"I get my core back."
Jack snapped the handle off the device he was tinkering with. He turned around, a wide smile decorating his face.
One that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Danny, my boy! I didn't hear you come in! You're as quiet as a ghost!"
"I am a ghost," Danny said. "I want my core back."
Maddie's and Jack's eyes met.
"That was the deal. I leave PHP, I get—I get my core back. I left PHP, so give me my core."
"No." Maddie set down the papers she had been reading. "The deal was you leave PHP and we'd talk about giving you access to your core."
Danny's chest felt hot. "That's not fair."
"Now, Danny—"
"That's not fair. I did what you asked, I want…"
Maddie sighed. "Listen, Danny, we're just not sure you're ready yet. The past few weeks have been amazing and we're incredibly proud of you for working so hard, but starting school again is a really big deal. It's going to be hard, and we're just not sure that adding this other huge change is going to be healthy for you."
"But I am ready. Mom, Dad, I am. I can't...I—I can't—" Danny huffed, crossing his arms. "What if a ghost attacks? What am I sup—supposed to do then?"
"There are sensors and shields all over the school, and your father and I will be alerted immediately. If the school gets attacked, the shields activate around the designated areas, and all you need to do is follow the standard lockdown procedure with the rest of your classmates."
"You know I can't do that." As soon as the words left his lips, his mouth dried. Anxiety crept up his spine.
He'd never referenced his own Obsession with his parents before.
The nod to his ghost half was not lost on his parents either, who exchanged a knowing glance. There was a tense moment of silence before Jack finally broke it. "Son, I know it's hard, but this is just the way things are now. You can't be the hero all the time."
Danny felt the crease on his brows sharpen. "I don't ex—expect to be the hero! It's for protection."
"I know, but—"
"No, you don't! That's the problem! Neither of you know! You're both...you're both—"
You're both human is what he wanted to shout, but the words failed him.
"—normal. You're...you don't have this." He jabbed at his chest. "We made a deal. I'm—I'm defenseless without my powers. What if something happens at school? Not just ghosts, but…I don't know. Something. I need my core."
There was a long stretch of silence. For a moment, Danny thought that he had finally swayed them. But then Maddie picked up her research papers again, a clear dismissal of the conversation.
Danny knew he'd failed.
"Sorry, hun, but this is our position right now. The original deal was that you needed to prove that you could handle being back in school. So prove to us that you can handle being in class, and then we'll talk."
"And you never know!" Jack said. "These next few weeks might fly by so quickly you'll forget all about the chip!"
Danny stared at his parents for a moment in disgust. They were just sitting there allowing him to suffer even more because why?
He had done everything they'd asked! Everything.
But there was nothing more to say. His parents were stubborn, a side effect of being a Fenton. There was nothing that he could say to change their minds. He knew that sad truth all too well.
So he didn't say anything else. Instead, he simply wheeled away, hopping on the stairlift to his room.
What he wouldn't give to be able to fly.
He slammed his door shut and ripped open his nightstand, grabbing the familiar orange prescription bottle from the drawer. With trembling fingers, he twisted open the cap and shook a small white pill into the palm of his hands.
He took a moment to study the tablet. Before, he had made a deal with himself: two weeks, leave PHP, and he'd stop taking the extra pain medication at night. He would just have to deal with the sleepless nights, the nightmares, the anxiety, the burning in his chest.
But that was under the assumption that he'd have his core back. That the cold in his body would wrap around him like a safety blanket. That Phantom would be restored to his former glory.
Except his parents had lied. Again.
Just how much longer was he going to be a prisoner in their games?
Oddly, instead of feeling devastated like he did when he had first uncovered their lies, now all that was left was a deep resounding ball of fury surrounded by a fog of pure nothing. Almost like a part of him had come to expect this disappointment.
Because they hated ghosts, and he was a ghost. Albeit, only a half-ghost, but even that was too much for his parents to bear. And he knew this deep down. He always did, even when his mom defended him that day in the PHP office to the woman who spat at him that he was her "science experiment."
