Note: Here's the new chapter! Sorry it's a bit late; the weekend was busy but a lot of fun (D&D and a Red Concert! 😍). Then I went back to work on Monday and they're back to trying to kill me with stress. 😭 I'm applying for other jobs and already have got an interview so hopefully I'll be leaving soon. Pray for me, friends.
Over an hour later, her brother finished explaining.
"So let me make sure I've got this straight." Dani's brow furrowed. "Vlad made Tiny-you overshadow Danny-you. There was a weird memory-sharing, dreamscape thing. You didn't wanna leave. You were destabilizing and…" The girl swallowed, paling for a second. "You melted while still possessing… also you?"
"It's easier if you just use the names." Danny(?), Dami(?) added helpfully.
Dani pressed her hands together, fingers pointed up as if praying. "So… Tiny… Dami melted while he was still overshadowing Danny…." She moved her hands apart, vaguely miming a spherical shape. "Core combining, merging, fusing thing happened." She balled her fists together before pointing. "And that's where you come in? Because you're both of them?"
The boy gave a nod. "That's right."
Dani also nodded. Then her eyes widened, realizing. "That's why you were being so weird after breaking out of that chamber thing!"
Her brother blinked once, as if just realizing she'd been there. "What do you mean?"
"You were moving kinda jerkily, like you couldn't get your limbs to work right. Or you were dizzy or something." She frowned. "And your eyes were blank and glassy, like you weren't all there." Dani shrugged, deceptively casual. "I thought Vlad just shocked you real bad."
"Well, that electricity sure wasn't fun." He smiled uncomfortably. "But yeah. There was a lot going on here." He motioned vaguely to his head and chest. Then he frowned. "I still don't remember it all that well."
"I'm sorry." Dani sympathized. "It sounds like you had an awful time, not even realizing what happened at first." (How did he not realize it though, being changed like that? ) "And the power flare-ups. And the figuring it out yourself. And that's where Frostbite comes in, right?"
The boy nodded. "He confirmed what I had already figured out but… didn't want to admit to myself. He…" A guilty blush. "He helped me out a lot, with really getting all this- who and what I am now- and learning how to be okay with it." He swallowed. "It took me a while to tell Jazz, Sam, and Tucker though. And that was rough… but we're all good now."
There was a significance, a deep-seated pain to those words. It squeezed at the clone girl's core.
"And you're okay too?" She asked.
"Yeah." He smiled softly, some of the weight lifting. "I'm really happy you're here."
"Me too." Dani reached forward, hugging him again.
The two siblings shared the embrace for a long moment. Then after a few breaths, the boy pulled away.
His brow furrowed, worriedly searching her face. "Are you okay with all this? With… me?"
"Of course!" The girl didn't even hesitate, grinning. "I mean, I don't really get it. Like at all. Everything you just told me is crazy…"
For a moment, his eyes fell, more than a hint of alarmed disappointment.
Dani pointedly shook her head. "I believe you! It's just…. It all sounds so insane. I can't wrap my head around it. At least not yet."
For a second, the girl's lips pursed, considering the situation. It sounded impossible. She didn't understand it at all, despite that hour-long explanation. Or… well, she had understood the words, the general flow of the story. But the details? Fitting what had happened into her mind, her map of reality? (Would she ever be able to?)
Her brother nodded at her words. "Jazz and my friends didn't really get it at first either. I think they're still getting there too." He half-shrugged, blushing.
The clone girl smiled softly; that made her feel better. "What matters is, you're still here. You're alive. You're not melting. You're stable! We're both stable!" She grinned, spreading her arms. "And you can actually talk now!"
"Oh yeah?" The boy grinned, wrapping an arm around her. "So I get to torture you with my puns and you won't complain?" He furiously nuggied her head.
"No, not puns!" The girl complained dramatically, trying to squirm away.
Grinning, her brother's wiggling fingers went for her armpit. "What was that?"
Dani giggled, body twitching from the assault. "No… no puns!"
"But I thought you were tickled pink, finally hearing my boo-tiful voice."
"Stop! Stop!" She panted out through her laughter. "Dami, stop!"
The boy also laughed. "Come on! That was spook-takular. I think it ghosts without saying."
The girl's chest heaved, unable to word a reply.
"See, I've left you speechless."
Dani flailed, her own wiggling fingers seeking out the other clone's sensitive underarm.
"Hey. Hey!" Dami complained, falling into his own giggles.
Quickly, the two half ghosts fell into a pile of limbs and laughter.
"It sounds like you two are having fun." Jazz's voice cut through the scene.
The tickling stopped at that, both half-ghosts panting for a few seconds before sitting up.
