Shit, fuck, was I going to cry? No. Not here. Not when Sam was around and my parents were around and so many fucking people were around. I had to get out of here. I had to go somewhere that I could breathe. I had to … I had to … Fuck. Instinct kicked in and I fell through a wall. It was a closet. A crammed coat closet. I dropped to the floor and pulled my knees up to my chest, hiding my head against my legs and just tried to breathe. Sam had called out for me again. I could turn around and walk back to her. I could but I couldn't because I knew that I would be right back to feeling like I was now.
Sam and I were fucked. We'd been fucked since that moment, over a year ago, that I decided not to tell her that I was truly a ghost. I had done that. I had made that decision. She, now, had the right to do whatever she fucking wanted. I knew that but it didn't make it any easier to accept. I felt tears along my cheeks and I reached up my hand, trying to clear them away. Shit, shit, shit.
I didn't want to cry. I had done so much crying already. I didn't want anyone to know that this was breaking my fucking heart all over again because I had known better. I'd known … nothing. I knew … nothing. I was stupid and I knew nothing and now she was never going to speak to me again. I had thought I'd be prepared for this moment, once we got out of the cell. I thought I had anticipated it enough but it clearly wasn't true. It felt like a sucker punch. It felt like I'd never breathe properly again. How had I done this to myself, to us, again?
Fuck.
"Danny?" A voice, not from right outside the door, but close enough. I tensed. I didn't recognize it – a woman's voice, too high pitched to be my mother or sister. "Excuse me, have you seen Danny? Maddie's looking for him."
An envoy of my mother. I cleared my eyes and took a deep breath, tumbling through the wall again in search of a bathroom. I needed to know if I locked like a wreck or just felt it. I managed to find one and I took stock of my face. My eyes were kind of red but, luckily for me, my cheeks weren't blotchy or anything. Still, I stuck my head under the flow of the tap for a moment, letting it run cold over my face. I felt like my skin was hot. Maybe I just wanted to feel like I could do something. I ran my hands up over my face and then through my hair, even though my hair was always a lost cause, sticking up every which way. I'd like to blame the shape entirely on flying but that definitely wasn't the fucking case. My hair just did what it wanted, no matter what I wanted.
I straightened up and used a fluffy pink towel to dab at my face. It wasn't, like, better or anything but at least I could blame the red eyes on exhaustion. At this point, my parents would probably believe anything that I fucking told them, as guilty as that thought made me feel. I didn't want to think about lying to my parents, as much as it had become a way of life for me. Something about it was starting to make me feel physically ill, even though there was nothing to do but get the fuck over it.
I opened the door into the empty hall and slowly headed back to the main room. There was still dancing going on. I saw Sam, holding onto Gavin and laughing as Leslie showed off some embarrassing dance move. I had to quickly avert my eyes. I didn't want her to catch me looking. I didn't want her to know that I wanted her to look back but she probably didn't know. Sam was fucking brilliant and she knew me better than she probably wanted to admit.
"Danny!"
I turned as I heard Mom's voice behind me.
"Danny, where were you?"
"In the bathroom." I stared at her. "Why?"
"No one knew where you'd gone," Mom said, and she was trying to hide it. Mom was a strong woman and she was trying to hide it but I could see the traces of panic on her face. "I just wanted to know where you were."
It was like I was five years old, wandering into the trees behind the playground instead of staying on the pea stone where I'd been instructed to. Except worse. Because when I was five, nothing had happened to me yet. Nothing had ever hurt me. Now, Mom knew that things could hurt her children. I wondered what she'd say if she knew that all of it – my kidnapping, Jazz and Tucker's injuries, and Sam's kidnappings – were all my fault, because she had raised a good kid that just wanted to be a hero and he had lost himself in his own arrogance along the way.
"Mom –" And for the first time in years, the truth almost came spilling out. When I had first gotten my powers, I had talked a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, with Jazz and Tucker. About whether to tell the truth, about what would happen to me if I did. I still wasn't convinced that human experimentation was out of the mix. But the further I got into being Danny Phantom and the fucked up situations that I had ended up in that made me seem more villain than hero, the more I had become convinced that they could never know. They wouldn't be able to understand. I hadn't thought that I needed them to understand.
But maybe I did.
Maybe I just wanted to be able to tell my mom everything after years of being silenced. Maybe I just wanted to have my mom understand me. That wasn't a bad thing, was it? I guessed that depended on how she reacted. I guessed that depended on whether or not she loved me or threw me out but, honestly, I couldn't imagine my parents not loving me.
"I know, I know," she said. "No need to be overprotective, you're an adult. You've said it all before. I think I deserve a break now, don't you?"
I nodded. She was right. We all deserved a break.
"Mom," I said, "would you like to dance?"
Mom grinned happily at me and she offered me her hand. I took it and we headed out onto the dance floor. Not everyone was dancing, now, though it was kind of crowded, still. Tucker and Jazz were still dancing, Jazz up on her feet. I wondered if Mom and I would wander close enough to him to give him a reminder slap on the back of the head. He'd laugh me off, probably kiss Jazz to annoy me. Not that Jazz would mind annoying me. She'd probably encourage it. Mom would probably tell me not to bother them, though, and her maternal tone would ruin my fun. I'd heard enough of it to know the difference.
"What are you thinking about?" Mom asked.