It was always too good to be true.
So they wanted to watch him dance? Fine. He would dance for them. He would play their stupid game until he was the picture-perfect halfa for society's fragile vision. Until his parents could finally look at him and realize that he was still just Danny.
He put the pill in his mouth, tilted his head back, and swallowed.
"You sure you don't want me to come with you?" Jazz asked from the doorway.
Danny munched on his cereal. Truthfully, he did want her to be there to drop him off, and he could tell that some weird sibling intuition made her aware of this, but ultimately that didn't matter.
To put it simply, she couldn't come in the car with them. If she had to walk him into the office on his first day back, then how would that look to their parents? They already didn't trust him—clearly—and having Jazz there helping him would only increase their concern.
No, it was better if she was home. Danny needed to do this on his own. He needed to prove that he was capable, he was normal, he could go to school by himself.
He shook his head, swallowing. "Nah, it's fine."
"You sure?"
"Yeah. It's—it's not like I'm going to...be in a classroom. I'm...I'm just going to the LC."
Jazz's eyes searched him, and Danny immediately felt self-conscious under her gaze. But fortunately, he had too much practice lying to her face.
He set his spoon down and offered her a signature annoyed expression. "Jazz," he sighed exasperatedly. "It's school. Calm down."
Like a charm, she threw her hands up and spun around. "Just looking out for you!"
"I'll be fine."
She waved him off and headed for the stairs. Danny waited till she was out of sight and then glanced around the kitchen. When he was sure the coast was clear, he tossed the remainder of his breakfast in the trash and rinsed off his plate. Despite his desperate attempts to ignore it, nerves had been wiggling around in his stomach the entire morning, crawling up his intestines like some sort of parasite.
Which was ridiculous, he tried to reason with himself. It was just school. It wasn't like he was leading legions of ghosts into battle like some feverish nightmare.
It was just school. It was normal, mundane, and most importantly—human. It was a chance for him to prove to the world that he wasn't some psycho mutant destined to kill everyone around him, he was just a regular teenage kid.
He had just set his plate in the dishwasher when his mother appeared at the doorway, a bright smile decorating her face.
Too bad Danny could feel her emotions. There was no hiding how she was really feeling.
"Ready?" She asked.
Danny gave her a thumbs up. "Let's go."
The parking lot was nearly empty when they pulled in. Good, it was far too early for him to become a spectacle. Soon—Danny had no doubt—there would be picket lines up and down the sidewalk protesting his return to teen society, but for now, the silence was much welcome.
Maddie helped him out of the car. "According to the email, Mr. Lancer will be in the front office waiting for us. We'll go over the day together, and then I'll leave you to it."
Danny nodded, settling down in his chair. All he cared about was keeping himself together. There could be no slip-ups today, not if he wanted his core back within his lifetime.
Judging by the quickly increasing anxiety emitting from his mother, he could already tell how deep in the hole he was starting from.
That was fine, he reminded himself. He was doing things his way. He was going to get his core back, that was absolute.
Maddie led them across the parking lot and into a familiar set of doors. The main entrance, usually buzzing with students, was silent. Dim. Each footstep from Maddie echoed around the cavernous halls.
It was…odd. Being back. Memories of before flooded his mind, and he recalled the crowded halls full of animated voices bouncing off the lockers and tiled floor. He remembered the cliques that would huddle by lockers, the kids who frantically copied math homework before classes, the footballers who roughhoused in the hallway trying to impress girls who made faces at them from the sidelines. He remembered Sam and Tucker chattering about a late-night gaming session or a new movie release.
And now it was quiet. Murmurs from the teacher's lounge and buzzing from the copy rooms wafted into the hall, but there were no squawking voices. No popcorn-laughter. No bright clothing smattering the sea of bodies and squeaky sneakers scraping the floor.
