Originally, this was going to be two chapters then I decided to just go ahead and put them together to form a longer chapter. So I hope you enjoy and please review~
~CWA
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Hiro Hamada
Half ghost. Half ghost. It echoes through my mind in a numbing fear that makes my head pound as my whole body seems to tremble as I take an unsteady step backward, looking at the ghost- looking at Danny- as he stands in front of me. He doesn't even look like Danny. Not the Danny that I've come to known. He looks… He looks dead. Inhuman. Dangerous. Green eyes that just stare straight into my soul and swirl in my mind, making me feel small and helpless. Green sparks dance across his fingertips before blinking out of existence. The white glow around him pulses and vibrates, shining brighter and brighter. It rolls off of him in waves and stretch a good few inches away from himself.
My heart pounds inside my chest with such a ferocity that makes me wonder if it's going to burst through my torso all together. I can feel myself shaking so badly it's hard to stand straight. My mind becomes whirlwind of things. Half ghost. Half ghost. Creepy kid with creepy powers- what powers? What can do? Is it just him or is it all ghosts? But what lab accident? And how can someone even be half ghost? Does that mean…. Is… Is Danny half-dead? My breath hitches in my throat in a small hiccup as tears threaten to spill over and when I manage to find the courage to look up, Danny seems to have calmed down. The glow's dimmed down and turned less violent. Now it just rolls through the air and a few stray wisps even float through the air, disappearing every few seconds.
I tense as one of the wisps get close to me and brushes against my skin, sending goosebumps across my skin as the hair on the back of my neck stand on edge. But a few more wisps come to me, disappearing upon contact on my skin and send calm vibrations through me that make me breath a small sigh of relief as the tension leaves my body. I'm not sure why they make me feel safe. Why it feels so warm and fuzzy. This isn't right. I should be scared. I should be running. Something. Why do I feel safe? I can't… I don't understand.
"Danny," my voice cracks as I look to him, relieved when I notice his eyes are back to normal, "Danny what do you mean?"
He lets out a small frustrated sigh as he runs his hair through his fingers, plopping down on my bed and after a brief moment, he pats the bed in a gesture to get me to sit down, but I don't move causing him to look downcast and almost hurt. He sighs once more and as he exhales, the glow around him finally turns into something that can easily be dismissed as a trick of the light. The wisps that once floated freely now stay close to him and merge with the glow itself. My throat feels sore and a bit tight, making it hard for me to breath, but I manage to shakily sit down in the computer chair and just watch him as he speaks.
"I… I'm sorry," he doesn't look at me, he sits hunched over with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, looking straight toward the ground, "I… Hiro, it's dangerous to know this. It's really dangerous because when you know what I am, who I am, my enemies are more likely to find you and with Vlad around, that's something that I just didn't want to risk."
He lets out a noise that I think is supposed to be a dry chuckle as he briefly looks up at me, still hunched over with his arms resting on his legs now. A small, tired, slightly forced smirk is on his face and his eyes look… haunted. They're not green- not like before- but they seem heavy now. Or maybe he's also looked as if he's fought a million wars and I just never noticed until now.
"I suppose that doesn't really matter now," he chuckles again, but it lacks its humor, "…Hiro… I know this is hard to take in and I know this goes against a lot that you've known because I'm not human. Not a ghost either. Just somewhere in the middle- I still breathe, just not as often. I don't eat though, not unless it has a shit ton of ectoplasm in it otherwise I get a serious case of food poisoning. I don't even have to sleep as much as you do. My body temperature is really low and my heart barely even beats. But-"
Before I can stop him, he reaches and grabs my hand. Has his skin always been this cold? I tense in his grip and wince, closing my eyes tightly and prepare myself for the worst as I hold my breath. But whatever I'm waiting for doesn't come. I let out the shaky breath I've held and slowly peak my eyes open as I feel my palm being pressed against something, his grip still firm, yet loose enough on my wrist. With my eyes open, I can see that my palm is against his chest, right over his heart, as he looks at me with an expression I don't quite understand. I relax a bit, but I still watch him cautiously. I can't feel anything under my palm- I can't feel his heart pounding or even his chest moving to take a breath. I gulp thickly and my hand trembles a little bit and it takes a second, but I feel a small bump against my palm causing me to jump and look to Danny frantically, but he doesn't move.
"-It still beats," Danny says softly, "Barely. But it does."
I begin to count. Slowly. Steadily. After a full minute, he lets go off my wrist and I counted 22 beats. 22 beats. In just one minute. My hands are still trembling as one hand reaches to my own chest. My heart is beating so rapidly there's no chance for me to even count it like this. But still… His heart beating a little bit, even if it's such a low number, brings me a bit of comfort. If his heart is still beating, then he must be, on some level, still alive, right?
