Based on something I was talking about earlier with jackdaw-sprite and verl (datawyrms) on discord.
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"You must stay in the room and not make any sounds, no matter what," said Clockwork, as they flew through the halls of Long Now.
"Why?" asked Danny, tilting his head. He trusted Clockwork, owed him more than he could ever repay, and would probably do this even if he didn't get a straight answer, but he liked to know.
"It is not time to tell you," said Clockwork, not looking down at Danny as he rapidly shifted between forms. Not for the first time, Danny wondered if the rate at which he shifted indicated some kind of agitation or anxiety.
"Alright," said Danny. "But you will tell me later?"
"When it is time, yes." He stopped in front of a door and opened it. "Here." The room beyond was small and completely bare. More of a closet than anything else.
"Are you going to lock the door?" asked Danny.
"No. I trust you will stay inside. Remember, you must not come out or make any sounds at all, no matter what you hear."
Danny pressed his lips together and nodded. He slipped into the room. The door made a quiet snick behind him as it closed.
The first ten or so minutes were more of a trial of boredom than anything else. But then he started hearing things. Distant shouts and crashes, the occasional zing of an ectoblast or ghost ray.
There was a battle going on out there.
The surface of Danny's skin went to fuzz and static, his core prepping him for a fight, prepping him to go help. But he couldn't. Clockwork had told him to stay here.
He pressed his ear against the door, trying to hear more. The sounds were getting louder, more distinct. Was that Sam's voice? What was she doing here?
But he couldn't go out. Clockwork might not have said so, but usually when he said not to do something, there was a pretty big consequence attached to doing it.
Like, world-ending big.
So, he'd stay. He'd be good, and helpful, and stay. He'd stay, he'd stay, he'd-
An earsplitting, heart wrenching scream cut through the air and Danny's thoughts, and he through himself through the door.
Clockwork was standing there, looking disappointed.
"Too soon again, it seems," he said.
"Wha-?"
He never finished his question. Time reversed itself.
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Clockwork sighed. He had been impatient and tested Daniel too early. The child needed more preparation. What would a good task be... He let his eyes drift over his screens, each showing a different 'problem,' all of them tiny in the grand scheme of the greater good of the timeline, but significant enough to garner a moment of Clockwork's interest. A thousand of such moments could tip the scales of the timeline from tragedy to joy, after all.
There. The solution to that one was subtle and had immediate and clear enough consequences in retrospect to serve as a lesson to Daniel.
A few similar adventures, peppered in with the more dramatic and obvious ones, would do nicely. After that... Clockwork would test Daniel again.
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"You want me to do what?" asked Danny, not sure if he'd heard correctly.
"I want you to remind this couple that their tenth wedding anniversary is today," reminded Clockwork, pointing at the screen. "Preferably without outright telling them, or advertising your presence as Phantom."
"But... why?" This wasn't the weirdest thing Clockwork had ever had him do, and Danny sure knew the importance of anniversaries after the divorce scare, but it seemed... really mundane.
"I will tell you afterward," said Clockwork. He gestured, and the surface of the screen shimmered, showing an alleyway and, beyond that, a busy street. "Go ahead."
Danny flew up to the rim of the screen, and balanced on it before going human. He looked back over his shoulder. Clockwork nodded encouragingly. Danny looked forward again and stepped through.
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It wasn't too hard to find the people. They both worked at the headquarters of a charity on the street he'd been deposited at. Figuring out how to remind them about their anniversary was harder, but in the end, that wasn't too difficult, either.
He loitered in front of the building until lunchtime, when the two of them came out and went to the sandwich shop across the street. He followed them in, and, buying his own (expensive) sandwich (his wallet was crying), took the table behind them. Then he took out his phone and started to have a loud pretend conversation.
At first, the couple glared at him a bit, but when he said the line, "Oh, it's their tenth anniversary?" the pair of them froze, looked at each other, and started laughing.
