The Soul Sepulchre Chapter 28: Backwash, a danny phantom fanfic

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OVER 300 REVIEWS? WOOHOO! Never thought this fic would get so many reviews! Thank you guys so much!

Chhh…. This chapter was a struggle to get started on but once I did it just kept going. I like to keep my chapters around 5-6k so I had to cut it (and even then it still ran way over, heh). Hopefully the ending won't be too abrupt…

Disclaimer: Disclaimed.

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The Soul Sepulchre

-By Sholay

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Chapter 28 — Backwash

He awoke in darkness. Blinking owlishly, he waited for his eyes to adjust. But the blackness, if anything, only deepened. It pressed in on his eyes like an opaque film. The utter lack of light confused his eyes and he squinted, trying to focus and failing.

He was lying on his side, knees drawn half-way to his chest—as though he'd been curled around something in his sleep. Yet there was nothing but empty space around him. Emptiness…

He looked around, turning his head up blindly. His eyes kept conjuring little spots of dull light in his periphery vision, but he chased them down only to have them disappear, then reappear again in the corner of his eye.

Exhaling, he rolled over and planted his hands flat on either side of his chest. He pushed, and his intention was to rise smoothly to his feet. He rocked back on his heels and took his hands off the ground, but his wrists abruptly stopped short. He pitched forward, falling onto his hands and knees.

What was this? He touched his wrists, and that was when he noticed the shackles. Around his wrists was a pair of heavy, wide cuffs that he could feel but not see. As he mapped the restraints with his fingertips, he touched upon a chain of thick links stretching outward. He tugged his right hand backward, once, twice, then joined his hands and threw his weight backward.

Nothing. The chain didn't give an inch.

He then decided to try crawling forward—maybe if he could find out what the chains were attached too—

His movement was suddenly arrested. His ankles were stuck. And that was when he realized it wasn't just his hands that were tied down.

His breath was speeding up. He tried to turn, fingers reaching blindly to grasp—touch, feel, anything!— the restraints around his ankles, but his wrists stopped short. Reflexively, he tried to bring his feet under him, but the chains kept them just a little too far.

The darkness was beginning to smother him. Wide-eyed, he tried to search for something—a hint of light? His ears were pricked—a sound?

His eye darted around, chasing phantom glimmers of light that vanished as he turned toward them.

Nothing. All around, there was nothing. Nothing was what he could see, nothing at all. Even his own body, he couldn't see. And he felt strangely disjointed from himself: like he was a pair of eyes and nothing else.

He couldn't even tell what he was kneeling on. As far as he could tell there was no floor, just a pit of darkness. He couldn't feel it under his hands either—What was this place? What was holding him up? He could fall through it any second, it seemed. And his limbs froze under him at that thought.

He was acutely aware of the cuffs encircling his wrists. They were heavy and made his arms sag. What was this? Where was he? The nothingness seemed never ending, but it couldn't be. Maybe the walls weren't all that far away, if he could just reach out and touch something, anything…

A gasp left his mouth and he jerked his head around.

"Who's there?" He called and his voice shocked him with its loudness.

No answer.

But he'd seen—! He was sure he'd seen… seen something.

"Is anyone there?" He threw the question to the endless abyss and for a long moment he waited, tense, jaw clenched, eyes rabbit-like and dilated. Then—

"Hey!" He spun, half-rising. The chains aborted the movement before it had even begun, yanking him back to the ground. "Hey!" He yelled again. He was sure he'd seen something this time. "Who's out there? C'mon, show yourself! Don't hide in the shadows, face me straight on!"

As the words left his mouth he almost regretted them. Who knew what he was calling anyway? What if it wasn't a friend, what if it was—

There! A glimpse of yellow! Eyes! He was sure he'd seen them this time! But then, as he was about to shout out in triumph, his voice caught and his head jolted to around.