"I wondered when you were going to get up." The boy rolled his eyes teasingly. "Thought you were going to sleep all day."
"As if." The red-head rolled her own eyes, going to sit on the couch near the pair.
"Seriously though." The jovial tone dimmed. "I'm surprised you didn't hear our… discussion." Dami's eyes flickered to his clone sister meaningfully.
Dani blushed, a seed of guilt sprouting in her core. Oh yeah… she had started this entire thing with yelling at him.
For a moment, something (almost guilty?) flickered in Jazz's eyes but it was quickly gone. The older girl nodded. "So, you told her about…" A significant pause.
"About being Dami. Yeah, she knows." Her brother nodded.
"And you took it well?" The older girl's gaze fell on Dani, more than a hint of hope in her eyes.
With another blush, the clone girl nodded. "After he explained everything." Her eyes narrowed slightly. "You know, you should have led with that last night. It definitely would have made things easier." (Maybe she wouldn't have been so grumpy about him worrying about her and about accepting help. Maybe she wouldn't have gotten so angry about him calling himself her brother; he actually was after all.)
The older two traded meaningfully concerned looks. Dani's insides twisted. Had she said something wrong?
Jazz leaned forward, a strangely deliberate gentleness to her voice. "How about we make some breakfast? Then we can go do something fun together."
"Breakfast!" That got Dani's interests. "Can we have pancakes?" Her eyes lit up, already making her way to the kitchen.
(That segway felt like a diversion but Dani wasn't going to say anything. Who was she to refuse food?)
"Yeah, pancakes sound great." Dami enthused. "Chocolate chips?"
"Yes, we've got chocolate chips." Jazz laughed.
Danny and Jazz made pancakes for breakfast, Dani's excited eyes on their backs. Part of that excitement was because of the food but the half ghost knew… it was also something else.
Compared to his friends and older sister who hadn't talked to him for days after he told them, Dani took the secret well. Surprisingly well…. There was a reason for that. He saw it in the way she looked at him, in what she said after their conversation.
"Are you okay with all this? With… me?" "Of course!"
Dani hadn't thought about her response at all. She hadn't even hesitated.
"I mean, I don't really get it. Like at all. Everything you just told me is crazy…"
Danielle didn't really understand. Of course she didn't. And he didn't expect her to; it had taken him weeks to even begin to understand what he was now and he was experiencing it from the inside.
But…
"What matters is, you're still here. You're alive. You're not melting. You're stable! We're both stable!" She grinned, spreading her arms. "And you can actually talk now!"
Damian, Tiny, her littlest brother. That was who she saw when she looked at him. And…. Danny was surprisingly okay with that. Part of it was…. It was nice for that part of him to be wanted. But a greater portion….
After telling his friends and sister, he had been so concerned with them seeing and accepting both parts of him, all of him. Not just the Danny they were used to, but the clone too. And most importantly…. The new, complete self that he was. Those months ago, that had been so new. He had only just begun realizing and accepting that he wasn't just the sum of his parts but greater, his own person. Now though….
He knew who he was. Danny wouldn't be shaken by Danielle seeing him as Tiny. That was what she needed, who she needed for now. She needed to be happy that one of her clone brothers was still alive, right here with her. Learning all those other implications, getting to know him as the new person he was… that could come later.
For now, he wouldn't say anything. He would take it slow. He would let himself just be Dami, for her.
With those thoughts dismissed, Damian went back to making breakfast with his older sister.
"You know what we need? Bacon!" Excited at the thought, the boy opened the fridge and reached for the meat drawers.
"Wait!" Jazz shouted, eyes wide. "It's contam-"
Dami pulled open the container to sudden growls. Something ugly green-red-white wiggled through the clear plastic, lunging for his fingers. "Never mind!" He tried to slam the drawer closed. But the strips of meat sprang up, wedging in the opening. "Oh no, you don't!"
The bacon hissed without mouths, tiny red eyes blinking open. The boy shot at the meat…
"Shit!" The blast of fire impacted.
The strips shrieked.
"What did you do?!" The red-head lunged for the fridge, beating at the flames with a kitchen towel.
"It was supposed to be an ectoblast!"
The meat moaned pathetically, still on fire.
"Make them stop!" Dani complained, hands over her ears.
Then the fire alarm started screaming.
"Just close the fridge!" Dami shoved his older sister out of the way.
The door slammed closed, cutting off the pitiful whimpers. Jazz stomped to the fire alarm, swiping the broom from its place against the wall. She jabbed the handle up, hitting the button to turn the siren off.
Blessed quiet fell over the room. The boy's shoulders relaxed, smiling sheepishly. "Well, that's not how I'd been planning to cook the bacon…."
A beat of silence. Then….
