Chapter 6

"Are you sure you're well enough for school, Danny?" Maddie cooed at her son.

Stiffly, he nodded. She didn't quite believe him. His shoulders were hunched over a half-eaten piece of toast and his eyes were far away. Something was wrong with her boy, and it might have been something more than physical illness.

"One week til Christmas break," Jack reminded him crisply in between snickerdoodles.

The entire family was congregated around the kitchen table. They'd been swept up in work, Jazz was home, Danny was sick. Family time was necessary, so Maddie had insisted she and her husband pull themselves away from the lab long enough to at least see Danny off to school.

Maddie sighed and sipped her coffee. "Isn't it a bit early for cookies, Jack?" she asked her husband.

"No such thing," he replied, too loudly, she thought, "Got a big day ahead of us, gotta be prepared. Gotta eat."

His smile made her smile. Even in the worst of times, his personality shined like a beacon. Her beacon.

The family paused at the sound of a door opening and subsequently closing.

"Hello?" Tucker called as he strode through the foyer. "Anybody home?"

Usually, Maddie didn't mind Tucker's presence at all. Danny needed his friends, but she found a misplaced twinge of jealousy inside her. She had to scrounge up minutes for time with her son, and those few minutes never seemed to be enough. For all that Danny told her in those small increments of time, they may as well not talk at all.

She bet Danny would tell Tucker what was bothering him. At least he was sharing. Feelings aren't meant to be bottled up like that.

The teenager stuck his head into the kitchen and appeared relieved to see everyone alive and whole around the table. "Hey dude, you ready for school?"

The "dude" in question gave a lethargic nod and gently pushed his plate away. He stood mechanically and grabbed a tattered backpack from the floor.

"I'm driving!" Jazz exclaimed, shoving her plate of greenish, half eaten eggs away with more haste than her brother had.

"In a hurry, Jazzy?" Jack asked his daughter, looking hurt, "I was thinking maybe you could come downstairs so your mother and I could show you a thing or two about our new weapon." He didn't get to see her much anymore, and Maddie knew it hurt him.

"Well, it's not often I get to drive my little brother to school now is it?"

Tucker looked the part of a not-so-stoic martyr. "Don't worry, Danny. Once my parents decide to get me my very own, sweet piece of wheels, this never has to happen again."

"Ha ha, very funny," Jazz sighed, grabbing her purse from its position beside her, "Let's get a move on."

Maddie had considered getting her son a car when he'd turned sixteen, then again when he turned seventeen. But he was already so bad at following his curfew and so good at disappearing to who-knows-where that she didn't figure he needed faster, farther reaching transportation than his moped.

"Yeah," Tucker deadpanned, "Let's."

Within a minute, she was alone with her husband, and it was time to get back to work.

…

"Seriously though, toast?" Tucker asked as soon as Jazz's car pulled away.

"What?" Danny wasn't listening. He was watching, scanning the flow of people in front of him as if at any moment one would point at him and scream, "There's the Ghost Boy! There he is!" As if that would happen. After all these years.

"Last time I saw you eat toast, it was some shape-shifter pretending to be you!"

That would solve everything, wouldn't it, Tuck? If I weren't me. We could file this under another framing mishap, like the kidnapping or the robberies. If I weren't me…

"Sorry?" he wondered softly.

"I'm just worried about you. You see Sam?"

No, he didn't see Sam. The realization dropped like a rock to the bottom of his stomach, stacked onto the hundreds of other concerns weighing him down.

"Maybe she's inside," Tuck speculated when Danny didn't answer. "Come on, let's get to class."

Danny followed him as if in a trance through the hallways. Turning corners, dodging people, the works, all on autopilot. The faces he saw were numerous and familiar, but he noticed none of them. The President of the United States could have popped around a corner and shouted, "Boo!" He wouldn't have noticed.

What he did notice was when Tucker suddenly stopped. He only registered this because he'd been walking directly behind him. Under normal circumstances, this abrupt stop would have resulted in a bit of a jostle. Instead, completely without his direction or consent, about half of Danny's body simply phased through Tuck. Danny, automatically baffled, leapt backward and told himself to re-solidify.