They rounded the corner to the main office, and immediately Danny felt a tension spike in the air. The secretary's fingers halted on her keyboard as her eyes bugged from her head. But before she could so much as open her mouth, a bald man sitting to the side leaped up.
Maddie crossed the threshold and offered her hand. "Mr. Lancer, good to see you again."
"Hello, Dr. Fenton. Always a pleasure. And Mr. Fenton." Mr. Lancer stepped around her and finally met Danny's gaze. He broke out into a warm smile, his crow's feet crinkling next to his eyes. "It's good to have you back."
Danny's finger wiggled, unsure if it too was supposed to raise for a handshake. And then Danny realized that he had hesitated for too long and that he was supposed to respond because he was turning a new leaf and that he was a model recovery student now and if he didn't answer Lancer then his mother would see it as proof that he couldn't get his core back and she would withhold it for longer.
He opened his mouth, and then his throat stuck. He remembered the last time he was with Mr. Lancer, back when he had his breakdown.
"We're both excited to be here," Maddie said, filling the awkward pause.
"Yeah," he got out, well aware of how uncomfortable the air in the office was, how uneasy the secretary was, with her eyes burning into his skull. How an admin from an adjacent office was gaping at him through her glass door.
"Why don't we step into my office, and we can go over the schedule for the semester."
Anything was better than being in the front office exposed to anyone and everyone like this.
Mr. Lancer led the way out, and as Danny turned to follow him, sparing one last glance at the window, his heart stopped.
Sitting in the back of the parking lot was a white van.
It truly was amazing how quickly his mouth could dry.
Because, unlike last time, he was absolutely sure who this van belonged to. He hadn't seen one in a while—not since that day—but they used to be all over Amity Park back when he was still active as Phantom. And during ghost fights, they would follow him around like baby ducklings imprinting on their mother. Sometimes, they wouldn't even wait for a ghost fight and would appear even when he was just lazily enjoying the stars.
Even without the trauma of being kidnapped in one of them, he had seen plenty of the government's ghost-assault vans to have their image forever torched into his memory. And with the trauma of that day? Well, he could be sure he was never going to forget them.
"Daniel?" Mr. Lancer's voice sounded from a distance.
Danny's head snapped over to see Mr. Lancer politely holding the office door open for him. Danny hadn't moved, and he wasn't sure if he could move. He was frozen in place, torn between half of him screaming to flee and the other half imploring his body to keep it together, don't freak out, just think.
But he couldn't think. There was nothing else to think.
The Guys in White were here.
He looked back at the window, but the van was already starting to move on. He couldn't say anything to his mother now. By the time she looked, they would be out of sight and then both Mr. Lancer and his mother would claim that Danny was having another nervous breakdown and he would get yanked out of school again.
He couldn't do that. He couldn't go back to being a prisoner.
He was so close to his freedom. Too close to just throw it all away. Besides, the Guys in White were leaving. They couldn't touch him. He was fine, he was fine, he was fine.
"Honey?" His mother asked.
"Sorry." Danny's tongue felt like sandpaper. "Coming."
He followed his mother and Mr. Lancer through the hallway and into his office, but Danny wasn't paying attention anymore. He wasn't present. His eyes were flickering between Mr. Lancer's face and the window, the paper Mr. Lancer handed him and the window. Watching, waiting, always waiting for his life to be over. For the Guys in White to come back for him.
It's fine, it's fine, it's fine.
He was suddenly hyperaware of his chest and the way it burned. It always hurt, except at night when the painkillers knocked all the pain right out of him, leaving him with nothing but brain fog and deep sleep. During the day, he didn't have such a luxury. His chest prickled, the nerves never happy. No matter how he sat or stood, they remained a constant reminder of what he went through.
And they could do that to him again. A chill ran down his spine. He could feel Operative O's smooth fingers gliding down his bare chest—
Danny wanted to throw up.
But he didn't. And he wouldn't. Not anymore, because he was stronger than that. And he was not going back to the government's possession.
