Danny had witnessed Casper High's empty halls in the early hours of the morning, when the sun was only just beginning to rise; he had witnessed its empty halls in the late afternoon, when the sun was starting to set; but there was something thoroughly disconcerting about the experience of walking through the school's abandoned corridors in the hour remaining before lunch, when the students and staff members were all locked away behind closed doors and going about their business.
Rather than make a fool of himself by barging into class in the middle of a lesson, Danny opted to wait until the lunch break to rejoin the rest of the student body. He briefly pondered where to spend the remainder of his time. His eyes flitted to the library and Lancer's warning regarding the consequences of failure came back to him.
He smiled sardonically. What good would that do now? It was too late for him.
He contemplated hanging out by the bleachers at the football field, but wrote it off almost as soon as it had come to mind. The football pitch was in direct view of several classrooms on the west side of the building, and he had no doubt that Lancer would not hesitate to drag him off to class by the ear if he caught sight of the teen lounging around when he ought to have been in class.
With no other option, Danny decided to waste his time in the auditorium. It would give him a chance to be alone with his thoughts, with the added bonus of being shrouded in darkness. If he was lucky, he told himself, maybe he would be able to come up with some way to get the Guys in White out of Amity Park.
With that promise in mind, it was a bit off-putting to open the heavy doors to the auditorium and find that it was, indeed, currently in use. Danny was just about to back out when a familiar face caught his eye.
He slid into the vacant seat next to Sam and said, "Hey."
Sam, who had been engrossed in the scene before her, jumped slightly. "Danny?" she whispered. "Shouldn't you be in class?"
"I came in late," Danny replied. "What's going on?"
The stage at the very front of the auditorium was dimmed, as was the rest of the room, with two spotlights shining down to intersect upon two figures. Danny could see a chubby boy with curly hair that was nearly orange in color down on one knee facing a beautiful girl sitting in a rocking chair. Danny furrowed his eyebrows.
"What are they doing?" he questioned. Sam held a finger to her lips and shushed him.
"It's their assignment," she told him in a low voice. "Every group had to come up with a script and act it out. Nathan and Paulina got paired together."
He felt Sam shift in her seat as she leaned forward and balanced her elbows on the backrest of the seat in front. "I take back what I said about her acting," she murmured. "Paulina's actually ... really good."
Danny eyed his friend curiously. "She isn't doing anything," he pointed out.
"Yes, she is," Sam said. "They're playing newlyweds who are still decorating the house they just bought, but Nathan's fallen in love with someone else and he's trying to get Paulina to agree to a divorce."
Danny turned his attention back to the two players on the stage. Nathan was still on bended knee, his arm extended towards the Hispanic beauty, pleading his case, begging for her to understand his predicament. And Paulina ... Paulina simply sat in that rocking chair, going back and forth, back and forth, her eyes unfocused and unseeing, aimed at some distant place beyond her husband's mop of auburn hair.
Nathan got to his feet, finally, done pledging his remorse to a woman who didn't seem to care either way, and drifted past, into the darkness. The play ended when Paulina's hands, which had been tightly gripping the arms of the chair as she swayed in motion, fell limply to her sides.
The lights flooded back on, causing Danny to blink. Scattered applause resounded throughout the room. "Wonderful, you two," he heard a woman say. "I really felt the tension between the characters."
"Miss Tetslaff is the drama instructor?" he couldn't hide his surprise when he saw the burly woman a few rows ahead of where he and Sam were situated. He hadn't seen the teacher since junior year when he had chosen to forgo gym once it was relegated to an elective rather than a required unit.
Sam didn't reply; she was on her feet, clapping loudest of all. Danny stared, his jaw halfway parted. Sam caught his eye, slowing down the force with which she brought her hands together until finally breaking off with a blush.
"So what's our grade?" Nathan asked breathlessly, running a hand through the beads of sweat gathering on his forehead.
"'B-plus'," Tetslaff informed without taking her eyes off her clipboard. Nathan made a small sound of disappointment, but nodded.
"Don't worry," he assured Paulina. "Coupled with all the work we've done throughout the semester, I'm sure we'll both manage to pull 'A's."
"I'm just glad it's over with," Paulina said coolly, jumping off the ledge of the elevated stage. She tossed her backpack over her shoulder, holding on to it by only one strap and breezed past Tetslaff, who was calling for the final group to present their performance.
