Archive of Our Own ^beta

He’d slept. Danny couldn’t have said for how long, there was just something about the flow of time in Vlad’s library, that made it hard for him to tell how much of it had passed at any given moment. What felt like minutes could have been hours. Seconds could have been days. In any other place, this feeling might have sprouted uncertainty or uneasiness, but it was like the shelves looming above him had been designed to be a comforting presence, rather than an intimidating one, because of their height, and the way they were packed with books.

Vlad had patched up what he could where his skin had been exposed but had otherwise left him as he had shown up. Vaguely Danny was aware of the patches of cleaned and bandaged skin that made it feel like he had patches of cotton all over him, mostly he just felt sore in that numb way where it hadn’t set in just yet, but the muscles were heavy with that particular feeling that indicated moving your limbs was going to a bad idea.

Rubbing the weariness from his face Danny had simply sat on the couch till the tranquillity of the library had soaked him through and he felt capable of getting up. His legs weren’t wobbly, but he was sure that he’d scraped open the length of his shin on one side, whether it had bled and how much he couldn’t say but there was definitely some skin missing. It probably felt worse than it was, he told himself, and tried not to think about it as he walked.

Slowly, Danny staggered through the hallways toward where he remembered the shower had been last time. What he found instead was a large tub that had been let into the side of the wall of the bathroom, and though he didn’t really want to wait until it was full, Danny also couldn’t find it in himself to search the rest of the mansion for the shower he wanted. Briefly, he wondered how many bathrooms there were, and how many of them contained a shower or a bath, and then whether he had taken a wrong turn after the stairs, but he couldn’t figure it out, so he decided to resign to his fate and fill the tub.

While he waited for the water to rise to an adequate level Danny examined himself. He now felt the soreness of his muscles in full force, which made the bruises and scrapes feel worse than they overall were. At the edge of his consciousness, it occurred to him that he needed a change of clothes because his were crusted with blood and ectoplasm.

The fight hadn’t been all Dan’s fault. Danny had had to admit as much, as he let himself sink into the water and closed his eyes. The heat stung his wounds, and though he wanted to clean the ones Vlad hadn’t gotten to yet, for what seemed to be a small eternity, his muscles refused to listen to him.

Of course, Dan had been angry about being locked up for twelve whole years – although Danny had a sneaking suspicion that Clockwork had let him out every once in a while – so he’d deserved that. Partially. He had been the one who had put him there, he had also been the one who had kept him there because he hadn’t known what to do with him. But somehow, in the back of his mind Danny had always known that the thermos wouldn’t be Dan’s prison forever. He’d just hoped for an epiphany to tell him when and why that wouldn’t be, which had never come. Instead reason and responsibility had answered the call.

With methodical carefulness Danny cleaned the scabbing blood and ectoplasm off his right shin to assess the damage, which had looked worse and hurt more than it should have now that he could see the wound. All it had done was bleed badly. Some bandages would take care of that once he got out of the water.

His parents hadn’t reacted exactly as he had imagined it, but the Reality Gauntlet had painted a pretty good picture, yet somehow, he’d thought it would feel better. Not so empty. Anticlimactic. – It wasn’t the word Vlad had used, but Danny knew instinctively that it was what he’d meant when he’d told him about the conversation with his parents. It was also why he’d allowed the fight with Dan to happen.

Not specifically, but it had been rooted in there. He’d wanted to feel something other than… other than what? Danny couldn’t even describe it, just that he’d needed an outlet and Dan had seemed like he could use a chance to blow off some steam. Yell at something other than the walls of the thermos for a change. And Danny had obliged.

By changing his own future for the better, he had effectively robbed Dan of his raison d'être and a place to belong. What was left, Danny imagined, was nothing but hurt and anger and loss for something no other than Dan could feel. For all the good that the change had done him, from Dan’s perspective it had been cruel. He’d already lost so much, to strip him of the space in which his existence had made sense had to be too much to bear.

When Clockwork had finally put an end to their scuffle they had sat in silence, but just as frustrated as before, still Danny thought that in a strange way it had also brought them closer.

A score had been settled.

Danny had never thought he would be up to the task of keeping Dan in check, but he wasn’t half his size anymore and if he was being honest, he’d only let Dan throw him around because he’d wanted him to. Not because it had been unavoidable.

When the water had thoroughly soaked him, Danny climbed out of the tub. His body still complained about having to stand but this time it wasn’t so much for the ache of his muscles but because it had been too comfortable in the warm water. One after another Danny dressed his wounds when he was dry and applied lotion to the parts that could bear it to soothe the rest of his skin.

With a wrinkled nose he picked up his shirt and tossed it immediately into the clothes bin, followed by the rest of what he had worn. – This wasn’t going to do. Yet he couldn’t exactly walk around in a towel all day either. But Vlad pretty much exclusively wore suits. Probably tailored. Which meant they weren’t likely to fit him.

Danny scrunched up his face even more at the thought and made himself invisible. If he had to raid Vlad’s closet, he was going to do it as a ghost.

After digging through more drawers and closets than he had wanted to, Danny had found some of Vlad’s lab clothes. At least he assumed they were lab clothes because in no other place had he ever seen Vlad wear jeans and t-shirts. Dressed (not in his Sunday best but infinitely more comfortable) and awake, Danny decided to start looking for Vlad by sticking his head through ceilings and walls.

He found him downstairs in a room where the shelves weren’t filled orderly like in the rest of the house. Books of all sizes were lined up on them, next to loosely stacked pages of paper and notebooks. On every conceivable surface there was a pen, as if someone had picked it up to write something down and immediately misplaced it after finishing their task. There were laptops on the shelves too, Danny realised when he floated closer. Each of them was labelled with numbers and letters that Danny was certain only Vlad could make sense of. Petri dishes, a rack of vials, a lab coat that had seen better days, miscellaneous electronic parts, screwdrivers – it looked like the Lost and Found Dimension Danny realised and couldn’t help the amused chuckle the image prompted.

Danny made himself visible where he was hanging in the air, when he was just above Vlad’s shoulders so he could see what the other was doing. Which was a lot by Danny’s standards and looked very much like when he himself was trying to find the right citation for one of his papers.

Vlad had opened several books – with a variety and quite the worrying number of bookmarks in them – on the table in front of him, and started stacking when he’d run out of the limited space that was there. Danny noted that even in the margins were notes written in different pens. Behind the piled-up books, a single one was propped up against towers of more books and paper stacks below a reading light that wasn’t in use. In his hands Vlad held two notebooks, one through which he thumbed and only paused to note something down in the other.

