II. And It's the End of the World
Chapter Twelve: Fall Apart
Danny stood frozen in place, his slow-beating heart approaching a pace much more rapid than usual. He could feel himself shaking, as the reality of what had occurred began to settle.
"Danny, that's ridiculous." Sam said next to him. He looked down at her, seeing her round eyes big and openly concerned. "How on earth would he recognize you?" She asked.
"Did you see his face?" Danny protested. "He knew who I was." He had no idea who this Vlad guy was, but that reaction could have only meant one thing. "Maybe he's seen my photo before." Danny suggested. "If he's invested in Amity's plans he's probably read a lot about my parents." God, he felt like he was going to black out. Is this what a panic attack felt like? The room was spinning quite fast around him.
"Are you alright ? Sam asked, hands suddenly holding his arm as if he were about to keel over. He laughed nervously, the image of her tiny frame supporting him immediately ridiculous. The laugh sounded strangled.
"Let's go outside, I need air." He suggested. She nodded seriously, looking at him with obvious fear. He must look like he was about to crack. Danny felt guilty, tired of making her worry over him like this.
The two of them half-jogged half-stumbled to the nearest balcony, bursting out into the cool nighttime air. Danny sucked in a big breath, grateful for the gentle breeze. He immediately felt somewhat better and less smothered without all those people around him. The moon was bright and full above them, illuminating the lush gardens below. White and pink flowers bloomed all over the balcony, climbing over the stone and up the high walls. They looked nearly silver in the moonlight.
"Better?" Sam asked, shivering. Danny wished he could put his arms around her and warm her up, but he knew his touch would only make it worse. He shrugged his jacket off and wrapped it around her bare shoulders. Sam looked as if she wanted to protest, but he pressed a finger to her lips before she could.
"Just take it. And yes, I feel a bit better." He answered, settling on an ornate stone bench. Sam quietly joined him, sitting close enough for her knee to press into his outer thigh. Being near her helped; it was why he had sought her out in the first place. Those few minutes she had been talking with Vlad had been agonizing, he had felt as if he was being smothered by the crowds. That annoying lady Sophia had returned to his side, talking his ear off. Danny hated being clingy, but Sam's presence was calming, safe.
"Do you really think he recognized you?" She asked hesitantly
"What else could that have been?" Danny asked warily, mentally replaying the look of horror in the older man's eyes. Sam looked deep in thought, gears obviously spinning in her own head.
"While we were talking, he mentioned that he used to know your parents." She admitted after a long pause. "He said he went to school with them."
Danny's heart sank immediately. Vlad wasn't just some nobody, he had personal ties to Amity.
"Then he must have." Sam bit her lip, eyebrows drawing together.
"He also said he hadn't talked to them in a long time. You didn't recognize him, did you?" Sam asked. Danny wracked his brain, sorting through years of memories. He wouldn't have forgotten such a distinctive looking man.
"No. I've never seen him before."' He answered, sure of it.
"Well, then it's not like you've met him before." She countered. "He probably stopped talking to your parents before you were even born. And if he had seen your pictures on the news, that would have been years ago. You would have just been a kid in all of them anyway." Sam reasoned. "I think it's such a slim chance that he actually recognized you."
"He read your paper." Danny said quietly, realizing the truth. "He's seen my picture. The one in front of the portal." He was only fourteen in that photo, but it wasn't like he was completely unrecognizable from then. Someone with a keen eye would be able to make the connection. Especially someone who had been close to the parents of the kid in the photo. Vlad had probably studied the picture, probably had seen traces of his former colleagues in his face. His dad's eyes and hair, his mom's nose and smile, her freckles.
"If he did somehow recognize you…" Sam began, "Then what would he even think? That you're a ghost? That you faked your death somehow?" she asked, still sounding skeptical. Danny wanted to feel her doubt too, but something in his gut knew that Vlad knew who he was.
"I don't know." He admitted, feeling a little sick to his stomach. He was glad he was sitting down, his whole body felt a little weak. "He studied with my parents?" He asked, looking at Sam. She gave him a grim nod.