"Hey, Paulina," Sam called out as the Latina brushed past the two of them. Her eyes widened as though she didn't mean to actually say anything. Paulina paused, a look of surprise upon hearing the greeting on her face. "I thought you guys were great. You definitely deserved an 'A'."
Paulina shrugged. "Nathan did most of the work."
"No, seriously," Sam insisted. "Dialogue is fine and all, but a real actor knows how to carry themselves. Your reactions to his speech were what gave your script the edge."
Paulina blinked, then broke out into a warm smile. "Thanks, Sam," she said genuinely. "I was just on my way to get a venti seven-shot three-shot-decaf one-and-a-half-pump sugar-free amaretto hundred and seventy-five degree two percent seven Nutrasweet with whip extra caramel extra sprinkles caramel macchiato with a twist of lemon and chill out. You wanna come?"
"I ... don't know what that is," Sam said, "but I could go for some green tea."
Together the two girls left the auditorium, chatting a mile a minute about the other's drama performances. Danny stared after them long after the door had swung shut following their departure.
He kicked himself mentally. How could he have possibly forgotten that the school held the final exams for practical classes the week before the prom? His final submission for shop class was due this Thursday, and he still hadn't completed the clock he intended to showcase!
The vessel had been prepared already – but he had yet to hand it over to Tucker to fit in the mechanical parts that allowed it to work. Tucker, who no doubt was currently consumed with his own assignment for home economics and was likely to tell Danny that he had no time to help him out at this late date.
Danny slumped in his seat. Though he had only minutes ago admitted defeat to any possibility of graduating high school, it still made him feel awful to realize he had thrown away a perfectly good chance of getting through one of his classes.
He watched despondently as two boys got on the stage. Though they spoke in clear, ringing voices, their words seemed somehow garbled to Danny's ears. He sat back low in his chair with his hands lying lamely across his torso as the two players pranced about with overly large grins pasted on their faces; barely registering the embrace they enveloped each other in; falling further into himself even as one boy sauntered confidently past his comrade; and by the time one player pulled out a colourful toy gun and shot his partner in the spine, Danny was completely lost in his own dark world.
He came back to consciousness as the lights flipped on and scant applause was heard once again.
"Solid work," Ms. Testlaff said briskly. "You get a 'B'."
The two boys high fived each other, and it was this sound reverberating throughout the room that caused something to click inside Danny's brain. He hunched forward, resting his elbows against his lap, working his jaw broodingly. No, he wasn't simply going to give up. The world may have already beaten him as far as everybody else concerned, but that didn't mean Danny Fenton would go down without a fight. He knew even now that though one failure on his report card could keep him from graduating high school, he was not likely to find that he had failed all of his classes. Yes, it would hurt, but work hard enough and he could minimize the damage, perhaps even to the point where he would get the chance to remedy it in summer school. Such an opportunity would not be available to someone who failed every single class – but if he managed to fail only or two....
Well, it was something worth holding on to.
"I need your help," was the first thing Danny said as soon as he sat down at lunch that afternoon.
Tucker had been about to take a big bite of his meatloaf, but lowered his spork when his friend joined him at the table. "With what? And where were you all day? I didn't see you in homeroom."
"I was busy," Danny brushed the inquiry aside. He glanced over at the seat Sam usually took next toTucker. "Where's Sam?"
Tucker shrugged preparing to take a bite of his food. "Haven't seen her since this morning," he said.
That must mean Sam was still on her little date with Paulina, Danny concluded. It didn't sound like a bad idea – the grey walls of the school cafeteria was matched only by the grey sludge dripping off Tucker's meatloaf. "Let's go out," he said suddenly.
Tucker was once again forced to lower his spork. "I already bought lunch," he pointed out.
Danny sighed. The gloom of Casper High just did not fit his new He-Man approach tackling his problems. Which, he reminded himself, he had yet to expound on. "I need you to help me get my clock up and running before shop class on Thursday,"
Tucker, who had just been about to tear into his meatloaf, stopped and gaped at Danny. Danny flashed him what he hoped would be construed as a charming grin. "Please?"
"Danny, do you even know what you're asking me right now?" Tucker questioned.
"I'm asking for a favor," Danny replied in all seriousness.