Face grayer than it had been moments before, Danny scanned the crowd again. He noted an enhanced degree of exhaustion on some faces and twinges of excitement on others. Not the sort of excitement you get on Christmas morning when you're sure a brand new fluffy puppy is waiting for you downstairs; the sort of excitement you get from observing a catastrophe, a catastrophe so far removed from yourself that the second-hand emotions sweep you up on a rollercoaster high.

Everyone was staring at the same spot. Danny felt nauseous. It was a normal hallway, a hallway he'd walked hundreds of times. Lockers adorned either side, broken up by doors every so often. The larger throng of people was arranged around a small group of freshmen. The small group of freshmen surrounded one particular girl, a girl Danny may have remembered seeing at some point. Maybe in the halls, maybe during a ghost fight. He wasn't sure, and he surely couldn't remember her name.

This girl, whoever she was, bawled loudly despite the comfort of her friends. Her chest heaved, and snot dripped down her face, even over her mouth as she cried, "My locker! My locker…."

Overcoming his subconscious reluctance, the ghost boy averted his eyes to the object of her hysteria.

Oh, that locker.

He could tell whoever cleaned up had tried to remove the dent. It had worked for the most part, but the slight inversion of the metal combined its the proximity to a certain office and the light, light pink mark on the linoleum gave everyone the clues necessary to deduce what had happened here.

"I'm sorry, man," Tucker whispered, "I suck at navigation….we can go around…."

Before Danny even registered his obligation to choke out a reply, Lancer came striding past them. "Sherlock Holmes, let me through," he called, squeezing through the still increasing mass of spectators.

"I'm very sorry, Miss Guildenstern," the teacher apologized, "We emailed your parents about your new locker, but I guess….oh well." He handed the girl the keys, undoubtedly getting mucous wiped on his fingers in the process. "Would you like to go to the office? We can call your parents, see if they can come get you."

Taking another tissue from one of the other girls, she nodded. Then blowed her nose, possibly spraying everyone within a three foot radius. Though they seemed too interested in the spectacle to care.

"The rest of you, get to class," Lancer yelled over the cacophony of whispers, placing a hand on the freshman's back to lead her to the office, "We still start at eight am sharp!"

Footsteps swirled around Danny, but he didn't dare move. He felt someone grab his arm—probably Tucker—but he still just stood there. Voices blended together and all of the noise sloshed around his head. He felt as if the putrid liquid which sometime drips from trash-bags had drip dripped into him, filling his skull until his very brain felt sea sick and could no longer bear the smell.

Soon he found himself sprinting to the nearest restroom. He flung himself toward the door, he flung the door open, and he flung himself into the nearest stall. Clutching the toilet seat with his bare hands, he vomited.

What little breakfast he'd consumed that morning came right back up. After a few more heaves, every ounce of water he'd consumed over the past twelve hours made an appearance too. After heaving up saliva for a full minute, he slumped back from his knees into a more comfortable sitting position. Wiping his hair back from his sweaty forehead, he let out a small groan.

Then he noticed something. The toilet seat, it was….frozen? Frightened, Danny propped himself back up on his knees and examined it. Reluctantly now that he was no longer violently ill, he touched a single finger to the surface to judge the temperature.

Cold as ice. Looks like ice. Must be ice.

He looked down at his hands, now palms up and limp in his lap. He looked at them and he shook his head. What's wrong with me?

The door to the bathroom banged open suddenly, making Danny glad he'd at least had the habitual drive to shut and lock the stall door.

"You really don't think it's true though?"

Kwan.

"Of course not. Phantom has been saving us from ghosts for years! Why would he suddenly up and go all slasher movie on us?"

Dash.

"Ghosts are weird I guess," Kwan sighed, "You've got a point."

"Damn right I've got a point," the blond football star proclaimed, "I'm right."

Danny figured he'd better get out of there before they were done with their business. Despite his recent gains in the height department, he still had nothing on their bulk. And he doubted they'd miss an opportunity to harass him if presented with one. So he stood up, flushed the toilet, and stepped out of the stall.

"Hey, look, it's Fentina!" Dash jabbed, zipping up his pants and turning to face his favorite freak.

"Having hormonal troubles, Fentina? Is it that time of the month again?"

