I was mildly ashamed to be so overwhelmed by the car. After months of darkness, stone floors, and nothing else, the moving car was mildly stressing me out. I was feeling a little claustrophobic, for one, and the rest of it was less definable. I couldn't take my eyes off the moving scenery, but it also made me feel troubled. I pressed my head against the seats, soaking in the warmth from the car's heaters. I'd forgotten what it felt like to be fully warm.
"Now, Sam," Mother twisted around in the passenger seat. "There's something we have to tell you about home before we get there, just because I don't want you to be unpleasantly surprised."
"Uh …" I managed, unsure of what to say to that.
"Leslie, Gavin, and Tara have been staying with us for the past few weeks, trying to help in the search for you. And they're still at the house. If it's too much for you, honey, we'll put them in a hotel; they'll understand."
"No," I immediately protested. When my mother had mentioned 'unpleasant surprise' I had assumed there was something awful, like Vlad, living in my basement (although that would be a nice twist). "I want them there. Let them stay."
Mother smiled at me, reaching behind her seat to rub her hand along my knee. "I'm so happy you're here, Sammy. So unimaginably happy."
I could probably imagine. Seeing her here in front of me, after months of wondering what she was doing and if she was okay, was a literal dream come true. Being able to go outside, having a choice of being able to walk around, eat what I wanted to – eat at all – was alien. When I was sitting in Vlad's cell, I knew that being released would feel strange. I knew that it would take me a moment to readjust, but I never thought of how emotional that readjustment would make me. Even the simplest things, even the things that brought a smile to my face, also made me want to burst into tears. Everything I was experiencing now, even the familiar things, reminded me of the long stretches of time in the cell, bursting with hopelessness that I would never get home to these things again.
We pulled up in front of the house and I felt the urge to cry. As I had done multiple times already today, I squelched the urge. I didn't want to cry; I wanted to be happy. And I didn't want my mother to see my tears. After enduring long periods of having things take a turn for the worst, I wanted my first official day home to go completely right.
I opened my door and climbed out of the car. Mother wrapped her arm around my shoulder. Together, we walked to the front door, which Dad opened for us. I stepped inside; breathing in the recognizable, perfume scent of my home. Everything looked like it did the night that I left, never realizing that I wouldn't make it home again that night, or any other night for a very long time. I thought of myself, all those months ago, leaving the house in a pretty dress, worried about Jazz, never thinking that my own bed wasn't where I would end up in just a few hours.
I took another step inward and, then, before me Gavin appeared, crawling down the hallway that led to the kitchen. When he saw me, he froze, spilling backward to land on his bottom. I heard footsteps behind him, but it was not Leslie that appeared to scoop him up. It was Tara. She fit Gavin on her hip, then looked up and saw me.
"You're home!" She screamed, loud enough that Gavin screwed his face up and whimpered. "You're home!"
She bounded forward, Gavin bobbling in her arms. Mother immediately reached out and took the baby from Tara so that she could put her arms around me.
"You're home!" Tara sang. Her arms went around my waist and she began to spin me across the foyer of my house.
"Your hair is pink," I giggled, going along with her movements.
"Fuckin' right my hair is pink," Tara whispered, pulling me into a tight hug. "Oh, where have you been, Sam? We've been so worried about not getting you back."
"I love you too," I responded, even though she hadn't said the words first.
"LESLIE!" Tara barked suddenly. "SHE'S HOME!"
I winced away from the noise and this time, Gavin really did begin to wail. There was a rush of footsteps as Leslie burst from the kitchen, into the foyer.
"Tara, stop scaring my baby!" Leslie scolded, over the sounds of my mother soothing Gavin.
"Gavin loves me," Tara sniffed, sticking her tongue out at Leslie.
"Oh, Sam," Leslie cooed, ignoring Tara. She reached out her hands and I put mine in them. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm happy to be home," I answered.
"And we're so happy to have you back," Leslie exclaimed. "I missed you. I was so worried."
I pulled her into a hug. "Missed you too."
"Ma!" Gavin whined.
"I love that he's learned that word," Leslie commented with an eye roll. She backed away from me to take Gavin from Mother.
"Hi, there, mister," I said to Gavin. "Bet you don't remember me."
