Happy New Year's Eve!

Hehe, figured I'd take advantage of my last chance to update in the year 2011 :P

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Are you ready?

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The Soul Sepulchre

-By Sholay

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Chapter 27 — Slap a Band-Aid on It; We're Okay

It was the most nerve-wracking three hundred minutes of Danny's life. He had his back pressed hard against the far wall of the lab, unable to move closer for fear that his mother would see him with those Spectre Spectacles and unable to leave because his worry for Tucker kept his feet nailed to the ground.

But from where he stood he could clearly see the mask over Tucker's nose and mouth. It would fog with every puff of breath. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. It was inexplicably fixating and terrifying all at the same time.

Sam had stood by him, kindly keeping him company in the back of the lab, while Jazz had moved in for a closer look.

The ecto-scalpel had not worked.

First, when his mother had descended with the glowing green knife in her hand, Danny had started forward in alarm—secret be damned; he would not let his parents dissect his friend!—and it was only Sam's nails nearly drawing blood on his arm that made him stay where he was. And even then, it took a full five minutes of no screaming and no sign of pain from his friend before he could relax enough to fill his lungs properly.

Then his parents began to whisper and he'd tensed up all over again.

Apparently the scalpel was unable to cut whatever it was that was in Tucker's body. Maddie suggested a physical removal and then Jack had pulled out a different scalpel: one that was most definitely not human-proof.

This time it had taken both Sam and Jazz to stop Danny from leaping forward and inadvertently exposing himself to his parents.

"You have to trust Mom and Dad," Jazz murmured in his ear, pressing him back by his shoulder. "Think of Tucker, by the time we get him to a hospital, and explain what's going on to a doctor, he could be dead."

"Stop it, Danny." Sam's words were a lot less gentle as she forced him to look her square in the eye. "You aren't the hero here. You want to be useful? Sit down and stop trying to fight the only people who can save Tucker's life."

And after that, Danny could only slump back against the wall. He waited, he watched: vibrating with suppressed energy, even as his legs felt like rubber.

He waited. He watched.

And it was a horrible thing to watch. From his position he wasn't able to see much but what he did see was more than enough to give him nightmares. His parents each snapped on a pair of surgical gloves before pulling out and washing a serious of metal instruments with painful meticulousness—'Didn't they say there was no time to waste?'— and then they'd arranged them, all gleaming, all sharp and pointed and—'Oh God, they're going to cut Tucker open with those!'—sterilized, neatly in a row on a tissue-covered pan.

Tucker didn't scream, he didn't even twitch when Maddie made the incision on his chest. He just lay there and the image reminded Danny sharply of the frog dissection Sam had protested against way back in the beginning of first term. That particular association made his stomach roll and, not expecting the violent reaction, he nearly had to bend double as he fought to prevent himself from retching.

His hand shook before his mouth. 'I'm getting a front row seat to what they would do if they ever caught me.' Danny realized queasily, and then abruptly felt guilty for focusing on himself while his best friend was getting operated on.

His mother would reach in with the knife. Every now and again his father would extend a pair of tweezers holding a cotton ball and it would come back heavy and red with Tucker's blood. They had put retractors—'Macabre, twisted hooks glinting bloody under fluorescent lights. They hold him open so they can reach in and cut.'—in Tucker to keep the wound spread wide and then the difficult part had begun.

From what Jazz explained, it was like there was a pulsating, bubbling black ooze just under the skin that stretched over and stuck to the muscle. Its apparent size was the width of three fingers but there was no telling how deep into the tissue it had reached.

Maddie, intent on cutting the thing from Tucker's body, had lowered the scalpel to sheer off the edge of the bulging pustule.

No sooner had she touched the infection that a blood-curdling scream shook the room.

Maddie leapt back, her arm nearly knocking the tray of instruments flying. Rings of energy were sparking around Danny's midsection while Jazz and Sam shouted in shock.

Tucker's mouth was screaming out tortured cries in a voice that was not his own. Foul curses that neither Danny nor Sam had ever heard their easygoing friend say before flowed off his tongue like water. His back arched, his wrists and ankles strained against their bonds, fists clenched so tightly that his hands bled, the tendons on his neck bulged.