"Ectobiology." She confirmed. Danny let his head collapse into his hands, barking out a bitter laugh.
"Well, fuck." He said. All this time, he thought that he was going to blow his secret one day by acting like the creepy, ghostly freak that he was. He had assumed that inevitably he'd slip up and reveal his less than human nature. He had never expected that some guy who used to know his parents would recognize him. And the man was an ex-ghost hunter apparently. Because his life wasn't already enough of a sick, cosmic joke.
"He changed career paths!" Sam tried to soothe, before he could go into full-blown crisis mode. "And he clearly hates the GIW. Maybe he doesn't put any stock into ghosts these days, there's no reason he'd suspect anything with you." It didn't slip Danny's notice that she wasn't even trying to convince him that Vlad hadn't recognized him anymore.
"So he's going to go with the 'this fourteen-year-old boy faked his own death' theory?" Danny asked, raising his head to give her a bewildered look.
"It's more plausible than ghosts being real!" Sam insisted. "Besides, no one ever found you or your family's bodies. There's no physical proof that you died."
"That's because they were vaporized." Danny bit out. Sam winced, and he felt a little bad for the aggressive response. But really, she should've known better than to say things like that so casually around him. She had learned in Amity not to underestimate his ghostly instincts.
"Besides, anyone who studied ghosts would know that there was no surviving that level of ecto-radiation. Even before the explosion, it would have been impossible for me to survive that." Danny reasoned. The more he spoke, the calmer he felt, strangely. A sense of peace was settling over him, accepting that there was no alternate explanation. Someone knew about him, had enough pieces to get somewhat close to the truth. Though of course, Vlad wouldn't have a clue what a half-ghost was. He probably thought something simpler, that Danny was just some ghost with an especially corporeal form.
"Should I try to find him, talk to him?" Sam asked nervously, wringing her hands together. Danny sighed, looking at her. She was drowning in the fabric of his jacket, looking younger than she really was. She was absently picking at her nail polish, ruining her perfect manicure she had gotten that afternoon. His activist, his bleeding heart, his problem solver. She wanted to fix this, even when she couldn't.
"I don't see the point." Danny admitted. "Either he will do something, or he won't. Maybe he's just scared and doesn't want anything to do with any of this. He might just pretend none of this ever happened."
"He can't prove anything." Sam said firmly, protectively. "We have papers for you, people to vouch for you." Danny gave her a sad smile, pulling her closer to him. She was his whole world, so good to him. He had the sudden thought that he could run, he could hide if Vlad did anything. But he wouldn't, because it would mean leaving Sam again.
Because of course Vlad could prove something, it wouldn't be hard at all. His human face was only that, merely a mask. The second a hand was laid on him, a scalp sliced through his flesh, his heartbeat was measured, anyone could tell he was different. Sure, most people didn't believe in ghosts. But Vlad was wealthy and respected and had resources. He had connections, and there really only needed to be one person willing to take his money or curry favor with him to get the job done.
"He seemed to really care for your parents." Sam added quietly. "Maybe he won't pry, for their sake." That was something at least. Maybe he would just let this go, choose not to acknowledge it. Danny closed his eyes, letting the breeze push his hair back, away from his forehead. It was already mostly free of its gelled style, untameable as always. It was an unfairly beautiful night, and he had ruined it.
"Go grab another drink." Danny said kindly, squeezing Sam's hands. Her first glass had been abandoned on some table during their retreat to the balcony. Her eyes widened, lips moving to protest. "I'll be fine right here, people are expecting you in there." He gently reminded her. She had photos to take, congratulations to receive. It was supposed to be her night.
"I can't just leave you here." Sam argued. "Besides, I can't enjoy the night if you're upset." Danny frowned at that.
"I'm feeling pretty calm, to be honest. We can worry about it tomorrow." He insisted. "You've been waiting for this for months, I promise I'll be okay." He wouldn't be able to forgive himself if this night was ruined because of this. He had only agreed to come to this stupid thing in the first place because he wanted to make her happy.
