Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A storm raged outside, wind lashing the trees and rain falling in heavy sheets. Danny felt his nerves fray with each bolt of lightning, and his body tense with each low rumble of thunder. Between the storm and Skulker dragging him out of bed, it had been an awful night.

Turning intangible to float down into the lab, Danny felt most of the water slide off of him. Exhaustion weighed on his mind and body. He clutched at his left arm, doing his best to keep it from bleeding onto the lab floor as he applied pressure

The stab wound in Danny's forearm could've been worse, but it still hurt like hell. Skulker’s blade hadn't gone all the way through, at least. 

Small mercies.

Despite his best efforts, Danny still left some drops of ectoplasm on the floor as he deposited Skulker into the portal. Staring down at the mess, he sighed.

He would have to clean it up before going to bed– after dealing with his arm, that is. 

With the thermos emptied, Danny reached through the floor for the first aid kit he kept hidden near the portal. There was one in the lab he could use, but Danny tried to avoid touching it unless it was an emergency. He didn’t need his parents to see just how much gauze he went through.

First aid kit in hand, Danny grabbed a chair and sat down at one of the lab tables. Holding his arm up he inspected the wound; it was difficult to get a good look at it through his suit, but Danny could tell that it was still bleeding. He had a few other small cuts on his arms and face but the stab wound took priority.

Unzipping his suit, Danny carefully pulled his arm out of the sleeve, wincing as the material slid over his injury. It looked better than he was expecting, honestly. With some first aid and a little ectoplasm it would heal up within a day or two.

He thought of going to Sam or Tucker, but the wound didn’t seem severe enough to justify doing so. It was past one in the morning and both of them were probably asleep anyway. 

Danny should be asleep. 

He regretted not giving the thermos one last good shake.

As he rooted through the first aid kit Danny took stock of the supplies within. There was plenty left to deal with his arm, but he’d have to restock on gauze soon. The first aid kit in his room had plenty, but he tried to stay on top of all of his supplies. It paid to be prepared in that regard, particularly when Sam was the one paying for it.

The sting of the antiseptic woke Danny up somewhat. He winced, hissing as he patted at the wound with some gauze. Once it was properly clean, he fished some sutures, nylon thread, and a needle from the kit. After months of practice, Danny was slowly getting better at sewing his own skin together in the hours Sam and Tucker couldn't.

Practice aside, sutures never got much easier , however. The pain remained the same, and his hands just as shaky. Danny tensed and groaned as he slid the needle through his skin, pulling the wound together with uneven stitches. It was difficult to manage with one hand, but Danny was at least thankful the wound was on his left arm. He'd always favored his right hand more, but his left hand now shook particularly badly since the Accident.

Danny let out a relieved sigh when he tied off the last stitch. He sat back in the chair, leaning against the table, shutting his eyes. Tapping his fingers on his knee, Danny hummed an aimless tune. When his arm throbbed painfully, Danny opened his eyes, seeing a thin trickle of ectoplasm ooze from the stitches.

Not wanting to make more of a mess, Danny grabbed the bandages and quickly wrapped his arm.

Once the stab wound was taken care of, Danny cleaned the cuts peppering his arms and the two small ones along his jaw before bandaging them. Most of the cuts would be closed by morning, thankfully.

He sat there for a moment, dazedly staring at the closed portal doors.
It was nights like this one where Danny wondered what his life would be like if he never took those few foolish steps down that metal tunnel. 

He shook his head vehemently. It wasn’t worth dwelling on. 

The storm continued to rage on outside, the distant sounds of thunder carrying through the basement walls. Being underground might have helped calm Danny’s nerves were he not so close to the portal. Storms simply dredged up too many bad memories.

Sighing, Danny stuffed the supplies back into the first aid kit and tossed the used gauze in the hazard bin. The sooner he cleaned the lab, the sooner he could sleep.

Transforming so he could stay on the ground easier, Danny flitted around the lab as he cleaned up the mess. By the time he scrubbed the last few drops of ectoplasm by the portal away, his eyelids were drooping low. A clock in the corner of the lab said it was three in the morning. At least he would be able to get a few hours of sleep before school. 

After phasing his first aid kit back into the floor and giving the lab one last cursory glance to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, Danny started to walk towards the stairs. He was halfway across the lab when the fridge caught his eye.

Ectoplasm– he’d almost forgotten.

Opening the fridge, Danny’s eyes skirted over the samples inside before he came upon what he needed. His parents always had plenty of purified ectoplasm samples. Danny liked to take a few whenever he was injured; it helped speed up the healing process.

Danny had grabbed two vials when a particularly loud boom of thunder rattled the house. The sound made Danny jump, dropping both of the vials to the ground where they shattered on impact. Groaning, Danny looked down to find his shoes and the floor surrounding them covered in green.

Right after he’d put away the cleaning supplies too. 

“Always something,” Danny grumbled under his breath.

Determined to have his ectoplasm at least, Danny grabbed two more vials from the fridge, holding both as securely as he could without smashing them in his hands. He pulled the stopper off of one and tossed it back. The taste was sharp and bitter, the texture unpleasantly viscous, but Danny was used to both now.

Tucking the empty vial into his pocket, Danny popped the stopper off of the second one and raised it to his lips. Before he could take a sip, another rumble of thunder came and Danny shuddered, pausing.

"Danny?"

Startling at the sudden voice, Danny dropped the second vial to the ground where its spilled contents joined the first two. 

Wheeling around, he saw both of his parents standing on the lab steps. His dad stood at the base of the stairs, his mom a couple steps higher. Both of them clutched ectoguns in their hands, pointed in Danny's direction. 

Jack had been the one to call his name. He stared at Danny with puzzlement, and he watched as his dad slowly lowered the gun.

Maddie resolutely maintained her aim.

The pair of them advanced towards him and Danny nervously backed away. He kept his eyes trained on his parents, hardly straying from the gun in his mother's hands.

"Who are you?" Maddie called angrily, pushing past her husband.

She had the teal hood of her hazmat pulled up and her eyes obscured by the dark red lenses of her goggles. Danny could still imagine the fierce glare of her eyes, paired with the snarl of her mouth.

"M–Mom?" was all Danny could stammer out as he took another step back.

"Danno, what's going on?" Jack asked tentatively.

"That's not Danny," Maddie cut in before Danny could answer. "He was drinking ectoplasm, Jack– look at his chin."

Jack tensed behind her at those words, his eyes narrowing suspiciously before a cold, dawning horror seemed to overtake him. His eyes flickered to the ectoplasm on the floor and back to him.

Danny could feel the evidence burn on his chin. He gulped, his hands shaking as he held them in a placating gesture.

Maddie continued to prowl forward, staring him down like a wolf stalking a rabbit. The ectogun remained aloft, and Danny was only thankful she hadn't yet fired it.

Realizing the danger he was in, Danny tried to plead his case. “M–Mom? It’s me, Danny. I’m not overshadowed Mom, it–”

Maddie tensed, her hands steady as she clutched the barrel of the ectogun more tightly. "How dare you call me that. Your eyes– Danny doesn’t have green eyes!”

His entire body shook. Danny blinked rapidly, willing his eyes to return to their original color. The room felt too small, the air too thin. He took another step back and jumped when he felt his back hit the cabinet in the far corner.

He was cornered, in the truest sense of the word.

“I said,” Maddie raised the ectogun higher, ready to take deadly aim, “get out of my son.” 

The cold calm of her voice sent shivers down Danny’s spine. Outside, the thunder rumbled, and with the desperate thrumming of his core Danny could imagine the storm rearing within him.

“I’m not overshadowed,” Danny repeated, his voice shaking on every word. “This is just– I just–”

Danny tried to consider his options, his thoughts running a mile a minute, his core thrumming so hard against his ribs that it ached . His parents had seen him drinking ectoplasm. Even if Danny could somehow convince them he was overshadowed, they’d want to pump his stomach– to check him and make sure that he wasn’t harmed by the overshadowing or the ectoplasm in his belly. All it would take is one blood test for them to see just why the ectoplasm didn’t harm him.

To see how much of it lingered in every fiber of his being.

The ectogun whirred and Danny’s heart leapt as a blast of green barreled past his head, striking the wall behind him. It came so close that it singed several of Danny’s hairs.

His mother rarely missed from a distance. At this close range, the misfire was intentional.

“Get out of my son. This is your last warning, ectoplasmic scum.”

Staring down the barrel of his mother’s ectogun, Danny could only see two options. 

His first option was to run. To turn intangible and fly off into the storm and do what he could to pick up the shattered pieces of his life. Maybe he could somehow convince his parents to forgo any tests? Maybe he could convince them he was himself– the same Danny they’d always known, and they could all forget that this standoff happened.

A pipedream, at best.

Danny’s second option squeezed at his core. He’d considered it so many times before, but even in the most ideal, best case scenarios he could never bring himself to commit to the idea. The thought of telling his parents always left a bitter taste in Danny’s mouth, accompanied by the cloying bite of his own ectoplasm and the ache of old burns their ectoguns had left on his skin. Telling them now… Danny wondered if he even could. If he should .

