I slumped down against the wall, looking pointedly down at my knees. Elliot, the fuck face, was standing outside of the cell. I didn't want anything to do with him but he'd been standing there for what felt like ten thousand years, and my resolve to not look at him was crumbling. I really didn't want to look at him, I wasn't totally sure what I was expecting if I saw his face. I just didn't want to give him the satisfaction that I gave into temptation and looked at him. Before I could give in and look in his direction and demand to know what the fuck he was doing, Sam did it for me.

"What do you want?" she snapped suddenly at him. She'd been in a lousy mood ever since we had last seen Elliot and, while I'd hated her bitterness when it was just me and her, I now felt like encouraging it since her displeasure was directed at him rather than only at me.

"I thought I might stop by."

I cringed at Elliot's casual tone. All I could think about when he spoke was how his voice might have been the last thing Jazz ever heard.

"For what purpose?" Sam pressed.

"Do you want to know what's going on in Amity?"

I looked up from my knees long enough to glance at Sam's face. She was nodding at Elliot. I curled back into myself. I wanted to know about Amity more than Sam probably did, but I didn't want to hear it coming from Elliot's mouth. I wanted to be able to walk through the streets by myself and know what was going on because Idiscovered it. Not because some pompous clone decided it was important for me to know.

"Both Danny's and your parents have launched search efforts of course." Elliot put his familiar Hungarian accent back on, but, for some reason, it only made me want to punch him more. "And, as your doting boyfriend, Sam, I'm very involved in the search efforts."

I saw Sam's fingers twitch toward for her remaining heel and I wanted to see her throw it. She brought her hand back to her lap, though, and I looked down at my hands in my own lap.

"Someone started a rumour," Elliot added. "Though I don't know who it was."

Sam and I were both perfectly silent, but Elliot didn't elaborate. I waited for Sam to lose her patience again, because I knew that she would

"What rumour?" she demanded on cue.

"That you and Danny ran away together!"

I fucking wish.

"I'm heartbroken, obviously, and I can't believe you would do such a thing!" Elliot cried, but it was obviously fake. He dropped his accent with his next sentence "Your friends – Leslie and, oh, that despicable one that thinks I'm 'delicious'. What's her name?"

"Tara," Sam said blandly.

"Yes. Well, Leslie and Tara both agree that you were utterly smitten with me. Mikey said you didn't like Danny and said that Tucker told him the same thing. Yet, the both of you disappeared at the same time. What are people supposed to think?"

The asshole was whining. He was trying to sound like someone who was actually in the same position – abandoned by a girl he thought he was in love with. A girl who could be in trouble or who had simply fallen in love with someone else. I wasn't falling for it but, bitterly, I could see why someone who wasn't me or Sam might buy his pathetic act. He did play pathetic well after all.

"It's a crock of shit, if you ask me," Elliot groaned.

You're a crock of shit, I thought. And when I get out of here, I will beat the shit out of you.

He continued to bitch. "I don't know why I have to keep putting up with your parents when Vlad is already on the in with Danny's."

I grew irrationally angry at the thought of Vlad being anywhere near my parents right now. I dug my fingers into my thighs, desperately trying to control myself.

"Danny," Elliot called.

I dug my fingers deeper into my thighs, but I looked up at him. I didn't want to have to rely on him, but I wanted to know what he wanted to tell me.

"I've got a question for you."

I leaned heavily against the wall, scuffing the heels of my shoes against the floor. I may have looked at him, but I was not going to fucking talk to him.

"It's something Vlad wanted me to ask. He wanted to know; did you ever give your sister a proper goodbye?"

I shoved my nails further into my skin, trying not to move, trying not to let Elliot see that what the pain he inflicted, coming to the surface. Because there was only one reason to talk about a proper goodbye. But no. No. Vlad didn't … He couldn't have … Jazz had to be alive. My sister was not allowed to die.

Elliot walked close to the cell bars, wrapping his hands around two of them. His green eyes gleamed with the same evil I often saw in Vlad as he said, "I'll tell you something … Your opportunity is gone."

NO!

A wordless scream tore from my throat. I dropped my head into my thighs – not even trying to hide from Elliot, just trying to get away from what he had said. Jazz wasn't gone. Hadn't I just said that she had to live; that Jazz was not allowed to die? Tears overflowed from my eyes, and I wished that I would somehow drown in them. Anything to get away from the truth he didn't have to spell out; the truth that he left hanging heavy in the air, overwhelming everything. There was a thump and Elliot began to speak, but I clamped my head between my knees, shoving his voice out of my head. Fuck him. I wasn't going to listen to him. He couldn't possibly have anything important to say. Jazz was dead.

I jumped when something touched my shoulder. For a minute, I thought it was Vlad or Elliot, coming to tell me just how badly I had fucked up. I clamped my knees tighter around my head, trying to block out whatever they might throw at me.

But when someone spoke, it wasn't either of their deep tones. It was a high, female one. Sam was next to me. I looked up at her, partially out of disbelief.

"I'm here for you, okay?"

