Chapter Twenty-Six

CW: Depression, Death, Implied Suicidal (or at least Suicidal Adjacent) Thoughts

As they sat in the living room reviewing their options, Valerie did not feel overly optimistic.

The good news? Their families were okay. Sam and Tucker's parents confirmed they were fine, and Valerie's Dad was hiding and safe. She begged her to stay beneath the ghost shield at FentonWorks on the phone, not wanting her to risk trying to come to him while the skeletons were out patrolling, and for now, at least, she didn't argue with him.

But beyond that, there was very little news worth celebrating. So far it seemed like there were only a handful of serious injuries and no deaths, and they had the ring that Pariah Dark wanted, too. It provided a bargaining chip, but even with the ring they would still be expected to surrender. Maybe Pariah Dark wouldn't kill them if he got it back, but she doubted he would show much mercy or leave Amity Park in peace. The ghosts had nothing kind to say about the ghostly tyrant.

She tried, of course, to convince them, too, but the ghosts were immovable and even offended by the attempt. "Danny would want you to help us, you know," she said once, and it felt low to say it even as the words came out of her mouth. The ghosts shut her down hard, disparaging her for using her friend that way before pushing her out the door.

"You couldn't have done any worse than I did," mumbled Jazz as she drank a cup of coffee. They were exhausted, having been up now past midnight. The Fright Knight set tomorrow as their deadline for surrender, and it was looking more and more likely by the moment that they were going to be forced to acquiesce to Pariah Dark's demands. Glancing outside, Val watched as a couple of skeletons walked past the shield, pushing a hand against it before jerking back in pain and moving along. She remembered her own pain, then, as she crossed through it earlier. The ghost tech, the ecto-contamination . . . how human was she anymore? She wished again that Danny was here, though not because she wanted his help so much as she wanted someone who she could commiserate with. Danny was the only one who could understand what it was like to be less than human. She wished he told her the truth. She wished she'd proven herself deserving enough to hear it before he died.

She supposed that Vlad might understand, too, but he was hardly an encouraging example of what a supernatural influence could do to a person. They would not let him out of the thermos any time soon. If they all survived this, the ghosts suggested they would be happy to make him suffer for releasing Pariah Dark upon everyone once more. After Danny's death, she had found herself outside Vlad's mansion a few times, contemplating ending him and the threat he presented once and for all. She hadn't–killing a human felt wrong, even if Vlad was a monster–but a part of her wondered now if she'd made a mistake, if she should have been willing to take the shot rather than working with Mrs. Fenton to make the GIW do the dirty work for them instead because of how Vlad reacted.

"How's your arm?" asked Sam, slumped back on the couch, her feet resting on the coffee table, and Tucker sat beside her, sleeping on her shoulder and snoring softly despite his best efforts to stay awake. She didn't have a clue how he could possibly sleep at all right now, her own stomach in knots.

"Not great." She knew the break couldn't be too bad - a fracture, maybe, and there was at least no sign of bone trying to penetrate her skin - but it ached powerfully, the handful of over the counter meds helping but not doing nearly as much as she would like. "But I heal pretty fast and I'll be okay for a little while. Any idea what your parents are up to, Jazz?"

"Working on the ecto skeleton," she said. "It's like a power suit thing. It multiplies the power of the person wearing it at least tenfold. Dad wore it once before to test it and it almost killed him. Mom's trying to talk him out of using it unless they can figure out the power draw issues."

"Any other options at this point?"

"Get the A-listers to help fight? Star did a good job with that baseball bat," said Sam meekly, and Val half-smiled as she thought about her friend. People underestimated Star a lot. It was a mistake. But even considering, she and most other humans weren't in a good spot to fight back against Pariah Dark. Valerie couldn't even manage the Fright Knight earlier, let alone whatever monstrous ghost commanded him. "But seriously? I don't know. With us in the Ghost Zone, we can't even count on the Guys in White for help, and none of us can get through to the ghosts."