He wouldn't.
"Any questions, Daniel?" Mr. Lancer asked, ripping him back to the present.
Danny blinked, once again aware that he was being observed by the two adults who had full power over his life. "Questions?" Danny asked.
"About your schedule, or anything at all?"
Danny looked down, and to his surprise, he was already holding his class schedule. He squinted down at the letters only for it to read precisely what he expected: learning center classes for a half-day only.
Still, it would look strange if he said nothing. Maddie and Mr. Lancer might get suspicious.
He looked at his schedule again. "I have homeroom, yeah?"
"That is correct," Mr. Lancer said. "You'll be in my homeroom, and then you'll head down to room 102 for the learning center. Your first three periods will be with Ms. Perez, and then the last class will be with Mrs. Russo. I have second period free, so I will be stopping by frequently to help you catch up on your studies whenever you need."
Danny glanced back out the window, but the van hadn't returned.
"Okay."
"The school has also given you special permission to have your backpack with you at all times since the nature of your injury will make lockers difficult to reach. However, you have still been assigned a locker if you would like to use it. Your locker number is at the top of your schedule."
"Thanks."
The remainder of the meeting passed with no further complications, even if he couldn't help but glance back out the window every few seconds. But the van never came back. And the more time passed, the more Danny began to consider alternative events.
Reflection was never good.
Jazz's voice played in his head, that it was probably just a news van. And then that domino fell onto others and he kept replaying the scene in the main office in his head but the van looked fuzzier and fuzzier with each beat.
Maybe…it wasn't a Guys in White van. Maybe he was just too anxious because he was now officially back out in public. Maybe it was just a news van—it was always just a news van—and his brain was messing with him again. Maybe he really was crazy.
What were the chances that the government would actually show up at a public school where they were almost sure to be caught? Was that a violation of the court order?
Why had no one else reacted to the van?
The more he pondered it, the more he became sure that he was just going insane. That he was paranoid, delusional, that the Guys in White weren't actually here to stalk him, that he was just in that awkward gap between his nightly pain medication wearing off and his morning medication kicking in.
His chest ached, and Danny could feel something deep inside him burn. He fidgeted, yearning to reach inside his backpack and take one of his emergency oxycodone pills he'd packed just in case, but Mr. Lancer and his mom were here and even if they weren't, those pills were for emergencies only.
His brain messing with him didn't count as an emergency.
Mr. Lancer said something, and his mother responded. Then both sets of eyes were on him, and Danny thankfully had enough control to nod and say, "Yeah."
His noncommittal response, as dull as it was, seemed to be enough for the adults, who stood from their chairs and shook hands.
"Alright, Danny." His mother looked down at him. "I'll pick you up later, okay?"
"Okay, Mom."
"Behave, and text me if you need anything." Maddie hesitated, scrutinizing him for a moment as if she wanted to say more, but then she thought better of it. "Bye, honey."
"Bye."
Mr. Lancer escorted him out into the hallway where students were beginning to trickle into the school. He kept his head down, following Mr. Lancer's lead to class. He could feel a few eyes on him, but thankfully, the halls were still barren enough to allow him to quickly slip by.
Vaguely, he wondered what would happen when the hallways were more crowded. He was half the height of everyone else and in a wheelchair. Would he be able to get through the thick hoard of bodies without the football cult tripping over him?
God, that sounded so embarrassing.
Mr. Lancer pushed open a door, and Danny followed. He took stock of the cheesy posters lining the walls and almost sighed in appreciation.
If there was one thing Danny could count on, it was Lancer's posters filled with outdated memes and Shakespeare puns that were so terrible that even Phantom himself wouldn't be caught dead repeating them.
"I managed to find an unattached desk for you," Mr. Lancer said, pointing over to a lone desk with a metal chair moved off to the side. "Between you and me, I don't understand why the school system insists on the attached desk design, but nevertheless, we must work with what we have. I assume this will be fine for the school year."