“Boo!” Danny found that his voice was a lot more careful than initially planned, and that he simply couldn’t bring himself to startle Vlad right now.

Vlad, who looked awfully out of place in his suit, even though it was clearly his study, craned his head to look at him.

“What kinda room is this?” Danny questioned and grinned as he hovered his hands in a pretend-scare above Vlad’s shoulders, satisfied when he managed to make Vlad flinch when he lightly touched his fingers down.

The sound that Vlad made in response reminded him of the hiss of a cat, and he looked mildly wary as he studied Danny, who was now looking at him expectantly. “I do research here…” He admitted after a moment of hesitation.

“What kind of research?” Danny asked. Glancing around, he realised that the room looked more like a library than the actual one he liked to sleep in.

“Oh, every kind... whatever strikes my interest…” Vlad muttered and gestured vaguely at the room’s contents.

Before Danny could get a good look at the notebooks however Vlad had shut them, pocketed the one he had been writing in and placed the other one as a bookmark in one of the books he’d opened on his desk, using loose notes for the others so he could close them as well. When he was done, Vlad almost protectively placed a hand on top of the small book tower and turned towards him. “What do you want?”

“Find you…” Danny admitted after a brief moment of consideration. “Talk,” he then added and watched as Vlad walked towards the door. Unsure whether or not to follow Danny lingered for a moment before he went after him. Something told him that Vlad didn’t want him here and that he had intruded on someplace that wasn’t meant for him. “Sorry,” he muttered and set his feet on the floor to better keep pace with Vlad.

“Forget it.”

“I just couldn’t find you anywhere.”

“I didn’t want to be found,” Vlad replied and tilted his head a little when he studied him. “I’m sure that’s neither what’s on your mind, nor am I one to talk, but are you sure letting the other you out was a good idea?”

No. Danny wanted to say no. There was nothing he could come up with that made unleashing Dan onto the world sound like a good idea. “Maybe not, but it would be unfair to continue keeping him locked up.” That was what he had decided and what he had told Jazz in more detail over more coffee. Then there was also the condition. It wasn’t anything unreasonable, but clearly something Dan neither wanted to nor cared to do.

Dan had to talk to Jazz once a day. Danny hadn’t even stipulated what they had to talk about, just that it was a requirement. Unless he did that, Clockwork would watch him every step of the way to ensure Dan didn’t pick up where he had left off.

“I don’t know how he’ll react to Dani,” Danny admitted after a moment of silence. “She doesn’t exist where he comes from, but I suspect if he figures out what she is, you’ll have him on your doorstep.”

“Ah, that’s what the warning was about, I’ve been wondering,” Vlad replied, sounding as if he was pleased about having figured that out.

He opened a door, which Danny realised was leading to a patio which led to the backyard. Danny squinted momentarily despite the pale sunlight. “So, am I to expect you to start digging in the dirt now?” He asked and watched as Vlad flopped into one of the chairs he kept out here.

“You looked like you needed sunlight.”

“To this day I am amazed you haven’t burst into flames in broad daylight,” Danny teased and sat down on the railing near Vlad. Amused he noticed Vlad’s miffed expression, but didn’t press his luck because there was an unmistakable red glint in Vlad’s eyes too. With a sigh Danny let his hands sink into his lap where they rested in the empty space between his legs. For a moment he closed his eyes, listening to the birds and critters and the wind blowing, while the pale sunlight lightly warmed his arms, realising that Vlad had been right. He needed fresh air more than anything at this moment.

Visibly calmer Danny opened his eyes again and realised that Vlad had been studying him with an expression he couldn’t quite decipher, as if only now Vlad realised that he was wearing his clothes, though it didn’t seem like Vlad wanted to object.

“I didn’t create her out of malice.”

Her. Dani.

“I think I always knew that,” Danny admitted with a little sigh. It was hard to say Vlad’s intentions had been purely good, but for all that he’d done he hadn’t done it only to do harm. Everything that had happened had played a part whether good or bad. “But I keep wondering, what would you have done if you had succeeded? You couldn’t have had two of me in the world.”

“No.”

“Did you want a child that badly?” Danny scoffed lightly. He was willing to suggest adoption, but something told him that it wasn’t simply about having a child. More than just a little important in the equation were his parents and his own ability to transform into a ghost. Vlad had wanted him as a part of his life, regardless of whether Danny had wanted it.

“No.” Again. Above all Vlad sounded weary. “It was you. It had to be. Do you think I could do to a child what they did to me?” The notion seemed to outright offend him.

Danny knew that the answer was no once more. After seeing Vlad’s blind fury when he’d found out about his first death he couldn’t imagine him capable of risking anyone’s life like that. At least not if he intended to care about them. “But you were willing to let Dani die for the other one,” he remarked and shifted uncomfortably.

Vlad didn’t seem to have an answer to that. “Do you hate me for that?” He merely asked.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel,” Danny admitted and swallowed, trying to get rid of the uncomfortable tightness in his chest. “I can’t just pretend you didn’t clone me,” he continued and focused on the pressure of his thumbs against the palms. Dani was living proof that it had happened. “But I can’t uncreate her.” It was an ugly word that he hated using, but it was the only way he could really describe what it would be like to not have her in this world anymore. Yet Danny wished the problem that Dani posed would simply disappear from his life and that only made it worse.

“She’s a part of me,” Danny sighed. Thinking about that tended to give him headaches. For it wasn’t as simple as to say she was his clone, or his sister, or some variation of both. Or neither. Something entirely else that there wasn’t a word for yet. “And I’m a part of her, and it’s all your doing.” There was no accusation in his tone, although perhaps there should have been.

Staring at his hands Danny could see the shirt he was wearing, which wasn’t really all that important, but it made him wonder if Vlad had been scrutinising him so thoroughly because he had wondered what Danny would have been like as his son. Would he have dressed like this? In a way that was comfortable to him, or would he have donned a suit? Like Vlad, who seemed to wear it like armour. Would he have shed everything that made him Danny Fenton to become a younger version of Vlad?