"You're asking me to perform a miracle," Tucker corrected. "I couldn't make a clock in that time even if I were both German and Swedish."
"Tuck, I am dangerously close to failing senior year," Danny implored. "I really need you to do this for me. Please?"
Tucker sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Okay, Danny," he said slowly. "I'll try."
Danny smiled triumphantly. Despite Tucker's show of uncertainty, Danny knew he would stop at nothing to pull it off. Tucker was, first and foremost, a loyal friend.
Tucker had finally been granted the chance to dig into his lunch, and was now munching thoughtfully, his eyes surveying the cafeteria. He nodded to Danny with his head, his eyes focused on something just beyond his ear. "Dash seems a little put-out. What's up with that?"
Danny swivelled his head over to look. He hadn't seen Dash since the scene he had witnessed between the jock and Lancer at the Nasty Burger on Saturday.
There he sat, in the middle of the table occupied by the popular crowd. Amidst the cavorting jocks laughing and tossing food at one another, Dash stuck out like a wilting flower. He seemed to be staring – glaring, Danny noted – at nothing in particular, ignoring his friends with a scowl on his face daring them to question why. His square jaw was balanced upon his hands, which were clasped together, and his shoulders hunched forward, clad in the infamous Casper High letterman jacket.
"He looks the way you did last Saturday," Tucker commented. Danny turned his head back to his friend sharply. Tucker fixed his green eyes on Danny's. "Something happen between you two?"
Danny lowered his gaze to his own paltry sandwich lying face-up on the red plastic tray. "I don't know what you mean," he mumbled, picking up his food.
While he ate, he ruminated upon what he had just seen. He didn't dare think about what this might mean for him and Dash – chances were, Dash was simply having a bad day.
Rather, he focused on something else he had found strange about the view. "Where do you think Kwan is?" he voiced to Tucker.
Tucker paused in the middle of cutting another piece from his meatloaf. "I haven't seen him since homeroom either," he admitted. "Man, what is with you guys? I feel like I'm the only senior who actually shows up anymore."
Danny opened his mouth to make a retort, but felt a hand curl over his shoulder before he got the chance to let any words out. Both he and Tucker raised their heads to see Jennifer, the cheerleader who had flirted with Danny during Paulina's party grinning down at the dark-haired boy.
"Danny!" she chirped. "Just the man I wanted to see."
"Um," Danny exchanged confused looks with Tucker, "hi."
"Hi," she drawled out. "Come with me, sugarplum. We're taking a walk."
With a surprisingly firm grip, she hauled him to his feet and led him out of the cafeteria. Danny was confused. He remembered the way Jennifer hung off his arm during Paulina's party, and wondered if perhaps she had come to ask him to the prom. But why, he wondered – back then Dash and he had barely been friends; wasn't it obvious from their behaviour in the cafeteria that they were no longer friends now?
Then again, Danny reminded himself, the nature of their relationship, for lack of better word, had only changed on Saturday. It was now Tuesday, and Dash had been absent on Monday, after all.
Jennifer took his hand, interlacing their fingers together, and Danny felt his heart rate speed up.
Silently they walked down the halls of Casper High. Danny trailed his fingers against the cool metal of the lockers against the wall closest to his side.
"Where – where are we going?" he had to ask.
Jennifer smiled mysteriously. "You'll see."
"So who are you bringing to the prom, Danny?"
Danny flushed. "I – er – haven't asked anyone yet," he admitted.
Jennifer turned wide eyes on him. "Seriously?"
She's going to ask you out, a voice inside him said. Danny's hands began to grow clammy.
"I've, uh, been waiting for the right person," he lied. Jennifer was attractive enough; if she did want to go with him, it might make the whole ordeal bearable enough. His heart pounded rapidly against his chest.
"Shame," Jennifer flipped her ponytail. "You're really cute, Danny."
Danny's throat went dry. "T – thanks," he rasped. "You're really cute too."
Jennifer's lips curved into a small smile.
They stopped in front of the gymnasium, and she released his hand to push the double doors open. Danny was stunned to find that they were not to be alone – the gym was bustling with boys and girls running around, bickering, and barking orders directing others to various parts of the room. Against one wall were two girls huffing impatiently with a boy setting up a camera on a tripod. Jennifer led him directly to this group.
