A/N: Get ready, folks! Here comes the fun part!
Going Nowhere
Some time after leaving Stella's, Danny realized they'd been traveling for hours, with no visible progress made.
"Are we really going somewhere, or are you just leading us off into nowhere?"
"Well, it's not nowhere, just nowhen," Adult Danny replied, giving him a lopsided grin.
Danny knew that smile.
Something was up.
"Do you even know where we're going?" he spat, arms crossed.
"Well… not exactly?"
What the hell?
Apparently, Danny's thoughts were written on his face, because Adult Danny backpedaled almost as soon as the words left his mouth.
"Wait, I mean"－Frick－ "It's more complicated than that! We'd never find it if we tried looking for where it is now, because it'd be gone by the time we got there."
"Like how Stella's is in a different place from where Elle remembers it?"
"Kind of? It does drift, like everything else in the Zone, but drift happens at such a small scale that a Lair the size of Stella's, let alone the one we're trying to find, wouldn't move very far, even in the two years or so between now and when Elle last visited. This place moves a lot faster than that, because it doesn't just drift through space, but time as well, in a way."
"'In a way'?" He quirked a brow.
"Well, the Lair we're looking for can't exactly move along a linear path through time like it does through space, so it can't exactly be called drift because－"
"English, please," the younger Dannys chorused.
"It's… outside of time. It's always right where, and when, it needs to be, so we'll find it when we're meant to. No sooner, no later."
"Then why didn't we find it, oh, I don't know, hours ago?"
"We're not supposed to find it yet. Something else needs to happen first." He shrugged. "That's why we've been moving around; things're more likely to happen if we're not just staying in the same place."
Danny huffed.
"I don't know about that. I mean, if we stay somewhere for a bit, maybe we'll do whatever it is that needs done on our own?" Elle suggested.
Adult Danny let out a long sigh, blowing the tuft of hair at his hairline away from his eyes.
"Okay," he said. "It's worth a shot."
Snowballs
"So what is it we're supposed to be doing, exactly?" Jumpsuit Danny asked, some kind of blue energy sparking between his hands.
"I don't know; whatever, I guess?"
"Oh, come on, Elle, this was your idea," Tall Danny prodded, catching on to whatever Jumpsuit was doing and starting on it himself. A look to the younger of the two gave Danny at least part of an explanation…
Were they making snowballs?
Danny watched as the older boys tossed fistfuls of snow at each other, parrying with kicks and punches that somehow didn't burst the projectiles.
Man, that snow must've been packed tight.
That… actually looked fun.
Spoke too soon, Danny thought as he cleared residue from a stray snowball out of his eyes. He heard a wince beside him, and turned to find Elle inspecting him with a concerned look.
"Are you okay?"
"Uh, yeah. I mean, it's just snow; not like it's gonna kill me," he joked.
"Right, yeah. Just sounded like it might hurt, that's all."
"I'm okay. Might be cooler if I knew how to return to sender, though."
"Well, I can't teach you ice; that takes a bit to come in fully, but I can help you with other stuff!"
"Like… ghost powers?"
"Yeah! But, uh, some of it works better as a human when we're in the Zone."
"As a… human?"
Elle's eyes went wide, then slammed shut as she slapped a palm to her forehead.
"Ancients, we haven't let you switch back yet."
Engulfed In Green
Danny pushed his head through the wall, hoping to catch a glimpse of the other side, then pulled back and turned to his companion.
"How am I supposed to see in there?"
"With your eyes, dummy."
"But there's no light."
"Like I said, use your eyes. They do glow, don't they?"
"As a human?"
"If you want. You're never really a full human, Danny."
"Oh." He sent his head back through the wall, focused on the glow his eyes had as a ghost...
And blinked.
The room lit up in vibrant green.
As it turned out, the room happened to be not all that interesting in and of itself. It didn't seem to be much more than a broom closet, really, but the point was less to see what was in the room, and more to show Danny how his powers worked. According to Elle, the place was long-abandoned, anyway.
She'd explained that the whole half-ghost thing meant he could switch back and forth between ghost and human forms, as well as how to actually make the switch. After a couple of tries, Danny found that the change came as easily as breathing, easier even.
Maybe he should be more concerned that this felt so… right.
He was half ghost.
His parents' research had to mean something; the Portal had worked.
But at the same time…
He had to admit that he'd felt so much more alive since he'd died.
Maybe… maybe this wasn't so bad?
He pulled his head from the wall, shaking the green from his eyes.
"Nothing really going on in there," he reported, "but I can at least see all that nothing now." He turned back to Elle, and
stopped.
"Hey!" He waved a hand in front of her eyes, glazed over and engulfed in green.
What…