“Mom,” Danny began, raising his hands higher, praying that his mom wouldn’t fire again at hearing her name from his mouth. “This is me. I… I should’ve told you guys a long time ago. Please– please let me explain. I–it was the portal accident.”

Maddie exchanged a quick glance with Jack. A conversation seemed to pass between them. While Maddie glared at Danny with cold, hard conviction, Jack seemed much more conflicted. His brows knitted together with something like concern.

“What does this have to do with Danny’s portal accident? How do you know about that?” Maddie demanded, still controlling the conversation. Jack seemed too rattled by what was going on to interject for once.

Everything in Danny begged him to keep the secret close to his chest. He’d done so for almost a year now. No matter how bad things had gotten– no matter how many times his parents shot at him, or threatened his ghostly half, Danny kept quiet. Sometimes he dreamed about them finding out and everything being okay, but Danny always, inevitably, let those hopes spiral into nothingness, washed away by fear and hurt. 

It took every bit of energy Danny had to speak.

“I– I know because I'm Danny– I was there ! It wasn’t just a small shock, Mom, Dad, I…”

Danny wished that Jazz was there. He’d never imagined telling his parents alone. Every fantasy he’d ever had always included Jazz, Sam, or Tucker– usually all three. His friends, his sister, all of them there to support him and be there just in case.

Yet he was alone now, staring down the barrel of a gun. Jazz was a heavy sleeper, and nothing short of Danny screaming bloody murder would wake her. Calling Sam and Tucker was also out of the question. Danny was as sure as he was scared, that if he moved his hands Maddie would pull the trigger. The blast wouldn’t kill him, but at this close range it would give his parents every opportunity to capture or harm him further.

“I was i–inside the portal when it turned on,” he croaked out.

There was a beat of silence. Though Danny couldn’t see his mother’s eyes, her mouth drew into a thin, thoughtful line.

“No one could survive that,” Jack said, finding his voice. Danny snapped his eyes to him. “The voltage… it would’ve killed you– Danny .”

Nodding, Danny said, in a very small voice, “Yes.”

Maddie laughed, the sound cold and derisive, bouncing off the walls of the lab, punctuated by another deep roll of thunder and the endless patter of rain against the house. 

“You expect us to believe our son has been dead for, what– a year? You don’t think we would have noticed?”

Her words shot a sharp pang through his core. They certainly hadn't noticed, though Danny had gone out of his way to maintain their ignorance. The lies, the avoidance, the sneaking around– there were so many times Danny could have spoken up but chose not to. 

Still, it hurt. A small part of Danny had wished they would have figured it out, if only so he wouldn't have to make the leap himself.

And here he was. Leaping. Not knowing where he would land.

"I'm sorry I hid it from you," Danny wavered. His core thrummed, his heart pounding a furious tattoo alongside it. "I w–wanted to tell you, but I was scared. I'm still scared, M–Mom, Dad. I don't want you to hate me."

Or to shoot. 

In all this time, Maddie had still not lowered her gun. Danny wondered if his eyes were still glowing, or if she was simply convinced enough of her suspicions or bias to aim regardless.

"Prove it. Prove what you're saying is true," Maddie challenged.

Danny licked his lips nervously, tasting the ectoplasm that lingered there. The only proof he had was transforming, and Danny couldn't be sure that Maddie would hold her fire if she saw Phantom take the place of her son, when she was already convinced he was overshadowed.

He didn't have much of a choice.

If Danny was quick, he could turn intangible before the blast hit him.

Taking a deep breath, steeling his resolve, Danny said, "Please– this is me. It's always been me."

He let the light wash over him, cold as windswept snow and autumn nights. 

The transformation hadn't even swept past his head when Maddie fired.

The blast hit Danny in the shoulder, knocking him back forcefully into the cabinet. His head ricocheted off of the wood and the world spun for a moment.

Danny lay slumped against the cabinet, panting heavily. His vision swam, everything distorted and bright as the light of his transformation finished its ascent over his head.

Maddie loomed over him, Jack's towering bulk behind like a looming shadow.

"Where is my son ?" Maddie demanded, her hands now shaking as she pointed the ectogun down at Danny, her shoulders tensed. "What have you done with him, Phantom?"

Danny opened his mouth, trying to form words. "I–I am–"

"I'm not playing your games. Wh–where is my boy?" Maddie's facade broke slightly, a quiver coming into her voice.

Tears rolled down Danny's face, "I am your son!" he repeated, his voice cracking, breaking on each word. "I am. I've al–always been."

Maddie shook her head, doubt and hurt in every inch of her body language and the furious downward twist of her mouth.

"Mads, we– we can fix this," Jack said. He moved to rifle through a cabinet, grabbing something Danny couldn't see. "He's just overshadowed. We can rip the ghost from him, it'll be okay. If he's still in there it–it'll be okay."

"Jack, it’s replaced him. It was burned– look at the burn. Ectoblasts don't hurt h–humans like that."

"Phantom's always been different Maddie," Jack said, pushing past her. He had something large covering his hand. It reminded Danny of the ghost gauntlets, but it was darker– sharper.

Danny scrambled backwards, trying his best to get away. He could barely stand. Ectoplasm bubbled from the wound in his shoulder, and it was all Danny could do to clutch onto the cabinet and keep down the bile rising in his throat.

"St–stay back!" Danny said, his teeth bared, his eyes bleary and unfocused.

Maddie's gun whirred and Danny whipped around, firing an ectoblast, trying to aim for her gun. He must've missed, judging by the shriek that issued from her as she stumbled back. 

A shadow rose in his periphery. Danny turned to face it– and watched in horror as Jack bore down on him with the gauntlet covering his hand, a vengeful snarl in his throat.

Danny hardly registered the claws ripping down the left side of his face.

He did register the burning. The pain in his left eye. How the light faded from that eye and didn't return.

The force struck Danny to the ground. He stared up at Jack, whose bright orange form wavered in his halved vision. 

Danny hurriedly touched the left side of his face, terrified to learn what had been done. He felt the wet slick of ectoplasm– saw the lurid green color as he pulled his hand away from his burning face. 

Burning pain– his face, his shoulder, his throbbing core. 

A keening sound bubbled up from Danny’s throat. He shut his eyes– eye– tight.

He screamed– Wailed.

Danny poured his pain and frustration into the sound, letting his own dying screams engulf his ears. He almost lost himself to it, determined to see the wail through until every last ounce of energy left him, when Danny remembered who was on the receiving end of it.

His parents. Humans.

The wail stuttered, the sound cracking and dying as Danny opened his eye.

For a moment, Danny wasn’t even sure he was in the lab.

Rain and bits of rubble fell from a gaping hole in the ceiling. The far wall had collapsed outwards, with mud from the surrounding ground seeping through the crumpled metal plates. All of the familiar implements of the lab lay scattered, many of them broken. Shattered glass glinted from the floor, dusting over twisted chairs and bent tables. Ectoplasm weeped from weapons and experiments, pooling around crushed furniture that had fallen from the living room. 

A dark tunnel yawned in Danny’s periphery, familiar and haunting. Reluctantly turning to look, Danny saw that the archway of the portal had collapsed, leaving behind only a dark, seeping pool of ectoplasm.

The portal was gone. The house was destroyed. Where were–

A groan grabbed Danny’s attention. He saw some of the rubble shift to reveal a muddy teal hazmat suit, and noticed a larger orange bulk lying closeby. Scrambling to his feet, fear driving Danny past pain and exhaustion, he stumbled forward.

“Mom!” Danny called, the word harsh and broken from his sore throat.

Maddie lifted her head, propping herself up on her elbows as she dragged herself from the twisted metal table she’d been under. The hood of her suit had been torn on the left side, her auburn hair sticking through. Her goggles sat askew on her head, the right lens smashed. Blood trickled down Maddie’s forehead and across her nose. 

Tearing his gaze from Maddie, Danny’s eyes landed on the hulking mass of his father. For a moment, Danny thought he was dead. His core stuttered painfully at the thought, until he saw bits of plaster roll off Jack’s back as he breathed.

Danny took another step closer, his core hammering in his chest, his eyes flying back to his mom as she dragged herself forward. He wanted to race to her side and help, but fear kept him from drawing close.

He’d destroyed their home. He’d hurt them.

Shaking, hardly able to stand, Danny called out to her. “Mom, are you–”

The words died in Danny’s throat as his mother coughed. Wheezing with the effort, Maddie pulled herself higher onto her arms, dragging her legs under her. “M–monster,” she croaked out, baring her teeth into a snarl. “Y–you monster.”

The one violet eye Danny could see bored a hole through his very soul. Danny froze, hardly even noticing when a flash of lightning– the thing that normally made him want to run and hide– lit up the sky, casting shadows across the broken lab.

There was a clattering sound, though Danny couldn’t be sure from where. He listened to the pounding rain, the creak of the house above as more rubble fell– 

His mother crying as she shouted, “ Monster!” one last time, putting every ounce of her strength behind the word.

Danny never wanted to hurt her– anyone. No matter how much they hurt him.