"Finally!" one girl rolled her eyes upon catching sight of them, uncrossing her arms and placing them on her hips. "What took you so long?"
"Just enjoying the walk," Jennifer said easily. "Besides, he's here now."
"Um, what's going on?" Danny asked, feeling little thrown off by the unexpected twist his encounter with the cheerleader had taken. Jennifer turned to him, beaming.
"Danny, we need you to do a little favor for us," she said. "This," she gestured to the boy standing by the expensive-looking camera, "is your photoshoot."
"My ... photoshoot?" Danny repeated slowly.
"We're burning daylight here," the other boy interrupted before Jennifer could explain further. "Come on, I have to go to work after school."
"Fine, Barry," Jennifer said loudly, cutting him from saying anything else. She gave Danny a secretive roll of her eyes while the others arranged everything they would need in order. One of the girls took Danny's arm in a painful pinch and directed him over to a purple background hung over the wall with a short stool placed in front, and pushed his shoulder hard so that he sat down upon it.
Immediately, a series of flashes went off, nearly blinding the boy. Danny reared his head back, blinking rapidly, trying to regain his center. He shook his head in attempt to clear it and, hopefully, get rid of the flashes he saw behind his retinas.
"Jeez, Barry, give the guy a break," he heard Jennifer complain. "You didn't even give him a chance to get ready."
"Get ready for what?" Barry countered. "All he has to do is sit there."
Jennifer shook her head, muttering darkly, "This is why you're never going to get anywhere with that camera you blew your life savings on." When Danny finally managed to clear his eyes, he found the two glaring hatefully at each other.
Barry turned to him. "You ready or what, Fenton?" he snapped.
"Hang on – what am I even doing this for?" Danny held up his hand signalling a pause.
Barry rolled his eyes, bending over the camera and adjusting the framerate. "We like the way your face looks. We're gonna make you America's next top model," he sneered. The other two girls snickered.
Jennifer grabbed Barry by the arm, nearly knocking over the camera off its stand, and dragged him to an empty corner of the gym. Danny watched as she started yelling, hands clenched into fists tightly by her sides, her blond ponytail bobbing as she gestured wildly. Now he was yelling back, their words not reaching Danny's ears, but the effect remained the same. Danny felt something stir inside of him, gratified to see a girl actually fighting for him. For him.
"Don't mind Monroe," one of the girls consoled him. "He gets his period about every two weeks."
"Who are you voting for Prom Queen, Danny?" the other girl asked.
Danny shrugged. "Never really thought about it. Until today, I didn't even really think I'd go to the prom."
The two girls gasped violently, as though he had just revealed his plan to assassinate the mayor. "You're not going for the prom?" the first girl clapped a hand over her heart. "Who misses the prom?"
"Yeah, Danny," the other girl nodded. "That's the ultimate act of loserdom. There's no coming back from that."
Danny shrugged lethargically. There would be only one week of school after the prom before finals began anyway.
"Wait a minute," the second girl said suddenly, a thought having just occurred to her, "does this mean you haven't asked anyone yet?"
"Not even Sam Manson?" the first one added. "I thought you two were ... a thing."
"We're not," Danny rebuffed, not wanting to talk about it. Sam's rejection, though he understood why she felt the way she did, still stung. Dash's absence in his life became all the more apparent when he thought of how close Sam and he had come to realizing their potential.
The two girls shared a look with each other, then turned back to him. "So who are you gonna ask?" the first one inquired.
Danny sighed, frustrated. "I don't know," he said. "Like I said, I didn't think I would even be going to the prom until..." he turned back to where Jennifer and Barry were arguing, and was taken aback to find the two of them locked in a passionate embrace instead. He stared in disbelief as Barry ran his large hand up Jennifer's back, tangling through her hair until her ponytail came undone. Jennifer opened her mouth to grant his tongue access, clutching his forearms in what looked like a painful grip. Barry, however, seemed to feel no pain, moving his lips past hers and trailing down to her neck. Jennifer moaned, shifting her hands so that they brushed through his dark curls. "...today," Danny finished.
The first girl sighed heavily. "Great. Now we're gonna be here all day. There's no stopping them once they get like this."
There was a lull in the conversation as the three of them pretended not to watch the other two.
"I'm voting for Eleanor," the second girl volunteered.
