Chapter Text
Developmentally speaking, it is entirely normal for teenagers to make bad decisions. Without a fully developed prefrontal cortex to guide them, teenagers lack the ability to control their impulses, plan for the future, and predict the outcome of their decisions. Fortunately, for most teenagers, “bad decisions” don’t have much long-term impact. Sure, sneaking out after curfew or cheating on a test will likely have unforeseen consequences for a budding pubescent, but those decisions are rarely weighty enough to cause irreversible harm.
Jazz has never been most teenagers. As much as she would like to think of herself as more competent and mature than other people her age, she can’t defeat her own biology, and she certainly can’t force her prefrontal cortex to develop faster than her peers. At the ripe age of seventeen, Jazz still can't always foresee the results of her decisions. Unfortunately for Jazz, her bad decisions don’t deal with grades or curfew, but with her brother's survival. When the stakes are that high, unexpected outcomes are as devastating as they are deadly.
The worst day of Jazz’s life begins like any other. It has been three months and four days since she found Cujo in the lab, three months and four days of swallowing terror and wrath and spewing up lies at her family’s feet. Her parents are already in the lab when she wakes up to pack her and Danny's lunches for school. Lately, Jack and Maddie have been going into the lab earlier and earlier in the mornings and emerging later and later in the evenings. They leave the lab only for food and sleep, not even bothering to ghost hunt, leaving the total weight of the town's safety on Phantom’s shoulders. Jazz hasn’t been able to sneak down and review their research in weeks, resulting in an ever-constant anxious itch under her skin. She worries at her bottom lip as she puts sandwiches into brown bags, her thoughts wandering to the piece of paper underneath her bed. Her attention is jolted back to the task at hand as a twinge of pain races down her leg. A few days ago, Johnny 13 yanked Jazz onto his bike, forcing her to be his passenger in a gravity-defying joyride. He threw Jazz off his bike just as violently as he pulled her on, and her left hip has been acting funny ever since. The basement door creaks open as Jazz shifts her weight to her good side, and Maddie emerges just in time to catch Jazz wince.
Maddie raises her eyebrows at her daughter’s pinched expression, stepping into the kitchen and heading to the pantry. "Did you do something to your leg, sweetie?"
Anger simmers at the pet name as Jazz tries and fails to school her expression into practiced civility. “Just tweaked my hip,” she explains.
Maddie doesn’t seem to notice Jazz’s hostility. Then again, her mother doesn’t seem to notice much about her children. Maddie simply nods as she grabs some fudge and a granola bar, then says, “Do you want to bring an extra ectoray to school? In case there’s a ghost attack and your hip gives you trouble while you run away?”
Jazz huffs out a bitter laugh. Of course, her mother’s first thought is ghosts. No offer to bring Jazz to the doctor or get her an ice pack. Just ghosts. Typical. “I’m good,” she grits out, shoving two packages of Goldfish into Danny’s lunch bag.
Maddie hums in response, moving to head back downstairs. She pecks a kiss on Jazz’s cheek as she passes. Her mother’s lips feel like acid on her skin.
“Well, I’m heading back downstairs. Have a good day at school!” Maddie calls.
Jazz doesn't bother responding, busying herself with grabbing drinks from the fridge. A juice for her, a Red Bull for Danny. She only pulls her head out of the refrigerator once she hears the basement door snap shut.
If Jazz were smarter, if she was a better sister and protector, she would have asked Maddie what she and Jack were working on in the lab. She would have prodded into their progress on new weapons and discoveries that might be used to hurt her brother. But instead, Jazz was engulfed by her rage and unable to properly strategize, once again falling victim to her own developing brain chemistry.
Jazz finishes packing lunch as Danny bounds down the stairs, a smattering of bruises and band-aids on his chin. Jazz tosses his lunch bag to him as she grabs her keys from the side table, careful to walk without a limp. On the drive to school, Jazz banters with ease and smiles without tension, maintaining her carefully constructed composure for the sake of the ghost sitting in her passenger seat.