Danny rolled over to the desk, careful to keep his face blank despite the odd warmth he felt at Mr. Lancer's gesture. Homeroom was only twenty minutes a day, and they rarely even required desks. Danny could have just fumbled into a normal desk, just like he had done before. He hadn't even realized it, but the anticipation of being so uncoordinated in front of all his old peers had settled at the bottom of his stomach like a rock. And now that he was faced with the opportunity to not have to face this unknown fear for just a bit longer, he suddenly felt so much lighter.
Maybe Mr. Lancer wasn't so uncaring after all.
"Thanks." Danny threw his wheelchair brakes on and put his bag down next to him. He pulled his notebook and pencil out of his bag, placed them on his desk, and waited.
Lancer nodded at him and strolled over to his own desk. He settled into his chair and began tapping away at his keyboard.
The air felt awkward, and Danny couldn't help but recall the days of detention with Lancer. He remembered sitting at his desk, often the only student in the classroom, trying to will time to move quicker.
He tapped his desk with his pencil, the quiet tapping providing a much-needed knife in the dead air. He could hear soft hums from the hallway slowly mount in volume. Sam and Tucker had texted him the night before saying that they would get to school early so Danny wouldn't be alone in class, but time was passing, more students were entering the building, and Sam and Tucker were still out of sight.
Snatching his phone from his pocket, he pressed on his home button, eyes skimming for any updates from the duo, but his home screen remained frustratingly blank.
He set down his pencil and leaned back in the chair. He wondered how people would react when they saw him. Obviously, his peers knew he was in a wheelchair before. He'd already gone to school once, even if those memories mostly eluded him. But back then, he was still recovering from surgeries, still visibly underweight, still outwardly recovering from obvious mistreatment.
But now he was recovered, he was normal. His weight was still a bit low, but far closer to what he should be than before. His cast was removed, his bandages, ACE wraps, and gauze were gone as well, his eyes no longer had that glazed look (at least, he hoped they didn't). He was alive again.
And yet, he was still in a wheelchair. Still disabled.
He wondered how many of his peers would be surprised by that. After all, couldn't Danny Phantom—a ghost who had defeated Pariah Dark and had been thrown into so many buildings that there were entire compilation videos of him with multiple parts on YouTube—bounce back from anything? Wasn't he powerful, wasn't he unstoppable?
Wasn't he a hero?
Finally, his phone screen lit up. A text from Sam saying they were running a little late. They were ten minutes away.
Judging by the distinct increase of voices in the hall, ten minutes was going to be too long.
Anxiety speared his gut, and he flipped his notebook open to a blank page. People were going to start flowing into the classroom soon, and he didn't want to look unoccupied. He didn't want anyone to talk to him.
Should he doodle? What would he draw?
What if any of the A-List saw? Would they make fun of him for being a loner and doodling like a little kid?
But if he didn't do something, then he might accidentally make eye contact with someone, and he didn't think he could handle that.
Laughter spouted from someone in the hall, someone that Danny recognized.
Someone that made him automatically flinch.
Okay, doodling it was.
He pressed his pencil down to the paper and started drawing Saturn in the margins of his notebook, followed by some stars. It was clumsy and awkward and it didn't feel natural like people always claimed doodling felt to them. It was forced, there was too much pressure on him.
And then the door swung open, and footsteps entered the room with loud voices.
And stopped.
Danny held his breath, his pencil frozen inches from his paper. He didn't want to look up, didn't want to risk seeing the face of the people he knew were at the door.
There was a beat of silence.
Then another.
And another.
Danny could feel their eyes burning holes through his scalp. He could feel his grip tightening on his pencil, he could see his hand trembling above the paper.
But still, he didn't dare look up.
"Ah, Mr. Baxter, Mr. Lee," came Mr. Lancer's voice, breaking the spell of mounting pressure in the air. "You're here early. Why don't you grab your seats?"
Danny let out a small breath of relief, and the knot in his chest slowly loosened.