Val bit her lip, considering. "Danny could convince them, you know."

"Oh, not this again," Sam groaned, and Tucker shifted, his eyes blinking as he woke up.

"What's going on?" he mumbled.

"Everything is still shit and Val wants to convince Danny to help," sighed Sam.

"Is he here?" he asked, snapping to attention a bit faster, but his face fell as he looked around the room and didn't spot him. "Oh. Guess not."

"Right. So even if I agreed, it doesn't matter. We can't summon him," said Sam, "and there's no way we're going to let that creep out so he can do it."

"Vlad isn't our only option," said Val. She tried not to squirm as Jazz's eyes locked onto her, understanding dawning. "I could do it. I think."

The room fell silent. She knew she was right. Whatever she was now, she wasn't human, at least not fully. The ghostly nanobots in her bloodstream changed her, just as the portal changed Danny. She didn't have all the weird traits he did, not by a longshot, but the feeling of the shield on her skin and her suit and her low-levels of permanent, ecto contamination all pointed to her being something different. Even the Ghost Zone had an uneasy sense of welcoming and familiarity when she went into it when they decided to search for Danny, much as the mere thought of thinking of that place as a second home made her skin crawl. She wondered how long it had been happening, if there had been some critical turning point she missed, but she didn't know. Would she have stopped using the suit and hunting the ghosts if there was and she had known about it? Maybe before, but now? Knowing about Danny and what he was before he died made it both more and less frightening, somehow.

"We'd need his true name," she said, not willing to keep sitting in silence. "I didn't understand it when he said it before in ghost speech. Did either of you?"

"He told us once, in English," confirmed Sam. Ah. Of course it was different now that it was a real option. "I still don't like it. It feels wrong to make him come back for this, and I really don't think that you're a liminal, Val."

"Maybe not, but I'm the closest thing we've got," she said, barely forcing the words out. "And maybe it's enough."

"He'd want to help," said Jazz. "He wouldn't have spent all that time fighting ghosts as Phantom if he didn't have some desire to keep everyone safe."

"You mean you want him to come back so you can see him again," said Sam. "You're more obvious than you think, Jazz."

"Is that wrong, though?" asked Tucker. "For us to want it, too? I–I think Val's right. I think we're stuck with a lot of bad options. This one, it's . . . not good, okay, but it's better than a lot of the other ones we have right now. If Danny can convince the ghosts to fight, to work with us against Pariah Dark, then we might stand a chance. But without it, I don't see how we're going to win this fight even if Mr. Fenton does try to use that ecto skeleton thing. Do you have any other ideas?"

Sam sulked for a moment before crossing her arms over her chest, scowling. "No. Of course I don't. It's just–I hate it. And how do we know it won't just make the ghosts angry instead? They seemed pretty insistent that we leave him alone after he died."

"We don't, but does it matter? They're already not helping, and I doubt we can make it much worse," said Val. She didn't know how she felt about it, honestly. If it worked and Danny came, if he had no choice but to come, then it would be the final, definitive proof that she was a liminal, too. Like Danny. Like Vlad. She didn't know what to do with that information as she let out a shaky breath. "But we are going to do this, right?"

"Do what?" She jumped as Mrs. Fenton spoke, her tone frosty. The Fentons were always so kind, so warm, and although she knew Danny's death took a piece of all of them that day, she hadn't realized how many more pieces it would take from his parents and sister, at times the three of them barely recognizable as the people they once were.

"I want to try to summon Danny," said Val. "To see if he'll convince the ghosts to help us fight back."

She expected an argument, but instead, Mrs. Fenton nodded as Mr. Fenton followed her into the living room and sat down beside her. "That's good. We have the ecto skeleton, but without some kind of backup, we won't be able to use it long enough to make a difference."

"You fixed the power supply problem?" said Jazz.