It's almost comical how significant days masquerade as normal right up to the moment of no return. Jazz spends her day going to classes, taking notes, chatting with her friends in the courtyard, and discussing college applications with Mr. Lancer. The day maintains a sense of normalcy even when the tinny sound of the final bell over the loudspeaker is cut off by the howling of the ghost alarm. Looking out the window, Jazz sees a spectral police car in the sky heralding Walker’s arrival on the Casper football field. Within moments, Phantom is on the scene, and Jazz watches from through the glass as her brother gets pummeled by a ghost three times his size. Even the most terrifying things become mundane when they happen every day. For the children of Amity Park, this ghostly schoolyard brawl is as ordinary as lockers and lunch periods.
The ordinariness of it all slips away when the Fenton Family GAV squeals into the school parking lot. Her parents don't bother parking, instead pulling the armored vehicle onto the fifty-yard line, barely slowing down as their tires rip up clods of earth. Maddie leaps out of the GAV and start preparing…. something. Despite all of Jazz's attempts to stay up to date on her parent's research, she has never seen this device before, and she can’t quite make out what it’s supposed to be. Maybe this is what her parents have locked in the lab working on? The machine is all cold steel and sharp curves, like a hybrid between a telescope and a cannon with beeping red lights along the side. Maddie struggles to heave the contraption onto its stand. As Jack emerges to help her, they begin to point the device skyward.
Jazz’s heart rate quickens slightly as she traces the device’s trajectory in her mind’s eye. It’s pointed right at Danny. Her parents are going to shoot her brother. Blood rushes upwards and pulses in her ears. Jazz wills Danny to see their parents, silently pleading for him to look down, but Danny doesn’t spare a single glance toward Jack and Maddie, too absorbed by trading blows with Walker. Jazz's mild alarm transforms into all-consuming panic. Danny doesn’t see them. He doesn’t know that Jack and Maddie are about to shoot him. Jazz has no idea how deadly her parents’ new toy may be, but it’s the biggest weapon she’s ever seen them bring to the battlefield. That knowledge does not inspire hope in her. The device is not quite sitting on its base yet as Jack and Maddie struggle to handle its bulk. If Jazz is going to warn Danny, she needs to do it now. She ignores the protest of her math teacher and her injured hip alike as she wordlessly sprints out to the field, her heart thrumming wildly in her chest.
By the time Jazz reaches the field, Danny has Walker and his goons on their last legs. Danny sucks the last of Walker’s lackeys into the thermos before leveling his full attention on Walker. Jack and Maddie seem too absorbed in their heavy weaponry to realize their daughter is rocketing across the field. Jazz starts wildly waving her arms above her head as she runs. Her parents still don’t see her, but Danny does. Jazz breathes prayer of thanks for Danny’s enhanced hearing as he turns his head her direction. Jazz jumps up and down to keep his gaze on her, paying no mind to the popping sound her hip makes as she gestures wildly towards the bleachers, desperately trying to indicate that she wants Danny to follow her. Danny’s face is so hard to read when he’s in Phantom mode, all distorted lines and uncanny features. She can only hope that he understands her. Walker takes advantage of Danny’s momentary distraction to throw a punch, and Jazz hears a wet crunch as Walker’s fist meets Danny’s skull. Being this close to the brutality of a ghost fight is nauseating, but Jazz fixes her eyes on her destination and keeps running.
A familiar flash of light beaming from the thermos streaks across the sky as Jazz ducks behind the bleachers, gasping for air. She peers between the gaps in the aluminum seating, scanning the football field. It’s empty. Why is it empty? Rather than combatants, the field is merely filled with smoking craters. She cranes her neck, her mind racing to understand what's happening. Where's Danny? Where are her parents? Did they move the device? How can she keep everyone safe?