The sound of someone shouting and banging against something caught Danny’s attention. He recognized the voice, though he couldn’t make out the words.

“Jazz!” Danny cried, stumbling towards the stairs where the sound came from. 

The world tipped around him, his vision blurry and dark at the edges. Danny felt cold– a sensation he didn’t normally experience in his ghost form. A haze lay thick over his mind. It felt like a dream, climbing the first few steps. 

The staircase was mostly intact, though it seemed the door at the top was stuck. There was more banging from the other side and Danny heard Jazz cry out his name.

Danny didn’t bother trying to tug the door open. Phasing through it, he stumbled into the kitchen, barreling into Jazz the moment he dropped his intangibility. She caught Danny in her arms and he hissed as her hand pressed against the burn on his shoulder.

“Danny, wh–what happened, why–”

Jazz spoke quickly at first, the words stammering from her mouth.

Silence fell as she took stock of his injuries.

Time seemed to stop as Danny stared up at Jazz, watching her eyes stretch wide and her mouth quiver. She quickly removed her hand from his shoulder, grabbing instead at his left forearm and letting go of that too when he gasped in pain. 

Jazz took a step back, covering her mouth with her hands– flinching when she saw the ectoplasm covering her fingers. She shook like a leaf, her eyes fixed on the left side of his face.

For a moment Danny thought she might vomit.

“Wh–what did they do to you?” she asked, her voice quivering, tears pooling in her eyes. “Danny, I…”

Danny couldn’t say anything. He wavered on the spot, fighting dizziness. It was all he could do to keep standing. At this point, Danny wasn’t even sure how he was still in this form. What adrenaline had fueled him was slowly ebbing away, replaced by exhaustion, and accented by pain. Squinting his eye, Danny hung his head low, feeling a cold shiver wrack his frame.

He felt lopsided. Without seeing the wound, Danny knew that eye was gone– what Jazz must see…

Jazz reached out to him again, gently looping an arm under his uninjured shoulder and around his torso, supporting him. Danny readily leaned into her touch. She felt so warm. He felt so relieved that his wail had not hurt her.

“We–we need to go,” she said quietly. “We can’t stay here.”

 She fumbled in her pocket for something, producing her phone. Danny watched Jazz thumb through the contacts; she swore as her shaking fingers missed the right buttons.

“What about M–Mom and Dad?” Danny asked, his voice shaking over their names. 

Jazz stiffened, her breath catching in her throat.

“Did they hurt you?” she asked.

Danny’s core stuttered painfully as he said, “Y–yes, but they’re hurt. I hurt–”

Jazz’s grip tightened on his torso. “Danny, you haven’t seen… They hurt you. I– we need to g–go. Don’t worry about them, we need to go.” 

Her voice shook almost as much as her arms. 

Danny could hear Jazz’s phone ringing as she dragged him to the front door. He took stock of the ground floor as they passed through it, shuddering as he saw how much of the living room had fallen away. It was dark and wind whipped rain through a large hole in the outer wall. Danny couldn’t be sure how stable the house was now. It bothered him to know he was leaving his parents down in the lab, beneath the cracked floor. 

(Despite what they’d done, it hurt to know they weren’t safe. That he had hurt them.)

Darkness crept further into the edges of Danny’s vision. He leaned more heavily into Jazz, feeling sleep drag him down, mind and body. 

Danny heard Jazz talking on the phone, but the words drifted to his ears slow and indistinct. He couldn’t place who she was talking to, or why. 

Shutting his eye, Danny felt numb to everything but the pain that still scorched through his shoulder and face. The stab wound from Skulker, once the worst part of his shitty night, felt little worse than a bee sting in comparison. 

At some point, Danny felt rain on his face. He was no longer on his feet and there were strong arms holding him close. His eye fluttered open,  staring up at the dark, stormy sky. Jazz’s face hovered in Danny’s periphery, her ginger hair falling over her shoulders, tickling his face.

Jazz said something to him; Danny felt the rumble of the words in her chest more than heard them. He buried his head against her, not caring when the fabric of her shirt scratched the raw wounds on his face.

The last thing Danny remembered was Jazz slowly lowering him down and brushing his hair out of his face. The rumble of what must've been her car lulled Danny into unconsciousness, accompanied by the wavering sound of her voice.

~*~

Jazz felt as if her entire world was crashing down around her.

She stood in front of the door to their home, not knowing if she could call it that anymore. Danny slumped into her side, his ectoplasm slicking her arm and staining her clothes. 

The phone rang in Jazz’s ear and each unanswered note sent spikes of anxiety through her heart. 

Finally, mercifully, the line picked up.

"Jazz?" Sam answered, her voice groggy with sleep.

“S–Sam, I need you and Tucker to meet m–me at the safehouse as soon as you can,” Jazz said quickly. 

Pinning the phone between her shoulder and her ear, Jazz pulled the door open and dragged her brother out onto the front step. 

Danny went limp, all of his weight falling into her. She stooped to pick him up, feeling the chill of his ghost form seep into her chest as she hugged him close. His body was as light as a small child like this.

“Wait– shit, Jazz, do they know? Is Danny okay?” Sam asked very quickly, worry in her every word.

The rain fell just as steady as ever, soaking through the pajamas Jazz had had no time to change out of. She carried Danny to her car, shivering from his chill just as much as from her frayed nerves.

“I–I don’t even know, Sam. It’s bad… it’s bad.”

The sound of a door or window shutting came through Sam’s line. “H–how bad?” Sam asked. Her voice shook a bit, the sound of wind buffeting the speaker as though she were running. 

Jazz leaned on her hip, balancing Danny in one arm so she could open the car door.

“Sam, h–he’s injured. His left eye, it’s…”

Jazz trailed off. How could she describe it? The savage claw marks that dragged down half of his face, leaving a dark pit where a shining green eye once lay. The green remained, oozing from the scars and shining in the raw flesh. 

It wasn’t even his only injury…

Lowering Danny onto the back seat of her car, Jazz carefully arranged his limbs to make him comfortable. She brushed the hair from his face, careful not to touch his wounds.

“Wh–what’s wrong with his eye?” Sam asked tentatively.

Jazz hurried to the driver’s seat, slamming the door, jamming the key into the ignition, and peeling out of the driveway. 

“It’s gone,” Jazz said quietly, a shiver running down her spine.

“... Gone?”

She turned the first corner at speed, water flying up from her back tires. Rain pummeled the windshield and Jazz fumbled to turn on the windshield wipers.

“I’m driving there now. Call Tucker– please,” Jazz said, ignoring Sam’s question. 

She would see soon enough, anyway. 

There was a pause before Sam gave an out-of-breath, “O–okay.” 

Jazz hung up the phone, tossing it into the seat beside her. She gripped the steering wheel tightly with both hands, letting the pounding rain and rumble of the engine fill her ears.

The soft, hardly-perceptible sound of Danny breathing carried from the backseat. Jazz’s eyes filled with tears, a sob choking from her throat.

“It–it’s okay,” she said almost more to herself than Danny. “You’ll be okay. You’ll b–be okay.”

She repeated the mantra, her voice cracking and wavering more with each word, as though saying it enough might make it true.

A bright light flashed from the backseat, blinding Jazz as it reflected off of the windshield and rear view mirror. She swerved slightly, striking a mailbox, but quickly corrected her course. Shaking, Jazz blinked the bright spots from her vision. She hardly dared look at the backseat...

But she did look. Jazz craned her neck, glancing to make sure that Danny was okay. She whimpered, seeing the dark, grisly red that had replaced the ectoplasm. 

Snapping her eyes back onto the road, Jazz pressed down harder on the pedal. It was a race against time now to get Danny help. Ectoplasm bled much more slowly than blood and his human half was less durable to this level of strain.

“Y–you’ll be okay,” Jazz said, falling back into the mantra.

~*~

The moment Jazz hung up the phone, Sam called Tucker. 

Their safehouse was closest to her place, lying on the edge of town near a large stretch of woods. She could see the silhouette of the building in the distance, far down the hill and just past a line of trees.

Tucker answered after a couple of rings, whining into the mic about being woken up so early.

His complaints died when Sam cut him off, stammering through Jazz’s message. She could hardly speak between running and holding back the emotion cloying at her throat.

Tucker got the message regardless. He was out his bedroom window within minutes.

Sam reached the safehouse first. The building looked worse for wear, its grimy windows covered with clinging ivy. Weeds and overgrown bushes choked the yard, with tall grass obscuring the path to the front door. It was one of many old houses in Amity that the city struggled to sell. Stories of hauntings and misdeeds lingered in the rafters of these houses. Not all of the stories were fantasy.

This particular house occasionally housed a flock of blob ghosts, but raccoons in the attic were the closest thing it had to a proper haunting.

That would change once Jazz arrived with Danny.

It was Jazz’s idea to have a safehouse in the first place. She always feared the worst and always tried to plan ahead. 

As Sam picked her way across the path and felt for the key hidden in the step, she could only be thankful that Jazz was so paranoid– that she had agreed and even helped Jazz set up the supplies within the house.