Another set of eyes… he'd seen… But that meant…

"What—? Who are you? How many of you are there?" He was shouting out recklessly now, but he didn't care. He could feel them everywhere—eyes, eyes more eyes!—and they were coming closer. The darkness was closing in. But it wasn't empty darkness. No, they were using the shadows to hide their forms. He wanted to recoil, he wanted to run, or fight—Something! But the shackles kept him awkwardly on his knees. If he could just stand!

He struggled in vain, yanking and straining against the manacles. They were coming closer—he could feel them. They would converge on him. No! He didn't want them to—!

"Get away!" But it was too late. Bound hand and foot, he couldn't even raise his arms over his head, and he watched in horror as they came, piling on one another, rising above his prone form. They curved over him, leering with insidious sickly yellow eyes. And then, like a giant mouth descending, they plunged.

Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il Il

Danny came awake gasping and flailing. It took him some time to realize that it wasn't Legion's dead army he was fighting, it was just thin air. His hands stilled, though his chest still heaved with the force of his breathing. For a minute—and then two minutes—he didn't move, didn't do anything. He simply sat and let his brain catch up to his body. A body that was trembling, of all things. Worse: he didn't know if it was adrenaline he was shaking from…or fear.

"Urgh…" Finally, the dream was slipping back into surreal fog and reality gaining clarity. Danny berated himself for just losing a perfectly good night's rest due to post-battle jitters. This hadn't happened to him since… since Dan.

"Right." He grumbled, shoving a hand through his hair. Well, that was done. No more sleep for him.

Glancing around, he saw that Tucker was still passed out near the wall. Danny wasn't sure when they'd both dozed off, but judging from their awkward, half sitting positions on the floor of his parents' lab, it hadn't been planned.

Speaking of his parents… it was probably just as well that Tucker was still asleep. Danny still had to wake them up—and explain why he hadn't bothered to call them last night when Tucker had regained consciousness. Using one hand for balance, he brought his legs under him and pushed himself to his feet. There was a flash—brief, but strong—of relief as he made it to a standing position without being yanked back down.

Fitfully, he brushed at his wrists, trying to get rid of the lingering impression of heavy cuffs surrounding them.

Climbing the stairs, he left the lab—and blinked in the sudden sunlight. Apparently it wasn't as early as he'd thought; almost no light from the rising sun had filtered into the lab, which must have given him that impression of nighttime. Glancing at the clock, he saw that it was almost 7. Way too early—

Wait, it was Monday, wasn't it?

Danny groaned, pressing the heel of one palm into the hollow of his eye. He did not want to deal with school. Everyone was bound to be gossiping about his suspension, Dash would probably be on a warpath looking for revenge and his teachers… Even in his own mind he didn't want to go near that one. Lancer had seen. The three scratches stretching across his neck could not by any stretch of the imagination have been accidentally inflicted. Now, those wounds quite literally didn't exist anymore. Danny had no idea what he was going to do about that. Maybe he'd be lucky and Mr. Lancer would just forget?

Using the railing, Danny lugged himself up the stairs and moved down the hallway until he was standing before his parents' room, pausing with his hand on the doorknob. It'd been a long time since he'd gone into their room while they were still sleeping, he couldn't exactly remember the last time, but it'd certainly been before the accident. Now, as he pressed the door open, leaning on it as he poked his head nervously around the corner, he felt oddly young.

Padding up to his mother's side of the bed, he called her quietly. Then, when she didn't respond, he called her again, louder.

"Hmmm…? Danny?" Maddie's eyes slid open, then squinted as she looked at him in confusion. "What…?"

"Tucker's awake." He intoned quietly.

"What?" She repeated, still sleep-addled. "Tucker…?"

"You told me to get you when he woke up… " Danny explained, and his anxiousness showed as he began speaking faster and gesturing in the air. "He woke up a while ago but he wasn't feeling well so I had to let him out of the restraints—"

"You what?" Maddie was now much more awake, and pushed herself up to a sitting position. "You let him out? Danny I specifically told you—"

"He was sick Mom; he had to throw up. I didn't have a choice." Danny defended himself, still keeping his voice low, but firm. "Besides, his eyes are back to normal and he was acting fine too. Tucker hates hospitals, I couldn't just leave him strapped to the table all night, he would've panicked."