“Jazz?” A voice crackles out from behind her, guttural and grating painfully against Jazz’s ears. She turns towards the sound and meets Phantom’s ectoplasmic green gaze.
Deep green ectoplasm is oozing from his eye socket, and his suit is smoking from Walker’s ectoblasts. His glowing aura is the only source of light in the shade of the bleachers, illuminating him from the inside out. He looks almost demonic. Jazz overcomes her instincts in order to speak. “Danny,” she heaves, “Where’s Walker? Where’s Mom and Dad?”
The response emanates from Phantom without his mouth moving. “Walker is in the thermos. Mom and Dad? What are you talking about?”
“They’re here, Danny, they’re here and they’re going to-” anxiety squeezes her throat shut. Her body continues to betray her as her eyes well up. There isn’t enough time to explain, and she can’t find the right words. “You need to leave,” she says simply, her voice breaking. “Now.”
And Danny, beautiful, stupid Danny with a heart too big to fit in his chest, sees the tears brimming in his sister’s eyes. He moves toward Jazz, reaching out his misshapen arms to comfort her.
Jazz is trying to play the part of protector, but she is only human. She has no special gifts or powers, so she doesn’t realize what is happening in the bleachers behind her until it is too late. As Danny extends his arms towards Jazz, too occupied by his sister’s bizarre behavior to be alert to his surroundings, Jazz hears her mother whisper, “Jazz can’t run.” The telltale whine of an ectopowered gun powering up rings out behind Jazz’s head. For a torturous moment, time slows. Jazz turns to see her parent’s new weapon shoved through the gaps in the stadium seating, no stand needed to support its weight while it is resting on the bleachers. In the same second Jazz turns, the weapon fires. Taser-like wires snake out from the machine’s mouth and bury themselves in Phantom’s torso.
Jazz feels herself screaming more than she hears it. Any sound she makes is masked by Phantom’s howl of pain. Her brother is curled up on the ground, twitching and spasming as he is pumped full of sharp spectral energy. The wires stringing from the weapon connect to a bright spot in Danny’s chest, and cracks emanate through Danny's body as his form flickers around the edges. Jazz can see his healing factor futilely attempting to stitch up the wounds, but his ectoplasm can’t force itself together as quickly as it is forced apart. Jazz can see the fibers of pale green muscle peeking through the gaps in Phantom’s skin. For once, Phantom’s wailing does not generate fear in Jazz’s chest. Instead, pity wells up within her at the sobs of a dying beast.
Static sears through Jazz’s mind as she struggles to comprehend what she is seeing, and realization rips through her as the ringing in her ears reaches a crescendo. Danny is struggling to hold himself together. Her parents are destroying Danny’s core.
Regrets flood her mind faster than Jazz can fully process them. She should have told Danny that she was hurt, that he was monstrous. Maybe then he would have known that to an observer, his extended hand would look like a lion’s last swipe toward an injured gazelle. She should have told Danny about their parents’ capacity for unfathomable cruelty, how close Jack and Maddie were to discovering the true nature of cores. Maybe then he would have known that his parents were more dangerous predators than any beast that came through the portal. Jazz thought that what Danny didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. She was so convinced she was protecting him. She had never been more wrong.
Jazz is still screaming. She can’t make herself stop. Her scream becomes something deep and primal as she wraps her fist around the wires connecting her parents’ weapon to her brother’s core. She feels pulses of electricity race through her veins, and it burns. Spots dance in front of her eyes as she fights to stay conscious despite the fire pulsing underneath her skin. If her parent's invention causes this amount of pain to a being made of flesh and blood, she can only imagine Danny’s mind-numbing agony. The thought sharpens her conviction as she wraps her other hand around the wires, grits her teeth, and pulls. Jack and Maddie’s protests barely register as Jazz digs her heels into the ground, leveraging her entire body weight against the weapon rooted in her brother’s body.