"No. I–your father's installed a monitor," said Mrs. Fenton, her entire body tense. "It'll show when he or I have used too much energy, and give us a chance to remove the suit before it kills us."

"That's still too risky, Mom!" said Jazz. "You can't–"

"-what if a ghost wore it?" asked Val, swallowing uneasily. She would normally offer to do it, but with her broken arm she'd be worse than useless as the key fighter on the field. It had to be someone else. Or something else. "If Danny can convince one of them, then maybe they could do it instead. They can't die, after all."

"But it could destabilize them," said Mr. Fenton. "There's no guarantee they would survive."

"Besides, which ghost would you even trust with it? Technus? He'd use it to try and conquer the world no matter what he promised Danny," scoffed Sam, and then Valerie had a very terrible or at least, a very gross idea.

"What about Danny, then?" Even as she said the words, she hated herself for it. Immediately every person in the room was staring at her, and she tried not to shrivel up under their gazes. "He's already dead, and he would do it. No matter how much he might've changed already since he became a full ghost, there's no way he'd want his family and friends to die if he could do something to stop it, and we wouldn't have to worry about him going on a rampage, either. That's not–it's not a thing he would do. Ever."

"No," said Mrs. Fenton without the slightest hint of hesitation. "I don't want to bring him back here only to fight. He's been through enough. He doesn't deserve that."

"But doesn't he deserve the chance to make that choice?" insisted Valerie. Oh, how she hated herself for making the argument, but it was true. If Val could do it, she would in an instant. She knew how much she and Danny were alike, how stubborn they were, and how dedicated they were to protecting the people they cared about. Danny would never forgive himself if he knew his family and friends died while he hid in the Ghost Zone. His being a ghost shouldn't matter, not really. Wasn't that what he spent all this time trying to teach them? That while the ghosts were different, they had by far more in common with humans than people thought, that the ghosts were capable of so much more than they gave them credit for? Or was she just making the argument now since it was convenient and gave them a possible way out of this, however small it might be?

"No." Jazz's voice was quiet yet firm. "We can't put him through that. Seeing all of us, forcing him to fight some nightmarish ghost just because we can't figure out a better plan, it's not right. We can't. And we don't even know what kind of condition he's in after what happened to him. Most new ghosts are pretty weak."

"Then he can just see me when I summon him, and besides, I'm not saying we're going to force him," argued Val. "I don't want to make him do anything, okay? But the decision should be his."

"You're only saying that because you know he'll say yes," said Tucker. "Like, c'mon, Val. We can't do that."

Maybe he couldn't, but Val could. And would, even if she didn't tell them. "Fine," she snapped with a scowl, throwing her hands up and trying to make them believe as much as possible that she would not ask Danny to put on the suit. "But do we still want to have him ask the ghosts for help? Is that okay, at least?"

"We need the help. I won't have you ask him to fight, Valerie, but if he's willing to talk to the other ghosts, then we should do it," said Mrs. Fenton as she put her head in her hands, and Mr. Fenton rubbed her back gently with one hand. "How do we do this?"

"I just need some candles to set up a circle, but I should do it alone," said Val, and she could see them all about to object but she held up her good hand. "No, seriously. We don't–we should be as respectful as possible. We shouldn't be doing this at all, not really, but it's the best of a lot of bad options. I don't want to make it any harder on Danny than it needs to be."

She expected an argument, an accusation that she was using this as a way to ask about the ecto skeleton, but once again no push back came. Either they were even more trusting than Danny was, or they knew what he was going to do and secretly wanted her to do it, anyway. "Okay," said Mr. Fenton softly. "Where do you want to do this, then?"

"His room," she said immediately. "It still feels like him, and it'll make this easier." She didn't know how she knew it was the right choice, but it was. "Why don't the rest of you stay down here or in the lab? Someone should at least keep an eye on Vlad. Sometimes the ghosts can get out of those stupid things."