Sam looked longingly at the party inside, then back at him. She looked torn, undecided. He knew she cared deeply about this cause, that she desperately wanted the demolition to happen. There were people in there who wanted to hear her speak, who wanted to talk to her about her paper, about her experiences as one of the only known surviving Amity Park residents. Her voice mattered in there.
"Go." He repeated softly. "It would make me feel better to know that this trip wasn't a waste."
"Okay." Sam said, pulling him in for a quick hug. "Come get me if you decide you're ready to go." She stood up, looking at him with an unsure expression. She shrugged off his jacket, handing it to him. He pressed his lips into a half-hearted smile and nodded. She reluctantly walked away, shooting several looks back at him over her shoulder as she retreated back into the ballroom. Danny watched her body disappear into the crowd, swallowed up by all the strangers wandering about. And then he was alone.
Danny let out a sigh of relief, lifting his eyes to the sky. It was clear, nearly cloudless. The stars were blotted out though, obscured by the light pollution of the big city. He let his thoughts race, alone now in his own peace and solitude. The thoughts were scattered, confusing. He couldn't sort through them, couldn't spend more than a moment on one before another took its place. Was his secret gone forever? Would men in white suits and lab coats come looking for him?
Vlad's frightened grey eyes flashed over and over in his mind. It wasn't the fear of someone who had seen a monster or the dead, Danny realized. He had looked almost…guilty. Danny wondered how much he knew about his parents' research, if he understood anything about how the portal worked. Sam's paper revealed that it was the portal that had caused the Disaster. Maybe he felt guilty by association, haunted by his previous work with the Fentons. It certainly wouldn't have made him look great if the connection were made public.
For some reason, deep down inside Danny felt like he knew Vlad wouldn't out him to the GIW or anyone else similar to them. The man had clearly left ghost hunting behind at a very young age, before he or his sister had even been born. He was obviously not an anti-ghost zealot like his parents. Danny's presence might have rattled him, but he didn't think the man would turn him in. Or at least he hoped he wouldn't.
Danny turned his back to the party, leaning against the railing. He pinched a dangling flower between his fingers, rolling one of its petals until it disintegrated. It released a sickly sweet smell, like rot. He grimaced, letting the unknown flower go. Sam would have been able to tell him what it was. But he had sent her away, so that she could mingle with the living and he could brood out here. He briefly considered going back in himself, but he had no clue where Vlad was. He didn't want to risk another encounter.
Danny stiffened, feeling another presence appear behind him. Maybe if he didn't acknowledge the other person, they'd leave. All these balconies attached to this huge building, and someone had decided to intrude on his. His nostrils flared in irritation, wanting to have some godforsaken privacy for at least a few minutes.
"It's really you." A vaguely familiar voice breathed behind him. A male, older. Danny turned around, eyes widening.
"Mr. Manson?" Danny said, voice catching in his throat. Jeremy Manson stood before him, in an exquisite tuxedo. The man was clearly older than what Danny remembered from his childhood, wrinkles deeper, hair greyer and receded. The scowl was the same that Danny remembered though, pure disdain written into the lines of his face.
"You're supposed to be dead." Jeremy accused. Danny felt cold and heavy, like a weight was slowly crushing him. He hadn't expected that her parents would actually show. Did that mean Pamela was somewhere in there? He felt his eyes flicker over Jeremy's shoulder, searching for his much scarier wife.
"Hello?!" The other man demanded impatiently. Danny's eyes snapped back to him. They had seen brief, distant glances of each other all those months ago when Sam had first returned from Amity. She had tried her best to keep them separated from one another in the chaos, but of course Danny had been a constant presence in the background. No matter how little the Mansons wanted to acknowledge him. After all, he was the one who had brought Sam back.
