Disclaimer: Look at earlier chapters.
Thanks to all reviewers!
Chapter 7: The Confrontation
What do you do when your best friend backs literally into the wall and then sinks through the floor?
Tucker had no idea. In fact, half of his mind thought that Danny actually hadn't been in the hallway, and that he had just imagined the scene, but Danny's backpack, sitting in front of his open locker, said otherwise.
Danny began to float up from the lower level and successfully made himself invisible. The flying seemed to come naturally while the invisibility took some effort. It was worth it, though; he really did not want anyone to see him at the moment, Tucker least of all. Carefully, Danny peered up at his friend with only his invisible head poking up out of the floor and, despite the possible consequences, laughed a little at the look on Tucker's face. He looked like he had just been run over by a truck. The smile, however, was soon wiped off of Danny's face.
"Danny?" Tucker whispered. He could have sworn he'd heard a chuckle.
Danny froze.
"Danny," Tucker said with more confidence.
Danny felt his invisibility flicker and Tucker suddenly screamed and jumped back, dropping his PDA. Danny shivered at his reaction and rose the rest of the way to hover slightly over the floor. Mentally, he noted that floating was definitely easier than turning invisible or intangible, almost like how walking was easier than doing cartwheels or flips. After a few seconds of intense concentration, Danny managed to turn tangible again and he dropped to the floor, looking anywhere but at Tucker's fearful gaze. He picked up the PDA and walked slowly over to the frozen boy, holding it out to him.
Tucker stared at Danny before wordlessly taking the offered PDA. Both boys stood in silence for a few seconds, Danny nervously rubbing the back of his neck and Tucker fiddling with his PDA.
Finally, Tucker broke it.
"Dude, you have a lot of explaining to do."
Danny's right arm began to flicker in and out of sight rapidly until it settled on being completely invisible. Tucker looked at the space where it should have been and then met Danny's blue eyes.
Danny flinched a little at first, expecting to see fear, repulsion, anger. The fear was there. Tucker's teal eyes were hard as well, but instead of showing repulsion, they showed … was that … concern?
The late bell rang and Danny's leg turned invisible and intangible, causing him to fall flat on his face.
"Tell you next period?" he asked. Tucker nodded and the boys ran to science class where the teacher had just set up a partner lab.
"Late," the teacher noted. "Get to work! I'm not explaining the directions again!" He handed them a worksheet with instructions and the duo went to a station on the edge of the activity.
Silence reined again as they began setting up, rearranging beakers and measuring various liquids, until Dash walked past.
"I'll be seeing you after school, Fentina," he sneered at Danny, looking him straight in the eyes. He clearly hadn't forgotten Danny's earlier comment. Danny cringed and jumped when he heard shattering glass.
Dash snorted at the sight of a broken beaker beside Danny and continued walking. "Loser."
Danny stared down at the shards of glass by his feet. It could have been worse. He could have noticed that the beaker fell through instead of out of my hands. His breath came slightly faster at that and his eyes widened when he saw that his leg was beginning to go invisible.
After Danny made his leg visible again and the teacher cleaned up the mess with a sharp reprimand, Tucker put everything down, faced Danny, and waited for Danny to talk.
Danny took several deep breaths and stayed silent.
"Dude, whatever it is, you can tell me. It can't be that hard, not after the time you had to explain to the whole school why your parents were rigging the classrooms."
Danny blushed furiously at that memory and began to unconsciously sink into the floor. When he realized he had to look up to meet Tucker's gaze, he squeaked in surprise and tried unsuccessfully to float back up. "Help?"
Tucker hesitantly reached down and pulled Danny up out of the floor. "Whoa, you're really light!" he exclaimed.
"Really? I feel kind of heavy."
Tucker shook his head. "Explain."
"Well, usually I can float back up, but this time, I felt too heavy to –"
"You're babbling," Tucker interrupted.
Danny fell silent, considering what to say. He really didn't want to tell Tucker that he was a ghost because he was scared of the possible rejection. But he did owe it to Tucker to tell him; they were best friends!
Start with the basics, Fenton.
"I've been going through stuff and randomly turning invisible throughout the day," he began slowly.
I noticed, Tucker thought wryly.
"Well, actually throughout the past few days. I even floated several times, especially when I was intangible. Do-do you know the basic abilities all ghosts have?"
Tucker shook his head.
"All ghosts have the ability to go invisible, the ability to go intangible, and the ability to fly," Danny recited, picking up speed. "Some have additional powers, a very common one being extra strength and durability, while others have a specialized 'talent.' But all have the above three abilities."
Danny could almost see the cogs turning in Tucker's mind.
"Invisibility, intangibility, and flying?" Tucker asked.
Danny nodded.