"Impudent mortals! Sons of vipers! Daughters of whores! We will devour you whole for your insolence. You will never destroy us. We breed in the darkness of your hearts; we thrive on your fear and delight in your suffering!"

Once again, Jack, proving that he had more than just fleeting knowledge of this phenomenon, didn't even hesitate as he grabbed a hypodermic needle filled with a deep burgundy substance.

"Your souls will fester in Hell. You will see your loved ones being raped every day while your flesh cracks and peels in boiling water! You—" Black eyes stared at Jack balefully as he injected the substance in the Tucker's arm, but that didn't immediately stop the taunts.

"You cannot win, cannot hope to succeed. Your destruction will be engineered at your own hands. Your fight is futile… Nomen mihi Legio est… quia multi sumus…" And then the voice speaking through Tucker's mouth thankfully ebbed away as his eyelids drooped and the tension in his body slackened.

Maddie, still recovering from the severe shock that nearly had her splitting Tucker open with the scalpel, had her hand on her chest as she gasped for breath. Then she saw the syringe in Jack's hand and let out a shaky laugh.

"Blood Blossom extract?" She affirmed.

Jack gave a self-important nod. "This should keep him—IT—out."

"Good…good…" She noticed that her hands were shaking and forced them still with an exertion of will. The event was put aside. Carelessly, Jack tossed the needle over his shoulder in the direction of the Fenton Garbage Destroyer. It missed, skittering over the top and landed with a musical 'tink' on the ground. It didn't shatter; instead, it rolled across the floor. Had Jack been paying attention, he would have seen Danny jump back from the needle in alarm, Jazz let out a startled 'eep!' and Sam quickly stride forward to snatch up the glass syringe before tossing it into the disposal. Jack missed all this, but Maddie saw the panicked expressions on the children's faces and filed the information away for a later time.

She turned back to the dissection table and they began again.

It seemed to take an interminable amount of time. Danny couldn't see much around his mother's back, but Jazz—in a fit of descriptive imagery—told him that the infection looked not dissimilar to someone having dripped a glob of molasses on the dark pink fleshy part under Tucker's skin then tried to spread it outward using a toothpick. This comment had Danny paling and put an end to his questioning for a while.

Maddie took painstaking care with her blade as she carved the parasite out of the teen. Sometimes, the foreign black substance would peel away easily from the muscle and tendon—these portions, Maddie could take the time to inject with a freezing solution before moving on—other times, it would splinter, leaving tiny black specks that Maddie was forced to leave behind. She had taken a few medical courses, but she was no doctor and was afraid to cut too closely.

Jazz left after the first hour. She was turning somewhat green after watching their parents work so Danny pushed her to go upstairs. When she refused, he asked her if she could do some research on the Devil's Mark and possessive spirits that weren't ghosts.

She looked at him oddly when he said the last part, but eventually relented and climbed the stairs out of the lab.

Danny though, hadn't moved. Even when Sam slowly let herself slide down the wall into a sitting position, he didn't join her. Roots had grown from his feet, planting them firmly to the ground.

'Easy, so easy, once they strap you down. Cut, cut, cut. The hooks hold you open—pulling, stretching your skin apart—won't let you heal. They'd do it to you too, if they got the chance. Saw you open like a piece of tender meat. Only you won't be asleep. And they won't be so gentle. Cut, cut, cut—oops! It slipped…'

Then finally—finally—Maddie backed away with something black and disgusting in her hand. Just the colour and the sliding, greasy texture were bad enough, but when the thing squirmed as it was held by the tweezers, Danny felt another, strong attack of revulsion hit him and he gagged into a fist. Maddie dropped the thing in a small containment tube, which Jack promptly sealed. Danny wished they'd just fried the thing into non-existence.

Maddie, exhausted, had handed the reigns over to Jack, who stitched Tucker up like a professional. His large hands might not have been useful during the excision, but many years of needlepoint had taught him valuable sewing skills.

'Slap a Band-Aid on it; we're okay… or are we?'