With the groaning of metal and tearing of skin, the wires burst out of Phantom’s core and spring back towards Jazz.
“No!” Maddie howls.
“Run!” Jazz cries to Danny. Phantom’s form pulses slightly before he dazedly nods and blinks out of sight.
Jazz sinks to the ground as her knees give out from under her. Tingling remnants of electricity flow through her as Jack and Maddie race under the bleachers. Maddie pulls out a ghost-tracking device, but it is no use. Phantom is gone.
Maddie sighs in defeat, staring listlessly at where Phantom was just moments before. A large hand wraps around Jazz’s jaw, forcing her head up to meet her father’s gaze. Jack’s eyes blaze with fury. Jazz had never seen him angry before. She doesn’t think he’s ever paid enough attention to her to get angry. Ice seeps into his words as he bites out, “why did you do that, Jazz?”
The hold on her jaw tightens, Jack's fingers digging so deep that she's sure they'll leave bruises. A quick look at Maddie reveals that her mother is stoically looking on as Jack manhandles his daughter, making no move to intervene. Once upon a time, Jazz believed that despite their neglect, her parents would never willingly hurt their children. That belief is quickly wavering.
Rather than answer his question, Jazz meets her father’s gaze with matching intensity.
“Fuck. You.” The words come out garbled due to Jack’s intense grip on Jazz’s jaw.
“What did you just say to me?”
Jazz claws at her father’s arm, trying to break free of his grasp. “Fuck you!” Spittle flies from her lip as she screams the words. Hatred and pain press against her chest as she is swept with animalistic fury. Jack presses deeper into Jazz’s skin, his grip becoming unbelievably tight. He stares at Jazz in contempt before he releases her with a shove.
“You were killing him!” The words pour out of her unbidden, any restraint she once had obliterated. “You’re monsters, both of you! How can you live with yourselves?”
“Killing him?” Jack bellows. “Jesus Christ, Jazz, he’s already dead! He’s a ghost! He is the monster here, not us!”
“You’re wrong! Who cares that he’s dead! You’re still hurting him!”
Jack throws his hands up in exasperation. “Ghosts can’t feel pain, Jazz! They have no nerve endings! No neural response centers! It’s an illusion! It’s not real!”
“It’s real to me! When an amputee feels phantom limb pain, it’s real to them! The pain is real to Phantom! You’re supposed to be scientists! Can’t you consider an alternative hypothesis for once in your lives?”
“He was going to hurt you!” Maddie interjects. “We were protecting you!”
“Phantom would never hurt me! He protects me! I protect me! I protect Danny! You have never protected us!” Jazz’s voice breaks on the last word.
Maddie takes a small step towards her, a jerky imitation of a motherly gesture. “Jazz, sweetie-”
“Don’t.” Jazz cuts her off, grabbing Maddie’s wrist before her mother can touch her. “Don’t fucking bother.” Jazz throws her mother’s hand to the side. “I’m leaving. Don’t try to stop me.”
All the adrenaline drains from Jazz’s body as she trudges out from under the bleachers. For a moment, she hopes that her parents will follow her. The tiniest, most foolish part of her craves parental comfort in the face of the unimaginable. No footsteps follow in her wake.
Danny doesn’t come home that night. Or the night after that. Jazz can’t muster up the energy to panic. She’s too exhausted. Danny has contacted her a few times, texting her screenshots of dumb tweets, acting like nothing happened at all. He won’t tell her where he is, but she knows he’s alive, and that’s enough for now. They have fallen too far off the deep end for Jazz to pathologize Danny's need to cope with humor.
Jazz doesn't blame Danny for staying away from her parents' house. It doesn't feel like home anymore, if it ever really did. But if Danny does decide to return to FentonWorks, Jazz will be there. She doesn’t go to school or visit her friends. Her days are spent sitting on Danny's bed, hoping against hope that he will materialize in front of her, tracing over the raised marks of wires on her palms and waiting for the sound of a weapon firing to stop ringing in her ears.