Sam hurried inside and stood for a moment in the foyer, dripping water on the tattered, moth-eaten rug by the door. She took one deep, wavering breath and marched to the garage, tossing her wet jacket on the floor as she went.

Sam left both the exterior and interior garage doors open, making sure there was nothing in the way for Jazz to park and rush inside. With the entrance clear, she then hurried back inside the main house to grab supplies.

Sam’s thoughts drifted as she pulled what they needed from their hiding spaces. She grabbed the first aid kit and water from a hidden cabinet in the kitchen, and then some towels from the closet. Hurrying up the stairs, leaving a trail of rainwater behind her, Sam grabbed the blankets and pillows from the master bedroom. If Danny was as injured as Jazz’s quavering voice implied, they might have difficulty getting him up the stairs.

She collected the supplies in a bedroom on the ground floor. The room had an old twin-sized mattress on the floor that Sam threw one of the blankets over, acting as a sheet. She carefully straightened it out, tucking the blanket edges under the mattress. Her hands shook through it all and she fought to keep tears from welling in her eyes. 

A car door slammed and Sam’s heart skipped a beat. She leapt to her feet and rushed for the garage door.

Jazz was on the doorstep in an instant, Danny clutched tightly in her arms. Sam's heart nearly stopped at seeing how much blood covered him. What she could see of his face was pure red with dark, clawed lines and torn flesh. Sam couldn't take stock of much else before Jazz brushed past her.

"The ground b–bedroom," Sam said quickly.

Jazz adjusted her course just as fast and Sam hurried after her.

Sam grabbed the first aid kit and pulled out all of the gauze while Jazz lowered Danny onto the bed. 

"We need to stop the bleeding," Jazz said, her voice hurried with panic as she pulled the first aid kit towards her and fished out the scissors from it. "It's his shoulder too."

Jazz handed Sam a pair of scissors and Sam didn’t need to ask what they were for. She knelt down beside the bed, giving Danny’s injuries a cursory look. She had one horrifyingly clear glance at Danny’s missing eye before Jazz tore open some gauze and pressed it against his wounds. The material immediately became scarlet and Jazz grabbed more, pressing it on top of the soaked-through gauze.

Sam focused on her own task, cutting away Danny’s hoodie and the shirt underneath with the scissors. The fabric was dark with blood and pulled away stickily from his skin. She then carefully began undoing Danny’s binder, covering his chest with a blanket in its stead. 

An eerie calm settled over Sam as she grabbed some of the gauze and knelt closer, looking carefully at the wound on his shoulder. It looked like a close-range ectogun blast. The edges of it had already cauterized, while the center was raw and still bleeding. She pressed the gauze over the wound and let out a shaky sigh, glancing up.

Jazz was still applying pressure to Danny’s face, mumbling something incomprehensible to herself. She wouldn’t look up at Sam; her eyes remained locked on her own trembling hands.

Blood and ectoplasm stained Jazz’s blue pajamas. Her ginger hair was rumpled and wet, loosely framing her pale face. A glassy sheen lingered in her normally-bright teal eyes. 

Sam had so many questions she wanted to ask, but she didn’t dare speak them. Not until they knew Danny would be okay.

Rain fell heavily on the house's old roof, a steady beat that filled the silence. Sam’s breaths shook. She tried to fight back the tears, but they slowly overcame her. Bowing her head, she let them fall like the rain, each drop landing on Danny’s pale skin.

Several minutes passed before they heard the front door. Sam jumped violently, only settling when she heard Tucker’s voice. He rushed to the bedroom, his wet shoes squeaking loudly on the wooden floor. 

Like Sam and Jazz, he was still in his pajamas. He didn’t even have his hat on. 

Tucker never forgot his hat.

He lingered in the doorway of the room, leaning heavily against the frame. Tucker couldn’t see the extent of Danny’s injuries, but the bloody gauze and the state of Jazz’s clothes had to speak volumes. 

Tucker stepped away from the doorframe, slowly shaking his head as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“H–how is he?” he asked in a small voice.

Sam’s fingers dug into the gauze beneath her hands as Jazz said, “I think he'll be o–okay."

She didn't sound sure.

Tucker ran his hands through his wet hair, pacing back and forth.

"D–did you give him ectoplasm?" he asked.

Jazz's eyes widened fearfully and Sam felt a stone sink into her belly. Jazz straightened up, turning to look at Tucker. "Not yet. Please–"

"On it," Tucker said, hurrying from the room.

Jazz shook her head ruefully. "I–I know he needs it, but he's bleeding and we needed to– I didn't want him to- to–" 

"It's okay," Sam said, cutting off Jazz's panicked rambling before she could spiral. "This is important too."

The ectoplasm would help stabilize Danny and give him energy, but they needed to stop the bleeding. 

Sam told herself this, trying to ignore that she’d forgotten too.

Tucker returned in a flash with the purified ectoplasm, carrying vials of it as well as some ecto-dejecto. He knelt down beside the bed, joining their huddle. Sam watched his eyes trail over Danny and how they lingered on the bloody gauze covering his face. 

Tucker, normally wary and fearful of anything medical, barely hesitated before he drove the syringe of ecto-dejecto into Danny’s thigh. 

Though Danny didn’t wake, a shiver ran through his body. He groaned in his sleep and Jazz had to readjust the gauze as his head turned to the side. She gently stroked his bloody hair, making soft, soothing noises.

The injury to Danny’s shoulder stopped bleeding first. Sam hurried to clean it while Tucker helped clear away the bloody gauze and grab more water. 

The wound across Danny’s face took longer to stop bleeding. By the time Jazz pulled the gauze away, Sam had already begun dressing his shoulder. 

Tucker visibly recoiled upon seeing Danny’s injured face for the first time. Tears sprung into his eyes and he grabbed one of Danny’s hands, holding it tight, brushing his knuckles with his thumb.

Once Sam finished wrapping Danny’s shoulder, she moved to help Jazz. There wasn’t much she could do to help, but Sam needed something to keep her hands busy.

It was only when they finished bandaging Danny’s face, wrapping half of his head in gauze, that the weight of everything crashed down upon her.

Sam sat back on her haunches, staring at the blood covering her hands, despite her best efforts to scrub it away with some gauze. Danny’s blood, seeping through pads of gauze and staining her skin. 

Sam knew she would never forget those bloody red gashes. They would linger in her nightmares—

And the scars would remain, marring Danny’s skin.

His eye was gone. That realization weighed on Sam’s mind, so much worse than any injury he had experienced before.

Jazz hadn’t said what happened, and Sam dreaded the answer.

They didn’t speak at first. They’d hardly spoken a word since Tucker arrived. Sam didn’t know where to even start. 

The mattress lay in the far corner of the room, pressed against the wall; Tucker sat against it, resolutely clutching Danny’s left hand. Sam crawled next to him and sat down, leaning into her friend. She rested her cheek on Tucker’s shoulder, letting out a shaky sigh when he dropped his chin onto her head.

Jazz remained at the head of the bed, gently stroking Danny’s hair. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, her face mottled with smears of blood. 

They still sat in their rain-soaked pajamas.

“I don’t even know what happened,” Jazz admitted quietly, dragging Sam from her thoughts.

One of Jazz's hands fiddled with the hem of her pajama top, while her other continued to card through Danny's hair. She didn't look up at Sam and Tucker as she continued to speak.

"I just… I woke up to him w–wailing. From the lab. The entire house– Ancients, the house is a mess... And I heard…"

She trailed off, struggling with each word. Sam had half a mind to make her stop.

She didn't.

The blanket underneath them shifted as Tucker wormed his free hand into Sam's. He squeezed tight and she returned the gesture in kind.

Jazz took a deep breath and stared up at the ceiling, blinking away her tears.

"I heard M–Mom shouting– she said monster. An–and then he came up the stairs and…"

Jazz gestured helplessly to Danny's sleeping form.

Sam swallowed a lump in her throat. "Did he say anything?" she asked quietly.

Jazz nodded, but did not answer. She opened her mouth, closed it, and shook her head, her eyes downcast.

"Was it your parents?" Tucker asked before Sam could.

Slowly, as though wading through the sands of time, Jazz nodded her head.

Ice ran through Sam's veins, colder and sharper than anything Danny's core could produce. She clutched Tucker's hand so fiercely that he gasped in pain.

"He tried… he wanted to go help them," Jazz then said, anger creeping into her shaking voice. "He was b–bleeding all over, and– his eye– and he still was worried about h–hurting them."

Jazz's ragged breaths filled the quiet. She bowed over Danny's head and fresh tears blotted the gauze across his face.

“That’s just like him,” Sam mumbled, unsure what else to say.

Jazz just nodded her head without looking up.

Anger mixed with Sam’s sorrow. It filled her to the brim, and still there was not enough room to contain it all. Fresh tears welled in her eyes, borne of that overwhelming anger. She choked back a sob and bit down a rant. She had so much to say– so many awful words to tear the Fenton parents down until there was nothing but ash and the rubble of their broken house to mark the occasion.

One look at Jazz’s tear-stained, blood-streaked face kept her from doing so.