"Mam," he muttered. "Num num num."
"He's so big." Looking at Gavin, with his yellow curls and bright blue eyes, I realized how big he had gotten; just how much time had I missed?
"Hold him," Leslie offered, thrusting Gavin into my arms.
He and I stared at one another for a long minute, before he dropped his head onto my shoulder. I rubbed his back gently as he picked at the zipper on my coat, which I hadn't gotten the chance to take off yet and babbled to himself in baby-language.
"Hungry?" Dad asked.
"Starving," Tara, Leslie, Mom and I answered as one.
And then we laughed.
(-.-)
"Are you sure you're okay?"
"Mhmm," I mumbled in response to Leslie's question. My mouth was full of popcorn, so I couldn't exactly give her an intelligent response.
It was about eleven o'clock and Tara, Leslie, and I were holed up in my bedroom. Gavin was sleeping on my floor amidst a pile of blankets while the three of us shared the bed. We had snacks spread out between us, talking and eating. Tara and Leslie were filling me in on both Amity and New Orleans gossip. So far they hadn't asked anything about the cell and what had happened during my kidnapping, but I knew that it was coming. We hadn't talked about it during dinner, Mother and Father both adamantly keeping from the topic of my incarceration.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Tara hinted, not-so-subtly.
"Meh," I murmured. "But, I don't mind answering questions. I know you have them."
"So, Daniel Fenton," Tara started, but that's also where she stopped.
"That's not a question," Leslie said before I could.
"No, but he's a hot guy," Tara exclaimed. "I mean, he's a fucking dickwad to put it nicely, but god damn holy hell, he is every high school girl's wet dream."
"Do girls even have wet dreams?" I wondered aloud, trying to distract from the conversation at hand. I was feeling a little uncomfortable with the conversation topic dwelling on Danny, but I didn't think there was any way to avoid talking about him. I think it was the crude manner Tara was speaking of him in, which surprised me. I knew that she never really liked him, but she'd never mentioned that she found him attractive – which shouldn't have surprised me. Didn't I, the very first time I saw him in person, realize how attractive he was?
"Not the point here, Sam," Tara said quickly.
"Is he really that attractive?" Leslie asked. "I only ever really saw the grainy newspaper pictures of him."
"Facebook!" Tara crowed, picking up her cell phone. There were a couple of tapping noises and then she turned the phone around to show Danny's profile picture.
He wasn't looking at the camera, but past it. His eyes were a bright blue, glimmering with mirth and some hidden mystery. The colour of his eyes reminded me of last night in the hospital, when he had looked at me joyful because I had called him by his name. There was a thin grin on his face, as he slumped his shoulders, hands in his pockets.
"Ooh, la la." Leslie cooed, swiping the phone to look at some more pictures. "He's something."
"But, like I said, he's a douche canoe." Tara turned her head to look at me, "What was it like, living with him for like, three and a half months?"
I'd be snickering over the 'douche canoe' insult (so much better than 'ass hat'), but the mention of how long we were in the cell for sobered me. I had lost three and a half months of my life to a dark cell and a madman. There was no way I was going to be able to forget those dark months, no matter how many months I had before me. I couldn't replace the suffering that I had lived through, or the despair that had wracked my friends and family. I couldn't heal those wounds; I couldn't forget that place.
"I …" I stumbled, trying to remember the original question. "I couldn't have done it without him. He wasn't the best person, necessarily, but I couldn't have done it without him."
"Who's the girl?" Leslie interrupted, looking up from Tara's phone.
"Paullina Sanchez," Tara answered.
I glanced at the picture myself, feeling ill. Paullina was dressed in a tiny yellow bikini, draped across Fenton's lap as he sat in a lawn chair, large sunglasses hiding his expression.
"What happened to Paullina, anyway?" I questioned.
Tara shrugged. "Last I heard; she was going to school somewhere but that she was planning on coming back this summer."
"School?" I blurted, feeling mean as soon as I said it, "Someone accepted her?"
"It's a little like a beauty school, I think. Except she's going so she can do make-up for movie stars or something like that," Tara filled me in. She turned her attention back to Leslie, "But she's this super popular bitch. She thinks she's better than everyone else. Or she did, until she had a mental breakdown and tried to kill Danny's sister."