“You know, I hate it,” Danny admitted. He swallowed and nodded as if affirming his own words, and though he looked up he didn’t really see Vlad, who had become just another ensemble of shapes in front of him. “I hated you. For creating Dani specifically, I hated you. Who are you to decide that you can create another one of me all by yourself?” Only now did his eyes bring Vlad into focus. “I hated the lies I had to tell, that she had to continue…” Conceptually he’d understood it even then, but emotionally he hadn’t been able to process it for the longest time. “Has to continue…”

“And do you still hate me for it?” Vlad asked, looking thoughtful.

“I get it,” Danny replied quietly instead of answering his question. “That doesn’t make it okay, or easier, but I want you to know that I get it.” He said it firmly and pressed his mouth into a hard line when he had finished speaking.

Vlad remained silent for a long time, seeming almost thoughtful as he sat perfectly still, while he worked out whatever went on in his head below the surface. “I don’t know if it makes any difference for you, and this is ignoring that there is no term for someone like her, and that no definition will quite fit, but strictly genetically speaking she is closer to being your sister, somewhere in between a fraternal and an identical twin I figure, and given her age, a younger sister. On primarily technical terms Dani’s imperfections don’t qualify her as your clone…” Vlad mumbled the last of his words and averted his eyes, clearly avoiding looking at him now. When he folded his arms, it seemed defensive at first glance to Danny, before he realised that it was all in thoughtfulness.

Danny didn’t know what to say to that. He was neither sure what to make of the statement, nor if it actually made anything better, because that still didn’t negate what Vlad had done and how Dani had been created. “I haven’t forgiven you, but it doesn’t change that I want to be on your side – if that’s what you're concerned about…”

“I don’t expect you to.” There was a pause, but whatever Vlad had meant to say he swallowed and averted his eyes in the other direction.

“So,” Danny let out a brisk breath, “I got that off my chest, now it’s your turn.” But Vlad only frowned at him mildly bewildered when Danny stabbed a finger in his direction. “You’re going to tell me about mom and dad now.”

“Ask your parents,” Vlad replied sourly.

“I’m asking you.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, and especially not with you.”

It wasn’t the answer Danny had hoped for, but he could tell that at the very least Vlad was being honest. “Then tell me what you were researching.” He would have much rather asked more about the research room itself, but it seemed safer to generalise here and stick to one topic.

Vlad sighed, seeming quietly exasperated, yet he did not dodge the question. “Going through some old notes from when…” Pausing Vlad seemed to reconsider his words. “The little research project I did on your behalf has led me to compare my old notes about Dani and… the others,” as he spoke Vlad carefully gauged Danny’s reaction, but there was nothing in his words that Danny could fault him for.

Whether he liked it or not the research existed and forbidding Vlad to talk about it would do neither of them any good so Danny merely nodded. “Go on… wait, does that mean you know the answer?”

“In part,” Vlad admitted with a little nod.

“I thought that would take longer…” Danny replied with a frown. He wasn’t displeased, he simply hadn’t expected it.

“Your task was merely a weekend exercise,” Vlad replied dryly, but didn’t elaborate until he seemed to be certain that Danny wanted to hear more. Something about the way Vlad had looked at him had made him momentarily uncertain, but ultimately his need to know was stronger than everything else. So Danny gave him an encouraging nod.

Instead of speaking however Vlad pulled the notebook he had pocketed earlier out from under his jacket and flipped through it, his eyes darting over the pages until he finally stopped and closed the notebook again as he looked up. As if all Vlad had wanted to do was to make sure he had remembered what he wrote down correctly. “You were right, at least in part as far as your primary question goes, we stop ageing and get to a point where our cells stop dying, we’re almost in limbo, but I have no idea what causes it yet or what exactly flips the switch and make us stop ageing in the first place, that why is why I was going through my old notes earlier. I was hoping Dani and the others might give me answers, or clues at least.”

Furrowing his brows Danny slid off the railing, as if standing made it slightly easier to think. There was something Vlad wasn’t telling him just yet, but Danny had a feeling he didn’t need to press the subject just yet either. “What do you mean you don’t know? As in, you can’t find the reason, or you don’t understand the reason?”

Vlad rubbed the bridge of his nose. “To make a very long answer relatively short, it’s both – there are things that I don’t understand yet and things where I don’t know what causes them to begin with, like I said, I was hoping I could find answers in your duplicates, but I guess what I do know is enough to answer the fundamental issue – your ageing process is in the middle of halting and… mine has already done that.” Vlad muttered the last of his words as he glanced at him, past the hand that he’d run down his face.

That was the part that Vlad had been holding back previously. And he’d asked for it. He’d asked for it, so he didn’t get to complain when Vlad told him the sober truth. But the thought of having to outlive everyone he loved and cared for only made him feel miserable, no matter how briefly Danny’s thoughts lingered on it. Everyone but Vlad. And possibly Dani. And if they were lucky, they would forever be the only ones because nobody else would suffer their fate if they were able to help it. It was what Danny deep down hoped for anyway, no matter how much he wanted there to be more of them, he couldn’t stand the thought of others having to go through the same experience.

“What about Dani?” He asked, feeling the ground beneath his feet slipping even though it was as firm and even as before when he stared at it to make sure he hadn’t started floating. And only when he was sure of that, did he look up at Vlad again, who had seemingly waited just for that.

“I am going to take an educated guess and say that she will also be afflicted though I cannot say when it will happen, if it hasn’t already,” Vlad replied quietly. “You can tell her I won’t need to test her unless she wants it in writing… if that’s going to be any consolation for her at all…”

Danny wasn’t sure if this was something he could mention to her anytime soon, but he knew that the more time he would allow to pass the harder it would be for Dani. Unable to come to a proper conclusion Danny decided to give it at least another few months, or perhaps a year so she had a chance to settle the most recent changes in her life. A little voice in the back of his head told him that he would know when to tell her when he saw her. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but one day he’d look at and he’d know it was the right moment. However if Dan was anything to go by, Danny figured, he probably shouldn’t listen to that voice. “I’ll figure something out,” he simply said.

**

The call from his parents had come on his way to Jazz. He’d promised himself more than her that he was going to check up on her and Dan, and he hadn’t found the time any earlier despite several weeks having passed since Dan had been out. And he’d only been to Clockwork’s once in the meantime. Something that Danny liked to blame on college, but it was hardly that and if he was being honest with himself the work was a welcome distraction from the bottomless pit Vlad’s answer to his question about his body ageing had opened up in his stomach. Danny was almost inclined to liken it to a black hole with the way it seemed to suck up all of his energy. Something which he could have probably fixed by talking to either Vlad or Dani, but couldn’t bring himself to do for wildly different reasons. So Danny had focused what little energy he had on the next important thing on his list. Which was Dan. Which meant talking to Jazz. And he was only really looking forward to one of those things.