Chapter Text

A foggy haze clouded Danny’s mind. It seemed to spill past his thoughts, pressing in on his body, settling uncomfortably over face. Groaning, Danny turned his head, trying to escape the fog. His head pounded painfully and his skin burned .

A chair scraped across the floor and someone started speaking. Danny couldn’t make out most of the words. They came jumbled to his ears, trickling like droplets through a crack in a dam. Danny waited for that crack to widen– for enough of the words to drip through his ears and make sense of the muddled, empty river of his mind. 

Opening his eyes, Danny stared up at the ceiling. He couldn’t see any stars, just a bleary white expanse– though nothing clean enough to be a hospital.

That haze persisted in his vision. He felt strangely lopsided, like something heavy hung in his periphery. When Danny tried to look, there was nothing there to see. 

Furrowing his brow, confused, Danny winced when the burning in his face worsened. His skin felt hot and feverish from his brow to his cheek, the burning encompassing the left side. It lingered particularly around his eye, radiating outwards like solar flares.

Slowly, Danny realized that the fog pressing in on him was physical. Something covered half of his face, though he couldn’t remember what or why.

Someone leant over Danny, messy black hair framing their face. He blinked his eyes– eye? His left eyelid felt strange, and the muscles there didn’t cooperate properly. Blinking the eye he could manage, Danny was relieved when Sam’s familiar face swam into view.

“S–Sam?” Danny coughed out. His throat was dry and ragged, as though he’d spent the night screaming.

Screaming…

Everything rushed back to Danny in a crashing wave. 

Unsteady stitches and the tang of ectoplasm. The fear of being caught and backing into a corner. The whirr of an ectogun and the glint of metal claws. Burning pain and–

Wailing.

A scream that went on too long, and the crash of rubble that surrounded it.

The word ‘ Monster ’ rang in Danny’s ears, echoing with the rumble of thunder.

Danny tried to sit upright but a hand held him down. His breaths came quick and shallow, and he squirmed, desperate to get up and… and…

He didn’t know what.

With a shaking hand, Danny felt for the left side of his face. Soft gauze met his fingertips and he winced at the ache that lingered beneath the wrappings.

A hand fell into his, pulling it away from his face.

“...Danny,” Sam said, her voice a nervous warble.

He stared at her, trembling as he fought to speak.There were no words to express how he felt. Only the nervous flicker of his eye and the shaking grip of his hand as he clutched onto Sam’s tightly.

Another person sat down beside Sam, wearing baggy clothes that didn’t fit her usual style. Danny had never seen Jazz look so sullen and despondent. A small smile curled her lips, but it did not reach her eyes.

“Danny, do you remember what happened?” Jazz asked. Her voice was soft and quiet, as though speaking to someone on their deathbed.

Emotion gripped his chest. Danny’s core thrummed unpleasantly and he struggled to swallow a lump in his parched throat. He tried to speak, but only managed to produce a strangled whine.

“Here– let’s sit you up so you can drink,” Sam said quickly.

She gently braced her hands around Danny and lifted his torso while Jazz folded a couple of pillows and blankets under him. Danny winced at a painful tug in his shoulder as Sam lowered him back down onto the pillows. Danny noticed that he wasn’t wearing anything on his upper body, but Sam noticed just as quickly and adjusted the blanket to cover him.

Jazz reached for something on the ground that crinkled. She held up a bottle of water and gently guided it into his hands, making sure that they held firm before letting go. 

Danny drank from the bottle as though it were life-giving waters. He held it to his mouth with both hands, painfully aware of how badly they shook. 

A sob bubbled up in Danny’s throat and he coughed out some of the water. Tears slipped down the right side of his face, though he couldn’t remember starting to cry. 

Warm arms wrapped carefully around Danny, avoiding his injuries. He leaned into the touch, burying the uninjured side of his face into Jazz's shoulder. She smelled of antiseptic and unfamiliar shampoo. He gripped her shoulders tightly, balling his hands into the large t-shirt she wore. 

Jazz carded one hand through Danny’s hair while her other rubbed his back. She tried to mumble soft reassurances to him, but the words were muffled by her own tears. He gripped her more tightly, wishing he could stay there and never have to face their shattered home and the life left within it.

They stayed like that for a long while, lost in each other's embrace, until Jazz gently lowered him back onto the pillows. Danny settled there, uncomfortably aware of eyes boring into him and the questions they carried.

Glancing around, Danny took in his surroundings for the first time. They were in a room with faded floral wallpaper and scuffed wooden flooring. An uncovered lightbulb dangled from the ceiling, surrounded by water stains. He lay on a mattress on the floor with three chairs crowded around it, Sam sitting in one while Jazz knelt at the side of the bed. Craning to look at the wall behind him, Danny could see a single window with a blanket thrown over it in place of a curtain.

“Where are we?” Danny asked, the words raspy and clinging to his throat.

Sam looked at the covered window too as she said, “It’s… our safehouse.” 

His eyes snapped back to her, watching as she quickly averted her gaze. She fiddled with her hands in her lap.

“Safehouse?” he slowly asked.

It was Danny’s first time hearing of any safehouse.

Sam shifted her weight, leaning on her hip. She exchanged a nervous glance with Jazz and Danny sat up straighter, waiting for them to explain.

It was Jazz who answered. 

“Danny, we… I was worried something like this might happen. I– I wanted us to be prepared, so we…” 

She trailed off, glancing at Sam, who quickly picked up her explanation.

“We needed to know there was somewhere to go if anything went wrong. It’s– we’re still in Amity, just… tucked away.”

Danny’s breath quickened and his eyes once more swept over the room, clawing for any details that might tell him where they were or how long they’d been there. He noticed several cans on a small, foldable table by the third chair. A few empty bottles of water littered the floor and there was a trash bag slumped by the door. Behind the chairs, Danny could see piles of blankets and a couple of pillows that looked like makeshift beds.

“H–how long have we been here? Where’s Tucker?” Danny asked, putting the pieces together.

Jazz sighed, the sound carrying far more exhaustion than it should.

“It’s been a couple of days,” she said quietly. “Tucker’s keeping watch in–”

“A couple of days ?” Danny demanded, feeling the temperature drop with his panic. “I–why didn’t… you’ve all been here this whole time? Wh–what about school, and–and–”

He gripped the edge of the mattress tightly, reigning his core in when he saw frost creeping over the blanket.

“Danny, none of that matters right now.” Sam said, cutting him off. She slid down onto the floor next to Jazz, glaring fiercely at him with wet eyes. “Do you… do you remember what happened?”

Her hand cupped his in a gesture that should have been comforting, but Danny pulled his hand back, holding it close to his body. Panic blossomed in his chest, his core thrumming.

“It does matter. You guys can’t just– you got a safehouse. You didn’t even tell me, and you’ve been here… what about your parents? What about Tuck–”

“ Do you remember what happened ?” Sam demanded.

The question rattled in Danny’s mind, accompanied by a furious buzzing in his core. He remembered it all too well. How could he forget when he wore the evidence?

“I can still feel it,” Danny hissed, jabbing a finger pointedly at his face.

Sam flinched, but recovered quickly.

“Then you should understand why we’re here,” she said, her eyes glistening as more tears welled into her lashes. “We couldn’t just leave you after– after…”

Sam trailed off, glancing once more at Jazz. Danny looked between the pair of them, feeling a tightness squeeze his core when he remembered who he had left behind. 

“What about Mom and Dad?” Danny asked, turning to Jazz. “We’ve been hiding here and th–they were…”

Injured and left in that broken house.

Jazz’s brows drew together in an uncharacteristically dark expression. She picked herself up slightly and scooted onto the edge of the mattress, pressing her side into Danny’s uninjured shoulder.

“You need to worry about yourself, not them,” she said without looking at Danny.

“But they–”

“But nothing,” Sam said, once more cutting him off. “Danny, I don’t know what exactly they did to you, but… I know they hurt you. There’s no reason you should feel sorry for them .”

Danny shook his head, hardly able to take in the words she said. His mind latched onto her last sentence, his panic reaching new heights.

“What happened to them? Are they…”

Danny remembered Maddie crawling from beneath the broken table, and Jack’s hulking form lying nearby. Both had been breathing, and his mom had enough strength left in her to shout at him, but that didn’t mean they were safe.

They had to be okay. Danny wasn’t sure what he would do if they weren’t okay.

Sam groaned, clearly frustrated. Jazz, ever more patient, gave him an answer.

“Th–they’re both in the hospital, from what we can tell. Da– Jack was in worse shape, but the news said he’s… stable.”

Danny froze when Jazz swapped names for their father. She’d only ever called their dad by his name in jest, but there was no humor in her voice now. She snaked an arm around his middle and Danny didn’t try to wiggle out of her grip when she pulled him close.

His shock weighed with some relief. The thought that he had injured his parents– hospitalized them, in fact– weighed heavily on Danny’s mind, but… 

At least they were alive. 

Danny grabbed at the blanket covering him, staring at his scarred knuckles. He absently wondered if his wail echoed in his parents’ ears like it did in his.

There was a knock on the door and Danny snapped to attention, teeth bared as he looked towards the source of the noise. Tucker stood in the doorway to the room, holding several steaming mugs. 