Danny didn't grace them with a response. He'd gotten used to their ridicule, and any other day he would've walked right out of that bathroom. Maybe after a sly response or two. He wouldn't even have looked back. Instead, as soon as his hands were clean and dry, he whirled around to face the bullies.

He opened his mouth to say something, though he never knew what. Maybe it would have been, Not in the mood guys, or, Why don't you take your outdated joke books and shove them up your…

But even his pondering was interrupted. Tucker burst through the door, looking rather out of breath for the short stretch of hall there was between where they'd been and here. "There you are! Sorry," he panted, "Lot of people out there. Have we always had this many students?" Then he noticed the jocks. "Oh."

Danny exhaled, eyes downcast. "Let's go to class."

"Oooo, Fen-nerd and Tuckno-Freak are going to class!" Dash mocked.

Dash and Kwan guffawed until Danny's voice sliced through the air with all the nuance and precision of a brick. "Maybe you should come too. Sounds like you could use a little class."

After two stunned beats, Kwan picked up the exchange. "Psh, as if we haven't heard that one before."

Again, Danny decided to say nothing. He took two strides toward the exit before a meaty hand slammed against his shoulder.

"Watch it, Fenton."

His eyes momentarily flashed green and he shoved Dash's hand away with his own. This lead to Dash shoving back at him, this time a two handed shove to the upper chest, a shove that sent the hybrid to the floor.

"Cut it out—" Tucker objected.

"I think he's right," Kwan suggested, uneasy, "Let's go to class…."

As Danny tried to fight his disorientation and get up, Dash reached down and pulled him up by his shirt. "I said, watch it!"

"I say, screw you," Danny told him plainly.

Dash through a punch at his stomach, and Danny gasped for air.

"You let him go now, you…."

"You're hurting him, stop," Kwan insisted, placing his hands on his friend's shoulders.

Finally, Dash listened. He released his classmate, who would have fallen to the ground again if not for Tucker's quick catch. With a huff, he turned and strutted out of the restroom. Kwan lagged behind and mouthed a quick, "Sorry," before departing as well.

"You alright?"

"Never better."

….

Lancer was late to class, but he spent no time getting to work.

"Alright, kids, open up your copies of All Quiet to page 103. If you did the assigned reading, you'd know that our protagonist Paul is hiding out in the trenches, presumed lost by his friends…"

Danny and Tucker pulled out their books, but neither really had any significant urge to follow along. Tuck had his PDA on his lap and Danny had a notebook ready for doodles; it was basically their normal setup, minus Sam.

"Mikey, why don't you start us off?" Lancer suggested, pointing toward the front row.

"Already it has become somewhat lighter. Steps hasten over me-"

Danny heard the story in flashes. The more the scene unravelled, though, the more he kept his head down, the more he prayed for a ghost attack or a fire drill. It was too early in the day to ask for a bathroom break, especially with Dash sitting in the corner smugly.

"Just as I am about to turn round a little, something heavy stumbles, and with a crash a body falls over me into the shell-hole….I do not think at all, I make no decision—I strike madly home, and feel only how the body suddenly convulses, then becomes limp, and collapses...my hand is sticky and wet….the man gurgles….as though he bellows, every gasping breath is like a cry, a thunder—but it is only my heart….I want to stop his mouth, stuff it with earth, stab him again, he must be quiet, he is betraying me…"

"Very good, Mikey," Lancer commends, "Star, you can pick up where he left off."

"So I crawl away to the farthest corner and stay there, my eyes glued on him, my hand grasping the knife—ready, if he stirs, to spring at him again. But he won't do so any more, I can hear that already in his gurgling….I have but one desire, to get away….minute after minute trickles away….I dare not look again at the dark figure in the shell-hole….I notice my bloody hand and suddenly feel nauseated…."

"Kwan, you're next."

"It is early morning….the figure opposite me moves….he is dead, I say to myself, he must be dead, he doesn't feel anything any more; it is only the body that is gurgling there….the head tries to raise itself, for a moment the groaning becomes louder, his forehead sinks back upon his arm….the man is not dead, he is dying, but he is not dead….he opens his eyes….the body is still perfectly still, without a sound, the gurgle has ceased, but the eyes cry out, yell, all the life is gathered together in them for one tremendous effort to flee, gathered together there in a dreadful terror of death, of me."