His train of thought was interrupted by the buzz of his phone.

As soon as he had accepted the call his mother began talking at a speed that made it hard to even get a greeting out.

“What’s with Dani? – Fever? Mom, she’s gonna be fi–” Danny barely stifled the exasperated sigh. “Sure, I’ll swing by,” he muttered. He hadn’t exactly announced his visit with Jazz, so it wasn’t like she was going to miss him, but he wasn’t exactly keen on changing his plans either.

Grumbling quietly Danny glanced around the crowd surrounding him, searching for a way out of public view, for an alley that would allow him to transform so that he could portal to his new destination. It was a useful skill that Danny found himself using less than he had expected, realising that he enjoyed flying more than he had initially thought, but it was more than handy for situations like the one he was in right now.

Slipping out of the crowd Danny made his way through the backstreets until he found a quiet spot that was far away from the noise and curious eyes. In a flash he wasn’t human anymore and had ripped a portal into the fabric of reality and time. Stepping through it he found himself standing in the hallway in front of the bathroom door inside his parents’ house, instead of landing directly in front of the one that led to Dani’s room – which had belonged to Jazz before that.

Today his appearance was more Phantom than most other days (it fluctuated), though Danny couldn’t name any apparent reason for it. But then again Vlad wasn’t around and most other times when he transformed these days it was around Vlad or to fight ghosts. “So, what’s up with Dani, that’s so important that you think you need my opinion on it?” Danny asked, running a hand through his hair, making it stand up, as he realised that he’d startled them. (It felt good, after so many years of hiding – it felt like retribution).

“Fever.” – “It won’t go down.” – “We thought you’re like her, maybe you have an idea what’s wrong with her?”

Their reasoning wouldn’t have been all that terrible if it hadn’t been for the fact that Danny couldn’t see how he was the more reasonable one to ask than Vlad when the latter was an option at all. But then again Vlad probably wouldn’t have even heard them out under the current circumstances. “Fine,” Danny muttered with a sigh and put his bag down. “I’ll have a look at her.” If only to calm them, so he could go deal with Jazz and Dan.

As he touched the knob on the bathroom door, a cold shiver down his spine reminded him of Dani melting in Vlad’s lab and he sent a hurried prayer to whatever deity was listening that she would be fine. Thankfully when he opened the door Dani wasn’t a pile of ghost goop, regardless of that she had collapsed into an exhausted pile of human limbs in a bathtub full of half-melted ice. That this had been necessary at all was enough reason for concern, but still he didn’t want to speak of the devil. Sighing audibly in what he wanted to be relief Danny stepped inside and just to make it look like he was doing something productive he leaned the back of his hand against her head. Her skin was clammy and warmer than he expected; uncomfortably so. Just as he wanted to turn back to his parents, he noticed how Dani blinked her eyes open for a second, and he gave a small smile. Though Dani didn’t look like anything in her immediate field of vision registered.

He could still feel the heat of her skin on the back of his hand when he turned around. Seeing the faces of his parents standing in the doorway now it dawned on him why they had asked him. If her fever continued at this rate, they would have to get her to a hospital and there was no telling what the outcome of that would be.

Dani was almost hot enough to melt.

The word prompted an uncomfortable cold flash washing over his entire body. Hoping that this time it would only be a saying. “How long has she been like this?” Danny asked, pressing his thumbs into his palms. First his right into his left, then the other way around. His voice sounded distant and breathy to him, but his parents didn’t seem to notice.

“It’s been rising for a while, but it wasn’t this bad until yesterday, we managed to get her temperature to stagnate for now, but it’s like her body is trying to burn her up,” his mother explained quietly as she ushered him out of the room. “She’s been having flashes of fever for the entire week, it wasn’t anything worrisome at first, but whenever it seems to recede, she gets a new flare that’s worse than the last, but none of the others were as bad as this one…”

Danny swallowed uncomfortably, feeling like his throat was going to close up. “Alright, that’s not normal,” he conceded, realising he was staring at the ground again to make sure he wasn’t floating because it felt like there was nothing left under his feet. He still wasn’t sure how he was supposed to help however, when her ghost half had needed stabilisation, he had used the Ecto-Dejecto, but no such thing existed for humans. There wasn’t any magic spray that would fix a fever that wouldn’t let up. “How did it start?” Danny asked, grasping for straws.

“We don’t really know, all she did was transform back,” his father said with a shrug.

But Dani was in no shape of transforming into anything right now, no matter how briefly. And she would have felt the fever even as a ghost, no matter whether the symptoms would have actually shown. Not everything carried over seamlessly when their human bodies got sick, but whatever afflicted one half was felt in some form or way by the other. Danny couldn’t say that he had never tried to transform when his body had been sick or otherwise weakened, but he certainly would have never tried in a state like Dani was in now. Not for a lack of want, but for a lack of ability. At this point she wouldn’t be able to muster the strength to transform into a ghost unless someone forced her to.

Briefly he wondered if Dani had stayed here because she hadn’t been feeling well from the start. Whether she had made that decision consciously or not, her intention more than likely had been to avoid Vlad at all costs.

Breathing a deep sigh Danny tried to calm himself down. It was nothing. She just hadn’t been taking care of herself. But no matter how much he wanted to believe that he couldn’t shake the thought that her fever hadn’t stayed down and the image of her melting into a basin was burning itself into his mind. If this went on, the damage her body suffered would end up affecting her ghost form just as much.

If Vlad had been here, Danny realised, he would have known what to do. Or at least he would have been able to determine whether her condition was truly worrisome. But he couldn’t bring him here without raising questions or earning Dani’s wrath when she would come to. – And needlessly frighten her if she happened to wake up in the state she was now in.

Dani wasn’t melting. Not like she had been in the past. Clinging to that Danny took another deep breath and nodded in response to the explanation that his parents had been presently unable to bring her fever down again.

“If it’s her core you won’t be,” Danny replied. It was the answer that he wanted this to be, though he couldn’t say how Dani would have gained a fire core instead of an ice core, but hadn’t Vlad said she was closer to being his sister anyway? Danny wondered if that played into it. If the differences between them were big enough to cause such a great shift in how their innermost power expressed itself.