"H-How," I manage to ask, my voice wavering and cracking.
He takes the question rather well, amusement dancing in his eyes briefly as he chuckles a bit, briefly commenting on the fact that he did already say it was a lab accident, causing me to flush slightly as I mutter under my breath. But the brief moment of humor disappears quickly as he continues to speak, his eyes downcast and his arms still resting on his legs as he hunches over.
"...I was actually about your age. A fourteen year old trying to balance a life between parents that everyone believed to be crazy and school. If it wasn't for Sam and for Tucker, my two best friends with the former actually being Ellie's mom, then I don't think I would have survived… Or escape the lockers I always got shoved into. But like I said, everyone believed my parents were crazy with their of ghosts- even me and Jazz did, if you can believe it. But then they built something-"
He trails off slightly, but the realization dawns in my eyes as I let out a small gasp.
"-A portal," I finish, "They… they built the ghost portal- just like the one you're building. Didn't they?"
He nods, a small reminiscing smile on his lips,
"Exactly. Except theirs didn't work at first. It brought my heart seeing them so heartbroken- I didn't necessarily believe in ghosts at the time, but they were my parents and they were so passionate about their work…. So my friends and I snuck down into the lab when they were gone. I slipped on a HAZMAT suit and checked it out. Sam wanted to get my picture in the portal for her scrapbook, but I thought maybe if I got a closer look, I could fix it…. And I did, sort of. Tripped on a wire and hit a button on the wall. The next thing I know, I'm getting electrocuted which really should have killed me if ectoplasm didn't play a part in the portal."
His hands grip his knees a bit tightly, but the smile stays on his face even if it doesn't reach his eyes. I don't really like where this is going though. My gut turns and I wrap my arms tightly around myself. Electrocuted. Danny was… he was electrocuted. So much electricity jolting through his system… He's right. It should have killed him. And I think… It did. To a degree.
"-I woke up and everything was… different. My hair turned pitch white, my eyes were glowing green, I kept floating around and sinking through floors, the whole bit. I thought I died. Thought I was a ghost, but… nope, just a different type of freak."
He shuffles a bit and reaches into his back pocket, pulling out his wallet and flipping it open with a pained expression on his face but takes a picture from it and hands it to me. I take it carefully, my hands barely able to grip it from the way my hands shake. It's an old picture, slightly yellowed and there's a faint ring on it as if someone had set a drink on it at some point, the corners are ripped and folded, but the picture is still clear. It shows Danny. If not for the smile on his face, the same smile I see him give Tadashi a lot, in the picture I doubt I would have recognized him. In the picture, he looks about my age, with the darkest hair I've ever seen and startling blue eyes. Two people are with him, about fourteen as well, and they have their arms around him with grins on their faces. My guess is that it's Sam and Tucker. The girl, Sam, looks enough like Ellie that I can see that she is definitely the mother of Danny's daughter. Though her violet eyes take me off guard for a brief moment.
After a few seconds, I can feel myself calming as I hand him the picture back. A small, shaky smile is on my lips. I'm not okay with this- how can I be when he's half dead? But it does explain a lot now that I think about. Why he's always so quiet and manages to sneak around so well. How he pulled off a lot of those pranks he's done to Tadashi. But my eyes flicker to his hair, there's still traces of the black hair that I saw in the picture on the shaved sides, but the white hair on top is so pure that there's not so much as a fleck of black. Which means it really must be natural, a side effect of the accident. The smile comes a bit easier to my lips now.
"Old man hair," I mumble, laughter bubbling in my throat.
Danny lights up at the joke, an easy, natural grin stretching across his lips as he stands up from the bed with a stretch. He ruffles my hair playfully, causing me to bat at his hands,
"You laugh now, but give it a few years- I think I see a white hair in there already," he winks at me and makes his way the door, "But I do have things I gotta go do, bad guys to stop…."
He stops for a moment in the doorway before turning briefly, looking at me from over his shoulder with a slightly furrowed expression,
"We can talk about this later, okay? And I'll tell you about my ghost adventures and some of the ghosts I've met… But in the meantime, Hiro, please just… turn on Baymax and keep him on, okay? He'll warn you if there's a ghost nearby and when he does, get out of there. And just… stay safe, okay? You're my little brother, I'd hate to see anything happen to you."