The moment his mother took off the Spectre Spectacles, Danny was rushing over to examine his best friend. A sheen of sweat coated Tucker's body and the bandage his parents had placed over the centre of his chest stuck out as a cruel reminder of what he'd suffered. But his face was completely relaxed and his breathing was deep and unencumbered—he could have been asleep. Without further ado, Danny reached down to undo the straps on his friend's arms, but his mother's hands blocked his way.

Danny looked up at her in confusion.

"I'm sorry sweetie, but we can't let Tucker out of the restraints until we're absolutely sure it's just Tucker in there." She said wearily.

"Can't you check with the Spectre Spectacles?" Danny asked, confused. Anxiety made his shoulders and chest tight. His parents had cut it out—they'd cut it out. Tucker had to be okay now.

Maddie nodded. "I did. But we have to be sure, okay? I'm sorry, but in case your father or I made a mistake, I don't want to put any of you kids in trouble."

It was good, solid reasoning, except it didn't fit with what Danny wanted. 'He's okay now. He has to be.' His brow furrowed and a hand ran through his hair in agitation.

"Fine…" He relented. "But can I sleep down here tonight?" A quick glance at the clock proved it to be past midnight.

Maddie hesitated. "I… I don't think so. It's kind of cold down here."

"I can handle it." He assured her. And it wasn't a lie. Danny hadn't even realized the lab was cold—to him, it felt comfortable, maybe even a little warm.

"You have school tomorrow."

"I can sleep pretty much anywhere without much trouble, Mom. You know that."

"If there're any problems when Tucker wakes up—"

"I'll call you right away. Besides, isn't it better to have someone nearby for when he does wake up? Tucker hates hospitals; he'll panic if he wakes up alone and strapped down to a table."

She still looked uncertain.

"Let him do it, Mads. I wanna get some fudge then go to sleep." Jack gave a huge yawn. Though his words were light, Danny could still see the seriousness edging his father's eyes: a hard, steely glint. It was an uncommon look on the man's face and it made Danny uneasy.

His mother was still considering him. "…Okay." She accepted at length, "but don't touch anything, and come get us when Tucker wakes up. Don't unstrap him, no matter what he looks like or says." Maddie warned.

"Thanks, Mom." Danny smiled gratefully watching her follow his father up the stairs.

Once his parents were gone, he let out a tiny breath of relief, tension he hadn't known he'd been harbouring flowing out of him with their departure. Then he looked over at Sam, who had been unusually quiet. With all the excitement over Tucker's possession, he had nearly forgotten that Sam, too, had been a prisoner of Legion. His smile fell as he actually took the time to look at Sam. She was clearly exhausted: the area under her eyes was puffy and her eyelids drooped even as she focused on him. Everyone else had gotten up and left, but she was still seated against the wall, legs loosely folded and looking very much like she had no intention of moving.

"Just get me a blanket." She said gruffly, blatantly ignoring the concern in his eyes. "I'm staying with you until Tucker wakes up."

"Oh no," A mischievous grin quirked the corner of his lips and he strode over to Sam, extending a hand for her to grab. She let out a startled yelp when, instead of simply pulling her to her feet, he swept his other arm under her knees and lifted her bodily.

"I'm going ghost!" A thrill ran through him as he said these words. It felt good to utter his familiar battle cry; it seemed like forever since he'd used it.

A flash of light and twin rings of frigid energy shifted him into his alter ego; then he was flying straight up through the ceiling.

Arriving in his room, he playfully dropped Sam onto his bed.

"Oomph!" She glared at him as she toppled into his messy pile of blankets and pillows.

"You can have my bed, just don't go drooling on my pillows or anything." He said cheekily and was promptly nailed in the face with a pillow.

Picking it up, he snapped the ends of the pillowcase outward and grinned at Sam as he sank down through the ground.

"Thanks!"

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Danny didn't know how late it was when Tucker finally woke up. All he knew was that one moment he'd been staring confusedly at the ceiling of his parent's lab wondering what had woken him up and the next he'd heard a low groan that had him lurching to his feet before he'd even pulled the blankets away from his legs.