"She what?" Leslie gasped.
"It's not like she was a hit-woman!" I exclaimed, able to laugh about Paullina's antics now. "She just … exploded a little. She got really angry, yelled at Jazz and that was that."
"Speaking of things that are ending," Leslie yawned, "I think I'm going to head to bed."
"Me too," Tara agreed quickly. "We'll see you in the morning, okay, Sam?"
"Okay."
I watched them go, and then I brought my knees up to my chest. My bed felt foreign and weird; it was much bigger and much softer than the mattress Vlad had provided us with. My room, with all its pretty decorations and clothing, also felt weird. The strangest thing to me was, after everything, was that I was alone. Except for a few stolen moments in the bathroom, I hadn't been alone for the last few months. And now, there was no one's breath in the room but my own. There was no around but me.
My phone vibrated on my bedside table. When I had first turned it on, after Mother handed it back to me, it had vibrated incessantly. There had been multiple voicemails, left from Mother, Father and several friends, along with text messages, Facebook notifications, and e-mails. I wondered who could be messaging me now, so late.
I picked up my phone; it was from an unknown number.
Unknown: Stole your number from Jazz. Have handled Vlad and Elliot.
Danny. My heart closed up at the news. Shaking, I replied.
Me: Will you come over to talk about it?
Unknown: yeah. Tell me when.
Me: is now bad? I need to know.
Unknown: sure. Want me to come to the door?
Me: No, it's late. I'll meet you out on my balcony.
I put my phone down and then pulled on my fuzzy winter boots and a thick sweater. I opened the door to my balcony and stepped outside, the snow crunching under my boots. I stood there, stock still for an eternal moment, appreciating the crispness of the air and how it delightfully burnt my lungs as I breathed in and out. I tucked my hands up into the sleeves of my sweater, trapping the heat in and turned my face upward to drink in the beauty of the silver moon and the twinkling stars.
Out of all things, I had missed the sky terribly.
As I stared, movement caught my eye. My stomach clenched. One thing I hadn't realized was that he would be arriving as Phantom. I wanted to look away, but I couldn't. I couldn't take my eyes off the white hair, more pure than the virgin snow beneath my feet, or the delicate lines of his silhouette as he flew down to the balcony. Danny was vertically above the balcony now, and he transformed as he fell to the balcony, so that he was Fenton when his feet finally touched the ground.
"It's cold out here," he commented.
"A little," I agreed.
Without any explanation, he placed a grey thermos-looking object on my balcony railing. It didn't look like a regular thermos, however, there were gleaming green dots on it, saying that it was more technically inclined than a regular thermos would have been. I almost reached for it, but stopped myself.
"What is it?"
"It's a Fenton Thermos," Danny said. "It was originally designed to trap ghosts in until they could be emptied back into the Ghost Zone. It will also keep halfas and random clones with some ghost DNA trapped within it."
Alarmed, I took stock of the thermos again. "Vlad and Elliot are in there?" I whispered, hardly able to believe it.
"Yeah." Danny's lip curled, reflecting on how Vlad and Elliot had ended up in the thermos. "It wasn't easy, Vlad especially fought, but it was where they both belonged, so, for now, that's where they'll stay."
"For now?" I echoed, glancing at him. "What happens to them later, then?"
Danny shrugged. "I haven't quite figured that out, yet."
"Any ideas?" I pressed, still staring at the thermos. It was hard to imagine that Vlad and Elliot were both able to fit into that tiny little space. It was also hard to imagine that they were both trapped in there, unable to come out and kidnap or hurt Danny or me again.
"A few. My favourite is just leaving them in there to see how long humans can last!" His voice became unbearably angry by the time he reached his last words. He picked up the thermos and viciously shook it. "I hope they rot in hell."
"Don't become a murderer because of them," I pleaded.
Danny's lips twisted and he shook the thermos again. "They'll probably go to Walker's prison, to be honest."
"Walker's?" I repeated.
"It's a place in the Ghost Zone. Walker and I never really got along, and he and Vlad were once buddied up, but, uh, that all fell apart because of Vlad's grand plan."