"And you've been doing all three?"
Danny nodded again.
Tucker blinked in astonishment. No way. "You have ghost powers?"
Danny just watched him as the full implications hit him, looking for any sign of fear, disgust, hatred, or, worst of all, rejection.
He was so surprised by Tucker's response that his entire upper body flickered into invisibility for a moment.
"AWESO-"
"Shhhh," Danny hissed.
"Oh, right, sorry," Tucker whispered sheepishly while the two ignored the stares coming from the rest of the room. "But, dude! That is so cool!"
Danny opened his mouth to respond that, no, it was not cool when the bell rang.
"We'll finish the lab tomorrow!" the teacher announced. "Keep the papers and no homework tonight!"
The class filed out and Danny dragged Tucker back to his locker, tripping several times along the way when his feet turned intangible due to his agitation.
"Do you have any idea what you could do?" Tucker said excitedly. "You could-"
Danny cut him off. "Be known as a total freak. Yeah, I know."
Tucker went silent. "Why do you say that?"
"Tucker, I've been randomly missing limbs! I've been tripping all over the place! I've been falling through the floors – AAH!" Tucker hauled Danny up again. "I have no control!" He flashed invisible in his panic. "If anyone catches me, I'll go from geek to freak around here!"
"So what if you had control?" Now it was Danny's turn to be silent. "What if you learned to control them? Danny, you're not a freak. Just because you have ghost powers doesn't mean you're a freak. It means you have some really unique abilities that most people don't."
"I doubt that's the way everyone else will feel about it!" Danny retorted.
Tucker desperately tried to think of something that would comfort his friend. "Then like I said: keep them under wraps. Learn to control them." He smiled and tried to cheer Danny up. "Just think of what you could do to Dash! And he would never even know it was you!"
Danny smiled briefly at this and they began walking to class, but his frown soon returned. He doesn't know it all. He thinks all I got were powers! Should I tell him?
The late bell rang and they ran to their next class, late for the second time that day.
The rest of the school day went the way second period had. Danny's ghost powers would kick in at the most inconvenient times, Tucker would try to cover for him, and Danny would try to return to normal. They were very lucky at lunch; Sam was in the front office (something about a new menu) and Tucker learned who Danny wanted to know his secret: namely, no one. Last period, gym class, could have gone better, though. Danny was incredibly grateful that Tucker accepted him and wasn't shunning him, instead trying to make him see the bright side of the situation. But no matter what, the truth still loomed: Tucker did not know the whole story.
Promptly after last period, Danny was seen running down the halls from a yelling and furious Dash Baxter. Tucker followed at a safe distance. Boy, could Danny run. Panting, Danny opened a door to some stairs and leapt up them, almost, but not quite, flying. I don't remember there being this many stairs. He suddenly reached the end and looked up to see the ladder leading to the school's roof. Oh. He looked down, where the sound Dash's heavy footsteps was coming from, and then threw himself out the trapdoor and behind some grey bags. He swallowed hard and tried to calm his racing heart to no avail. I really wish I could disappear right now, he thought. Oh, wait. Duh. Danny closed his eyes tightly and imagined the cold feeling of being unseen. I don't want to be seen, I don't want to be seen, I don't want to be seen.
Dash arrived at the roof top and looked around in confusion. Where was Fenton? He could have sworn he'd chased the geek up here, but there was no sign of him, not even behind the wall of bags. The sound of heavy pants behind him made him turn.
Tucker gasped for breath and braced himself on his knees. Really, how did Danny run so fast? Glancing up, he saw Dash walk towards him. Uh-oh. Tucker scrambled out of the way, but Dash just walked past him and to the trapdoor.
"I may not be able to find Fenton, but you'll do just as well!" the bully said with a malicious smile, and closed the door behind him.
A click told Tucker that he had locked it.
Danny dropped the invisibility, making Tucker jump, and walked over to him. "He locked it, didn't he?"
Tucker nodded. "How are we going to get down?"
Danny looked around and walked to the edge of the roof. "Not that way, that's for sure." It was a three-story drop that made him dizzy just looking at it.
Tucker sat down. "Well what are we going to do? Wait until tomorrow for someone to find us? Wait until our parents call and then get in trouble?"
Danny sat down beside him and groaned. Tucker glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.
"You said you had been floating several times, right?" Tucker asked delicately. Danny nodded. "So maybe you could fly down and then go in and unlock the door from the inside?"
That made Danny's head snap up. "Tucker, the power that I have had the least experience with is flying!" His hand suddenly fell through the roof.
"You were doing fine before!" Tucker argued. "When you went intangible and floated through the floor?"
"But I didn't do so great in science class! Remember?"
"So you don't want to fly?"
Danny stayed silent.