"Danny, that's something you should have let me or your father decide." Maddie scolded. "Jack. Jack!" She shook her husband sharply.

Oblivious to the conversation on the other side of the bed, Jack had been busy sawing the same piece of wood that kept the rest of the family awake on long road trips. When Maddie shook him though, he came awake with a loud snort.

"Huh? What? Mads? Something wrong?"

"Tucker woke up, Jack, we should go check on him." Maddie informed him without delay, already swinging her legs over the bed and rising to her feet. Danny backed up to give his mother space as she moved to her dresser, pulling her familiar jumpsuit from the top drawer.

"What?" Jack sat up abruptly, nightcap falling askew. "He's awake?" It was then that Jack noticed Danny. "Danny! How long has he been up? Did he do anything?"

The sight of his father sleeping in an orange jumpsuit with a printed nightgown tossed over it barely made Danny blink. The youngest Fenton shook his head. "His eyes were back to normal. He got sick though. I had to let him out of the restraints." He made sure to keep those sentences separate, but close enough that his parents would draw the obvious conclusion. He wasn't lying. Not exactly.

Jack was hardly listening. As soon as the word 'normal' had passed Danny's lips, Jack had jumped out of bed and charged to the adjoining master bathroom, slamming the door closed behind him. Maddie, her clothes bundled in her hands, sent the closed door a little sigh before turning back to Danny.

"We'll meet you downstairs in a bit. Why don't you go make sure Jazz and Sam are up and get ready for school? Don't go back down into the lab until your father and I are there." She warned. "You shouldn't have released him, Danny."

"But—"

"I understand why you did it, but the moment Tucker started to wake up you should've came and got your father and me. What if Tucker had attacked you?"

"His eyes were back to normal…" Danny protested.

"But that might've been a trick." Maddie refuted calmly. "You should know that, Danny, after all that your father and I have taught you about the paranormal." She didn't raise her voice, didn't get angry. Her tone was low, reasonable and carried such heavy disappointment that Danny cringed. He couldn't even muster any teenage indignation to use against such a tactic. Scuffing his socked toes against the carpet, Danny looked down and avoided his mother's criticising gaze.

Perhaps interpreting his awkward silence as guilt, Maddie's eyes softened and she smiled, putting a hand on her son's shoulder and squeezing it comfortingly. "It's okay Danny, I think I understand. You were attacked by ghosts two times in just the past month; and then I see you drawing a map of the Ghost Zone and studying the ghost weapons…"

Danny stiffened under her touch, his eyes fixing on a small spot of black fuzz on the carpet as he staunchly refused to look up.

"You're trying to prove yourself, aren't you? Trying to prove that you can handle yourself against the ghosts?" Maddie asked quietly.

And Danny's head shot up. He looked at her in surprise and his mouth opened as though to reply. But Maddie shook her head.

"No, I… I understand your frustration. I've been thinking about it for a while; wondering, wondering why you seem so distant, why your grades are erratic, why you seem to hate ghost hunting one second and then you're collecting weaponry the next… But Danny, I don't want you to feel like you're being forced into something you don't want to do. Ever since you've been young, you've wanted to be an astronaut. You never took to ghost fighting—and I want you to know that's okay. You don't need to feel like you need to prove something. There's nothing to prove. If you don't want to fight ghosts then you don't have to. It's as simple as that."

There was something deeply frightening about being told that he didn't need to fight ghosts. It was a comment that stuck in his brain—wiggled about and tried to undo threads of conviction that he'd spent so much time tightly tuning—and so he cut it out. Forcefully, he excised it, threw it into a pit in his mind where it could simmer with all his other self-doubts. Seeing his mother was looking at him expectantly, he licked his lips, searching for at least one of the thoughts racing through his brain that would be safe to say to his mother.

"But Dad—…" He started and then trailed off.

