D-O-L-L-H-O-U-S-E,
I see things that
Nobody else sees...
I sat in bed, listening to the song. I sighed, listening only halfheartedly. I couldn't make the memories go away, no matter what I did. Danny had forced me to stay home today, a splitting headache only helping him to convince his mother to let me stay home. He had her put up the ghost shield as well, "just in case Rose's problem is from a ghost."
I curled my lip and then winced at the action, my headache getting worse. I settled my face into Danny's pillow, shifting in discomfort. Maddie had already done everything she could think of to do, which included trying to give me a shot. I'd broken the syringe and told her that if she tried to stick me with a needle, she would lose consciousness. She must have accounted my grumpiness to the fault of my headache, because she didn't try again. Or maybe I'd shocked.
Hey, girl,
Look at my mom,
She's got it going on...
HAH.
You're blinded by her
JEWELRY.
I yelped as Danny landed on me from behind, crushing me sideways. He laughed quietly, minding my headache. Maybe his mom had told him not to bother me too much. Or maybe he was just considerate.
"Hey, Rose," Tucker called from the doorway. I lifted my head up to glare at him for being loud, and he visibly winced.
Sam was much more kind to my migraine. She came up close and whispered to me, "Sorry your head hurts, Rose." I nodded to her, wearily sinking my face back into the pillow. Danny shifted off of my back and pull out his homework, and I reluctantly sat up so that I could see what it was. Income calculations. I scowled and picked up the paper, wanting to rip it up, but Danny quickly plucked it out of my hands once my intentions became clear.
Sam tried to get me to eat a tiny bite of the salad she'd brought up (courtesy of Maddie telling them that I hadn't eaten all day, probably), but I tried to bite her in a decidedly-grumpy way. I did get the fork, though. And I snapped the plastic utensil in half with just one twitch of my jaw. I spat the halves of the fork into the trash and curled up again.
"Jeez, Mr. Grumpy," Sam snorted. "We're trying to help."
"Can't keep anything down," I growled. "Migraines tend to disrupt my digestive system."
Tucker laughed, but I threw Danny's book at him and nearly broke his glasses. I growled and curled up more, but then I tried to get up so that I could punch him.
"Meat-eaters don't get these kinds of migraines." Growling at my discomfort, I threw Danny's book at him again and hit him right in the back of the head.
"And now they do," I growled. My eye glowed turquoise. "Your migraine will be so fierce, your ancestors will feel it, not to mention the next million generations of kids your offspring have."
"May the curse of the rose be upon you," Danny snorted in a deep voice that just oozed hilarity. I laughed a bit, but it hurt my head to laugh so I soon stopped. Tucker only groaned and glared, but he soon broke into rambunctious laughter as well. Just like that, my migraine went away a little.
"See," I said, "Weird Al was right. Laughter is the very best medicine. Thankfully, my appendix will never burst because Vlad Masters had me get surgery to remove it when I was in his care."
"Vlad Masters?" Danny said incredulously.
I nodded energetically. "Yeah, after I accidentally fell into the Ghost Zone, I lived with Kitty and Johnny 13 for a while. Then Vlad Masters came and said he would take care of me and keep me safe from the Wisconsin ghost, Plasmius." I smiled a little. "He took care of me until I moved here, you know. he was the first one to know my secret."
"Rose," Sam started. "Vlad Masters is the Wisconsin ghost."
I stared at her in shock. Nuh-uh. Plasmius had burned my eye out; Masters was nice, if a bit of a fruitloop. Masters was the one who had put up ghost shields around his mansion all the time to keep Plasmius out; I'd seen Masters walk through the shield just fine, and then seconds later have Plasmius show up!
I told my friends this, but they shook their heads.
"Dude," Tucker said solemnly, "Vlad can duplicate just as well as you can, if not better. He was tricking you."
I couldn't believe it, didn't want to believe it. But what they said made a little bit of sense... I shook my head and sighed. "He paid for me to get here, too. Do you think he set it up like this, then? Minus the whole "Vlad is Plasmius" talk?"
My three friends nodded.
***line break***
I was in Vlad's mansion. He was smiling at me, just like he always did. I wanted to ask him why he hadn't told me he was Plasmius, but I suddenly realized I was just 10 at the time, and I'd broken something in anger because my powers weren't doing what I wanted. The entire notion that he was Plasmius slid from my head.
"See, Rose," he tutted, "I'm not mad at you. But I am disappointed in you. I thought you would know better than the destroy my belongings."
"I'm sorry," I said automatically. "It just gets hard..."
"I know, I know," he soothed. "Why don't we play some chess? Chess is good for the mind..."
I woke up very suddenly, the sky still dark. My phone told me it was still only 2:37 AM, so why had I woken up? I dimly remembered the conversation in my dream, but I was very certain that hadn't happened ever. The words Vlad said I understood. He never got mad at me, he never tried to punish me because he knew I did that well enough myself. Whenever he was upset with me, he told me so. The guilt would eat at me until I came crying and apologizing. But what did chess have to do with anything at all?
***line break***
My migraine was alright the next day, manageable, responding to the ibuprofen that Maddie gave me. Jack gabbed to be about the "Ghost Gabber 8.0", which would take whatever a ghost said and translate it. He pushed it intomy face for me to try, and I stuttered for a moment.
"Uh, um, ah- h-hello?" I squeaked.
"Hello. I am a ghost. Fear me." The automated voice that came out almost made me burst into laughter. Jack frowned.
"Must still have some bugs," he muttered, tinkering with it at the table. Danny grabbed my arm and pulled me from the kitchen as soon as I'd finished eating.
"Gotta go, bye!" he called out.
"Gotta go, bye! Fear me."
***line break***
"I thought you got Mr. Fenton to stop testing his inventions on you?" Tucker asked, having completely forgiven me for chucking books at him yesterday.
"I tried," I sighed. "But I swear if the sentence doesn't include the word fudge then it's lost on him."
"Company," Danny said as his ghost sense went on. I felt mine build up as well, and I let out in another hiccup. I frowned.
"What's with the hiccuping lately?" I muttered. I'd been hiccuping a lot recently. Maybe it was a side effect from trying to take a breath just as often as normal humans did, or maybe it was just something that happened sometimes. Tucker and Sam hid Danny and I as we transformed, and immediately I noticed why I was hiccuping.
I was hyper-aware of my core beating much faster than it normally did, even when I was around Danny. Perhaps trying to act human was having a toll on my half-ghost health. I let it slow down and I managed to get it back to normal core-beats-per-minute speed, which was a bmp of 30, just as another ghost sense was emitted from my mouth. No hiccup. I glanced up, not noticing anything, and then Danny and I glanced at each other and nodded. Looked like we'd have to take matters into our own ghostly hands.
We flew up together, pressing our backs together as extra insurance that no one could sneak up on us. Just the Box Ghost, who was quickly defeated. However, I was alerted to the oncoming thunderstorm, and I sparked a little. Thunderstorms always messed with me. All the static energy in the air, apparently.
"We'd better get home before it starts storming," I told my friends as we landed and changed back in the cover of a few trees. "I tend to get super-charged with energy when I'm outside during a thunderstorm. It's not as bad when I'm inside, but, well, let's just say FentonWorks will be spotless by the time the storm stops and I won't look any worse for wear."
My friends shared a glance, and then chuckled when Danny tackled me to the ground yet again.