“I knew you were awake,” he said, offering Danny a small smile.

Tucker set the mugs down on the foldable table and passed one to Jazz and Sam each. He then grabbed the last two and sat down on the mattress near Danny’s legs.

“I’m not sure it’s the best idea to give you coffee right now, but… well, I think you could use it,” he said, holding out one of the mugs to him.

Danny paused, taking in his friend’s appearance. The clothes Tucker wore fit his usual style better than Jazz’s, but they were still unfamiliar. There were dark bags under his eyes that could rival Danny's own, and his smile was tense and stiff.

He took the mug from him with a quiet 'thanks'.

The heavenly aroma of coffee hung in his nose, but Danny couldn't bring himself to drink it. He stared into the cup, noting that he had some difficulty focusing on it. Everything felt a little flatter, and Danny realized with a sinking feeling in his stomach that his depth perception was shot. 

"It's how you like it," Tucker said encouragingly. "Black– like your overdramatic soul."

Danny snorted, a smile quirking his lips for the first time since, well…

Shutting his eye so he wouldn't have to see how the cup moved through his compromised vision, Danny took a long sip. The coffee was hot– probably too hot for someone who was entirely human– but he welcomed the pleasant burn.

(Certainly more pleasant than the burn of…)

They fell into a not exactly comfortable silence, but a respectable one. Jazz still had an arm wrapped around Danny; she rubbed small circles into his back, humming softly as she drank her coffee. 

Danny watched the three of them, noticing it wasn't just Tucker with deep eyebags. Sam and Jazz looked similarly exhausted, with tiredness etched in their sagging shoulders as much as those telltale eyebags.

Danny held his cup in his hands, close to his chest so he could keep it covered with the blanket. His eyes were drawn to the bandages wrapping his shoulder. He could still feel the sting of Maddie's shot…

"How do you feel?" Jazz asked, squeezing him more tightly.

Danny hummed in response, not really sure how to answer. He was no stranger to pain, but not to this severity. Not to the point of this loss.

His mind felt just as tattered as the flayed skin across his face.

"Danny, what…" Sam began before her words trailed off.

Danny grit his teeth together and shut his eye tight. He knew what she wanted to ask, and he wasn't sure he was prepared to give an answer.

The silence stretched on until it was uncomfortable. Danny shivered, though it had nothing to do with the temperature.

“I don't want to talk about it," Danny said.

"Danny…"

"I know you want to know, but… fuck it was so stupid."

Danny gripped his mug tighter– too tight. The cup handle cracked and Jazz quickly took it from his hands before the rest of it followed suit.

Danny put his head in his hands– flinching back as he felt the heavy bandages on the left side. He wasn't sure if he wanted to cry or scream– perhaps both.

"H–how bad is it?" Danny asked quietly without looking at them.

The mattress shifted as Jazz pulled him closer, guiding his head once more onto her shoulder.

"There's a lot of scarring," she said quietly.

The glint of claws flashed in his memory and the skin on his face seared with it.

Danny's throat tightened. He swallowed down a lump, nodding slightly to let her know he was listening.

"I didn't want to tell them," he said. "I–I didn't want to."

He couldn't take it back. They knew and there was no going back. 

Jazz's hold on him tightened. It felt as if she were trying to pull Danny into her very soul. He worried she might never let go.

The air crackled with tension. It pressed down upon him, as weighty and strong as Jazz's sure grip. Danny knew they were waiting for him to say more. It might've been easier to grant them an answer, but his mouth felt dry and the words wouldn't come.

Danny just shook his head, repeating, "I didn't want to tell them,” as tears welled in his singular eye.

~*~

Danny slept for most of the day. It was difficult focusing and the more they danced around their current situation, the more Danny felt something inside him breaking down. 

Sam and Tucker didn’t want to tell him about their home situations and what it meant that they were now missing for two days.

Jazz didn’t want to tell him the severity of the damage to their home and their parents’ injuries.

Danny didn’t want to tell them what happened in the lab and led up to his wail.

They were at a stalemate, all skirting around topics that needed to be said, but with no nerve to say them.

Unspoken words aside, exhaustion still lingered in every inch of Danny’s body. He hurt, in more ways than one, and it was with relief that he let that sore weariness drag him down to the mattress and into sleep.

Nightmares plagued Danny’s rest. A jumble of flashing images, broken by booming cracks of lightning that lit up the earth. He dreamt of falling buildings and screams. His own wail echoed in his ears, and the flash of claws tore across his vision, carrying a burning pain with no end. 

Danny woke with a start when one of the claws landed on his arm, digging in. Wrenching his arm away, Danny scrambled back into the wall, breathing heavily. He took in his surroundings, feeling the panic slip away and ebb into weariness when he recognized the bedroom of the safehouse.

It wasn’t the most comfortable place to be, but it was at least safe, as the name implied.

Jazz sat next to the mattress, her arm still held out towards him, her expression unreadable.

“Sorry,” she said, lowering her hand into her lap, clenching her fist. “It looked like you were having a pretty bad nightmare.”

Danny just nodded his head. Looking beside Jazz, he could see that Sam and Tucker were both still sleeping. They lay beside one another in a makeshift nest of blankets. The chairs from earlier had been swept back so their beds could be dragged closer to the mattress. 

Jazz worried her bottom lip, shifting uncomfortably where she sat. 

Of course she wouldn’t just go back to sleep now. Danny was never so lucky.

“I want to change your bandages,” she said carefully, wringing her hands in her lap. “We should’ve changed them earlier, but with everything going on…”

She trailed off, leaving the room quiet but for the soft sounds of Tucker and Sam sleeping.

Worry gripped at Danny’s chest. They hadn’t changed his bandages since he woke up. Danny knew that eventually he would have to face the wounds his parents left on him, but that didn’t make it any easier. 

“Can I?” Jazz asked when he didn’t say anything. Her voice was soft and pleading, and he felt sure she dreaded an argument.

Danny found himself nodding, even as every instinct in his body screamed for him to say no. As though if he put it off long enough the wounds would heal enough that he could pretend they weren’t so severe.

Wishful, unrealistic thinking.

Jazz nodded, smiling slightly, and Danny could see some of the tension leave her shoulders. She got up and grabbed a couple of things lying against the wall, stepping carefully around Sam and Tucker. She came back holding a bottle of water and a massive first aid kit like the one hidden under his bed back at home.

(A home he couldn’t go back to, with so many memories trapped inside.)

Danny sat up to give Jazz easier access to his wounds, holding the blanket to his chest. She noticed his discomfort and gave him a sympathetic smile.

“Sorry. Once I change the bandages on your shoulder I’ll grab you a shirt,” she said.

Jazz started with his shoulder, carefully undoing the old wrappings. The gauze had serosanguinous fluid on it and the center of the wound was still open. Dark bruising mottled his skin surrounding the cauterized edges. Considering it had already been a couple of days, the wound was not healing very quickly. 

Though, considering how close Maddie was when she took the shot, Danny supposed he shouldn’t be surprised.

The sharp scent of antiseptic hit Danny’s nose. He tensed, waiting for the sting, and gasped as Jazz carefully applied it to the wound. 

True to her word, Jazz went and grabbed a T-shirt for Danny as soon as she covered his shoulder with fresh gauze and bandages. It was a large blue T-shirt with stars on it, one that he knew had been picked out specifically for him. Jazz helped Danny wiggle into the shirt, making sure that it didn’t press on either of his injuries. 

She gave him the bottle of water and they sat in silence as he slowly drank. All the while Danny prepared himself for the bandages on his face. He wouldn’t have to look at the wounds just yet, but the thought of feeling the bandages move against the seared skin, knowing that Jazz had to stare those scars down…

  Stare at an eye that could no longer stare back. 

That wasn’t even there, he was sure.

All too soon, Jazz started unwrapping the bandages. Danny sat stockstill, watching her progress. He wanted to shut his eye and ignore whatever expressions she might make, but his curiosity won out.

Jazz kept her eyes locked on the bandages, determinedly ignoring his gaze. Her expression remained neutral until the last layer of bandages peeled away. 

Even then, as she pulled those bandages aside, Danny could tell Jazz was doing her best to keep a straight face. Still, her feelings broke through the stony facade. Her lip quivered and her brows furrowed ever so slightly.

Danny closed his eye, no longer wanting to watch.

He could still feel it. The burn of his skin as she applied antiseptic and gauze, and the way Jazz's hands trembled throughout it all.

They carried on in silence until she tied off the last stretch of bandage, wrapping it around Danny's forehead. He wasn’t even surprised when she finally spoke, a question on her tongue.

"Who did it?" she asked.

Danny's breath hitched, despite anticipating the question. He opened his eye to find Jazz staring fixedly at him, her mouth drawn into a thin line. She looked so tired. Tired beyond a physical sense.

She deserved to know, he realized. They were every bit her parents, and she had done so much to care for him since that fateful day.

His hands shaking, Danny pointed to his shoulder.

"Mom," he said.

Taking a deep breath, his throat growing tight, tears welling in his eye, Danny then pointed to his face.

"Dad."