Maddie laughed. "Your father is very zealous about his work, Danny; it's difficult for him not to try and impose ghost hunting even on the people walking down the street. But Danny…" Here she grew serious and gazed steadily into Danny's eyes. "He only pushes so hard because he worries about you. So do I."

"Oh… and you don't worry about Jazz, do you?" Danny murmured, and his tone held a tang of bitterness.

"Can you blame us for worrying about you more?" Maddie asked, and her sincerity threw Danny, who glanced at her with wide eyes. "I know you're brilliant, Danny. You can do anything you want."

He flushed, fidgeting uncomfortably "Mom…" he demurred.

She held up a hand. "Let me finish. You are brilliant, Danny. But what I don't understand is how you don't seem to see this. You act like school is not important; you come home late and when I reprimand you, you barely even seem to be hearing me. You're being bullied and you never even bothered to tell anyone about it. I know that no one asked you for your side of the story in that fight between you and Dash, but Danny, you never even tried to defend yourself."

Danny was beyond words now. He could hardly identify the bittersweet knot of emotions that made his chest hurt and jaw clench. All he could do was stand there and let his mother's words wash over him.

"Sometimes… sometimes I wonder if you've stopped caring." Maddie sounded distressed and her hand fell from Danny's shoulder. "The only emotion I seem to be able to get from you these days is anger. Your father thinks it's a part of being a teenager, but I don't think it's part of you. Danny… I haven't heard you talk about being an astronaut for a long time. Do you still want to be one? What are… do you think about your future? What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Danny opened his mouth, prepared to fire off his usual 'Of course I want to be an astronaut!' but his voice stuck and he had to close his mouth and swallow. He couldn't make himself say it when he wasn't even sure about it anymore. It was such an unrealistic goal. How could he become an astronaut with his grades? And besides, who would look after Amity Park if he was gone? His mother was right about one thing: he hadn't thought about his future for a long while.

Seeing his mental struggle clearly through his conflicted eyes, Maddie sighed. "Danny, you need to start thinking about these things. And I mean seriously thinking. I'm worried that… that you're becoming depressed—"

"I'm not!" Danny cut in quickly. "Really, Mom, I'm definitely not!" He assured, meeting her eyes squarely as he spoke.

A smile flittered across Maddie's face. "I'm glad," she admitted. "But that still doesn't take away from the facts. Danny, you need to start caring. This is your life. And ultimately, you're the one who will need to decide what to do with it, not anyone else."

The sound of running water cut off in the washroom and Maddie tilted her head toward the closed door. "We're going to have a conversation about this. A very long conversation. One in which you will participate." She promised and Danny winced. "But for now, I want you to think about what I've said. Can you do that, Danny?"

Looking into her sincere, concerned eyes, Danny could not refuse. "Yeah…" He nodded slowly.

"Good." Maddie looked relieved "Now you should probably go wake up Jazz and Sam." Before Danny could back out the door, Maddie swept him up into a brief hug. "I love you, honey."

Danny let out a low laugh, patting her on the back stiffly. "Yeah… you too." And he quickly disentangled himself before slipping gratefully out of his parents' room.

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Danny pulled the door to his parents' room shut behind him and turned in time to see Jazz making her way to the bathroom, yawning widely as she did. Spotting Danny, she raised an eyebrow.

"You're up already?" She said skeptically as though she couldn't believe her eyes. "Did you even get any sleep?"

"Some," he shrugged, answering truthfully. "Tucker woke up at some point—"

"He did?" Jazz interrupted, suddenly more aware.

Danny smiled. "He did. He's back to normal, Jazz."

"Oh thank goodness." Jazz sagged against the doorframe, running a hand through her long hair that was tangled from a restless sleep. "This weekend was a nightmare. I'm glad it's over…"

"For now." Danny said, pointedly refining her statement. "The museum is still dangerous and that ghost-human shield hasn't gone away."