"We have him in a containment field, too, but we'll go," said Mrs. Fenton. "There are a few more things we could try to fix the issue with the ecto skeleton, too."

"We'll stay down here," said Jazz, and Valerie gathered the supplies she needed while confirming Danny's true name with Sam and Tucker. She couldn't say it in ghost speech - or at least she didn't think she could. She hadn't understood it when Danny said it all those months ago in his living room to them, and as she tried to think of how he pronounced it, her brain revolted. She wasn't a ghost. Different, but not as much as Danny. Hopefully, her not-quite-liminal status would be enough.

When she opened the door to Danny's room, she found herself standing in what was functionally a shrine. Very little had been touched or moved since his last day here, and the star stickers glowed brightly on the ceiling. A half-finished model rocket that sat on his desk for the better part of a year was still there, a tiny closed bottle of miniature paint beside it. His bed was made, though, which she couldn't remember Danny ever actually doing, and his laundry basket was emptied by someone, probably one of his parents.

But the strange atmosphere that constantly permeated his space still hung over his room despite Danny's long absence. It always felt cold, but it never bothered her, the sensation more like a pleasant breeze on a fall day, the first snowflake in winter to land on her tongue, the joy of skating across the ice or sledding down a hill . . . She shivered at the memory of it and the present reality and rubbed her arms as she began to set up the summoning circle.

Sam really hadn't done it right when she tried a few months ago and managed to call Phantom. Sam was something of a hobbyist with it, interested because she found the occult fascinating, but Valerie . . . She committed to learning everything she could back in middle school when she spent half of her weekends stuck hanging out with Paulina and Sam at their parents' parties. Back then Valerie hoped that she could use it to bring her mom back however briefly, to hug her again when she still missed her so much that every inch of her ached with the absence. It never worked, of course. Her mom probably wasn't a ghost, and Valerie was still a perfectly ordinary pre-teen girl back then. Looking back, Valerie was kind of glad it didn't work. She wasn't sure she would have been able to let her go or move on if her mom did appear.

But now, with Danny? She wasn't afraid to call him back. She wanted to see him again, and she wasn't ashamed to admit it, yet at the end of this Valerie knew that he could not stay. She only hoped she was strong enough to let him go when it was done.

She whispered the words, letting the call run and carry it into the deepest parts of the Ghost Zone. She spoke his name, the liminal who creates and shatters the stars, wondering only for a moment if it was still the right name because he wasn't technically a liminal anymore, but then she could feel something on the other end, a sense of shock, surprise, and terror. The fear surprised her until she remembered that Danny didn't know about her, that he must think she was Vlad, but she could not stop the summons at this point as it flowed beyond her, past her, and pulled Danny forcefully until he appeared. Like last time, there was no brilliant flash of light, no smoke or mist or unpleasant odors. The circle was empty one moment, and then in the next it wasn't, and Danny sat in front of her, his eyes wide as he took in his surroundings.

His hair was a shock of brilliant white and his eyes glowed green, casting strange shadows on his pale skin, and there was an ugly scar on the center of his bare chest that she recognized all too well from when she found his body in the park after Vlad murdered him. A strange, fern-like pattern wove its way up his left arm until it ended abruptly at the center of his chest, glowing and pulsing with ectoplasmic energy, and she caught a small glimpse of the scar on his hand, a tiny galaxy in miniature. He looked soaked, as if he were swimming when she summoned him, and he winced as he tried to see past the light of the candles. There were a lot of things she had considered saying to him, apologies and words about how much she missed him and how they made Vlad suffer for what he did, but instead, she blurted out the first thing, the most absurd and ridiculous and pointless thing, that came to mind.

"Why are you only wearing underwear?"

A/N: I know it's sooner than I originally stated it would be, but, uhhh . . . I found some time? Anyway, I wouldn't expect the next chapter to come out early since next week is InvisoBang posting week. But thank you, in the mean time, for your reviews, faves, follows, etc. They mean a lot, as always.