For the second time in as many nights, his typical clumsiness kicked in and his feet tangled, making him flop back onto the ground in a painful heap. He held his breath as he lay there. Now he was wondering if he'd even really heard the groan or if it'd been his imagination.

" 'MfinemommyPDAhasanalarm…"

The blanket slipped right through Danny's legs as he pushed off the floor and latched both hands onto the edge of the dissection table.

"Tucker! Tuck! Is that you?"

"Urgh… Danny. Coudja turn off your eyes, they're giving me a headache….um…Why can't I move?" Tucker blinked—blinked hazel eyes.

"Tuck!" Danny's smile split his face as he passed a hand over the straps holding Tucker's arms and legs down to the table, turning them intangible with practiced ease. When Tucker sat up, rubbing his wrists, he stared at Danny with a look of bafflement that was so familiar it nearly had him breaking down into unmanly tears. As it was, he threw his arms around Tucker and proceeded to hug the breath out of the other teen until he made a weak, breathless protest.

"Dude, I love you too, but couldj'ou ease up? I'm feeling a little rough."

"Oh! Yeah! Yeah, right…" Danny immediately let go, scratching behind his ear with a sheepish look that Tucker couldn't see in the unlit room.

"So, what's with the sap all of a sudden? And why's it so dark in here?"

"That's right, the lights!" Danny had forgotten that his friend didn't have ghostly vision and jogged over to flick on the lights in the lab. For half a minute the boys squinted and blinked as bright fluorescent lights flooded the room. Noticing that Tucker's gaze seemed owlish and unfocused, Danny fished his friend's glasses out of his pocket and handed them over. Tucker hooked them over his ears and pushed the half-moon lenses up his nose before raising his eyebrows quizzically.

"Uh, Danny? Why're we in your parent's lab?" Then Tucker saw exactly what he'd been strapped down to and his eyes widened, breath quickening. "And why was I sleeping on the dissection table?"

"Tucker!" Danny grabbed the other teen's shoulders and steadied him, not letting him jump off the table. "Relax! Just relax; you're fine. Breathe. You shouldn't move too much. It's okay!" He soothed, trying his best to be calming. But Tucker was already blanching, lurching forward as he grabbed his mouth and stomach.

"I… I don't feel so…"

Danny belted for the closet, reaching right through the door for the pail. Skidding as he raced back, he practically shoved the bucket at Tucker who immediately proceeded to noisily empty the contents of his stomach. Cringing, Danny made to rub his back, but Tucker lurched away from the touch, gagging even worse. Drawing back, Danny could only watch sympathetically, his arms half-raised in helpless concern. But when a second bought of nausea hit Tucker, causing him to nearly drop the pail, the hybrid figured out his usefulness. He grabbed the bucket, holding it for Tucker, and did his best not to look or inhale too deeply.

Eventually, Tucker's hacking turned dry and his breathing evened out, he tossed his head back from the pail, covering his nose and mouth with his hands.

"You okay?" Danny ventured carefully.

"Yeah… yeah, just get it away." Tucker answered, a distressed tone in his voice. He coughed. "Get it away, I can't—"

And Danny understood, turning and bounded up the stairs even as he wondered what he was going to do with the bucket of sick.

A few minutes later, Danny returned to find Tucker gargling vigorously at the lab's sink; and again, the half-ghost ran upstairs—this time for toothpaste, a toothbrush and a glass of water.

It took a while, but Tucker finally shut off the sink and took a grateful gulp from the glass that Danny handed him.

"Thanks… man that was rank…" Tucker sighed, putting the empty glass on the tabletop. He pushed away from the counter and nearly toppled over.

"Hey! Hey, take it easy!" Danny caught Tucker and steadied him with one hand tossed over his shoulder.

"Yeah… world's still a little fuzzy, you know?" Tucker laughed.

"Yeah, I know." Danny grinned. "How'd you even make it over to the sink in the first place?"

Tucker shot him an incredulous look. "Are you kidding? You remember how upchuck tastes? I had motivation."

"And now, of course, you don't need any with me here to be your pack mule." Danny joked with a roll of his eyes.