The first gaped at her, aghast. "No way! Paulina is going to kill you for that!"
The girl giggled. "After the way she lost her shit yesterday? No one's going to vote for her. Besides," she grinned deviously, "that's what they have secret ballots for."
The two of them made high-pitched sounds of laughter. "Oh my God, I totally have to tell you about the dress I found on Saturday!" the first girl cried. The two of them pranced off, abandoning Danny to sit by himself on the uncomfortable stool.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched jealously as the two teenagers started to bring themselves back to reality. His heart blackened when they grinned toothily at each other while holding hands. Danny shuffled his foot against the leg of the stool, steadfastly trying to pretend he hadn't been paying attention as they made their way back to him.
Barry appeared considerably more cheerful this time. "Ready, Fenton?" he hunched over the camera, unable to keep the grin off his face. This time, Danny was ready when the flashes went off, but his demeanor caused Barry to raise himself upwards shortly after once again.
"For God's sake, Fenton, smile a little, why don't you?" he chided. Danny glared darkly at him. Jennifer looked concerned by the sudden wave of hostility emanating from him but didn't say anything.
Danny and Barry found themselves silently locked in a battle of wills, each boy trying to stare the other down. Finally, Danny relented. What was the point? No one would go for him – not Sam, not Dash, and definitely not Jennifer.
Reluctantly, he pulled his lips apart, less of a smile than a baring of teeth, but Barry crouched over the camera stand and resumed shooting anyway. However, he soon found this unsatisfactory and emerged once more, rubbing at his temples.
"I know you don't know much about ac ting, Fenton," he said, "but I'm sure you at least know how to smile for the camera. Can you just get this done so we can all get out of here?" People were beginning to trickle out of the auditorium, having completed their own duties.
"I don't even know why I'm doing this in the first place," Danny said bitterly. Barry disappeared from sight again, and Danny was forced to take his words to heart. Repositioning himself on the stool, he closed his eyes and let out a deep breath.
Something to smile about – what did he have to smile about? The government was threatening his family, the only other half-ghost in existence had committed a violent act of suicide right under his nose, Dash Baxter wasn't even looking at him, there was a crazy new ghost hunter on his ass...
Unbidden images of a voluptuous girl with ebony skin and long cascading hair seeped into his mind. Danny's shoulders relaxed.
Valerie. Now they had made some good memories together. Their relationship had been work, no doubt, but it had been nowhere near as dramatic as what he had now with Dash. Sometimes it was hard for Danny to remember that he'd only gotten together with the jock some two months ago; they had been through so many ups and downs since then, it felt like they had been together for years.
But with Valerie, things had been nice and easy. True, that wasn't the case whenever she donned that red suit; they were two different people then – but when they got together, Danny Fenton and Valerie Gray, it was like nothing else. Unlike his relationship with Dash Baxter, there had been no bad times. They were just two souls bogged down by too much danger, too many responsibilities, and looking for someone who could simply make them feel at peace.
He remembered the way he would scoff at his peers, always seen crying their eyes out over the problems they created themselves, trying to emulate the glamorous shows on television that dictated what a relationship ought to be like. He and Valerie had enough problems to deal with; there was no point trying to heap more on each other.
His mind flew back to one specific event, the one that always seemed to encapsulate all the qualities of the relationship he shared with the girl: Valerie's last night in Amity Park. They had been fifteen years old, weary but bright-eyed, still in love with the adventures that presented themselves in their own individual lives. Damon Gray had told his daughter months beforehand that things weren't working out in Amity Park, and that they were going to start their lives fresh somewhere else. There were no tears; Danny was a little glum when she broke the news, but there had ample time to accept it. After all, a life without ghost-hunting was always a good thing, and he was glad Valerie was being given that opportunity.
They had come together that night, after a round of ghost-hunting. Danny had gleefully sailed over Amity Park, and Valerie had given chase with relish. Tired, worn, but aching beautifully, they met later on at a hill overlooking the town and spent the remainder of the night in each other's arms, sharing a pack of cigarettes, laughing, and kissing. There had been no attempts at sex; neither of them were ready at the time; Valerie hadn't offered and Danny hadn't asked. Instead they watched the stars twinkle and the sun rise, and Danny was sure he had never loved anyone more than he loved her.