"Sure thing," Dash's distant voice said.
Thankfully, the two didn't try to sit near Danny. And Danny didn't look up at them.
After all, the last time he'd seen either of their faces was in the men's locker room by the gym, and that was a day he'd worked too damn hard to scrub from his memory altogether.
He wondered what sorts of things they'd told the rest of their classmates. How stupid and weak he'd been, how he'd cried into Mr. Lancer's shoulder like a little kid, how unintelligible his speech was, and how much of a loser he was sitting on the floor of a fucking bathroom surrounded by shards of broken glass.
Half of him wondered if they would come over to him, Mr. Lancer's presence be damned, and start mocking him. "What's that, Fentoid?" Dash would say. "Scared of your own reflection? I would be too if I woke up with your face."
Then they'd shove his notebook to the ground and walk away, laughing and high-fiving each other. Mr. Lancer would make some half-hearted comment about leaving him alone, and then at lunch, the girls in their clique would point and snicker at him as he walked by.
"He's so weird," Paulina would say.
"What a freak," Star would agree.
But that's not what happened. Dash and Kwan never attempted to go over to his side of the classroom, they never jeered at him or knocked his notebook over. They stayed in their corner of the classroom, talking again about some party they went to over the weekend and didn't give Danny so much as another glance.
It was...weird.
Emptiness pitted in Danny's stomach, and his vision went unfocused against his notebook. Why was it so uncomfortable? Shouldn't he be thankful that they were ignoring him now?
Didn't he want this? Ever since he was a kid?
But why now? Why, because he was in a wheelchair? Because all of his problems were visible now? Why did he get the IEP? Why were teachers helping him? Why was everyone paying attention to him and looking at him as more than just a loser, dweeb slacker who was going to amount to nothing in life?
It was because of Phantom. Not because of Fenton. If he was never revealed, then nothing would have changed at school. Phantom was the hero, Phantom got the special treatment, and that was the only reason why Fenton was no longer some weird loser, why Dash and his gang didn't target him anymore, why the teachers suddenly wanted to help him.
No one knew who he was, not really. And no one cared to ever find out when he was just a human.
More students entered the classroom, and just like with Dash and Kwan, they would get to the door and then a hush would fall over the group. Whispers, eyes on him, confusion and nerves gushing from their bodies.
And Danny tried not to look up. He didn't want to see all these familiar faces.
Nobody sat near him. They all populated the other half of the classroom first, giving a wide band of space. At first, it was understandable, given that's where the popular kids were sitting.
But as more and more people entered the classroom, the true reason became obvious. People just didn't want to sit next to him.
He was a freak.
His chest was knotting again and he wished he had something to calm him down. Maybe he should have taken something before school. What if he had another meltdown? What if he never got his core back?
Just as his brain started reeling with the implications of being a halfa stuck in a human body for the rest of his life, a finger jabbed his arm.
Danny jolted back with a yelp, flailing his arms up, palms ready to blast his attacker into oblivion. A hush immediately fell over the classroom.
"Whoops! Sorry, dude." Tucker's face splintered into view. He threw Danny a mischievous smile. "Didn't think I snuck up on you."
"Tucker!" Sam elbowed him. "That was mean."
"It was an accident! I swear!"
Sam tried to elbow him again, but Tucker just laughed and danced out of her reach. Danny stared up at his two best friends, his heart rate slowing.
For the first time, Danny could see the faces of everyone in the classroom. All the eyes stared at them with a mix of confusion, anxiety, and morbid curiosity. And here his two best friends were in the flesh, acting like this was just a normal day at school.
That nothing was off. That nobody was staring at them. That they were nothing more than invisible faces in the crowd.
"Hey," Danny said, feeling his lips twitch up.
It really was amazing how just the mere sight of these two goons sent relief melting through his muscles.
"Yo, space boy!" Tucker slid into the seat behind him, and Sam next to him.
Just like normal, as if Danny hadn't missed a single day of school.