Sam. Vlad. Elliot. Tucker. Jazz. Getting kidnapped. Living in a cell. Having to live outside the cell. My phantom half. What to do with him now. Everything that I wouldn't be able to tell my mother.
"I'm happy I'm home," I said. "I missed you."
"We missed you too," Mom assured me. "It was a hard few months."
"You have no idea," I scoffed, unable to help myself.
"What did they do to you?" Mom asked, and from the look on her face, she hadn't meant for it to slip out.
"Mom, it's better for all of us, I think, if you don't think of that. I don't want you to have to picture it. It wasn't good. It was … beyond words. And I don't want to have to relive it and so I don't want you to have to relive it."
"You're too grown up," Mom mused. "Those aren't decisions you have to make. If you want to confide in us, don't be scared."
"I know. Dad talked to me about that too," I said. "And, I know that I can confide in you. I just don't think I'm ready to. I don't think I'm ready to say it and I don't think I'm ready for you to know."
Were those the same words that I had used on Dad? They might've been.
"Okay. We don't want to push. But, you know, Pamela and I were talking –"
"No more parties," I groaned.
"No," Mom agreed. "No more parties. We don't want you to end up hating us."
I smirked. "Well, I wouldn't say I'd hate you."
"You'd hate it."
I didn't even try to pretend that it wasn't fucking true. "But it's not a party, so, then, what is it?"
"We want us all to sit down and talk about what happened. We knew that you've already talked to the police but we want to know what happened to you. I know that it's going to be hard to hear and hard to say, but, as your parents, we need to know. We do."
We'd lied to the police. We'd stick to our stories and lie to them. I couldn't help but glance at Sam, standing with her father, holding a glass. She had something to protect too. She wouldn't ever tell the truth and I was sure of that.
"We can try," I said. "It can't be worse."
Mom sighed at my words but she ended up agreeing with me. "You're right, Danny."
Our song finally ended.
"I think we're about ready to head home. What do you think?"
"Please," I said, feeling as if I had already spent too long here. "I'd like that."
"Okay, I'll go find Jack, you go get Jazz. Is Tucker staying the night tonight?"
"Maybe. I'll ask."
"Is he staying with you or Jazz?"
"Gross," I said and pulled a face. "He was mine first."
Mom laughed. "Okay, okay. I won't ask again."
She left me alone and I went to find Tucker and Jazz. They were back in the dining room, making out. Well, I wasn't going to stand for that. I went invisible and sneaked across the floor, grabbing an abandoned glass of water as I went. I wasn't mean enough to dump the entire thing over their heads – though I was really fucking tempted to. Instead, I dipped my fingers into it and lightly sprinkled over their heads.
"Danny!" Jazz exclaimed.
"Can't we get some privacy?"
I rolled my eyes at Tucker's bitching, becoming tangible and sitting on the table. There was a reason Mom always said that she couldn't take me anywhere.
"You're in someone else's house, in a very public room," I pointed out to them. "Fuck you and your privacy. And, Jazz, I thought you had more shame than that."
"So, did I," she said. "And, then, we all almost died so I decided I'd make out with my boyfriend wherever I pleased."
"You don't get to use that argument forever," I said.
"Just until there's a new crisis to distract us," Jazz said. "Come on, there's always going to be something."
"Maybe." I didn't want to think about it. I'd had enough of crises. I was fucking done. "Come on. Mom wants us to go. She also wants to know if you're staying with us tonight, Tuck."
"Nah, I'll get you to drop me off at home. Mom and Dad are saying they haven't seen me at all since you came home. I figure I'll let them have me one night a week or something."
"Eh, I can come live with you sometimes too," I offered.
"Not tonight."
"No," I agreed. Tonight, I just wanted to be home.
I hopped off the table, helping Tucker with Jazz's wheelchair. We found Pamela and Jeremy, standing with Mom and Dad, and we said our goodbyes. I tried not to think too much about the fact that Tucker and Jazz said goodbye to Sam while I perched off on the sidelines, leading the charge to the van when we were done. We were quiet, not even discussing the party at all. We dropped Tuck off at home, though, as soon as he was out of the van, he was texting me and asking about Sam.
Me: Tell you about it at NB tomorrow. Haven't been since my release.
Tucker: Shit. Should've brought you some in the hospital or something
Me: Make it up to me by buying me fries tomorrow.
Tucker: We'll see. 1?
Me: 1. See you then.
Me: I'm not bringing Jazz.
Tucker: we need bro time
Well, thank fuck for Tucker still being Tucker. I got out of the van and helped Jazz up the stairs, allowing her to use me as a railing. I got ready for bed but when I was in my bed – comfortable and soft as ever, staring up at the stars, I realized that I was scared. Alone and scared. Tucker wasn't sleeping on my floor tonight. I crept across the hallway and into Jazz's room.
"Danny?"
"I can't be alone," I admitted, and it was too vulnerable of a thing to admit.
"I get the outside," she muttered into a pillow.
Gratefully, I crawled into bed next to her. Thank fuck for my sister.
So, on tumblr I'm: we are all of legend now (with dashes between every word). If you want to find my replies to anon reviews, add backslash tagged backslash anon dash replies. If you want to see anything I post about Superman or the Reflections Universe, go to my tumblr URL and add backslash tagged backslash reflections dash universe. Punctuation is spelled out due to Fanfiction's restrictions. If you're having any trouble accessing the tumblr content please send me a pm and I can format it for you in a different way.
~TLL~