Well, it looked like his job was done, but his sandwich wasn't. He closed his phone and finished off his food. He'd paid for it, after all.
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"So, what was that all about?" asked Danny, coming back through the time screen.
Clockwork gestured with his staff, changing the scene to something darker. "Tonight, their home will be broken into," he said. "If they had not remembered their anniversary and gone out to eat, they would have been killed." Phantoms of this sequence of events played out on the screen. "Now, they will live, and be able to continue their charity work."
"Oh," said Danny, eyes wide. "Why didn't you just have me beat up the robbers, though?"
"Would that have been easier?"
Danny thought about it. "No," he said. This way involved less violence, less effort, and didn't have him intervening in a purely human crime as a ghost, something that would attract the GIW.
"Then there's your answer."
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This time, Daniel made it to the point in the test where he could hear his friends begging for help.
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Danny didn't really sweat anymore, but digging a hole this deep was still hard work.
He still thought that 'create and bury a time capsule that will eventually let future historians understand the early twenty-first century' was a lot to put on the shoulders of a teenager, half dead or not.
Oh, well. If Clockwork wanted him to do it, he had a good reason.
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Daniel ran out of the room again. Clockwork went back to the drawing board.
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It was night, and all the stars were above him, dazzling and brilliant and just out of place from where they should be. Danny wrenched his gaze away from them, remembering why he was here, why he was now.
He listened to the sounds of the night, and followed the sound of rustling to where a small bird was pinned beneath a tree branch. He lifted the branch, and the bird flew away.
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"A few days from then," explained Clockwork as Danny listened, "it will be part of a flock of birds used in a particular type of ornithomancy. The omen given by the flock will change, and therefore the actions of the leaders to whom the omen will be reported."
"Huh," said Danny. "I wouldn't have thought something like that would make such a difference."
"And yet, things like that do, all the time."
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It was always frustrating when Clockwork didn't tell Danny anything about why he was doing something, but Danny was becoming more used to it... And, when those things happened in his own time, in Amity Park, he was getting used to seeing the effects. They were positive, and that made him feel better about the times that he couldn't see the effects.
True, he mused, kicking a rock down the street as he walked to school, maybe he should feel suspicious about that. He knew what he was like, knew what his Obsession was. Knew he was compelled to help people and keep them safe as much as the Box Ghost was compelled to collect boxes, knew that by sticking around when he should have died he had made some choices that were effectively permanent and irrevocable. He didn't regret them, would make the same choices if he was given the chance to do it all over, but he knew they effected his behavior, hemmed in his choices.
(Not even half humans could be objective about Obsessions, their reasons for existing.)
But... He could trust Clockwork, surely. Clockwork had gone out of his way to help him and his family, and had been nothing but kind to him since then.
There were good ghosts, and he couldn't live his life or afterlife entrenched in paranoia that every nice was out to get him, Vlad and Spectra's examples aside.
He waved at his friends as they came into sight, and set the thought aside.
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Clockwork opened the door. Daniel stumbled out. He'd clearly been leaning against it, and he was pale and shaking, face streaked with tears, but he hadn't opened it. He'd passed the test.
His faith in Clockwork had outweighed the evidence of his sense, his desire to act.
Clockwork draped his cloak around Daniel's shoulders and gathered him close. The child leaned in, seeking stability, pushing his face against Clockwork's shoulder.
"There, there," said Clockwork, patting his back and then his hair. "All of your friends are fine. You did well."
Daniel did not speak, still following the instruction to stay silent, but Clockwork could feel the tiny-but-sharp claws of the boys thoughts.
"I promise," said Clockwork.
He wrapped his arms around Daniel and carried him across the hall. This room was much larger and furnished. Clockwork settled on the couch and picked a glass up off the coffee table as Daniel attempted to burrow deeper into his cloak. He repositioned Daniel and handed him the glass.
"Drink this," he said.