"That's... right, man. That insurance I took out on being a superhero's best friend came with benefits, y'know." Tucker huffed as he slumped gratefully onto the floor, leaning back against the cool metal wall. Danny offered him his pillow, but Tucker waved it away.

Danny held the pillow between his hands, a conflicted expression on his face.

"Tuck, I'm—"

"Don't, Danny." Tucker shook his head, dismissing Danny's attempts at an apology.

Danny nodded and plunked down next to his friend, folding his legs and hugging the pillow close as he rested his chin on top of it. A few minutes passed in silence, during which Tucker rested and Danny stared at him in concern. At length, Tucker's eyes opened, rolling upward in good-humour before landing on blue eyes that were still watching him.

"I'm serious." Tucker insisted. But Danny's expression didn't even twitch, and Tucker's gaze fell to the pillow his friend was curled around, as though contemplating grabbing it and smacking some sense into the half-ghost. He abandoned the idea though: too much effort.

Instead, he changed the topic, "Hey, what didj'ou do with that bucket, anyway?"

"Huh?" Danny looked confused for a moment before his expression lifted in understanding. "Oh! The pail…. Hmm…. Yeah…"

Tucker quirked an eyebrow at Danny's familiar lopsided grin. "What? You fry into non-existence or something?"

"Well, let's just say we're going to have to get a new pail and leave it at that." Danny hedged with a shake of his head.

"Huh…" Tucker eyed the other teen with an amused smile. "And that toothbrush you gave me? Lemme guess, it's Jazz's?"

"Oh, that?" Danny looked up at the toothbrush handle that was just poking out over the counter near the sink. "Naw… that's mine… Though, I guess you can have it now."

"Oh, that's generous." Tucker huffed sarcastically. Glancing sideways at each other, and they shared a short laugh. Too quickly though, their half-hearted chuckling died away and a lengthy silence fell as both boys mulled over their own thoughts.

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"Huh?" Tucker's titled his head to look at Danny, thrown by the sudden question.

"From before you woke up in the lab." Danny clarified as he picked at loose threads along the edge of the pillow. "What's the last thing you remember before getting knocked out?" Nervous eyes of icy blue flicked upward, fell, then determinedly drew back up to fix steadily on Tucker.

"Oh," Tucker squinted as he recalled the memory. "Well…I remember Sam wanting us to go catch the ghost in the Museum—which I was totally against by the way." Danny merely nodded, encouraging him to continue.

"And then we went into that room you and the ghost destroyed. There was a freaky tapestry, and some metal manhole thing on the ground. And then… and then…" Tucker's voice suddenly cut off, his eyes widening behind his glasses.

"Tucker?" Danny 's head shot up and he dropped the pillow. He slid over to kneel before the other boy and grabbed his shoulders. "Tucker!" To his alarm, Tucker had begun to shake under his hands.

"Oh… oh, God, Danny, that thing. It was horrible!" Tucker's back bowed as he fisted both hands in the hair around his temples, as though trying to tear the memory right out of his head. "It… God… it was huge. And it was all black; it looked like it was made up of smoke that kept moving and curling. It was hard to look at. And it's teeth. Its teeth were—" The teen abruptly cut himself off, then shook his head and began again.

"It said that we would make a good meal… that it would—to our… our s-souls… And it looked at us with these awful eyes. It felt—I was burning. But I was so cold too… And there was this tugging from inside—inside me. Then I was falling and I couldn't feel my feet. I couldn't move my arms. It—it snapped out its head. It's teeth… Th-they were… It moved so fast." Danny was still holding onto his friend, offering what comfort he could, but Tucker's words had caused Danny's own memories to surface and the half-ghost stiffened in horror, his eyes glued to a point somewhere above Tucker's head.

"I don't know what happened." Tucker shook his head in fervent denial. "One minute I was drowning then I was surrounded by all these screaming people. They, they were—moaning, and crying and reaching. Th-they kept grabbing at me, pulling, touching. They clawed at my hands, my face. They wouldn't get away! So many, they pulled me down, I couldn't escape. I couldn't move, but my body moved for me. I've never… Nothing like that has ever… Not even when you overshadowed me."