His voice wavers a bit as his expression softens and I can't help but give a shaky grin at him as my heart pounds in my chest with sibling affection. He gives me a small reassured nod and after a moment of hesitance, he takes a step forward and I find myself being wrapped up in a tight, comforting hug. My eyes mist up a bit as my bottom lip quivers before I relax into the hug.
I never noticed he's this cold before. I don't feel his chest rise and fall with a breath that often and it almost feels like I'm hugging a corpse. But… a corpse doesn't radiate with safety and protection. Though there's something strange about knowing that he could just as easily break me in half if he squeezes too hard and just like that, the reminder that Danny, my brother, is half dead comes to mind and the moment of sibling bonding disappears as my gut twists.
Tadashi Hamada
I lay on the bed, content with just staring up at the ceiling as I take in steady, deep breaths before I close my eyes in an attempt to clear my mind. Now that the excitement of my accident has died down, the hospital has all but banned everyone but direct family from visiting me. I think they were forced to make that decision when a reporter came in and cornered me into questioning. It's all pretty blurry, mostly because of the heavy pain medication, but I think she got a picture of everyone, I just can't be sure… It's one of the many reasons I'm glad they switched me to a milder pain medication- while it is pretty heavy, it's not mind numbing. The switch got approved since some of my minor burns and scrapes have been healing and I don't have as many bandages as I did before. I still have too many bandages for my liking though.
But since it is only direct family allowed, I wonder if that's why Danny hasn't visited as much. He used to be at my side twenty-four-seven and while he's been here maybe twice since he left, his visits were short and his mind was else-where. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he seemed angry at something, but that doesn't sound right since the only thing, or rather the only person, I've ever seen get Danny so genuinely upset is Mr. Masters and after the convention, he's disappeared off the map yet again so I can't imagine what it is that Danny is upset about…. Unless Masters isn't really gone and is bothering Danny. I hope that's not the case. Casting what Danny's said and his own opinions of the man, Masters strikes me as a very bad guy in a way I can't place. He just causes this overall feeling of uneasy, almost fear. Just thinking about it causes goosebumps on my arm.
I sigh deeply and shift a bit on the bed, opting to lay on my side rather than my back only to see a familiar face only inches from mine, causing me to real back with a yelp,
"Hiro! Don't scare me like that," I lightly chide him.
Unlike the other times that I've gotten onto him, he doesn't offer any smart-ass comments or even a smirk. If anything, he just looks guilty and sad. I narrow my eyes slightly with concern and suspicion as I take him in. The bags under his eyes. The way his eyes dart around nervously. The shaky hands. The way his bottom lip quivers. For a moment, I think back to the little three year old that slept with me every night until he was six years old. A little boy- my little brother- terrified and plagued with nightmares of Mom and Dad's death. My expression softens and I don't even question how he is tightly clinging to the red case that I recognize as Baymax.
"Hey," my voice is soft and gentle as I move a bit to make room on the bed, "What are you doing here so late, Hiro?"
His eyes are wide and big as he eyes the way I pat the bed. He hesitates for a moment, his eyes flickering toward Baymax's case before he finally sets the red case down and climbs into the bed with me, curling into a ball with his head resting on my chest as I drape my arm weakly over his shoulders. I comfortingly rub his shoulder as my heart sinks to my gut. It's been years since Hiro's been this upset about something. In fact, lately, I think he'd sooner bottle everything up than show how upset he is like this. Whatever it is that's bothering him…. It must be bad.
The who died comment dies in my throat, opting to stay in silence for a while as I wonder just how much Danny has rubbed off on me that my first comment would be a joke. Not to mention there's something about the comment that burns in my mouth. As if saying it would make Hiro even more upset. And I'm not even sure why. But my brotherly instinct is telling me that it'd just be the worst thing I could say right now. And for a moment, I wonder if I should just ask Hiro what's wrong, but I know Hiro. He'll tell me. He just needs a moment.
After a full two minutes- I couldn't help but eye the hospital clock that flashes 1:36 in the morning with a bit of a disdain- Hiro finally speaks up. His voice is soft and a bit broken, threatening to crack with emotion as he curls tighter to me.
"-'Dashi, what would you do if you found out someone you view as family, isn't human? What if they were an… alien? Or only, say, half...human?"
There's a small pause that almost makes it sound as if he wasn't orginally going to say half-human. For a moment, I think he's spent too much time with Fred. But Hiro isn't one to get so worked up over just something that may just be one of Fred's wild theories. Someone you view as family. I'm not sure who he's talking about- the only ones that come to mind is Danny and Aunt Cass- or even what brought this up. But whatever it is that's on his mind, and it has something to do with this, then I need to give him my honest answer. I let out a small shuddering breath and swallow down the memory that's been fading in and out of my mind.