Daniel obeyed without hesitation, draining the glass. Clockwork watched carefully as the substances that had made it up began to take effect. The tremors in Daniel's body slowed, then stopped, his breathing lost its ragged edge, and his shoulders slumped. Clockwork pulled the empty glass from Daniel's limp fingers and set it on the table.
The next moments would be formative.
Clockwork took Daniel's hands in his and looked him in the eye. "I will never ask you to kill or permanently end a person."
This was not so much a compromise as another snare. Daniel was not stupid. He would understand how much power Clockwork had over him, would realize the trap that had been laid for his Obsession, well-meaning or not. Obsessions being what they were, Daniel would not even resent him for it, could not resent him for it.
But if any moral issue would break Daniel's faith, it would be that of murder. Best to take it off the table. He had been honest thus far. There was no reason for Daniel to doubt that he was honest now.
Daniel nodded and leaned forward, resting his head against Clockwork's shoulder.
"I love you, Daniel," said Clockwork.
Daniel shuddered, but nodded into Clockwork's shoulder. Clockwork stroked his back, calming him.
"This is for the best," continued Clockwork. "For the best, happiest, timeline. Will you help me?"
Clockwork presented it as a choice, as something that Daniel could say no to, but he had been too careful for that to be true. He had shown Daniel time and time again that following his instructions lead to nothing but good for the world, for his home, for his friends and family. Daniel's loyalty and obedience to Clockwork was driven by his own Obsession, and therefore essentially unbreakable.
Before long, obeying Clockwork and fulfilling his Obsession would blend together in Daniel's mind, turning into a seamless mobius.
Another nod.
"Very good," said Clockwork, still stroking the boy's back. "You have been very brave, Daniel." The child deserved the praise. That judicious use of it would further cement his loyalty was a secondary consideration.
"Now, I am sure you have questions." He would encourage them, too. Loyalty and obedience were his goals, but he neither needed nor wanted them to be mindless and unquestioning. Merely absolute. "You need no longer be silent."
Daniel's hands squeezed Clockwork's, but he didn't speak at first.
"Why?" he asked, finally, weakly, voice cracking even over that single word.
"Because I need you," said Clockwork, simply.
"Me?"
"You," said Clockwork. "You are uniquely suited to do so. No one else could help me as you will."
The answering shudder was predictable.
"I can help?"
"You can," confirmed Clockwork.
Daniel pulled back, and looked up at Clockwork, his eyes shining wet. "What's your Obsession?"
"To find the best timelines," said Clockwork. "To maximize happiness within them. To keep time running." There was no reason to lie to the child. What had happened today wouldn't change even if he did.
Daniel nodded again, blinked, slowly. Some of the slower-acting substances he had ingested were coming into effect. "Did you mean it?" he asked.
"That I love you?"
"Yeah, that."
"I do," said Clockwork.
"I love you, too," mumbled Daniel, "and this... this is..." He shook his head, as if trying to wake himself up. "Amazing." He pried his eyes open, briefly. "Thank you. Thank you for- for guiding me. For helping me."
Clockwork raised his hands to cup Daniel's face.
"Daniel," he said.
"Mmhm?"
"You will not inform anyone of what happened here today."
"'Kay," said Daniel. "Why?"
"Because others may try to gain power over you in the same way that I have. It would not work, but such attempts might cause you unnecessary pain."
"Keep me safe?"
"As much as possible."
Daniel nodded but it was obvious his energy was fading.
"Go to sleep, Daniel."
And there he went, body going limp in seconds. Clockwork pressed a soft kiss against Daniel's forehead and strangled the guilt that threatened to sprout inside his chest. This was for the best, and Clockwork had done as much as he could to make it easy.
He picked Daniel up once more. He would deliver him to the place he called home in the human world, as temporary as that arrangement was.
Yes. This was all for the best, and Clockwork had as little choice about pursuing that as Daniel did.