A bright flash went off, jerking him back into the present. Barry emerged again, pulling the camera off its legs. "We got it," he informed. "Good work, Fenton. Must have been one hell of a memory."
Danny smiled softly. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, it was." Jennifer wrapped her arms around her boyfriend's torso, drawing close with a proud look on her face.
"My little photographer," she cooed, gripping his pointed chin with her fingers and niggling it slightly. Barry shrugged her off, but couldn't keep the indignant look on his face for long. Danny watched their actions through half-lidded eyes, and realized he didn't feel jealous anymore, nor did he feel any pangs of loneliness. He just felt empty.
Shakily, he got to his feet, Jennifer and Barry to put away the stool and wall hanging. The halls were empty now, the students having returned to class after lunch. Walking unsteadily through the corridors, Danny didn't feel much like sitting in a classroom, knowing he wouldn't be paying attention to what was being said anyway. Funny how he had spent the day bitching about missing his classes and then failed to attend a single one once he made it to Casper High. Such was his life, he supposed.
He stumbled into the boys' bathroom on intending to freshen up after the experience he had just endured. The polished floors of the corridor gave way to the soggy blue tiles that paved the bathroom as he stepped through the doorframe.
Danny paused, his ears catching a strange small sound coming from one end of the room. Another followed, a breathy, stuttering noise. Danny realized that it was the sound of someone crying. Even as he told himself not to invade the boy's privacy, that he wouldn't want any of his schoolmates to find him crying the bathroom, he couldn't stop his feet from slowly moving towards the locked stall. He raised his hand to knock on the door, to ask if the boy on the other side was alright, but a particularly pathetic whimper stopped him.
Closing his eyes. Danny willed himself intangible, his feet disappearing from the other boy's line of sight in the process. Then he leaned forward, his head breaching through the partition of the door. He was surprised to find that the upset boy wasn't a stranger like he expected. It was Kwan, his feet drawn up, eyes red and puffy, and face tightly screwed. One hand shot up to swipe at a tear rolling down his cheek. Danny fought the impulse to ask Kwan what had happened.
He drew back, mind racing with possibilities, wondering if this was connected to the Asian boy's absence during lunch that day.
He was about to leave the bathroom when a flash of something caught his eye. His head darted to the direction of the disturbance, and Danny found himself staring at a mirror hanging over a sink lined up in a row. Nonplussed, he stepped closer, pressing his wrists against the cold porcelain, squinting at the image. As he was still intangible, his reflection remained unseen.
There! Danny jumped back when something grey slapped against the surface of the mirror on the other side. He blinked, and it was gone.
A sense of foreboding brewed within him. Casting one last glance to the locked stall where Kwan was still trying unsuccessfully to muffle his crying, Danny left the bathroom, his legs picking up speed as he went from walking to jogging to finally running down the halls, expecting something to jump out of the lockers blurring past.
The row of metallic green came back into sharp focus again as Danny was forced to veer off-course when one of them suddenly flew with a lound clanging sound. Immediately the row of lockers proceeding began to fly open of their own accord.
Waiting for a teacher to burst out of one of the classrooms to see what was going on, Danny turned invisible. When no one came, he crept slowly forward. The row of opened lockers stopped finally at a particularly rusted door, one that Danny remembered all too well. And there, standing before it with his head hung low, with the grey-toned apparition of Sidney Poindexter.
"...Poindexter?" Danny approached the figure, turning visible once more.
"Hello, halfa." The ghost greeted.
"What are you doing here?" Danny peered into the depths of the aged cabinet. It was empty save for a small broken mirror.
The transparent boy shook his head sadly, head still held low. "I thought..." he broke off with a sigh. "I hoped. I hoped to find a way."
"To find a way?" Danny echoed stupidly.
"A way to help aid my brethren," Sidney finally raised his head up, looking into the locker, ignoring Danny's curious gaze. Danny turned to stare at the mirror as well.
"You ... wanted to go into the mirror?" he ventured.
A hollow smile graced the other boy's lips. "Into the mirror? Yes, perhaps – a safe haven for all those trying to escape the dark."
"Sidney, you're scaring me," Danny admitted, staring at the ghost. "What's going on?" He knew the place of which the other boy spoke, a place frozen in time in which Sidney had vied to get away from for ages. Why now would he want to return?