I stared at her and then she parted her arms. It looked like an invitation for a hug. And I so badly wanted to accept. I wanted someone to hug me and pet my hair. I wanted to use her to comfort me, but I didn't understand why she would want that – why she would want me near her. I didn't want to use her again. I could be by myself. I knew there was no dealing with what Elliot had told me, but I could sit here by myself and be as close to okay as anyone could manage right now.

"Come here," Sam insisted softly. "It's not about the two of us right now. I cared for her too and that's what it's about."

I didn't give her time to change her mind. I curled into her, and she held me back. I sobbed onto her shoulder and she gently rubbed circles into my back. I stared at the black lock of hair that was trapped against her neck, but all I could see was the flash of carrot orange, so characteristic of my sister. And with that, everything came back to haunt me at once.

"Danny, what is going on with you? You've been getting into fights, you're covered in bruises."

"It's nothing you would understand, Jazz!"

"Danny, this is bigger than Dash! What's going on with you?"

"I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE, JAZZ!"

(-.-)

"Danny?"

"What?"

"You're Danny Phantom."

"…You … You don't know what you're talking about."

"I figured it out, little brother, a few weeks ago."

"A few weeks?"

"Danny, don't be mad."

"Just go tell Mom and Dad already!"

"Why would I do that?"

"What?"

"It's your secret. I'm not going to tell on you. We're not kids anymore, I'm not going to go running to Mom and Dad."

"Then what do you want?"

"I want to help you!"

"You can't!"

"Tucker helps you."

"That's different!"

"Danny."

"Jazz."

"I can help you. Just, come here … Danny, come sit with me … Tell me everything."

"Jazz …"

"I want to help you, I'm your sister! Trust me."

"Okay, well, it all started with Mom and Dad's ghost portal …"

(-.-)

"I'm worried about you!"

"I can take care of myself, Jazz!"

"Danny, this is big."

"I've fought against bigger things before and lived to tell the tale."

"What if this is the one time you don't?"

"Don't doubt me!"

"I'm not doubting you I'm scared for you. Danny, please."

"Please what? Stop fighting ghosts? You know that I can't do that. I won't do that. I'm protecting people."

"I know!"

"Then how can you ask me to stop?"

"What about your family?"

"I'm doing this for you. I'm doing this for Mom and Dad. I'm doing this for Tucker. I'm protecting everyone, Jazz. Just because you're scared doesn't mean everything's going to go wrong!"

"I couldn't bear it if anything happened to you."

"Nothing's going to happen to me, okay?"

"…Okay."

(-.-)

"Tucker told me what Vlad said!"

"Tucker didn't know what he was hearing."

"It sounded pretty clear to me. Vlad was talking about our family; about using us to get to you, and –"

"Calm down. It wasn't what it sounded like."

"What else could that be? I'm concerned with keeping everyone safe."

"And I can keep everyone safe! Dammit, Jazz. I can and will take care of you. Nothing is going to happen."

"What if it does?"

"It won't. Tell me you trust me."

"I … I trust you, little brother."

"Now, remember that."

(-.-)

I stared, unblinking, at the mesh-like part of Sam's dress. I could feel her breathing from where I lay in her lap and I desperately wanted to be concerned with the fact that I was touching her, and she was touching me. I wanted that to be the only thing that mattered to me right now, instead of the heaviness in my soul; the slick of Jazz's blood on my hands.

"Do you want to talk about anything?" Sam asked, her voice sweet. She put her hand on my shoulder.

"Like what?" What could there possibly be to talk about? What could either of us possibly have anything to say?

"Anything that might make you feel better."

Jazz, appearing at the cell bars, yelling at me for making her come rescue me would make me feel better. Especially if Tucker was standing behind her, Elliot's head dangling from his hand. Instead, something else occurred to me; something that didn't make me feel better, only worse. "Do you want to know what the last thing I said to Jazz was?"

Not what I had cried to her broken body; not the vengeance I had sworn, staring at her bloody face. But what had been said the last time she had stood before me and we had a conversation.

"What?"

"I don't know! I keep thinking that I should remember it perfectly, you know but I just can't seem to get a grip on it. She was going out somewhere, to the library or something. I was in the kitchen, grumbling about Vlad. I was talking about Vlad. She was probably offering me comfort, saying that Vlad was something that could be taken care of, and I just went on complaining."

Complaining and searching for fucking jam in the goddamn fridge.

"I knew Vlad was threatening me, but that's what it had been limited to: me. Not once had Vlad said anything about hurting Jazz or Tucker." He'd dropped hints, skirted around the topic once or twice, but it had never been explicit. It had never been anything I had taken seriously. "I'd told them to be careful, of course, getting involved with him is not something to be taken lightly. We knew we were interfering with some kind of plot of his. I was the only one who talked to the ghosts, but Tuck and Jazz helped me and now … now all of this has happened and I don't know what to do."

It should have been me. Vlad should have just killed me. Jazz and Tucker could have taken care of Vlad afterward – Jazz would have been alive to do so; Tucker would have been unharmed and on the warpath. It would have been better off that way. Vlad's problems weren't with them; they were with me. I was the one who antagonized him, who hunted him, who tried to tear him down. They were innocent.

"I did all of this," I confessed with Sam, turning my head into the skirt of her dress as the tears came again. "I killed my sister."

I don't own anything recognizable. Thanks to my betas: Forever Sky.

~TLL~