Jack and Maddie don’t seek her out. Jazz has never been a problem child, Her parents never needed to scold or correct her, and they certainly have never had a confrontation of such magnitude. She supposes they don't know how to approach her anymore, and that’s fine. Jack and Maddie never really did know how to respond to their children’s emotions. Some people were never meant to be parents.
Maddie breaks the silence three days into Danny's disappearing act. She finds Jazz in the kitchen, digging through the fruit bowl for an apple. From the corner of her eye, Jazz sees Maddie creep up quietly, like she's afraid she'll startle Jazz away.
“I see you,” Jazz sighs, not bothering to turn around. “What do you want?”
“I…” Maddie hesitates, unsure of how to begin. “Have you seen Danny lately? We haven’t seen him since…you know.”
"He's sleeping over at Tucker's," the lie spills easily from Jazz's lips. Telling white lies on Danny’s behalf is so familiar that it’s almost comforting.
Maddie sags in relief, and the small motion sends angry energy through Jazz all over again. How dare she act like she cares? How dare she suddenly decide to start paying attention to Danny's well-being? An overwhelming urge to hurt Maddie floods Jazz, and she can't resist. It's not fair that her mother gets to convince herself that she is adequately keeping track of her children when Jazz has devoted her life to parenting her brother.
"Have you considered that he may be avoiding you?" Jazz says casually, putting on an air of nonchalance.
Maddie furrows her brow in confusion. “Why would he be avoiding me?”
“You tried to brutally murder a ghost on his school’s football field,” Jazz shrugs, “that’s bound to have some sort of impact.”
"Jazz," her mother's tone becomes soft and sweet, as if she's explaining something complicated to a petulant child, “we talked about this. Ghosts can’t be ‘murdered,’ sweetheart-”
Jazz raises her palm to silence her mother. “Don’t call me that. And don’t bother explaining your stance to me. I already know what you think.” Jazz scrubs at her face in tired frustration. “Let’s just say, for arguments sake, that you’re right. That a ghost’s pain isn’t real. Doesn’t it matter to you at all that it seems real to me? Don’t the screams of tortured ghosts…I don’t know, disturb you? They disturb me, Mom. And it sickens me that you don’t seem thrown by the gore of it all, it really does.” Jazz shakes her head slightly, trying to dismiss the mental image of Phantom writhing in agony. “I don’t want…I can’t have a relationship with you if you can’t understand why the way you treat ghosts disgusts me. What matters more to you? Your grotesque little experiments? Or being on good terms with your daughter?”
Maddie doesn’t respond. The silence stretches on for an uncomfortable amount of time, making Maddie’s answer clear without any words spoken. “Yeah,” Jazz smiles at Maddie sadly, “that’s what I thought.”
Their conversation is interrupted by the chime of the doorbell. With a weary sigh, Jazz plods towards the door and opens it.
“Hello, Jasmine,” a deep voice rings out. “May I come in?”
Hearing the familiar voice of her old college friend, Maddie moves towards the door. “Vlad?” Her brows furrow together in confusion. “What are you doing here?”
Vlad makes a small sweeping motion with the palm of his hand, as if asking Jazz for permission to move past her. She nods curtly before moving out of his way, allowing him to pass, and closing the door behind him.
Vlad always looks like he stepped straight out of a catalog, and today is no exception. His suit is crisply pressed, his silk pocket square delicately poking out of his breast pocket. His face would appear utterly devoid of emotion were it not for his eyes. His normally dewy skin is marred by deep undereye bags, and his gaze is turbulent, broiling with revulsion and outrage as he assesses Maddie.
Seemingly dissatisfied with what he finds in her, Vlad rolls his eyes and steps slightly in front of Jazz in a gesture that seems almost protective. Jazz can see his fingers flexing into fists behind his back, fingernails digging into his palm.