"How about this: think of this as one of the first lessons on controlling your powers with the one and only Tucker Foley!" Tucker put on a full-of-himself expression.
Danny snorted. "Fine. But I am not going to start it by just jumping off the building on a death spree!" He stood up and closed his eyes. Whenever he was floating, he always felt light. Cold for invisibility, empty for intangibility, and light for flying. After a few moments, he opened them. "Well I feel stupid."
"Try again?" Tucker suggested.
Danny closed his eyes once more and focused not only on being light, but also on going up. He strained upward and slowly felt himself rise a few inches.
Tucker smiled. "I knew you could do it!"
"I don't think I can," Danny said. Tucker noticed the slight strain in his voice.
"Why not?"
"I just feel so heavy. Like at any second I'm going to – crash!" On the last word Danny dropped heavily back onto the roof. "Well that didn't work."
"Then how did you do it so easily before?"
Danny thought back to when he had accidentally revealed himself to Tucker. "I was intangible then. I think it's easier to fly when I'm intangible; I'm lighter." When Tucker opened his mouth Danny continued hurriedly. "But I don't think I can just go completely intangible right now."
"You went completely invisible."
"I was really scared."
Tucker sighed and lied down. "Then I guess we just wait. This isn't going to be pretty."
Danny spread out beside him. "No. It's not." Seconds, then minutes passed. Danny glanced at Tucker. I could probably do it in my ghost form, but that would mean telling him the whole truth. What will he do when he finds out I'm a ghost? If I tell him. I should, but I don't want to. I'm too scared. Coward.
After ten minutes of debate Danny sat up and took a deep breath. "Tucker, there's something I didn't tell you."
Tucker sat up as well. "What?"
"Were you wondering how I got the, um, ghost powers?"
Tucker paused for a moment. "Not really, but now I'm curious."
"On Saturday, my parents finished building the Fenton Ghost Portal. It was a complete failure. They plugged it in and nothing happened." Danny swallowed nervously. "I went inside to check it out and tripped over a wire or something. I hit the wall and immediately, everything lit up." Tucker stared at him with wide eyes. "My hand hit the 'ON' button and the next thing I knew, I was in a huge amount of pain. It was horrible." He shuddered.
"What happened then?" Tucker asked.
Danny closed his eyes. "When I woke up, I looked really – different."
"Different how?"
Now Danny stood up, his head turned to the side. "Different like this." He held his breath and stopped his heart, making the rings of light form and separate. They moved in opposite directions and then, before Tucker, stood a ghost.
Tucker's brain froze as he stared in disbelief at the white-haired, jumpsuited, glowing figure in front of him. When Danny had gathered the courage to look up, Tucker gasped at the sight of Danny's now glowing, electric-green eyes.
"I didn't just get ghost powers. I became a ghost."
Tucker walked nervously towards Danny. Without thinking, he asked, "Are you okay?"
Danny's head snapped around and Tucker flinched at his new eyes. "Am I okay? Of course I'm not okay! Tucker, I'm a ghost!"
Tucker's scrambled thoughts formed into some sort of order. "No, you're not."
"What?"
"No. You're not. You were a human during school today. You were a human yesterday."
"With ghost powers."
"With ghost powers," Tucker conceded. "But a human nonetheless. Black hair. Blue eyes. And throughout the whole time, you've always been Danny. Danny the human. Danny the human with ghost powers. And now Danny the ghost. But each one is Danny, the teenager I am best friends with."
Danny looked at Tucker for a moment and Tucker was able to meet his green eyes without wincing.
"I think I'll try the floating thing again."
Tucker watched as Danny bowed his head and closed his eyes and once again slowly rose. Peeking one eye open, Danny smiled when he saw that he was actually doing it with next to no effort.
"So, you think you can do it?" Tucker began walking towards the edge of the roof and Danny followed him almost subconsciously while still floating in the air.
"Maybe." They reached the edge and looked down.
"Are you sure?" Tucker asked Danny worriedly, not looking at him. The ghost Danny is going to take some getting used to.
"No."
And with that, Danny floated over the edge and dropped a few feet with a scream before regaining his – well, you couldn't exactly call it footing.
"Danny!"
"I'm good!" I hope.
He slowly lowered himself to the ground with Tucker watching all the while, and when he reached it, he cheered.
"YEAH! I DID IT!" At that moment, his hands fizzed and the boys watched as a blue light ran over them and then down Danny's arms and the rest of his body, turning him back into the human Danny. Ecstatic, Danny raced up the stairs to free Tucker, who walked back to the trapdoor in a slight daze.
Yep. This was definitely going to take some getting used to.
I know it's longer than all the others, but I really didn't want to split it. So hopefully you don't mind the length.