“Her core?” His parents questioned in unison.

“Yeah,” Danny sighed. “Every ghost’s got a core, mine’s ice,” he said while holding up a hand to make a practical demonstration by freezing his forearm over before dispersing the energy he’d used for it again in a thin white mist. His parents oohed and aahed. “If we’re unable to regulate its power our bodies get to feel the excess, my body was ice-cold, teeth chattering, shivering, the whole nine yards…” If Frostbite hadn’t helped him get a grip on his powers he likely would have frozen into a human popsicle and become a ghost forever years ago, but he refrained from mentioning that to avoid having to deal with parental concern directed at him instead of Dani. “Unless she manages to control her core, she’ll… burn up…” Danny swallowed and pressed his lips together.

“But she’s barely able to sit up,” his mother remarked. Realising that Dani wouldn’t be able to do anything about it in the same moment that she spoke. “At this rate she won’t be able to control it.”

“No,” Danny agreed. But if it was truly her core acting up, Dani would make it out just fine, he told himself, even though it was no guarantee that her ghost half, or any other part of her, was stable. “When she was… in her ghost form did she seem in any way… unstable?” He asked quietly, uncertain whether it was a good idea to ask something like that in the first place. But it was too important not to know.

His father made a thoughtful sound, as Danny folded his arms in a weak defensive gesture against the questions he wanted to avoid. “Not that I can think of. What do you mean?” He asked and Danny averted his eyes.

“Nothing, it’s probably nothing,” he replied. If his parents hadn’t noticed anything now it was unlikely that Dani had been melting like she had back then. They were dense enough to not think too hard about his question either, but weren’t dense enough to ignore what they could see with their own two eyes.

“You think something is wrong with her ecto-energy?” His mother questioned and though Danny didn’t say anything, his expression must’ve spoken volumes because her features hardened into a serious expression. “Whatever it is, Danny, if you have any idea what’s wrong with her… we can’t help her unless you help us.”

The walls of his chest seemed to shrink as he swallowed. Telling them that Dani was on some physical level falling apart wouldn’t lead to much unless it prompted them to look at her genetic structure, which however would be unavoidable with that statement. An idea that shouldn’t terrify him as much as it did, Danny knew. After all, he hadn't forced Vlad to create her. And if Vlad had left it at collecting his DNA, or he would have never found out perhaps it would have been easier for him now to tell them what he thought. But Vlad hadn’t left it at that, and Dani was the result. So he couldn’t.

His stomach revolted at the realisation that he’d chosen, in some manner, to protect Vlad from the repercussions of his decision. Not because he agreed with it, but because this was part of what he wanted – simple as that. If he wanted Vlad on his side, he didn’t get to cherry-pick which parts he brought with him. Just like Vlad didn’t get to choose which parts Danny brought. It was a patchwork of middle grounds because none of what had happened could be undone.

So what was there that he could safely say now, without endangering his own decision?

“There is a possibility… that her core is destabilising her as a whole, our ghost powers rely on our physical well-being, but Dani’s were unstable from the start… that is until I used the Ecto-Dejecto on her…”

While his mother made a thoughtful face, his father asked, “so we use it on her again?”

Immediately Danny shook his head, “even if the root cause of this is her destabilising, it’s more likely to burn her to a crisp than anything else, her core is just trying to find an outlet for the excess energy – regardless of whether it might be killing her human body in the process.”

“We would need a way of measuring her ecto-energy…” His mother continued the thought. “And converting it into something harmless.”

Danny wondered at this point if it was common knowledge that Vlad had a degree in genetics – or at least the knowledge to acquire one – but decided not to ask them. It wasn’t the time and place.

“We could use the Ecto-Stoppo-Power-Efier to negate her powers for the time being.” – “Jack, honey, the force would be too much of her.” – “We’ll just transform it from a canon into a shield that negates the powers within its area.”

It wouldn’t solve Dani’s problem Danny realised, as he stood by and let them discuss the specifics of that idea and whether it would be better to make it portable and set it up around the bed or transport Dani downstairs into the lab, but it would keep Dani from dying and keep the fever at bay. Perhaps it would even allow Dani to recover enough of her strength to give them the time they needed to come up with a way of figuring out how to stabilise her again without endangering her life by immediately causing her core to flare up with the new influx of strength.

While they spoke his parents already made their way downstairs, and after a moment of hesitation Danny picked his feet up off the floor and followed them.

Glancing back at the door behind which Dani slept restlessly in her feverish state, Danny thought it was good that nobody had mentioned the Fenton Ghost Catcher or the Ghost Gauntlets yet. While of course they could have entirely separated Dani’s two halves, there had been no instance which Danny remembered in which that had actually been beneficial for himself, no matter the reason. To get a ghost out of a regular human, sure it worked just fine for that, but for him and Dani it would only throw them off balance. Besides there was no telling what might happen if her ghost half learnt to control its core on its own.

“No, she’s just going to fry it in her current state,” Danny replied when his parents suggested the Specter Deflector. He wasn’t actually sure of what would happen if they put it on Dani right now, but he was sure that it would do practically nothing to keep her powers in check. Even if the device remained intact.

From the corner of his eye Danny could see the Fenton Xtractor halfway under a nearby table. When they were distracted, he pushed it out of immediate sight, so it couldn’t give his parents any terrible ideas.

“Do you know what happened the first time around?” His father asked, while opening the Ecto-Stoppo-Power-Efier at the side to expose its wiring.

Yes. Because she was his clone-sister and Vlad hadn’t done a very good job at creating her, would have been the honest answer, but Danny swallowed it. “No,” he said instead, which was equally as much the truth because he truly didn’t know what exactly had gone wrong in the process of creation that had caused Dani’s powers to make her melt. And going with the fact that Vlad had wanted to study her remains to perfect the final clone, it wasn’t certain that he knew either.

“Is there any way I can help?”

“Just watch your sister, while we finish this.” There was a little smile on his mother’s face as she spoke, as if she wanted to reassure him that everything was going to be fine.

Danny nodded. A moment long he watched them before making his way upstairs through the ceiling and back to Dani’s side. She hadn’t moved from where they had left her, but she looked worse than he had wanted to admit at first glance. Her skin was still uncomfortably hot to the touch and her clothes, soaked from sweat and the melting ice, stuck to her skin. When he pushed a few strands of dark hair out of face, which had clung to her forehead, Dani made a small uncomfortable sound, prompting Danny to lower himself onto his knees. “Don’t you dare melt again,” he muttered and tucked another loose strand behind her ear. “You’re going to be fine.”