It didn't matter that last year, they would have sat at the back of the room, that now he needed to sit in front. It didn't matter that he was quiet, that he was jumpy, that his voice stuttered, that he was different.
They were still treating him the same as always.
They liked Fenton, didn't they? They were the only ones that did.
Conversation began picking up in the classroom again, and Danny breathed out a sigh of relief.
"Welcome back, Danny!" Sam said. "We wanted to get here earlier, but Tucker slept past his alarm again."
"Hey! Don't throw me under the bus on Danny's first day!"
"I can't throw you under the bus when you were the one driving it, idiot."
Tucker sighed all too dramatically, slouching in his chair. "You wound me, Manson."
"That seems like a you problem." Sam rolled her eyes, turning to Danny. "So? How was it?"
"How...was what?" Danny asked.
"Whatever your meeting was about this morning. Did you get your schedule?"
"Yeah, but…" Danny pulled his newly printed schedule from his notebook, handing it to Sam. "It's like I told you before. I'm—I'm in the—the...you know…"
"Oh, so we don't have any classes together! Too bad. And no lunch together either."
"What, no lunch?" Tucker grabbed the paper from Sam's fingers and scanned the page with a downtrodden expression. "Ugh, you mean I'm gonna have to watch Sam eat grass by myself for the rest of the semester? Danny, help a guy out here a little."
"Sorry," Danny said, though he wasn't really sorry at all. "Doctor's orders."
Tucker handed the paper back to Danny, who shoved it back into his backpack.
The door swung open once more, and against his better judgment, Danny looked over to see who the straggler was. And then immediately after, he wished he could take it back.
Valerie Gray stood there, dressed in a lipstick-red hoodie, staring at him. Her face was expressionless, almost cold. A memory flashed before his eyes, one that he could just barely remember, of her visiting him in his house when he returned home for the first time. But the memory was so fuzzy and Danny couldn't remember if his stupid, drugged mouth had said anything it shouldn't have.
More importantly, he couldn't remember what she had said. If she had yelled at him, apologized, or something in between.
But based on her expression, he wasn't about to find out.
She broke eye contact, dropping her bag at the seat nearest to the door. Pulling out her phone, she shoved her earbuds in and didn't look up at him again.
A few of his other classmates had seemingly noticed the odd interaction, judging by their quirked brows and flickering gazes. He felt like a bug under a microscope once more, and the ever-looming anxiety began pitting in his stomach again.
He tried to pay attention to Tucker's chattering, but he couldn't help but glance back out the window, where there was nothing but a small pathway in front of a sea of trees.
No white van in sight.
He really was crazy.
Sam was talking now about some plants she had purchased for her greenhouse over the weekend. Danny tried to follow, but there were too many people and too much tension and curiosity around him. Despite his constant reminders that all his fear was in his head, that he was fine, he couldn't help the feeling that everything was wrong.
He should have taken the extra pill this morning. He was never going to survive school like this.
Stupid halfa metabolism, stupid safety protocol for medicating minors, stupid FDA.
More time passed, and Danny tried his best to engage with his friends. He tried to pretend like he was okay, like he was a normal student, that he wasn't being watched by the whole goddamn classroom, hell, the whole world. But as the conversations carried on around him, Danny realized just how exhausting it was to keep up with everyone.
When the bell rang signaling the end of homeroom, he followed his peers into the hallway where the rest of the school bustled by. Sam and Tucker gave their cheery goodbyes, and then suddenly, he was alone, surrounded by wary students who hadn't seen him since The Day That Must Not Be Named, who all had social media and had seen god knows what articles and videos about him, who had all seen the court case that he had yet to watch, all people who knew him when he was just a weird loser kid with wack-job parents.
If he was worried about people trampling over him as he navigated the cramped halls, he shouldn't have been. No, because rather than ignoring his existence like they used to, everyone now parted around him like he was Moses traversing the Red Sea.