Jazz eyed her brother closely. "Yes… and you haven't said anything about that yet. What is haunting the museum, Danny? What was that thing that came chasing after you and attacked you as you were leaving? It had claws, and fangs… and it's eyes were the same as Tucker's were. What was it?"

Danny shifted, avoiding her eyes. "I don't really know…" Seeing her dubious look, he threw up his hands. "I really don't! At least, not completely. But we aren't going to talk about this now, Jazz. I gotta get changed for school and Mom and Dad are going to be out any second to check on Tucker."

"Ok… " She relented, skimming her eyes over his form. "You're still in the same clothes from two nights ago aren't you? I guess you're lucky they don't get shredded when you're in your ghost form." She frowned. "Speaking of which… I'm always seeing you tear your hazmat suit when you're… when you're ghost." She always had trouble calling him a ghost, Danny noticed, though he didn't bother paying much attention to it. "But whenever you change back, then turn ghost again, the suit is fixed. How does that work?"

Danny knew he was giving his sister a very odd expression: something between a grimace and a smirk. "You're not seriously going to ask me to explain that are you?"

Her expression told him clearly that, yes, she did expect him to explain it, and he'd better do a good job of it too while he was at it.

Danny sighed. "Look, Jazz. I've got school to worry about, Lancer, homework that I haven't done, Dash, detention and in-class suspension. Not to mention Tucker and that whole side of the mess. Just gimme a break, 'kay?"

Jazz looked conflicted and for a moment he thought she'd press the issue. So, instead of sticking around for her answer, he stepped around her and quickly ducked into his room.

Sam was sleeping deeply on his bed, his star-spangled comforter drawn tightly around her frame. Her face was clear of any tension and her lips were parted slightly as she exhaled in soft puffs of air. Danny shuffled over to the bed and admired how calm she looked in sleep. How untroubled. He knew that, as soon as she woke, her eyes would sharpen and narrow with wit. Her mouth would twitch in on one corner with cynicism. It was interesting—nice, even—to see her features wiped clean. He almost regretted having to wake her up to the real world.

Nevertheless… "Sam," he called. "Sam, you gotta wake up." He grabbed her shoulder through the covers and shook her lightly.

Sam's brows drew down into a frown and she grumbled contritely. Curling into a ball, she rolled over and out from under Danny's hold. She muttered something too low to catch and then drew the covers over her head, hiding herself from view.

Danny's eyebrows lifted, his mouth turning upward in amusement.

"Okay, you wanna play it that way?" He strode over to his window and threw the curtains open, letting the sun stream brightly into the room. Then he came back and promptly ripped the covers off his friend's head.

Sam growled loudly, throwing her arms over her eyes. "Argh! Danny! This is cruel and unusual torture!"

"What? The sun?" He chuckled.

"Yes." She practically hissed and, gathering up the duvet, promptly burrowed deep into the covers once more.

"Sa-am," Danny whined. "C'mon, you gotta get up. I don't want to have to get creative." As he said this he eyed Youngblood, who was still unconscious and floating above his desk. After a few moments of inactivity from the heap of blankets on the bed, he shook his head and used his magic words for the morning.

"Besides, we have to go check on Tucker."

"Tucker's awake?"

And they were in business.

"And you don't have any lingering pain or feelings of sickness?"

"No… well, it hurts but nothing too bad." Tucker was sitting on top of the dissection table—feet dangling over the side—as Maddie leaned over him in concern, inspecting the inflamed flesh surrounding the stitches over Tucker's sternum. When he reached up to scratch them, she slapped his hand away.

"Don't touch it. If you accidentally tear open the stitches you'll start bleeding again and it'll scar worse." She said all this with the distracted tone of a mother who had said similar words many times before. The Spectre Spectacles sat atop her head and she lowered them to take a better look at Tucker's chest.

"Well, I don't see any presence of abnormal activity. The foreign presence is gone. You're all set Tucker." She smiled at the boy brightly, patting him on the knee.

"What about…?" Tucker gestured at the black mark that still stained his upper torso and cheek.