“Is Jack home?” Vlad asks sharply, dismissing Maddie’s initial question.
Maddie nods stiffly. “He’s, uh, yeah, he’s-” She clears her throat. “He’s in the lab. I’ll go get him.”
As Maddie scuttles down the stairs, Vlad turns to face Jazz. His stony expression softens slightly into something unreadable. Tenderness? Pity, maybe? “Pack a bag,” Vlad says in a voice too low for Maddie to hear. “Danny is staying with me, and he has asked me to come get you.”
“I…what?” Jazz sputters. “Danny hates you.”
“He does,” Vlad agrees, “so it is quite significant that he thinks it is better to be staying with me than with your parents.”
Jazz narrows her eyes at him, unconvinced. Vlad shrugs lightly, “You can contact Daniel to confirm what I am saying, dear girl. I have nothing to hide.”
Jazz whips her phone out of her pocket to do just that. She fires off a quick text to Danny that reads simply: Vlad? Her brother’s reply pings back almost instantaneously, as if he was expecting her message: hes the best option for getting out. wanna play smash when you get here? The response is so very Danny that she can’t help but snort. She’s glad to see that he’s maintain some semblance of self after his life has been completely uprooted.
Jazz shoves her phone back into her pocket, scrutinizing Vlad. She has so many questions. So much has gone wrong and she has no idea how to put the pieces back together. After a pregnant pause, she finally asks, “Why are you doing this?”
He sighs deeply, sadly, like her distrust towards authority figures is something tragic. “Jasmine, we both know that it’s not safe for Daniel to be here. It’s not safe for you either. It hasn’t been for a quite some time.” Vlad gently lays his hands on Jazz’s shoulders, and she can’t help but compare the contact to her father’s crushing clasp on her jaw from a few days before. Vlad’s grip feels…soothing. Parental, even. Jazz has never been comforted by an adult before. She doesn’t quite know what to do with the warm feeling welling up in her chest. “You have done everything you can to look out for your brother, but you are a smart girl, Jasmine. You know that you should not be Daniel’s sole guardian. Let me help.”
Vlad’s words stir memories of the nights Jazz devoted to reading chapters in her psychology textbooks. The sections about child parentification would always lodge a lump in her throat, and she had never been willing to explore why. For so long, Jazz had no other option but to sacrifice her mental health for Danny’s sake. It was the best option, the only option. But despite her best efforts to play pretend at maturity, Jazz is painfully aware that she is still just a kid. And she is so tired of doing it all by herself.
“Okay. Okay. I trust Danny. So if this is what he thinks is what’s best for him, then okay,” Jazz says, awkwardly nodding her head upstairs towards her bedroom. “I’ll go grab my stuff.”
A chorus of unnamed emotions sing through Jazz's body as she enters her room and begins shoving items into her suitcase. Shoes, t-shirts, headbands, and toothpaste are tucked into bags. Carefully, lovingly, she lays her teddy bear on her textbooks. On impulse, Jazz heads across the hall to Danny’s room to grab his stuffed astronaut, the toy with which he has fallen asleep almost every night since he was two years old. She freezes with her hand on Danny’s doorknob as she hears voices floating up the stairs.
“I am not asking for permission, Jack. I am telling you what is going to happen.” Vlad’s steely tone stands in sharp contrast to the warmth he just used when speaking with Jazz. “With everything I have heard from Daniel, you are lucky that I am standing before you rather than Child Protective Services.”
Maddie scoffs, sounding dismissive. “Oh, please, we have never hurt our kids.”
“Never?” Vlad’s voice becomes impossibly colder. “Daniel informed me that you fired an ectoplasmic super weapon right next to Jasmine’s head just three days ago.”
“It wasn’t going to hurt her!”
“Do you truly know that, Maddie? Did you test the misfire rate? Did you measure the amount of ectoplasmic radiation the weapon emits when fired? Have you tested Jasmine for a concussion or hearing damage in the days since you fired the weapon? Or did you cross your fingers and hope for the best while pulling the trigger right next to Jasmine’s skull?” Jazz gently touches her fingers to her still-ringing ear as Vlad speaks.