In the quiet of the house he could faintly hear the ongoing conversation of his parents as they worked on converting their machine that he couldn’t even begin to remember the name of right now. All that mattered was that it was going to help.

Dani muttered something in a hoarse voice that could have been his name. Her eyes barely opened and were far from focused as she looked at him, but the moment they closed again she wasn’t responsive anymore.
Lightly he ghosted his fingers over her face and shoulder, down the arm that was exposed, before he stopped and brought his hand up to hover just below her collarbones. Where his hand had floated over her body a light coating of frost had appeared only to melt within seconds and though it did little Danny hoped she could feel the cold that he was trying to share with her in this moment.

Gently Danny ghosted his hand over the back of Dani’s neck, meaning to comfort just as much as to alleviate the heat.

He tried to re-freeze the ice that had been melting without turning the entire tub into a gigantic ice cube with Dani inside, but his efforts didn’t last for very long, for as soon as he seemed to freeze the ice, she was melting it again.

When his father came upstairs to tell him that it was time to get her downstairs Danny had lost all sense of time, but the pain in his legs from sitting on the floor for so long told him that more than the blink it felt like had passed. He’d spent the entire time refreezing the ice, which would without him have long since turned into a lukewarm bath. Yet when his father helped him free Dani off the ice and Danny carefully lifted her out of the tub she felt like liquid fire in his arms as he carried her downstairs. She was so warm that his powers reacted to her almost on their own. Patches of ice bloomed and melted where her body touched his and made him leave drops of water on the floor.

His parents had cleared the middle of the lab and put up what looked like the closest thing to a hospital bed they could manage within the area of effect of the rebuild and reprogrammed Ecto-Stoppo-Power-Efier. The moment Danny stepped inside the shield he could feel his ghostly appearance being stripped away, felt the feverish burn of Dani’s body in his arms, and forced himself to ignore it and instead arrange her as comfortable as it was possible in her new bed. It was certainly an upgrade from the bathtub, though she couldn’t be submerged in ice like this in here unless his parents broke out the old kiddie pool.

Momentarily Dani stirred and when he pressed his hand against her face, she was still uncomfortably warm but was stopping to feel like liquid fire to the touch. The moment he had put Dani down his mother had started hooking up several machines to monitor her heartbeat, temperature, oxygen levels and blood pressure, as well as an IV to keep her from dehydrating.

Uncomfortable Danny shifted his weight. “What are you going to do?” He couldn’t help but ask. That the shield worked was indisputable else he would still be a ghost, but it hadn’t magically cured her fever nor would it help long-term since her temporary improvement, from almost literally burning up, to exhausted to the point of sleep, was confined to the shield she was lying under.

“Now, we’re going to find a way to regulate her powers manually, so she can recover.” As his father spoke he placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, yet it didn’t stop Danny’s stomach from adding another knot to the already existing ones when Danny shifted his glance away again.

Taking care of her core wouldn’t do it, but he couldn’t explain how he knew that, nor how he could make them understand where to look without exposing what she was. Realising that he was hoping for a case of dumb luck that seemed to follow his parents like a moth the light, that would save Dani despite everything. “Is there anything I can do?” He asked once again. But he could see on their faces that the only thing they expected of him was to trust them. And perhaps if Dani hadn’t been Vlad’s experiment, he could have done that without the queasy feeling in his stomach.

Quietly Danny left the shield and got a chair, so he could sit by Dani’s side while they worked, while he considered visiting Jazz still. But not a single fibre of his being wanted to leave Dani’s side, wishing his reasons weren’t so selfish, but he couldn’t do anything about how sick the fear of them discovering what she was made him feel.

The only time he left her side was when his mother shooed him out of the way to exchange Dani’s wet clothes for a dry hospital gown.

With half an ear Danny listened to parents as they went back and forth between arguing about the method and materials, and finishing each other’s sentences, while he held Dani’s hand like it was the only thing anchoring him to this world. Hoping that the cold of his core would balance out the remaining heat in her body. When she had finally reached a relatively normal temperature she was in a deep sleep and breathing evenly. Exhausted Danny let himself sink headfirst onto the side of her bed. He still hadn’t let go of her arm, and though he probably looked like it he wasn’t sleeping.

It was only when he heard nearing footsteps that he forced himself to sit up. In the back of his mind he remembered Dan and Jazz, but since Dan wasn’t headlining the newspapers, he figured it wasn’t as urgent as it felt to him. “What are you doing?” He asked when his mother pulled a syringe from the pocket of her lab coat.

“Just drawing some blood,” she replied in a frighteningly reassuring tone.

Danny only made an acknowledging sound, waiting for her to continue explaining. When she didn’t, he asked, “what for?” Trying to ignore how the anxiously knots in his stomach twisted.

“We’re going to analyse it, and try to isolate the ecto-energy, that should give us an idea how to proceed without putting her in any danger.”

Danny made another acknowledging sound and tried not to stare, but couldn’t help it as he watched his mother fill several vials with Dani’s blood. As soon as she was finished, she turned to call his father’s attention and gave him one of the vials.

A new wave of panic set in when he didn’t recognise the device in his father’s hands. “What are you doing with that?” His voice was hoarse when he spoke, and Danny swallowed trying to retain his ability to speak.

“We’re going to transform the sample into ectoplasm,” his father grinned, visibly proud of one of his newer inventions “Dani-ectoplasm,” he clarified, and Danny could only nod, while he focused his efforts on keeping a straight face that didn’t give the impression of poorly concealed terror. At which he apparently didn’t succeed because his father comfortingly clasped his shoulder.

Danny showed a wry smile, trying to ignore the tightness in his chest that made his breath short. Trying to listen for any indication of an analysis that might end with a revelation that the relationship between his parents and Vlad wouldn’t recover from. Everything else just became white noise. With tense shoulders Danny let his head sink onto his hands in which he still held Dani’s.

It was late at night when he realised that his parents, while perhaps making progress hadn’t found a way to handle Dani’s powers.