Maddie turned toward the lab desk—not noticing how, a few feet behind her, Danny quickly moved away out of her direct vision—and took off the Spectacles, placing them on the table before picking up a thermometer. When Tucker squirmed, she sent him a stern look and the teen pouted before opening his mouth obligingly. A small smile tugged at the corner of her lips as she stuck the thermometer under Tucker's tongue.

"I'm afraid it might take a while before the mark fades completely." She said as she looked at the watch on her arm. "But it should definitely disappear in time, probably less than two weeks. It has already faded since yesterday. Ok, let's see." She pulled the thermometer out and nodded at the number she saw displayed.

"You're very lucky Tucker. I won't mince words, if Jack hadn't known what to do… or if Danny hadn't come and gotten us when he did—" Here she shot an appraising look at Danny, who looked away, rubbing the back of his neck. "You might have died."

There was a long silence after she said this. Tucker had paled and he swallowed, his hazel irises seemed to tremble as they fixed on Maddie.

"I… I'm… Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Fenton." He said sincerely. Behind him, Jack beamed, laying a giant hand on Tucker's shoulder.

Don't worry about it, son! We consider you family 'round here and a Fenton never lets his family down!"

Maddie lay a soft sterilized pad over Tucker's stitches and then taped it in place. "You'll need to change this daily. You also need to make sure to clean the wound and check to make sure it doesn't get infected. I can give you a few extra bandages if you want to do this on your own or you can come over here." Tucker shook his head, indicating he could do it on his own. "Okay, but I still want you to come over tomorrow so I can look you over and make sure everything looks fine."

"Shouldn't we take Tucker to the hospital or something, Mom?" Jazz piped up.

Tucker's eyes widened dramatically and his hands came up to ward the idea away. "No hospitals!"

Maddie bit her lip, and looked back at her daughter. "I agree with Tucker. Although it would be nice to get another opinion, the doctors would want to know how Tucker got injured and who stitched him up. It is… very obvious that Tucker was cut. There's only one hospital in Amity Park and it would be easy to find out that Tucker was not worked on by a doctor." Here she turned to Tucker. "I would never put you in danger, and if it looks at all like the wound is getting worse then we'll certainly take you to a hospital. But for now… it might be best to keep things under wraps."

"Of course! No hospitals!" Tucker nodded happily, hopping off the table. He tugged a red sweater over his head—borrowed from Danny, as his own shirt had been shorn off by Jack before the surgery. The pants he was wearing were also borrowed since his own were damp and dusty after two days of wear in the tunnels under the museum. Looking to the other side of the room, he spotted Sam and smiled at seeing her looking normal and unhurt.

Sam had her arms crossed and looked distinctly uncomfortable in Jazz's old clothes. Even though Jazz herself had outgrown the clothes, they were still somewhat large for Sam's small frame. At least the T-shirt was black. Danny's sister had a disturbingly large number of turquoise outfits. She had also tucked the jeans into the heavy combat boots she was wearing, but Tucker and even Danny had commented on how odd it was to see Sam in pants period.

Speaking of Danny…

Tucker's eyes narrowed as he regarded his best friend, noticing details he'd missed in the chaos of last night. Danny was standing against the wall, and seemed to be doing his best to pay attention. But his head was lolling and he was leaning heavily against the wall. Dark rings underlined bloodshot eyes. He was bone-white and was wearing a long-sleeved shirt. Tucker knew his best friend: Danny never wore long sleeves. He'd always had a high tolerance to the cold, even more so after he'd gained the ability to hold blocks of ice in his hands without getting a chill.

But that wasn't strictly correct. Danny rarely wore long-sleeves. When he did, it was to hide injuries that hadn't healed the night before.

Tucker remembered the behemoth ghost dog that had kidnapped him and Sam. He shivered. Had Danny fought that monster?

"Now, Tucker…" He looked up at Danny's mother and then fidgeted under the piercing stare she was giving him. "Do you want to tell me what trouble you got into? How did you get that mark?"

"I… ummm… Y'see Mrs. Fenton…" He stammered, completely incapable to coming up with a lie as he was put on the spot.