"It's funny," Sidney was still fixated on the contents of his old locker, "how your world is coming together, while mine is falling apart."
Danny sneerd. "Coming together? You have no idea. You haven't seen."
"Seen the men of whom everybody fear?" Poindexter challenged. "Oh yes, I've seen them, policing your town in their white suits and silver guns, abducting whomever they think might be guilty, like that poor boy in the bathroom."
"What?" Danny's eyes widened. "They went after Kwan?"
"Oh, yes," Poindexter nodded. "I saw how they waited for him, under the trees, and the way they pulled him aside when no one was watching. They dragged him out and when he came back, he was destroyed. He hasn't been able to put himself back together since."
"And – and you did nothing?" Danny was outraged. This wasn't the Sidney he knew, the Sidney who stood up for what was right. "You watched him get bullied and just stood by?" he goaded, trying to incite some spark into the ghost floating defeatedly beside him.
"It seems," Sidney said tiredly, "that perhaps only the strong can be relied on in the end."
That stopped Danny short. He had no idea what that was supposed to mean.
"Something is coming, halfa," Poindexter continued. "Everybody is so scared, so desperate. I just wanted to find a way to alleviate their pain. But now..." he reached out, the tips of his fingers just touching the broken shards of the mirror hanging on the wall. "You do not know how fortunate you are, to have so many willing to take the lead, to fight your cause here; and you will never know until you find yourself with no one. That's the way it is now. I hoped to provide my brothers and sisters refuge. There is too much fear in the world."
Danny turned back to stare at the mirror, that broken mirror. Trying to piece together Poindexter's fragmented statements, he thought he understood. The place that mirror led to was unlike any other place that existed within the Ghost Zone. Whatever was coming, whatever it was that threatened life in Ghost Zone – Sidney had obviously been hoping to lead the others through that portal so that they could wait it out until the threat was gone. But with that mirror broken, there was no way whatsoever to return to the immortalized snapshot of Casper High that existed on the other side.
"I thought you hated the ghosts," Danny said quietly. "They bully you as much as those people back in high school did."
Sidney chuckled. "Hate them? When they welcome me so willingly into their open arms? No," he shook his head. "For the first time, for the first time, I belong. How could I ever live without them?"
"But they treat you so badly," Danny had witnessed before the kind of treatment Poindexter suffered in the Ghost Zone. Perhaps it was not as cruel as the perpetual state of bullying he had endured trapped behind the mirror, but— "they treat you like a possession!" He was thinking of the way Skulker seemed to consider Poindexter, in all his wide-eyed awe, as nothing more than a lackey.
"You always love the ones you're with," Sidney stated. "Like you, with your friends, and your family, and that boy, the one you let into your life."
Danny knew he was talking about Dash. "I don't," he turned his gaze away, lowering his eyelids. "I hate him." It was true. He had seen into Dash's psyche that morning at the Nasty Burger, Dash's soul, and it repulsed him.
For the first time during this encounter, Sidney looked straight at him. "Life is too short for hatred."
Poindexter was acting now, reaching up behind his neck, undoing his cummerbund with nimble fingers. "What are you doing?" Danny asked.
"If there is no place to hide," Poindexter pulled the cummerbund off his neck and held it up before laying it down upon the surface of the ruined locker, "then we shall fight bravely, to the very end until the darkness swallows us whole."
And then he spun on one foot and marched away, the front doors of Casper flying open, until he was enveloped by awhite light shining brightly into Danny's eyes.
And when the boy disappeared, and the doors slid closed, Danny was left staring at the black ribbon on the rusted shelf, growing more solid with each passing moment.
Author's Note: This is probably the most important chapter of the entire story due to Poindexter, but won't be explained until later on. The great thing to Danny Phantom is that the story, while toned down to the level of a kids show, has a very dark undertone that translates really well when you try to give it a grittier, more mature edge. On the flip side is characters like Sidney Poindexter, who are so one-dimensional that it's hard to do much with him. I basically had the image of a high-school kid going off to war writing this chapter. Did it work well for Poindexter? You tell me.
One of the complaints I've heard about Season 3 is that Sam became more of a Mary Sue character with Big Speeches That Inspire Others To Do What Is Right. I can't help but agree with this because Sam's hypocrisy is one of the best things about her, and I'm having lots of fun playing it up.