Danny recoiled as though Tucker had physically pushed him back. The comparison of the demon's possession to his ghostly overshadowing was probably unintentional but it hurt nonetheless. Without realizing it, he let go of Tucker's shoulders and drew back into himself. He'd never considered it before, but trapping someone in their own body as he took the reigns was horribly similar to what these… parasites were doing.

He'd never even considered it to be wrong. What did that make him?

"I could see through my eyes, but it was like I was just a bystander." Tucker continued speaking and Danny, throwing away his thoughts, latched onto the words. "It was like one long, awful dream but I wouldn't wake up. Like the Fright Knight except worse. I…" Tucker's eyes widened and snapped to Danny. "All those things. I said so many horrible things—"

Danny immediately shook his head, "No Tuck, it wasn't you." He consoled.

"But I said them! And I attacked you. It was so strong. Single-minded. I never…" Then his eyes flew open. "SAM! Danny, Sam was there, and Jazz, are they—!"

"Shh, Tucker," Danny put a finger to his lips, hushing Tucker. "They're fine. Jazz got out before anything could happen to her. And Sam woke up before you. She wasn't hurt." It seemed to take a while before this information processed in Tucker's brain and Danny had to repeat it before comprehension, then relief, crossed Tucker's face.

"That's good. Sam's okay…" Tucker said to his hands. "…Y'know, I've never really thought about it before…"

"About what?" Danny asked.

"Hate." Tucker said frankly. "I never realized that…" A hollow look that Danny knew too well but never wanted to see on his friend's face, adorned Tucker's features. "I've never felt hate before, y'know? I thought I had. When I made that wish with Desiree to have your powers they made me feel so angry. And I know I've said that I hate Dash… but… nothing like this… I… I can't explain." He shook his head helplessly, unaware of the all too empathetic look on Danny's face.

"Look Tuck, it doesn't matter anymore. There was this thing inside you that was controlling you, but Mom and Dad cut it out."

"Cut it out?" Tucker echoed.

Danny nodded, "They excised it." He looked significantly at Tucker's chest.

Realizing, perhaps for the first time, the significance of his shirtlessness, Tucker looked himself over. The first thing he noticed was the white bandage over his sternum, which ached dully. Then he saw the black stain crawling up his collarbone and past his range of vision. Shocked, he leaned around Danny to check his reflection in the shiny surface of the dissection table and gasped as he saw the black Devil's Mark stretching across his cheek.

"It's not permanent," Danny hurried to say. "Mom and Dad took out the thing that was causing it and got rid of it. They said it should fade in a day or so. And they gave you some kind of sedative to knock you out. That's probably what made you sick before…" He mused.

Tucker still stared, brushing a hand over his blackened cheek. It repulsed him. But he couldn't help but be amazed at how the area felt no different than his own skin. If it weren't for the darkened pigment, Tucker would've never thought there was anything wrong. Then Danny's words caught up to him and he paused.

"Your parents got rid of the ghost possessing me?"

Danny cast a wary glance at the freezer where his parents had stashed the remains of the parasite. But that wasn't necessary for Tucker to know. "It's gone, Tuck."

Tucker let out a breath of air. "Man, Danny, your parents really don't get enough credit." The attempted humour fell flat as his voice was much too shaky to sustain it.

"Yeah," Danny answered with a soft smile. "They have their moments."

Tucker was quiet. He looked thoughtful and Danny didn't much feel like prying.

"Hey Danny?"

"Yeah?"

"I… that thing in me. It made me feel things." Tucker fisted a hand over his heart. "Like… I was always hungry, to the point of pain. I was starving. Always. It was something that drove me—it—I couldn't think about anything else except this hunger. When I looked at Ja—at someone, all I could think of was how… How I could…" Danny raised his hand, not needing his friend to continue, but Tucker shook his head, stalling Danny's words as he kept speaking. "And it would be so easy too. A quick swipe, some blood and they'd be dead. Gone. A sack of flesh, bone and blood. So easy to just tear it open…"

"Tucker…" Danny frowned, repulsed by his friend's morbid words.