"Mom! It's 7:30! We have to leave now if we want to get to school on time!" Jazz interrupted and Tucker sighed with relief.

Seeing the diversion for what is was, Maddie still could not refute the truth of Jazz's statement. Looking up at her daughter, then down at Tucker, she let out a breath of air. "Okay, yes you should go. But I think you should talk about this with someone, Tucker. I'm not your mother, but unless you want me to call your mother, I suggest you talk to me."

Faced with that formidable threat, Tucker quickly nodded, snapping off a quick "Yes, Mrs. Fenton!". Because, as bad as it was to talk with Danny's parents, it would be worse with his own. The Fentons, at least, had an open mind about these things. If he told his own parents, they'd probably freak out. It wasn't necessarily that they didn't believe in ghosts—they did. After Pariah Dark there wasn't a citizen in Amity who didn't believe. But that didn't mean they were okay with it.

Tucker's parents had always been a bit weird when it came to ghosts. They had one rule for Tucker: 'Don't'. Don't look, don't touch, don't go near it, don't talk about it, don't even think about it. While they weren't as bad as Sam's parents—they didn't hold protests or take out restraining orders against his best friends—they did have their own… weirdness.

At home, Tucker could hardly believe he lived in Amity Park, the most haunted city in the country. His parents never talked about ghosts, and they never allowed him to talk about ghosts. If news of a ghost attack came up on the television, his father would change the channel. When the entire school was infected with ghost powers, his parents hadn't even asked if Tucker had been infected. They'd just sat at his bedside in the hospital and discussed work and politics while his broken leg recovered.

As for the Fentons… Tucker didn't even want to touch that topic. Danny would never know how hard Tucker had defended their friendship to his parents. In the end it was only because the Foleys had taken a shine to the shy, black-haired, blue-eyed boy and come to the conclusion that he had nothing to do with his parents' paranormal profession that they'd allowed the friendship.

If Tucker's parents found out he'd been hurt by a ghost… or worse, that he was fighting ghosts… Well, he actually had no idea how they'd react. And he really wasn't keen on finding out.

"Danny… Danny… we gotta go." Jazz was whispering in her brother's ear and he nodded once, shifting off the wall and climbing the stairs after her. Sam followed in silence and Tucker kept close to the tail of the group. Looking back he saw that Mrs. Fenton was watching them file out with some reluctance in her eyes. Mr. Fenton though, seemed oblivious as he held open the lab's freezer, studying something inside.

In the kitchen, Jazz had gathered her backpack and was jingling her keys in her hand. "All set? I can drive you guys in my car."

"What about our books?" Tucker asked.

Jazz waved off his concern. "Your backpacks are still in the back of my car from Thursday. I never took them out… I'd actually forgotten you'd left them there. Let's go, if we leave now we might even arrive early."

Just then, Danny's head, which had been bent over his backpack, snapped up. "Hold on guys." He said hurriedly. "I left my cell phone in my room, gimme two minutes." And he dashed out of the room.

"One minute!" Jazz yelled after him as he bounded up the stairs. "And we'll be waiting for you in the car!"

Danny rifled through the discarded pile of clothes that lay at the foot of his bed until he saw the telltale shine of his mother's utility belt. Rifling through the pockets, he first palmed his cell phone, and then he kept searching until he found his second goal: the Lunch Lady's memento—or the soul stone, as he'd started to refer to it in his mind.

Taking a moment to admire its iridescent depths, he then curled his fingers around the perfect sphere before dropping it the pocket of his worn jeans. Pushing off his knees, he rose to his feet and his gaze was caught by a glowing in the corner of his vision.

Turning, he considered Youngblood, who floated demurely a few inches above his desk, casting an ethereal glow over the galaxy classification scheme that he'd tacked to his wall. He wondered briefly if he should do something about the small ghost. Unfortunately, the shredded remains of his Fenton Thermos were still lying some hundred odd feet underground Amity Park's Museum of Natural History and he didn't really want to go steal another one from the lab at the moment.