Burning. I never thought it'd burn this much. Though I didn't really think about anything aside from the fact that Callaghan is still in here. And I've failed. I didn't save him. I couldn't even save myself. And now, here I am, about to die. I can feel it in my bones that there's nothing left for me. That I should just give up. I wonder how everyone will react to my death? Will they miss me? Will they be angry at the world? Angry at me for just running into the center without a second thought? Will Danny spiral into depression and rely on the comfort of his sister and daughter? Or will he stay strong for everyone and comfort Aunt Cass and Hiro and the gang? Will he bottle everything up until one day it will just explode and cause chaos in its wake?
My chest burns almost as much as my skin with each shuddering, gasping breath. My hands twitch at my sides. I know I'm going to die. But I can't die without a fight. I can't just loose all hope even as it claws at me, pleading for me to just give in. By some miracle, I'm able to open my eyes even as the smoke burns my sight. Groggily and barely aware of most things, I'm still able to see him. He's clear enough that for a moment, I wonder if I'm hallucinating. Or I heard that you see people you love before you die and this is it. But there's… there's something different about him. He runs as if the devil is at his heels, the flames barely nipping at his skin. His eyes glow a vivid green, brighter than any of the fire. His body glows white against the red and my eyes flicker close for a moment when I feel his arms wrap around me.
His touch is colder than ice. Is it the cold hands of death? I don't… I don't understand how he can feel so cold against the heated flames that threaten to burn us alive. But I don't complain when the icy feel makes a small, soothing sigh escape from my lips. I blink my eyes open, for just a brief moment more, in time to see such a determined, if a bit angry, expression shining on Danny's face as a green dome forms around us. I blink.
When I open my eyes once more, we're no longer inside of the Center. There is no flames. We're outside in the courtyard, meters away from the exploding building. I close my eyes once more as the darkness finally takes over me.
I blink back the memory, biting at my lip slightly as a lump forms in my throat and my mouth goes dry. I'm still not sure what to make of it, just that Danny is… different. That's the only explanation I have. Whether it's because he's not human or if he's a mutant with powers or something else entirely, I don't know. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I'm not sure I would even believe it. Even then, it can be dismissed as just hallucinations from lack of oxygen, but that explanation doesn't settle well with my gut. Danny being… something different than just a normal human… would explain a lot of things. The way he healed so fast from what I know was a pulmonary embolism- or just anything really. Small cuts and scrapes I've seen him get from working on the project that would be gone later that same day. The mysteriously bent metal rod at my beside that I have the gut feeling is from Danny. Hell, it may even be why he can pull so many pranks without getting caught.
No matter what the case is, as unsettling as it is to think about (and a bit disappointing that he hasn't told me), it doesn't change what I think about Danny. He's still the guy that I love, no matter what (though I'm still not sure if I'm ready to say it out loud) and I know in my heart that he'll tell me the truth about everything when he's ready… Even if in the meantime, I'm not exactly pleased that he hasn't told me sooner- especially after our whole no more secrets discussion we had a while back.
With all of that in mind, it makes sense that Hiro is talking about Danny. I mean, who else could he be talking about? It wasn't as if we have family members to spare that Hiro could possibly believe isn't human, or in his words, half-human (maybe that's what Danny is- half human and half something else?). I briefly wonder what makes Hiro believe this- what Danny may have said or done, but Hiro's a smart kid. I know that he can pick up on things and notice things when he wants to. I wouldn't doubt that he's noticed some odd things about Danny and things Danny has done and began questioning it.
I clear my throat before I'm able to answer Hiro.
"I think," I say slowly, "...that I would do nothing… Talk to him, sure, but in the end it doesn't really matter what he is. Just who he is."
If he notices that I say him in reference to someone in particular, he doesn't mention it. He just nods slowly, taking in my answer as if it's the most holy thing in the world as he mutters a bit to himself, shaking his head before he pulls away from me a bit, a hooded look in his eyes as they gleam over. He bites at his bottom lip hesitantly before he speaks up again.
"...Thanks, 'Dashi…. I… I should probably get going…. Get better soon, it's getting boring without you."
He gives me a hesitant, goofy grin that I return easily. Despite the pain that shoots up my arm, I ruffle his hair after he gets off the bed. He laughs and swats at my hand and for a moment, I feel like I'm not in the hospital anymore. That we're back to being a normal family before all of this began. But after he leaves, Baymax's case in hand, my mind drifts back to Danny and I remember that things aren't normal and I wonder if they ever were in the first place.