His neck was stiff from being hunched over for hours, and Danny attempted to rub it away. Someone had put a blanket over his shoulders he realised as he was starting to get feeling in his body again. A moment long he was trying to wake up his limbs and remind them how they were supposed to function, after which Danny forced himself to get up and leave Dani’s protective circle. He had added the blanket to the other one on her bed and wandered in a circle around the lab for a few times before taking a closer look at his parents’ research.
They had analysed the samples of Dani’s blood in varying ways, including her isolated ecto-energy and the one his father had transformed by exposing it to concentrated ecto-energy. She shared his blood type, Danny realised as he looked through their notes. Not that that was in any way surprising, it just confirmed in a strangely trivial way that she really was his duplicate. The primary conclusion of their notes was that Dani’s overpowering ghost energy was too much for her body to take, possibly causing a chain reaction of destabilisation, affecting her fundamental physical form which in turn carried over to her ghost form… Which was frighteningly close to the mark.

And because of how her DNA was inherently unstable anything that threw it off balance was breaking down the whole house of cards, Danny concluded silently. His gaze wandered back to Dani where she slept in her sick bed, wondering how much his parents were really going to solve if the underlying cause wasn’t Dani’s core but her very being.

He wondered if he’d slept, though he must have, however briefly, otherwise there wouldn’t have passed so much time so quickly.

Putting the clipboard back down where he’d found it Danny couldn’t take his eyes off Dani. Closing his own eyes, he muttered an apology and opened a portal that took him directly into Vlad’s mansion.

A clock in the hallway told him it was well past midnight as he roamed the corridors and poked his head through the doors till he found Vlad’s bedroom. Only that he wasn’t there, so he had to continue his search until Danny found him in what appeared to be something in between a living room and a reading room. Only a single lamp was on, providing just enough light for Vlad to read the books he had brought with him when he wasn’t typing something on his laptop.

“You’re coming with me,” Danny pressed out. Realising that he’d ripped Vlad from his thoughts when the other only blinked at him like there was still a chance that Danny, right now, was a figment of his imagination. “You’re coming with me and you’re going to help whether you want to or not.”

“Would you explain to me what’s going on?” Vlad replied, mildly irritated and without getting up from his chair. “Daniel, please…” He sighed. “It’s the middle of the night, I’m sure whatever it is can wait until tomorrow morning.”

“No, she can’t,” Danny replied feeling a rush of cold fury take over his body. “Dani can’t fix whatever you botched when you created her.”

The mention of Dani’s name made Vlad pause, possibly even freeze for a few seconds before he scrutinised him. “What are you talking about? Didn’t you fix her?” Vlad asked and sorted his laptop and books aside so that he could get up.

“I- I don’t know… just, come with me and take a look at her, you’re the only one I can ask to do this.”

“The only one whom you can ask, to whom you don’t have to explain what she is,” Vlad muttered dryly and sighed as he made his way towards him. “Fine, I will have a look at her.” If only so Danny would calm down, the tone of his voice seemed to say.

The portal that he opened led them directly back into his parents’ lab, causing Vlad to cautiously glance around and curse quietly.

“You could have warned me she was here,” Vlad muttered, gnashing his teeth as he looked around to find Dani and his parents’ notes. “So, what’s wrong with her this time?” Vlad spoke quietly, almost as if he feared to be heard.

Silently Danny watched until Vlad had settled. “The shield negates her ghost powers as long as she’s in there,” he explained when he saw Vlad study Dani with question in his expression. Danny pointed at the device his parents had modified and connected to the ecto-purifier he now realised, and then that he still didn’t have the energy to remember its name. “I’m pretty sure her core is the cause, but I’m worried it’s unravelling what the Ecto-Dejecto fixed.” From Vlad’s expression Danny could tell that he needed to be more thorough in his explanation if he wanted to get anywhere. “I used this,” he said and held up the spray after rummaging around the lab for a moment. “After you melted her, I used it stabilise her ghost powers, dad developed it to weaken ghosts but it just increases their powers, now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t know why it seemed to work indefinitely for Dani…”

“And now?”

“She got a fever that’s just getting worse, she was melting the ice in the tub, it was like holding liquid fire poured into a human shape when I brought her downstairs, the only reason her temperature came down was because of the shield…”

“Because it automatically negates the effects of her core along with everything else,” Vlad repeated his explanation of the shield’s function with a slight nod.

“I didn’t tell them,” Danny said when he silently pointed Vlad towards his parents’ research. “But while her core might have started this, I don’t think it’s why she’s so badly affected, I was freezing half to death back when mine acted up, but I wasn’t exactly keeling over from hypothermia every other moment.” That he had eventually succumbed to the cold didn’t seem all that relevant right now. He certainly hadn’t had as much trouble with the excess power as Dani was having.

Studying the clipboard Danny had read earlier Vlad asked, “and what exactly makes you think the issue lies elsewhere?”

“It’s just a feeling…” Danny admitted glumly. And it was probably nothing, but it would take Vlad’s word to calm his nerves now whether he or Dani liked it or not.

Vlad made a thoughtful sound and put the clipboard down again after he’d seen through the notes to turn his attention to the samples Danny’s parents had collected.

For a long time neither of them said anything as Danny watched Vlad’s back when he hunched over the microscope and searched the shelves until he seemed to find what he’d been looking for. Visibly attempting to be quiet Vlad had turned on a nearby machine and fed some data into it, but didn’t seem satisfied with the outcome. Within a blink afterward Vlad disappeared and when he came back, he had a bag under his arm.

Inside the bag was one of the many laptops with numbers and letters on an ID sticker, there were other stickers on it too, but Danny couldn’t say whether they were there because Vlad liked them or because they severed an actual purpose in identifying what the laptop was used for. From what he could glimpse of the bag’s inside Danny could determine that Vlad kept an assortment of flash drives, discs, pens, cables and notebooks in there. He watched as Vlad rummaged through its contents and set up his own workstation, leaving once or twice to search for something in the lab. Now and then Danny caught him glancing towards the ceiling and towards Dani as if he suspected someone to wake up at any moment.

At first, he thought that Vlad was simply done setting up his own little analysis lab and happy to watch it work in silence, but there was something about the quiet poise with which Vlad regarded the work desk that made Danny’s stomach flip. “There’s something wrong with her, isn’t there?”

“Baffled that you could tell,” Vlad replied dryly despite the quiet bewilderment on his expression, while his eyes flitted across the screens showing the results of the analysed data.

From what Danny could see Vlad had been comparing Dani’s sample to her unfixed state, which meant that the set in between those two had to be himself and Vlad from the most recent samples.