Youngblood could keep, he figured. The chances of his parents discovering him were slight. Worst came to worst, the ghost would awaken and cause some damage to his room before flying off. Danny would take the risk.

Turning to his phone, in his hand, Danny flipped it open, checking it for messages more out of habit than anything else.

The first thing he saw was the picture he'd snapped in the museum— the bulging pewter manhole he'd phased through to get to the subterranean tunnels was still displayed across his screen. The picture was dark, but he could still make out the odd markings carved into the metal.

He'd upload the image to his computer later, he reasoned as he exited out of the camera function. That was when he noticed the red notification for missed calls and voicemails.

Raising an eyebrow—he hadn't realized he'd missed any calls—Danny pulled up call log and abruptly stiffened.

The calls he'd missed were from Tucker and Jazz. So were the voicemails.

Both had been left on Thursday—the day Tucker and Sam had been kidnapped.

He had a sudden urge to delete the messages without ever listening to them. But, naturally, his fingers were already dialling his voicemail and, almost against his own will, he raised the phone to his ear.

"First unheard message."

"Danny! Danny!" Tucker's voice screamed over what sounded like a hurricane of wind. "Why aren't you picking up! Sam and I… We're at the museum! I know it was stupid but had to come back—we had to check it out… But—dammit, Danny, you have to come quick! It's—it's a monster! It's too big, we can't fight this." Tucker swore loudly. "Danny you have to come—please, you have to come now! It-It spoke t-to us. I-it said it—it wants—wants to eat—NO! No, get away!" Tucker's voice was suddenly drowned in roaring wind and static. Danny had to strain to hear his next words. "Get away from her! Sam! SAM!"

And the line went dead.

"Second unheard message."

"Danny! How come you aren't picking up your phone? Did you get into trouble? Did something happen? Oh my God, Danny, I think I made a mistake—I made a big mistake. Sam and Tucker wanted to come and check out the museum so I drove them here. I was going to stop them, you have to believe me I wanted to stop them and make them wait until we could get you—but they said they'd be fine. I-I thought it'd be okay. But Danny, Danny, something went wrong. It's all wrong! Sam and Tucker, they got caught by the ghost. It's… I don't even know what it is. I thought it was going to get me too… I ran… It threw me out of the museum, and now there's this shield! It's all around the museum; I can't get passed it! Oh God, oh God, what if something happened to them? What if they're hurt? Danny, I'm so sorry… you have to come! Please come quickly!"

"End of messages. To delete messages, press 7. To save messages, press 9. To—"

He heard no more, having already pulled the phone away from his ear to press down hard on the button. Lowering the phone down, he gazed at its illuminated surface with an expression utterly blank of emotion. But his fingers betrayed what his face refused to reveal: curling around the phone and squeezing until the plastic creaked in protest.

This was what happened when he failed to do his duty, when his friends felt they needed to pick up his slack. This was what happened when he let Sam and Tucker and Jazz get too involved and they started thinking they could take on his enemies for him. This… he could not allow this to happen again.

And he was not going to let himself forget that.

He stared down at his hand, at his bloodless thumb pressed firmly over the glowing '9'.

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End Chapter 28

To Be Continued…

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I admit I enjoy these little conversations between the characters, just to get some diversity in the interactions and some character development. But if you guys think I'm overdoing it please tell me :)

Reviewers, you are AWESOME! I know I've said this, but I'll keep saying it 'cause it's true: you guys are directly responsible for these updates. While I am thoroughly enjoying this story and would work on it regardless, I would not have half the motivation to break though blocks or update within any reasonable period of time without you guys. So THANK YOU! pearl84, Princess of Rose, Honeygirl30, Phanfan925, XxhoneyleafxX, Yugisrose, Cry-Pom, VampireFrootloopsRule, DPfruitloop, MidnightResWri, supaherolena02, smallvillephantom14, Kitsune-001, Ribke D'Crazy and ELunamoon!

Adio!