Dani started giggling. "You… you shot it, you really just shot it…." The sound was almost hysterical, like this was the funniest thing she'd ever seen.
The older halfa couldn't help but laugh with her. "I was trying to ectoblast it, not… not shoot it with fire…"
Even Jazz joined with her own eyeroll. "Little brother, I swear…."
Dami bent over, taken by the ridiculousness of the situation. That stupid contaminated bacon… and he'd really just accidentally fire-blasted it. What even was his life?
The three siblings laughed together for a good minute, all else forgotten. Until…
The smell of burning, the fire alarm shrieked again.
"The pancakes!"
After Jazz rushed back to the stove, the boy hesitantly opened the fridge. To his relief, the fire was out, the plastic walls of the drawer none the worse for wear. But the contents- luckily just the bacon- was burnt to a crisp, and not the crisp one normally wanted in bacon. Left in the bacon's place were two moaning blob ghosts which Dami quickly sucked up in a Fenton thermos. Dani helped him clean up the ashes, leaving no trace of the fire he'd caused.
Ten minutes later, the pancakes were ready and the three siblings sat down to eat.
The two half ghosts dug into their stacks.
"So good." The younger girl happily moaned through a mouthful.
"Yeah." The boy agreed, having finished his first. "Sorry you…uhh… lost one because of bacon-shenanigans." He said sheepishly.
Jazz rolled her eyes, the picture of faux-annoyance. "How did you manage to accidentally fire-blast them?"
"Hey! It's an easy mistake. I'll have you know…"
The two squabbled for a bit, Dani joining in once she'd finished half her stake.
"Do you normally have to fight the food in the fridge?" The clone girl asked with a laugh.
The two teens looked at each other. Dami shrugged. "Only sometimes."
Dani raised an eyebrow, putting another piece of pancake in her mouth. "Do the Drs Fenton store blob ghosts in there or something?"
"It was ectoplasm samples." Jazz corrected. "And no, they actually don't anymore."
The younger girl gave her a skeptical look. "Really?"
"Jazz got them to put a fridge for samples in the basement and stop putting things upstairs." Dami clarified. "I saw them do a deep clean on the fridge too, right before they left. With real, store-bought cleaning stuff and everything." His brow furrowed. "I figured that would work to stop making the meat bite back."
"It looks like it didn't stick." Jazz frowned. "I'll have to tell Mom. Maybe they should just get a new fridge."
"That's probably a good idea." Dani eyed the appliance warily.
"Do you want to meet them?" The boy suddenly asked.
"Who?" The clone girl blinked.
"Our parents, I mean." Her brow furrowed, like she wanted to argue, but Dami interrupted. "They're your parents too. Biologically at least. I know they'd want to meet you, if they knew about you. And…" He poked at his last few pieces of pancake. "I've been trying to get them warmed up to ghosts. They've got a truce with Phantom now. They know that I'm good, that I'm just trying to help the town. They've met Cujo and Sidney. And that went well. They don't shoot on sight anymore. I think…" He worried his lip. "I think if I told them about me being half ghost, about me being Phantom that they'd get it." The clone-fusion secret was a whole other thing. But… "I really want to tell them."
And tell his parents about Dani and have them meet her and ask if they would adopt his baby sister… His core squeezed. He wanted that so much, more badly than he wanted them to accept him. He wanted this house, their family to be a safe home for her. And he wanted to tell the clone girl that so badly. But…
Danielle was biting her own lip, staring down at the table with an unreadable expression. She'd closed off as soon as he'd said 'our parents'.
Danny's heart hurt; he felt like a hypocrite. Hadn't he just been thinking about taking it slow and just letting Dani be happy he was alive? She'd already been visibly uncomfortable last night. Just earlier, she'd pretty much yelled at him to stop worrying about her. And now he was pushing her again….
There was a long, silent pause. Finally, Dani said. "I'll think about it."
Danny's eyes widened. That was good, better than he expected. "Alright. I can live with that." He breathed. "I won't tell them about you unless you say it's okay."
Still, there was a knot in his stomach. It would have to be good enough.
An awkward atmosphere lingered as the three finished their food but slowly it ebbed.
"What do you want to do today, Dani?" Jazz asked, looking at the other girl.
The younger blinked, surprised. "I can pick?"
The red-head nodded, giving her a smile. "Anything you want."
"As long as it's in town or not too far away." The boy added, then with a nervous cough. "Or too expensive. I uh… don't have that much money."
"Speak for yourself, little brother." Jazz raised a brow. Then giving the girl a wink. "I've been saving up just for this occasion."
"Really?" Dani blinked for a moment, all the more surprised. Then her brow furrowed, considering. After a long minute…. "Can we go to the mall?"