must have seen and heard things on his quest to find the boy and pull enough strings as mayor and multi-billionaire (and halfa with the ability to overshadow others) to have him released, but if he had, he kept those details to himself.
Best not dwell on the things that could not be changed anyway. Not now that Danny was coming back to them. It would only needlessly upset everyone (especially his dear Maddie, who already had far too much on her mind) and purposefully dampen what ought to be a joyous occasion.
Danny was coming home.
Every vehicle driving down the street slowed down when passing the eclectic group, wondering what could possibly be going on there, and every slowing vehicle made their hopes rise that this was the one bringing their boy back to them. But they never were.
It took what seemed like years of waiting and more than a dozen false alarms before the nondescript white government van pulled quickly and quietly up to the curb.
Several muscular men who did not look very happy came out of the front doors of the vehicle and walked toward the group, making them instinctively grow quiet.
The leader, a man in a white coat and beady eyes half hidden by sunglasses, glared at each person in the welcoming party, making them all back away and lose their overjoyed expressions. The man finally came to Vlad, the last person in the group, and stared at him for a long, long moment. He looked like he wanted to say something, but turned back to the van without a word, motioning for the doors to be opened.
The guards did so and after a long moment of shuffling and clinking, even more guards came out of the belly of the van, carrying a figure between them.
There was a collective gasp around the circle. The figure was taller than they remembered. And thinner; much, much thinner. But they knew as he was lowered to the ground that it was still their Danny.
As much as they wanted to crowd around him, they stayed back until he was solidly standing on his own two feet, taking the opportunity to see what had happened to him over the years.
It didn't look pretty.
Razor sharp cuts, still red, ran across the ragged white scars that littered his thin arms. Long, greasy black hair fell in dull limp locks across his sunken cheeks and hollow visage. He swayed in place as he stood.
The guards returned to their positions in the van and drove away, leaving the group free to be reunited away from hostile eyes. It was clear that the government agents disapproved of letting Danny go, but apparently, Vlad had high enough connections that they were not going to try any last minute tricks.
There was a moment of almost unbelieving silence after the white van left, and then Danny looked at his loved ones with an intensity of emotion in his now teary eyes that he could never, ever have the ability to voice.
The rush of simultaneous hugs nearly knocked him over.
He stiffened and flinched noticeably at the first human contact, but soon overcame the action engrained into him over the years by the harsh governmental workers and melted into the arms of everyone around him with a soft smile.
Lancer and Vlad were the first to back away, followed by the Grays and then the Foley and Manson couples. Finally Sam and Tucker left too. They all looked away to give Danny's real family a minute to fuss over him with such passion that he would have flushed red and disappeared were it not for the circumstances. But after being locked away who-knows-where and having who-knows-what done to him for four years, there was almost nothing he would not allow his parents do or say to him at that moment. Any amount of embarrassment was worth being home again.
After the outpouring of relief and frantic whispers of laments that they had not found him sooner, Danny reached in for another wordless hug, trying to convey everything he felt with a touch of his sinewy arms.
All the hidden emotions from the past four years, the regrets, the sorrow of lost moments, everything he wanted to tell them, that he whispered into the darkness of his holding cell during his few lucid moments. The sharp desperate pain of separation.
All of the reassurance that none of this was their fault, that they could not have done more or tried harder. That all was forgiven, even if there was nothing to forgive.
That everything was going to be alright.
They stayed like that for minutes, his parents and sister crying over him loudly enough to cover the more silent, although nonetheless emotion-filled sobs of his two best friends, still hovering in the background, hanging onto each other out of sheer necessity so that they would not collapse to the ground. The ones who searched for him longest and hardest and never gave up hope, no matter how long the time without any word or clue to his whereabouts became.
With his chin still resting over Maddie's shoulder, Danny's eyes suddenly flew open without warning as he remembered something he was forgetting. He looked up without disturbing his family, his eyes roving until they landed on the self-satisfied Vlad.
The silver-haired man smiled at him, pleased that the boy was finally acknowledging his role in the business. But he grew more and more uneasy as Danny's expression didn't change from its calm, steady smile. He never thought an expression from the younger halfa could disorient him so much, but this one managed to completely unnerve him, especially as he studied the rest of the boy's body language.
Vlad stared into those deep blue eyes. They had not dulled during Danny's stay in the top-secret government facility. The spark remained unaltered, undimmed. If anything, the fire in them had even intensified from what he remembered at their last encounter before the boy had disappeared.
Seeing Vlad's unease, Danny's smile slowly grew larger.
And then Vlad knew that Danny knew.
He swore.
And Danny smirked slightly before turning his full attention back to the family hanging onto him as if all their lives depended on it, the family he had not seen in four long years, no thanks to a certain conniving half-ghost mastermind who thought that a few years locked away without any connection to his loved ones would break his spirit and will to remain the hero. The man was sure that a more meaningful show of his power, the strings he could pull, the ease with which he could make his life a living hell would make him want to join the guy as his apprentice or son?
How little Vlad truly understood him.
But he would deal with the fruitloop later; now he had more important matters to attend to.
He was home.
One of those ideas that wouldn't let me alone until I'd written it, although my paper-addled brain wouldn't let me spend time developing it beyond this point. Eh, hope you enjoyed it anyway! :)
The part about Vlad's real role in this plot was added after everything else. Did you understand what was going on? Would you have understood without it? Did it feel like the explanation was "plugged in?" I definitely struggled with the balance between the "show" versus "tell" elements of that passage, so thoughts on it would be great.