Danny paused, his eyes flickering to the schedule in his lap with the room number printed on the paper, and pressed on down the hall. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a Save Danny Phantom poster still pinned to the wall of the school. He jerked away as if burned, pushed slightly too fast on the wheels, and nearly crashed into a student in front of him.
Damnit, he needed to get a grip. He was fine.
He didn't need the emergency pills. His normal medication had kicked in by now, he was fine.
But his chest still hurt, didn't it?
The hallway parted onto a set of mini-stairs up onto a half-floor of the building. This would have been fine, as there was typically a ramp just to the right of the steps. But when Danny looked at the ramp, his stomach plummeted.
The ramp was roped off, having been christened with a massive hole in the middle, with scorch marks decorating its rim. A ghost fight no doubt.
One that he wasn't there to prevent.
Because he was weak.
He looked back at the stairs. It was only a couple steps. Surely he could manage this, couldn't he?
But then how would he get his wheelchair up the stairs?
Would it be weird if he asked someone to help him?
He peeked around, and some people had stopped around him, their body language and emotions exuding unease as if they weren't sure what to do either. They whispered to each other, some pointing a bit too obviously his way as if waiting to see if he would stand or not.
Right. They didn't know if he even could walk. Danny was still more or less working up the courage to attempt it in public.
If he tried to climb up the stairs, then someone would likely take a video of him. It would end up viral in an hour. If he fell or stumbled at all, then the whole world would see it. And everyone would know what an incompetent hero he was.
So walking up the stairs was out.
Fortunately, this wasn't the only way up this hallway. If he doubled back, he could go around and up the side. Yeah, that would work.
Then he wouldn't need to worry about stumbling around like an idiot in front of his classmates.
He turned around, a new plan formed in his head, only to come face-to-face with Valerie.
They stared at each other, then the people around them, then back at each other. Valerie opened her mouth, taking a deep breath, while Danny wondered if she was seriously crazy enough to do this right now.
"Listen," Valerie tried, shifting her feet. "I'm sorry about the ramp."
Danny put his hands on his wheels, a clear warning. "I have—I have class."
And besides, the ramp wasn't her fault. It was his fault.
He should have been there, but instead, he was too busy wallowing in his own misery. If he wasn't so selfish and weak then maybe he could have been there when the fight happened instead of wasting away in the stupid hospital.
"Still…" Valerie looked like she wanted to say more, but there were too many keen ears around them. "We'll talk later."
Danny grimaced, letting her go. That candid, open conversation with Valerie was one that he had spent many hours imagining. He mapped out all the possible worst-case scenarios that it could take, all the questions she might ask and the responses he could give. But now that he was faced with the conversation's imminence, he realized just how much he wasn't ready for it.
He and Valerie just had too much history, too many fights, too many shadows crowding their minds to be able to do this.
And he knew she was going to ask how the accident happened, how he was a halfa, what happened with the Guys in White, why he couldn't walk now. She was going to pry for the details, and Danny just wasn't willing to give those up.
Well, if there was one bright side to his parents holding Phantom hostage, this was it. No Phantom meant no way for Val to seek him outside of school and corner him.
Not that she could ever catch him when he was Phantom.
His fingers thrummed on the wheels. That was right, even when he figured out a way to get the chip out, he could still hide. He could still run. When he had his core back, no one would be able to touch him. Not his parents, not Valerie, not the goddamn Guys in White.
He ducked his head to hide his grin, traversing down the hall once more.
Once he got his chip removed, he was going to be unstoppable. And if his parents wouldn't do it?
Well, he was just going to have to find someone else who would.
So...how about that van, huh?
Hahaha this was interesting to write! We're kinda entering the next 'era' of EWW for Danny. He's home, he's able to go out in public a bit now, he's gaining more responsibilities and semi-freedom. I'm sure nothing bad will come out of that!
I absolutely adore reading everyone's predictions and whatnot. Feel free to leave as many as you'd like!
Thanks for reading!