"You already knew that I'm not. Not really." Danny finally said, careful to keep his voice even. Jeremy sucked in a breath, recoiling a bit. His pupils were blown wide, clearly frightened. Now this was the face of a man who had seen a ghost. Jeremy hissed something under his breath, something that didn't sound English. Danny frowned, sensing that whatever Yiddish had just been spoken was not very kind to him.
"What are you?" the man said, shaking with anger. Danny deflated a little, not knowing how to respond. The Mansons were religious, believing spirits and Good and Evil and that sort of thing. Danny's own parents had been raving mad scientists, explaining things like the undead with chemical data and electromagnetic waves. What could he possibly say to reassure Jeremy that he wasn't evil, wasn't some unnatural and terrible thing. Danny didn't even know what the fuck he was exactly, either.
"I had an accident." He said calmly, patiently. "It gave me some side effects. But I'm still me." Danny didn't really know if he fully believed that himself, it seemed like a huge understatement to his own ears.
"You're not human." Jeremy said venomously. And it was so simple in its hostility, so definitive. Danny had told himself that many times, and had tried to convince Sam of its truth. But hearing it spoken like this, hurled as an accusation, it hurt Danny in a way he hadn't expected. Eight years since he changed, almost to the day. The anniversary had come only a couple days prior- the night Aubrey had come for dinner- and for his sake Sam hadn't mentioned anything about it. But Danny hadn't forgotten, it had lingered in the back of his mind. It was the entire reason the gala was being hosted this weekend in particular.
"Yeah." Danny said honestly, feeling his eyes water a little. He wiped them with the back of his hand, looking away from the other man. "Not anymore."
"I don't want you near my daughter." Jeremy growled. "Whatever it is you are, she doesn't need to be involved. Nothing good can come of it." Danny bit the inside of his cheek. He could feel the man staring at him with burning, hateful eyes.
"I agree." Danny admitted quietly. "But it's not fully my choice. She's stubborn, she doesn't listen, and she hates being told what to do."
"Don't tell me things about my own daughter, like I don't know her." Jeremy snapped. Danny's brows furrowed and he found his own temper flickering deep inside him.
"You've barely spoken to her for the last several years." Danny snapped back. "I do know her better." The possessive part of him swelled victoriously at the look of hurt in Jeremy's eyes. Sam had chosen him over her own parents, and they had accepted that readily. They had functionally abandoned her, letting her take all the burden of trying to mend things. Danny felt his pity shrivel up more each passing second.
"You're dead, you can't give her a life." Jeremy said, his voice softer this time. "She mourned you for years. She screamed and cried and hit, she nearly threw her whole future away, she almost-" he choked on the rest of the words, unable to say it. He took a deep breath, steeling himself and meeting Danny's eyes. He looked less afraid, more desperate.
"I can't watch my only child choose death over life. We fought with everything we had to bring her back to us, to pull her back from it. I won't see her return to that place, I won't let her pick the past over the present, her future." Jeremy explained.
Danny felt awful for letting his anger flare up. He already understood this, knew that her parents hated him because they loved her. They wanted the best for her, and that clearly wasn't him. He had explained as much to her before.
"She thinks she can pull me back from it." Danny said helplessly, pleadingly. He wasn't trying to take Sam away from the living, he wanted the opposite of that. That's why they had fought so hard to escape Amity together.
Jeremy gave Danny a look of genuine pity for the first time, the hatred leaving his face for just a moment.
"My daughter is an amazing and strong girl, but we both know she can't do that." He said knowingly. Danny hugged himself, uncomfortable with hearing such brutal honesty. Why was it harder to hear from someone else, when he already knew this? He had a permanent stain of death on him, etched into every cell in his body. If souls were real, he was sure this was stained too.
"One of you will have to give. She's stubborn. If you still feel anything resembling love, you'll do the right thing." Jeremy said. "If I…if we say or do anything to hurt you, she'll hate us forever. So I'm here, man to man. Asking you to save her." Jeremy's eyes were wide, open and vulnerable.
"From me?" Danny asked bitterly, feeling his eyes light up. Fear flashed across Jeremy's face, but he stood his ground.