Danny didn't even have time to see her reaction. Jazz simply pulled him into a tight hug, holding him close, sniffling. She pressed uncomfortably against his shoulder, but in that moment Danny didn't care. He hugged her back just as fiercely.

~*~

The house was restless the next day. Danny had slept into the evening, blissfully unaware of the nervous tension until Sam dropped a cup and it shattered loudly. He found them flitting about the room, gathering up supplies and stuffing them into bags. At first Danny assumed they were cleaning up after themselves, but he quickly realized that something was amiss.

"What's going on?" he asked.

Tucker had been gathering up the blankets on the floor nearby. He paused when Danny spoke, wide eyes leveling him with a stare.

He opened his mouth, closed it, and looked helplessly at the blankets in his hands.

"We’re getting everything together so we can go soon," Sam said, receiving a grateful look from Tucker. She had a bag full of clothes and several bottles of water balanced on top of it.

Her words had Danny's heart dropping into his stomach.

"G–go?" he asked, dreading the answer.

"Go," Sam echoed. "We've been here for three days now and they're still searching the town for us. We can’t stay here any longer.”

Danny’s heart began to race. “Wait, but– just like that? Where would we even go?”

He struggled up off of the mattress and into a standing position, swaying slightly. Danny still felt incredibly weak, and his tired mind was trying and failing to understand Sam’s words. He’d only ever known Amity– he only wanted to know Amity, after the accident. The mere thought of leaving seemed blasphemous now.

Sam set the bag down on the foldable table, knocking a couple of cans to the floor. She went to place her hand on Danny’s injured shoulder, realized what she was doing, and swapped to his right. 

“It doesn’t matter where we go, as long as we stick together,” she said. “We just can’t stay in Amity. It’s not safe anymore.”

Her voice was soft, her words carefully chosen, but his core still thrummed uncomfortably. Danny’s breaths became quick and shallow. He took a step back, yanking his shoulder from Sam’s grip, and nearly stumbled over the edge of the mattress.

“Danny we–”

“No. Stop .”

Danny couldn’t think. His mind went in spirals, resolutely stuck on the idea of leaving Amity and how wrong that felt. Amity Park meant safety, home–

Purpose.

Who was he without Phantom? Without protecting Amity Park,  giving it his all even when half the town still thought he was nothing more than a monster?

( Monster . That word still echoed in his head.)

He sank back down onto the mattress, putting his head in his hands, not caring when his fingers dug into the bandages wrapped around his face. 

It wasn’t just about him, he realized with sinking dread as Sam and Tucker said something to each other, their words unheard beneath his own rapid breathing. Sam had said it herself, after all: “as long as we stick together.”

They were prepared to pack up their lives and go with him on a journey he didn’t even want to make.

The mattress sank down slightly as Sam and Tucker sat on either side of him. He felt Tucker’s warm, broad fingers grab his hand and stroke his knuckles. He started encouraging Danny to breathe in a pattern Jazz taught them, counting the breaths in and out. Danny couldn’t focus at first, but he slowly started to listen to Tucker’s voice and fell into the count with him.

“Better?” Tucker asked, giving his hand a gentle squeeze.

Danny nodded, but felt hardly any better. He shook, panic still gripping his chest, and worries running through every corner of his mind.

“You know we can’t stay,” Sam said. “I know how you feel about… protecting this place, but Danny– we can’t stay here. You have to know that.”

Danny turned to look at her, needing to turn his head further to see her past the new blindspot. Her words were blunt and honest, but not devoid of sympathy. Sam’s thick brows were furrowed, her face pinched with worry.

“We could figure something out. I–I can’t just let you guys throw away your lives for–” 

Sam grabbed Danny’s other hand; he winced as her nails dug into his skin. 

“We’re not throwing anything away, and this is figuring something out, Danny,” she said.

He tried to wrench his hand free from Sam’s but she wouldn’t let go. He didn’t have enough heart in it to turn intangible.

“If we stayed I could still be Phantom, and you two could still g–go to school,” Danny said, looking down at the floor, not wanting to meet her gaze.

He noticed there were droplets of blood on the floor that they’d failed to clean up.

“It’s not that simple,” Tucker said.

“Why isn’t it?”

It seemed simple enough to Danny. He didn’t care if he had to hide away as a human and sleep in their safehouse, as long as it meant that they could stay. 

Tucker let out a world-weary sigh before he said, “Danny… you and Jazz don’t have anywhere to live, and we’re not going to let you hide away by yourself. Even if you could, you…”

He trailed off and dread crept into Danny’s core in those quiet moments.

“You can’t be Phantom anymore– not here.”

It was Jazz that spoke. She stood in the doorway, though Danny couldn’t be sure when she’d gotten there. She leaned against the doorframe with her arms crossed, nervously stroking her upper arms.

“Wh–why?” was all Danny could say, and even that word struggled to pass his lips.

Jazz shut her eyes and took a deep breath. She pushed off of the doorframe and walked over to the mattress, kneeling down in front of Danny. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, as though she’d only just stopped crying.

“Mo– Maddie has blamed you for all of this,” she said very quietly, her voice starting to shake as fresh tears welled in her eyes. “For everything.”

A shiver ran down Danny’s spine. He sat bolt upright, hardly noticing when he phased out of Sam and Tucker’s hands to grip instead at the mattress, needing something to ground him.

“Does the town know that I’m–”

“No,” Jazz said very quickly, shaking her head. “No, they… Danny, they don’t think you’re Phantom, they think– they think he…”

“Killed you,” Sam supplied when Jazz couldn’t finish her sentence.

The world spun out from under Danny. Something inside him broke– some last sliver of composure that he had held onto in the hope that he could simply pick up the pieces of his life in Amity.

In the eyes of the town Danny Fenton was dead.

In their eyes, Phantom had killed him. 

There was some irony there, though Danny wasn’t laughing.

“I–I could prove them wrong if I just–”

“Danny, there’s no secret identity anymore,” Sam said, frustration bleeding into her tone as she rounded on him. “We either leave now and let them think you’re dead, or we wait until someone sees you and puts two and two together.”

“But if they saw I was alive–”

Sam pounded her fists on the mattress, near-shouting as she said, “Damn it, Danny, your face! Your eye – Phantom is going to look the same! Your parents won’t have to say anything– they’ll know .”

Cold realization settled over Danny. Frost began to spread around him and Sam, Tucker, and Jazz all shivered, their breaths fogging in the air.

He couldn’t go back. Not just to his house, but to any part of the life he’d cultivated in Amity. Danny Fenton was dead and Phantom was a murderer– both marked with a scar that he hadn’t even seen.

Danny stood up suddenly, pushing past Jazz, storming out of the room on shaking legs. He ignored their calls, listening only to the blood pounding in his ears as he glanced down the unfamiliar hallway of the safehouse. 

He found what he was looking for at the end of the hall.

The bathroom was larger than the one he was used to, but lacked any of the trappings of a home. There was a toilet, an old cracked tub, and a gutted sink with a dirty old mirror hanging over it.

Danny slammed the door behind him and turned the lock. He shook, turning back to the mirror, staring his reflection down. His eye had begun to blaze green.

Leaning over the counter, Danny took in his appearance. The bandages covered over half of his face and wrapped into his disheveled hair. His skin was even paler than usual, and he’d never seen his eyebags so deep and dark.

Danny grabbed the knotted edge of the bandage and turned it intangible.

The bandages fell away as easily as water sliding through his fingers. What they left behind shook him to the core.

Danny had imagined distinct claw marks running across his face, but the wound was much larger than that. The center of it had fused together into a large expanse of raw flesh. 

At the center of it lay a dark, empty socket with what was left of his eyelids squinted around it.

Even a chunk of Danny’s ear was missing, though he wasn’t sure how he didn’t notice it until now.

A keening sound rose from Danny’s throat as someone knocked on the bathroom door. He ignored the knocking– his own name, called by Jazz.

Danny kept staring, transfixed by the horrible scar.

Sam’s words rang in his ears, and a morbid curiosity clutched Danny’s heart. He gripped the edge of the counter, his breathing unsteady as he reached for the cold spot of his core and let it sweep over him.

Bile rose in Danny’s throat. He took one look at his reflection and bowed his head over the sink, retching up what little food Jazz had managed to make him eat before he fell asleep the night before.

Seeing the scar on his human face had been bad enough, but it didn’t compare to what he saw on Phantom. Bright, lurid green flesh marred his face, almost the same color as his remaining eye. It reminded him of his death scar, only so much worse. The thin branches of the lichtenberg figure glowed with the same toxic intensity, but they hid snuggly beneath his suit, hidden from prying eyes.

There was no hiding this wound. It took up half of his face, spreading out from his missing eye like an infection.

And the man who did it had thought he was fixing Danny. That he could simply rip the ghost from him and– what? Purify him? Make him whole again by tearing half of him away?
A hollow laugh escaped Danny’s lips, carried with a sob. 

He sank down onto the bathroom floor and clutched his knees, rocking slightly. Ice blossomed around him, frosting over the tiles.