"My legs give way and I drop on my elbows. 'No, no,' I whisper….eyes follow me….I am powerless to move so long as they are there….I raise one hand, I must show him that I want to help him, I stroke his forehead….there is water in the mud, down at the bottom of the crater...I climb down….scoop up the yellow water….he gulps it down….I unbutton his tunic in order to bandage him if it is possible….'I want to help you, Comrade, camerade, camerade, camerade—' eagerly repeating the word, to make him understand….three stabs. My field dressing covers them, the blood runs out under it, I press it tighter; there; he groans. That is all I can do. Now we must wait, wait."

This was too vivid for Danny. When Lancer pointed to the next unlucky soul and that unlucky soul began reading, he made a decision to deliberately block whatever words came next. While he sensed a drop in the room when the man finally died, he is otherwise successful. He caught only the end of Paulina's now-sniffling rendition of Paul's monologue very clearly.

"'Take twenty years of my life, comrade, and stand up—take more, for I do not know what I can even attempt to do with it now.' It is quiet, the front is still except for the crackle of rifle fire. The bullets rain over, they are not fired haphazard, but shrewdly aimed from all sides. I cannot get out. "

"Mr. Fenton." Lancer spoke, and Danny cringed.

Slowly, shakily, he picked up the book and began to read, "'I will write to your wife,' I say hastily to the dead man, 'I will write to her, she must hear it from me, I will tell her everything I have told you, she shall not suffer, I will help her, and your parents too, and your child—'

"His tunic is half open. The pocket-book is easy to find. But I hesitate to open it. In it is the book with his name. So long as I do not know his name perhaps I may still forget him, time will obliterate it, this picture. But his name, it is a nail that will be hammered into me and never come out again. It has the power to recall this for ever, it will always come back and stand before me.

"Irresolutely I take the wallet in my hand. It slips out of my hand and falls open. Some pictures and letters drop out. I gather them up and want to put them back again, but the strain I am under, the uncertainty, the hunger, the danger, these hours with the dead man have made me desperate, I want to hasten the relief, to intensify and to end the torture, as one strikes an unendurably painful hand against the trunk of a tree, regardless of everything.

"There are portraits of a woman and a little girl, small amateur photographs taken against an ivyclad wall. Along with them are letters. I take them out and try to read them. Most of it I do not understand, it is so hard to decipher and I scarcely know any French. But each word I translate pierces me like a shot in the chest;—like a stab in the chest.

My brain is taxed beyond endurance. But I realise this much, that I will never dare to write to these people as I intended. Impossible. I look at the portraits once more; they are clearly not rich people. I might send them money anonymously if I earn anything later on. I seize upon that, it is at least something to hold on to. This dead man is bound up with my life, therefore I must do everything, promise everything in order to save myself; I swear blindly that I mean to live only for his sake and his family, with wet lips I try to placate him—and deep down in me lies the hope that I may buy myself off in this way and perhaps even get out of this; it is a little stratagem: if only I am allowed to escape, then I will see to it. So I open the book and read slowly:—Gerard Duval, compositor."

Danny stopped short before the section could end. Sweating profusely now and pale, he closed his book and closed his eyes.

"Is something wrong, Mr. Fenton?"

Yes, he wanted to say, Everything is wrong.

But he could not say that. "I'm not feeling well. Can I go to the bathroom?" he murmured weakly, not waiting for a response before brushing his books into his backpack.

"If you must," the tired teacher lamented, "Mr. Foley, you can pick up where he left off."

Again, Danny tried not to listen, but he couldn't stop himself from pausing in the doorway momentarily before fleeing.

"By afternoon I am calmer," Tucker reads, having already finished a few sentences, "My fear was groundless. The name troubles me no more. The madness passes."

…..

The halls were empty in the middle of first hour, and the silence left his ears buzzing. Danny went back to the bathroom.

There was a strange quality about the restroom mirror that day; he looked at himself, but he seemed distorted somehow. His face did not look like his face, his eyes, nose, mouth, even his skin seemed peculiar somehow.