“We couldn’t miss our chance to get Phantom,” Jack offers weakly.
Vlad lets out a short, barking laugh. "You value your silly little game of cat and mouse with a dead teenager more than you value your daughter’s life? Honestly, Jack, do you hear yourself?”
“Phantom is dangerous, Vladdie, it-”
“Wrong again!” Vlad is shouting now. “You claim to be an intellectual, do you not? Look at the data, you idiot! On the nights that Phantom is spotted by townsfolk, ghost attacks result in seventy eight percent fewer civilian injuries. I do not pretend to understand why he has taken up the mantle of a hero, but Phantom is a bigger protection to this town than you two laughingstocks could ever hope to be.”
Vlad’s words pick up momentum as he continues, “have you not realized that Phantom has never once provoked an attack against you? Even though you unload your arsenal into him every time you cross paths, Phantom never strikes first. He only ever acts in self-defense, and even then, his blows do little more than knock you off your feet. He could execute you like this-” Jazz jumps at the sound of Vlad snapping his fingers “-yet he chooses not to.”
“Vlad, I-”
“I am not finished!” Vlad cuts Maddie off with a snarl. “When was the last time you attended a parent-teacher conference, or scheduled doctor’s appointment for your children? For God’s sake, you tore a hole between dimensions a mere two floors beneath Jasmine and Daniel’s bedrooms! And you do it in the name of science,” Vlad places the weight of his loathing into the word. “I used to respect you both as academics, admire you, even. I realize now that you never cared about true discovery. All you care about is confirming your own perverse biases, and you will tear through gristle and guts and lives to get what you want.”
Vlad is so frenzied that his breathing is heavy. “I used to wonder what life was like in the Fenton household. I even longed to be a part of it. But now that Daniel has told me what really happens behind these doors...I have half a mind to strike you down where you stand, but I am choosing to be merciful. I am leaving, and Jasmine is coming with me, and that is how this story ends.”
Her parents begin to justify themselves, but Jazz has long grown weary of their excuses. She creeps into Danny's room, scooping up odds and ends that she thinks he would like, stowing them away in her suitcases. It takes only a few minutes to condense every precious thing she owns into a backpack and a carry-on bag.
Jazz walks downstairs with as much dignity as she can muster as her suitcase clomps down the stairs behind her, only to be met by the twin stares of her parents as she pauses on the bottom step.
“Jazz,” Maddie whispers. There are so many things that Jazz can say in response, years of accumulated snarky comments colored with the hurt and resentment that Jazz has carried her entire life begging to be released. But Jazz is sick of the way bitter words taste on her tongue. So, she says nothing. She merely lifts her chin and moves to Vlad’s side.
As Jazz crosses the threshold of her childhood home for the last time, Vlad’s words echo in her mind. That is how this story ends. Jazz has spent the entirety of her short life reacting to the twists and turns of an unforgiving story. On the day Danny's died, she entered survival mode. The idea that she will no longer be the sole force standing between her brother and certain destruction is slightly overwhelming. Of course, it would be childish of her to believe that her life will magically transform into a fairy tale once she is free of Jack and Maddie’s influence. Her brother is still dead. She will still have nightmares about what she can’t control. Ghosts will still come from the portal and try to tear the town to shreds. Life will continue to throw unfathomable tragedies at the Fenton siblings. She understands these bitter truths, and yet she can’t quite squash the tiny bud of hope that blossoms in her chest as she steps into the sunshine. So, as the light of the day warms her cheeks, Jazz allows herself to be a child. She pretends that the future will be kind and joyful and bright, and she chooses not to think of all the inevitable horrors that she can't yet foresee. For a moment, just a moment, she won’t allow what she doesn't know to hurt her.