A/N: Sequel to 'Eyes'.
Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.
4. Dark
A week. It had been a week. He was sitting in his room, on his bed, listening to the latest Dumpty Humpty CD Sam had gotten him a few days ago. He already knew all the lyrics, and was singing softly with the band, uncaring that he was slightly out of tune. There was nobody there to offend with his less than perfect singing voice anyway, and he really didn't have anything else to do.
The doctors had let him go home, on his own insistence that he could administer the eye drops himself, that his mother and sister could change the bandages, and that he would check back with them every other day, to view the progress.
Not that there was much progress. He was in the dark. His eyes had shut down, the cornea severely damaged by the tiny particles of glass that had hit his eyes from the exploding box of 'Unique Crystal Wine Glasses and Decanters'. The explosion hadn't so much as shattered the crystal, but had instead turned it into a fine dust cloud, which was actually even more damaging than shards would have been. Like sand in your eyes, but then permanently.
The doctors had shook their heads, according to Sam, who had given him a whispered eye witness report, talking like she was covering a football game, commenting on everything she saw, making him laugh through his tears. Then they had proceeded the painful procedure of rinsing his eyes, prying them open because he couldn't do it himself, and pouring water into them, hoping to catch most of the glass dust in them. An operation had followed, in which they had poured a liquid in his eyes, turning them a fluorescent purple, and they had removed the rest of it.
Time, they had said, would do the rest. His eyesight would probably be completely restored, once the scratches on the cornea were healed. Until then, he needed to pour antibiotics into his eyes every hour, and the bandages needed to stay on.
He had been moving through his room, through his house, feeling his way around, amazed at the amount of clutter that was there. Magazines, on the floor next to the couch. Boxes in the hallway, close to the stairs. Chairs, suddenly standing in a different place than they were before. It drove him crazy.
In the end, he kept to his room most of the time, where he knew where everything was, and everything was moved only by himself. If he fell down here, it was his own fault. Absentmindedly, he rubbed his shins, full of bruises from hitting the edge of the side table in the living room. He misjudged the size of that thing every time.
The CD ended, and he turned off his stereo, letting the room become quiet. He just sat there for a while, listening to the sounds of the house, a slight clanking coming from downstairs, probably the lab, the hissing of the pipes going through his room, all the way up to the ops center, voices of people walking on the street beneath his window. He even listened to his own breathing for a while, knowing that he could turn off that particular need by going ghost.
He had tried it, hoping that his ghostly green eyes still had their sight, but he was disappointed in that. As a ghost, he was just as blind.
Sighing, he swung his feet from the bed and got up, feeling his way to the other side of the room, until he reached the window. The sun was shining through it, and he could feel it's warm rays on his skin. He leaned against the window, again listening to the sounds of the street outside, a dark and scary world now, a world he was unable to enter. He'd have to wait here, in his room, bored silly, until his eyes were whole again.
One of the steps of the stairway creaked, and he tilted his head to listen. Someone was coming up the stairs, someone that was trying to be quiet. He smiled. He could hear her, identify her by the way her combat boots made a soft clicking sound on the wooden floor, stopping in front of his door. The door handle moved slowly, and the door opened.
"I can hear you, Sam," he said.
She sighed, and then laughed. He loved her laugh. He had never noticed it before, but her voice was rich and low, always with that sarcastic, amused undertone. He realized that he had never really listened to her.
"I guess I can't sneak up on you anymore," she said, and he heard the smirk in her voice.
He heard her cross the room and then she joined him at the window, presumably looking outside.
"Aren't you going crazy in here?" she asked, touching his arm lightly.
He shrugged.
"Yes. No. I don't have much choice," he said.
"Wouldn't you like to go outside?"
Yes, he would like to go outside. He would love to walk around town again, to fly, to go see a movie, to fly again, to go to school and be bullied by Dash, and then to fly some more. But now, outside was out of the question. It was dark there, an alien world, a world he didn't know anymore and although he didn't want to admit it, it scared him.
"I'd love to, Sam," he said, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice, "But you know, I can't right now. I can't even move around my own house without injuring myself nowadays, let alone go out there."
She was silent for a while, standing close to him and he started noticing other things about her. Her smell, for instance. She smelled nice, as if she had just taken a shower and washed her hair with shampoo smelling of roses. It was weird. He'd never associated Sam with roses before.
"Do you trust me?" she asked, finally.
Trust her... he thought about that. Trust wasn't even beginning to describe the feeling he felt now. He trusted her. He'd place his life into her hands anytime. He'd let her hold his heart in her hands, he'd tell her any secret and he knew she would keep it. His trust in her was absolute, and it surprised him. He didn't even trust Tucker that far.
She took his silence as a no, and started turning away from him, but he grabbed her arm before she could move out of reach and he'd have to stumble after her.
"With my life," he said, silently cursing himself for the squeak in his voice.
He heard the smile in her voice when she said, "Well, then let's go!"
"Go where?"
"To the Nasty Burger, you dork," she said, "Where else?"
Where else indeed.