Curious, he ran his fingers over his cheeks as if to check that he was solid. Immediately, he was repulsed by the cold moistness of his clammy fingers. Immediately tears came to his eyes, and immediately he summoned all of his self control. He couldn't cry here. Though the bathroom was empty, someone could walk in at any time.

So what could he do? He certainly didn't want to go home. Maybe he could just stay here all day. Hide in the bathroom like the brave superhero he knew he was.

He wasn't sure why he did exactly what he did at that specific moment. He wasn't sure why his survival instincts didn't kick in and kick him in the head for being so irresponsible. But at that specific moment, he muttered, "Goin' ghost."

And he did go ghost. White rings began at his midsection and expanded vertically in either direction. Pretty soon, he was staring at himself again, but this time that self had snow white hair and glowing green eyes.

His situation was nothing like that of Paul the soldier and Gerard the printer. Gerard the printer was also Gerard the soldier, an enemy to Paul and Paul knew that. He acted out of self defense in a war where men were being killed left and right. Trapped by gunfire and startled, of course he lashed out. Then, trapped with the body, of course he felt bad.

Danny felt bad. He felt very bad, he felt terrible. He felt as it his entire world was teetering on needlepoint; he couldn't step, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't think without the guilt, the fear that at any moment the entire globe would plunge into an abyss of ruin. An abyss filled with fire, an abyss filled with ice. An abyss with no escape.

Paul pledged to write to the man's wife. He pledged to send her money. Then he just….decided against it?

Maybe Danny could do something like that. Mr. Baker had had a wife. God, but his stomach twisted at the thought. He was not an enemy soldier in a live or die situation. How could he ever explain himself?

How could this ever madness pass? How could that name ever no longer trouble him? No matter what he did from that point on, he'd already done the unthinkable. How could he pay for his negligence, his mistake? How could he ever walk up to anyone, especially a grieving widow, and explain that a man died because he himself couldn't take a few extra seconds to analyze the situation? A few extra seconds to notice that the "ghost" didn't glow?

He knew that he couldn't. He couldn't forget, he couldn't seek forgiveness. Not that he deserved either of those things. So again, what could he ever do?

The bathroom door creaked open, and Danny became invisible. He half expected Tucker, but it was some underclassman. Lancer was probably keeping his friend on a short leash; didn't want the pair getting up to any trouble, he supposed.

Not wanting to stick around waiting for the boy to leave, Danny phased through the wall into the hallway, maintaining his invisibility the entire time. Slow and spiritless, he floated down the hallway with no destination in mind.

Unsurprisingly, he found himself levitating in front of a certain office. He simply stared at the door for several minutes, until he felt someone walk right through him.

Danny phased in after the teacher. "You called?" the new arrival asked, meeting the vice principal in Baker's office.

"Yes," the VP replied, "I thought since you had a free period this hour you might help me clean up. They already took pictures."

The room did indeed need cleaning. Books, papers, strewn everywhere. Debris scattered across the floor. A good number of cardboard boxes were stacked mid-room, and a few of them were already packed with stuff.

"His wife didn't want to do this?"

"No, would've been too much for her. We figured we'd get his things boxed up at least."

The new teacher began sorting things. It was quiet for about thirty seconds before she asked, "Why was he here so late anyway?"

"Apparently he wanted to take another look at a student file before Monday but he couldn't find it. Came back to look."

"Which student's?"

"You can look in the corner. It's scattered everywhere now."

As the teacher got up to look in said corner, Danny moved too. And as he read the name, written in sharpie on the front of a manila folder, he stopped breathing. Not that he had to breathe in the form anyway.

The teacher crouched down to read it too, then stood up and shook her head. "Daniel Fenton. David shouldn't have tried; the kid's hopeless."

Author's Note: Sorry not sorry for the long excerpts. I sliced and spliced parts of Chapter 9 of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front. I tried to find that line between enough-to-get-the-point-across and not-too-much-to-bore-them. Hope it worked.

Also, I've got a question for all of you. I got a really great Guest review last time. If you're still reading this, Guest, I did not have a laughing episode when I read it. S/he expressed legitimate concerns about Danny getting away with murder. To everyone, what do you think Danny would have to do to atone for his actions? Is it even possible?

Thanks for reading, following, favorite-ing, and reviewing!