"From herself." He said. Danny wanted to scream at this man, curse him out for doing this to him. Being cruel, presenting him with a horrible choice, calling into question his humanity, going behind his daughter's back. But his head was spinning, he couldn't deny how much sense his words meant. Vlad's eyes widening in recognition, seeing through his human mask. Frank's men staring at him, unable to comprehend his unnatural strength. The cold presence that wrapped around Sam possessively, following her around ever since she had found Danny tucked away in her childhood home.
Was it possible that she was just blinded by her loyalty to him? Her own death drive sending her into the crumbling remains of Amity Park, into his arms. And like a ghost, he had eagerly sucked up her warmth, her life. Taking it for himself, feeling invigorated by it, by possessing her. Tucker had warned Sam that he would do this to her, that he would chain her to his side for selfish reasons. Had he been in denial about his own ghostliness, his own selfishness? Had he begun to believe in the sweet lies that Sam spun about him being the same Danny?
But at the same time, he couldn't help but to feel like there wasn't anything wrong about the way they made each other feel. He could make her laugh, giggle like she would when they were all still kids, no worries in the world. He could protect her, use his unwanted gifts to watch over and defend her. She could calm him, reassure him when the black rot of self-hatred was too much, too unbearable. She could make him feel human again, feel sparks of warmth and joy inside of him that he thought he had lost long ago.
Was it true that it was too late for him? That Sam couldn't pull him back from the precipice, but that he'd instead pull her down with him? Looking at the older man, it was clear that's what Jeremy believed. The contempt he held in his eyes stung, but the fear and anguish were worse. He really thought he was saving his daughter from a terrible fate by asking this of Danny.
"I'm…" Danny felt tears slide down his cheek, and he thought of Sam asking about all the little things that had changed for him as a ghost on the flight to Chicago. He could still cry, he often did. He had read somewhere once that scientists still didn't understand why humans cried when they were sad, what the biological purpose was. It was just a part of being human for some reason.
"I don't know. I can't lie to you and make an empty promise." Danny said finally, swallowing down his misery. He saw Jeremy's face shift, filling with blinding, blistering loathing. "I'm not ready to give up yet. But if things don't get b-better, I will." He promised solemnly.
"You're making a huge mistake. If you hurt my little girl…" Jeremy said, trailing off with the unspoken threat. He was not an especially impressive man, physically. He was short and slight, fair-haired and had clearly never done an ounce of physical labor his entire privileged life. Danny towered over him, broader and stronger, even without his unnatural strength. And yet, something about the look in the older man's eyes filled him with dread.
"Go be with her." Danny said, looking over the balcony. He needed to leave this place, needed to get away from the suffocating atmosphere. It had been a mistake for him to come, he had only invited trouble by doing so. "She misses you both."
Danny raised a leg, standing on the edge of the balcony. The ground lay several stories below him, but no one seemed to notice below. The shadows of night wrapped and coiled around his body, obscuring him. Most people didn't want to see ghosts, didn't want to know. The historical building had plenty of spirits lingering in the corners, in the shadows. No one noticed them either.
"What are you doing?" Jeremy demanded, an edge of panic to his voice. Danny felt a small flare of anger. If the man saw him as just some evil dead thing, then why was he so worried about him taking a dive onto the pavement below?
"You can pretend you didn't see me." Danny added, knowing Sam would not be pleased with the way her father had confronted him. He stole one last glance over his shoulder, down at Jeremy. "I do really love her." He said gently. And with that confession, he stepped off the balcony's edge, blinking out of visibility.
Jeremy yelped, leaning over the edge and looking at the ground in horror. But Danny wasn't there, he was in the air, transformed. He flew through the dark skies, city lights blurring below him. He knew Sam would be upset about him ditching her without a word, but if he saw her right now, everything would come tumbling out. Just like Vlad, it could wait until tomorrow. Danny shut his eyes, letting his body carry him wherever it pleased, no thought or clue as to where he was going.