"The grand plan?" I was beginning to feel like a broken record. "Did you figure out what that was?"
"Yeah," Danny admitted. "I got it out of him. He was utilizing ghosts, killing people to make them if he had to. What he was doing was draining their energy. He was hoarding ghostly energy, basically."
"Why?"
"Pariah Dark. He was King of the Ghost Zone, once upon a time. He was sealed away. He stirred once, awhile back, but he was once again sealed away. Pariah Dark had two objects of power: a ring and a crown. But Vlad found out from Fright Knight – Pariah's servant – that there was a third object, one that was more powerful than the other two put together. It was stored in Pariah's ghostly body, where his heart would be. What Vlad was trying to do was put together enough energy so that he could overtake Pariah when he went after the object. The kicker? The third object, whatever the hell it is … I think Vlad said it was some kind of amulet … anyway, it would only regain its powers if it was retrieved during a Wolf Moon."
"That sounds like an old fairy tale," I observed.
Danny rolled his eyes. "Most of them do. Anyway, that's why Vlad was so angry at me for helping ghosts cross over. The oldest ghosts had the most energy; that's why he was burning through so many of the new ghosts. He put me in prison so I couldn't take away his energy source – he destroyed a few ghosts that have been around for a long time. And my leg? He put a device in me to drain my energy."
"Maheen told me about your leg," I mumbled, recalling my ghostly friend. Alarmed, I flicked my eyes to his. "Did you see her when you went back for Vlad?"
Something in Danny's body language changed; he appeared tenser than he had before. He shook his head, but I didn't believe him, and so I asked the question again.
He sighed. "The only people left there were Vlad and Elliot. There were blotches of ectoplasm everywhere. All of his ghostly servants, they were probably destroyed. I think he was trying to drain enough energy in a last ditch effort to get both me and Pariah because, funny thing, Wolf Moon is tomorrow night."
"So she's gone," I realized. "Fully gone."
"I'm sorry. I wish I could have rescued them all. They didn't deserve to be trapped with him and she, for all her help, deserved to be rescued."
"Vlad was twisted."
"Yeah, he was." Danny agreed.
"So," I thought back to what he had told me moments before, "Can we clarify something?"
"Anything."
"You went back and fought Vlad and Elliot and you found out about Vlad's master plan, which was to get energy from ghosts, so that he would have enough energy to get an amulet which would make him King of the Ghost Zone."
Danny nodded. "In essence. It's not enough to justify how much we suffered. How much he made us suffer. I'm sorry, Sam."
He was right, wanting to be king of the Ghost Zone didn't seem to be enough for me. Vlad had been power hungry; that much was obvious, but I had wanted it to be more. I didn't know what I expected Vlad's master plan to be, but this one seemed so weak. It seemed like an explanation offered by Disney, to explain their villain's motives. Power hungry.
"So it was what? World domination?"
"Vlad needs control. He's creepy and angry and he likes to be in control. I'm telling you all that he confessed to me, but … I know it's not enough. It's not enough for me and I know it's definitely not enough for you." He ran his hand through his hair, tousling the black strands. "But he won't hurt you anymore; know that."
I didn't have anything to say to that. We were quiet for a moment. I reflected on the past few months and finally, I had to say, "It's late. I think I should sleep."
"I – Sam, there's something I should say, before I go."
I turned away from my balcony doors to face him. "Yeah?"
"I just … I want you to hear how sorry I am, again. Not just for getting you kidnapped by Vlad, but for everything before it. I know I said it before, but you were aware that I didn't understand what I put you through, and I was only saying sorry for selfish reasons. I can recognize that now. And, I want to say it, no selfish strings attached. I want you to know that I can see the pain I put you through and that, if I could go back, I would save you from me. I'm not saying this because I think a grand speech will win you back because, really, that's not what I want. What I want is for you to be happy, healthy, safe, and all the beautiful things in the world because that's what you deserve. You deserve every good thing in life and I stole some of those things from you. So, I'm sorry and I wish you the best in everything."
Near-speechless, I stuttered, "T-thank y-you."
And then I bolted back into my room.
I don't own anything recognizable. Thanks to my betas: Foreversky.
~TLL~