"And then I saw you." Hazel eyes snapped to Danny, staring at him as though hypnotized. "I'd never seen anything so… magnetic. Everything else faded away and I knew that you would be able to stop that awful hunger. That's why I leapt at you. Twice. I couldn't stop myself, I—"

"Stop it, Tucker!" Danny interrupted angrily and Tucker drew back with a startled look. "Stop referring to yourself as though you were the one doing those things. You know very well that possession, overshadowing, or whatever, takes over the host's will completely. You had no control. Everything you felt was because of that thing in you. It wasn't you."

"But it felt different than overshadowing," Tucker protested, gesturing widely with one hand. "I could feel this ghost's emotions as though they were my own. That's not like when you—"

"Tucker, do you want to eat me now?" Danny interrupted bluntly and was rewarded when real emotion finally broke through the strange mood Tucker had plunged into.

"What? Ew! No! That's gross, man." Tucker made a disgusted face.

"Good, then let's just forget about it, okay?" Danny looked away and for a while both boys toyed with their fingers, not really thinking about anything.

"Oh yeah," Danny said, remembering something. Digging a hand into his pocket, he felt his fingers curl around what he was looking for. He flinched back though, when what felt like an electric current passed between the object and his fingers. Rubbing away the effects of the static electricity, he drew out Tucker's PDA, battered, but still functional. "Here you go," he slapped it into Tucker's palm. "Valerie picked it up outside the museum, thought you might like it back."

Tucker took the PDA gratefully, cradling it in his hands. "Thanks. Valerie, huh?... I wonder how it got outside the museum."

All Danny could offer in answer was a shrug and Tucker's back bowed as he fiddled with the handheld device.

"You know… If you're still feeling guilty then you can always make the next few payments for me…" Tucker suggested slyly.

Danny slanted a wry glance at him, not even bothering to answer and Tucker sighed, leaning back against the wall.

"Eh, it was worth a try." He shrugged. When Danny didn't respond, silence fell once again in the room.

"So… Sam's really okay?" Tucker asked at length.

"Yeah," A true smile spread across Danny's face. "She's the one who brained you with my Math book earlier."

"Oh…" Tucker put a hand to the back of his head, prodding gingerly at the still-tender spot. "Man, she really did a number on me."

Danny couldn't help it; he sniggered. After realizing his own unintentional pun, Tucker chuckled, which set Danny off again. Soon, both boys were clutching their sides as they dissolved into peals of uncontrollable laughter.

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End Chapter 27

To Be Continued…

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Figured you guys were due a non-cliffhanger ending, especially after the last one :P

Last chapter got a couple of anonymous reviews so I thought I just want to take a few lines to respond to your guys.

MsFrizzle: Oh your penname brings back so many memories! I loved the magic schoolbus back in the day :3 At any rate, I'm glad you're enjoying the story, including it's plot and characterizations :) I do agree that, for the fight scene in the museum I skimped a bit on the details. Part of it was definitely that I wanted the scene to have a quick-paced, action-packed 'flow'; but it might also have been my author-blindness XD. Sometimes when I'm proof-reading, I read what I 'think' I've written or I subconsciously fill in details that are obvious to me, the author, but not to the reader… But nonetheless, I hope you still were able to picture the scene as it played out. Anyway! Thanks for reviewing and also for returning to this story… Oh yeah! And the Tucker Electronics thing is awesome, innit? :D

A Spirit of the Stars: Haha, yeah, I've been on an updating spree lately. Here's hoping it will last! :D I'm glad you're enjoying the story and I hope you liked the chapter! Thanks for the review! :)

Ok wow… You guys are absolutely awesome at this 'purposive encouragement' business! Your response to the last chapter was above and beyond. Seriously, thank you :). To: Phantom Lightning, Princess of Rose, aslan333, smallvillephantom14, Yugirose, pearl84, Senside, seantriana, Rogue Alice, Honeygirl30, DPfruitloop, DeliciousKrabKakes, MsFrizzle, Magic Cabbage, A Spirit of the Stars, MidnightResWri and Phanfan925.

Please Review! And have a wonderful New Year!

Adio!