Danny didn’t know how long he sat on the bathroom floor, crying into his knees, shaking. It could’ve been minutes, or it could’ve been hours. All he knew was that it wasn’t long enough before the doorknob began to jiggle and Tucker opened it, a metal pick clasped in his hand.

Tucker took in a sharp breath, his eyes blowing wide as he looked at him. Danny supposed this was his first time seeing the scar on Phantom’s face as well. 

His friend said nothing. He let the lockpick drop to the floor and slowly settled onto the tile beside him. Tucker held his arms out, pausing to give Danny time to refuse the gesture, before he scooped him up into a hug, pulling him into his lap.

Jazz and Sam joined them, both squeezing into the bathroom and wrapping their arms around the pair until they came together in a firm huddle. Tucker rocked slowly, holding Danny close against him. Jazz once more stroked his hair, giving soft reassurances. Sam hugged the tightest, encompassing them all in her wiry arms. 

If Danny’s chill bothered any of them, they didn’t let it show.

~*~

When it came down to it, there was nothing Danny could say to convince Sam and Tucker to stay in Amity Park. They were the only ones with a life left to go back to, but both of them disagreed with that sentiment.

“It wouldn’t be the same,” Sam had said.

“You can’t get rid of us that easily,” Tucker insisted. 

Their homes, their parents, their schooling– they were prepared to give up everything to run away with him.

And they still had no idea where they were even going.

Their only plan was to drive East; everything else they'd figure out along the road. 

Tucker was confident he could make them false IDs, and Sam was confident they could live off of the land if civilization didn’t work out.

Danny wasn’t confident of much other than the fact that he would do everything in his power to keep them safe. If he couldn’t protect Amity, he would protect the people that meant the most to him. 

They scrubbed the safehouse clean, making sure to hide any traces of their presence. All of the supplies they could use were loaded into Jazz’s car. All essentials, no trinkets or comfort items from home. Only things that Sam, Tucker, and Jazz had purchased for the house without Danny ever knowing– and a couple of incriminating flash drives Tucker had had the good sense not to leave behind.

The only thing they left in the safehouse was a message to Dani carved in ghostspeak on the floor. She knew about the safehouse too, it seemed. With any luck, she’d find her way to them someday.

They were almost prepared to leave. The sun had sunk low on the horizon and a chilly breeze blew through the air. They were going to head out under the cover of darkness and hope that no one noticed Jazz’s car. They planned to procure another vehicle as soon as they could, but right now all that mattered was getting out of town.

Danny watched as Tucker loaded the last bag into the car and Sam and Jazz did a last sweep of the house, checking for anything they might’ve missed. He hadn’t helped much, too stunned by what was happening to move his feet. 

Danny felt he owed them one last favor before they hit the road.

“I’ll be right back, I swear,” he said to Tucker.

Transforming on the spot, he flew off before his friend could get more than a word out.

Flying soothed Danny’s soul in a way few things did. He soared invisibly over town, taking note of where the safehouse was before losing himself to the air. 

With the wind whipping through his hair and the glowing lights of Amity Park beneath him, Danny could pretend for a moment that everything was the same. That he could simply wake up each day with the sure knowledge that no matter what happened he’d be there to protect the town. 

He’d resented his work as Phantom at times, but it was a life– an afterlife– that Danny had carved out for himself and worn with pride. 

To lose it now left an ache in his core that he was sure wouldn’t heal any time soon, if at all.

Danny did one slow lap of the town, marveling at how… normal everything seemed. Though his life had ground to a halt, the world kept turning without him. Perhaps even for the better, Danny thought with a pang. It had been three days since any ghost attack, and Danny secretly knew, from the time he saw the shattered remains of the portal, that he wouldn’t ever be needed in the same way again.

Amity Park lived on, in spite of how surely death clung to it.

Danny’s first stop was at Tucker’s house. He floated invisibly through his bedroom window and stared at the familiar space. Sleepovers, video games, movies– they’d done so much together in this bedroom over the years. Tucker’s house was like a second home to Danny, and the thought that the Foley parents assumed Danny Fenton was dead left a sour taste in his mouth.

He wondered what they thought of their son. If they somehow blamed Phantom for his disappearance.

Shaking away the thought, Danny grabbed a bag from Tucker’s closet and dumped out the contents. He then quickly searched the room, looking for–

He found Tucker’s red beanie lying on his bed and scooped it up. The fabric was old and worn, and every bit more special for it. Danny tucked it safely into the bag.

He searched over the rest of the room and grabbed a few other things he could carry: a few pictures from when they were all in middle school, a couple of Tucker’s favorite old action figures lovingly displayed above his desk, and an old PDA he refused to stop using.

With one last look at Tucker’s room, knowing he would never again step food in it, Danny flew back out into the night.

He stopped at Sam’s house next. Her room had been ransacked by someone– probably her parents– but Danny quickly set to work looking for things to stuff in the bag. 

He found a few of Sam’s favorite necklaces given to her by her grandma, an old bat stuffed animal from when she was little, and the denim jacket she’d spent the entire last summer customizing with patches and paint. Danny didn’t linger in her room for as long. He had plenty of memories of Sam’s house, but it had never been as warm and inviting as Tucker’s.

Taking a deep breath, Danny left Sam’s house behind for his last destination. 

FentonWorks loomed before him, cold and menacing in a way he never thought it would be. Danny’s heart sank as he drew near and saw the scope of damage for the first time.

A gaping hole had been carved out of the side of the house and there was police tape sectioned around the entire structure. A couple of people meandered around the front of the house, while debris still littered the pavement on the side. Parts of the house appeared ready to collapse at any moment. Danny could see a sliver of the lab as he drew close, bits of metal glinting in the moonlight through the holes in the basement ceiling.

Approaching cautiously, wary of any lasting ghost defenses, Danny made his way to Jazz’s room. He wasn’t surprised to find that her room had been picked apart just like Sam’s, though in a much less haphazard manner. He was at least relieved to find her journal in its hiding place in her desk, beneath a panel Danny helped her install. After that, he grabbed Jazz’s teal hair band from her desk and Bearbert from her bed. 

Looking closely at the stuffed bear, Danny remembered all of the times he wandered into Jazz’s room after a nightmare. She would always let him crawl into her bed, and she’d often shove Bearbert into his arms, insisting he always made her feel better. 

Danny hugged the bear tightly before putting him safely in the bag.

One last bedroom remained. Part of him didn’t even want to go in, though Danny knew he would always regret it he didn’t. He would never see FentonWorks again after this. Never again see the place he called home for so long.

Steeling his resolve with a steadying breath, Danny walked through the door and into his room for the last time.

He ignored the signs of a search in his room, focusing instead on what remained the same. His eyes trailed over the posters on the walls, the starry quilt on his bed, and at last traveled up to the ceiling with its glow-in-the-dark stars.

Danny remembered the day his dad helped him put up those plastic stars. They worked together, making sure to align them to match real constellations. Danny had insisted on sticking most of them himself, but Jack held him up high to do so. 

Danny had kept it together through Tucker, Sam, and Jazz’s rooms, but it was those tiny stars that broke him. Tiny glowing reminders of a safety and happiness he would never know again. The warmth of his father’s arms and the sure way they held him. 

Oh, how many times Danny stared up at those stars at night, feeling comforted by that memory.

They looked different now; he could no longer see them all at once with the blindspot on his left side.

The more Danny looked, the hazier they became as tears filled his vision. He sniffed and wiped at his eye.

Danny had thought carefully about what to grab from the other rooms, but he went purely on his emotions now. He grabbed one of the rockets from his bookshelf, and a little blob ghost that Sam had sewn for him, carefully putting both in the bag with everything else.

Lastly, staring back up at the ceiling, Danny floated up to grab the star that hung over the center of his bed. It peeled away easily, the glue worn from years of hanging on the ceiling. Clutching it carefully in his hand, he held it close to his chest.

Danny took one last look at his bedroom, burning the memory of it into his mind, before he flew away from FentonWorks and didn’t look back.

~*~

The drive out of Amity Park was quiet. Jazz sat at the wheel with Bearbert placed in her lap. Sam sat in the passenger seat beside her, wearing her denim jacket and one of her grandma’s necklaces.

Danny lay in the backseat, his head pillowed on Tucker’s lap, the glow-in-the-dark star still clutched in his hand. Tucker stared out the window, absently running his hand through Danny’s hair as he watched the city go by. He wore his hat, as he always did. 

Lights from the streetlights flashed overhead, the only things Danny could see from where he lay. They were his last glimpse of Amity, save for the starry sky overhead. 

When the streetlights faded away and Tucker heaved a teary sigh, drawing his eyes from the window, Danny knew they had gone.

The car felt a little colder, though Danny did his best to reign his icy core in. The edges of the plastic star dug into his palm and he shut his eye tight.

Danny couldn’t say where they were going. He had so many doubts, all jumbled together with fear and regret. So many memories that lingered in Amity Park, the place he’d been born in and the place he had died.

Jazz leaned back to gently squeeze Danny’s knee, a comforting presence in the dark. No matter what, he was thankful to have her with him– all of them. They would weather the storm together, no matter what.

There was no going back now.