Pointedly, Vlad continued, “I wouldn’t have found it, if you hadn’t made me look…” As he’d spoken, he had slowly turned around to study Danny.

Though he didn’t say it, Danny suspected that it was dawning on Vlad that he had deliberately kept his parents in the dark.

But with a sigh Vlad shrugged off what was on his mind and grabbed a lab coat that had been thrown over a nearby chair. Without taking his eyes off of Danny, Vlad pulled on a pair of gloves.

“I need ectoplasm from your core,” he said in a way that suggested it was supposed to explain everything, or at the very least enough. It did no such thing.

“Sure,” Danny replied, though he wasn’t quite certain what he was agreeing to and felt an anxious spike rise up his spine in response. “But how?”

“An anaesthetic, an intimidating syringe with an even more intimidating needle, and your consent,” Vlad replied earnestly and looked none too happy about it.

Briefly Danny glanced at where Dani slept behind him, but it wasn’t even a question. He hadn’t saved her back then just to let her die now. Even without Vlad saying it, he knew that it was the risk they were running if they waited for her body to figure it out on its own.

“Find a place to lie down and take your shirt off, don’t transform yet,” Vlad instructed him before he disappeared again.

Looking around the lab Danny found a stretcher folded up and squeezed into a corner. Careful not to enter Dani’s protective shield Danny unfolded it and rolled it as close as he dared to her and sat on its side. He kept his shirt balled up in his hands after taking it off, because he didn’t know what to do with it or himself.

Whatever Vlad had brought with him when he returned, he was keeping under the coat he’d donned, which didn’t exactly make Danny feel any better though he couldn’t help an abruptly amused expression when Vlad neared him in a comically threatening manner, armed with a marker.

“What’s that supposed to be when it’s done?” Danny asked with half a grin.

“Sit up straight, will you?” Vlad grumbled with the cap between his teeth, already pushing his shoulder up on one side. “And now keep still.”

It tickled when Vlad set the marker onto his skin and started to draw, what Danny realised, were the placement of his organs and when he was done in a different colour the location of his bones, and then in a third major veins and arteries. Without realising it he tensed his muscles and held his breath anew whenever Vlad set the marker down to make sure the picture would be as accurate as can be.

Closing the marker eventually Vlad examined his work, which Danny took as a sign that he could relax, but the moment his shoulders slumped down Vlad drew a final circle onto the centre of his chest with a fourth marker. The location of his core Danny noted, promptly realising as he looked down himself that there were organs and bones all over the place where it was nestled into his ghost form. Involuntarily Danny gulped at the thought of what even the smallest cut there meant for him as a human.

“You won’t be able to transform back until the wound is healed,” Vlad said and Danny nodded.

“So, where’s the intimidating syringe?” Danny could feel his stomach flipping over.

“When do your parents get up?” Vlad asked and dug his hands in the pockets of his lab coat instead of answering his question.

“I don’t know,” he muttered, and wondered if it was worth checking if they had set an alarm. Whatever answer Vlad had expected this one clearly wasn’t the one he had wanted to hear, and from the looks of it he was expecting the worst.

Groaning quietly Vlad motioned him to lie down, while pulling a normal-sized syringe from his lab coat. “Transform and pray that they’re going to stay asleep for thirty more minutes, you’re not going to want to explain to them what I’m about to do.”

With a deep breath Danny felt the ecto-energy wash over him as he transformed, this time the prickle of it only added to his anxiousness. Despite previously taking off his shirt the transformation had restored the jumpsuit in its entirety much to Vlad’s discontentment.

“Take that off,” he ordered.

“Again, with more enthusiasm!” Danny joked to alleviate his anxiety, but with little success while Vlad only looked more than tired. But he zipped open the suit and peeled it off his upper body so to reveal Vlad’s drawing which had remained pleasantly unchanged by his transformation, while Vlad turned around to rummage through his utensils again. By the time Vlad warily glanced over his shoulder Danny was making himself comfortable on the stretcher again, as much as he could manage at least considering Vlad’s warning, while he kept watching the other expectantly. Yet the syringe that Vlad procured from under his coat was once again unexpectedly normal-sized.

He barely felt the prick when the needle entered his skin, which wasn’t because it didn’t hurt, but after years of being knocked around by the likes of Skulker a needle to his chest was one of the least painful experiences he could recount. “Is that local?” He asked, unable to calm his nerves and trying to distract himself.

“It’s going to take too long otherwise; you’ll have to be brave for a few minutes.” As he spoke Vlad continued to inject the anaesthetic into his chest until there was nothing left, while Danny could already feel the centre of it going numb, which Vlad tested by unenthusiastically poking him with the pointy of an unused syringe. But only when Danny eventually confirmed that he couldn’t feel a thing did Vlad stop and pocket the syringe again.

Utterly unceremoniously Vlad procured what Danny could only describe as the nightmare of many little children when they had to visit a doctor they weren’t familiar with. “Sweet mother Mary of fuck,” Danny groaned, feeling his stomach drop at the sight of the monstrous syringe. His eyes closed entirely unprompted. “Buy me dinner first,” he sputtered in an attempt to combat the anxious flutter in his stomach that was slowly turning his insides into goo.

“When I’m done you can’t transform back right away, you have to wait until your wound is healed, otherwise you’ll have at least a pierce oesophagus, at worst a punctured lung.”

Swallowing Danny nodded, and dared to peek out from under one of his eyelids to see what Vlad was doing.
“On the count of three,” Vlad replied when he caught his eye.

Again, Danny nodded, not feeling any calmer than before, but attempting to relax with a deep breath.

“One…”

Danny took another deep breath and braced himself.

“Two…”

Danny wondered what on earth had possessed him to agree to this and whether it was still too late to erase Dani from his history so this wouldn’t be necessary.

“Three…”

Danny wondered when the needle would get in, but he didn’t really want to open his eyes. “Careful, this is my first time.” The corners of his mouth quirked up as he spoke. In his defence, Danny thought, and couldn’t come up with anything in his defence because he was too focused on not trying to think about the gigantic needle inside of him.

Vlad made a sound that could only be described as halfway between disgruntled and miserable, and Danny dared a short glance, focussing on Vlad’s face instead of the needle that was slowly filling with a bright, clear liquid.

Before the dizziness could set in Danny closed his eyes and tried to breathe quietly and shallowly.

“All done,” Vlad said quietly only a moment after.

But almost instantly Danny regretted opening his eyes. Just seeing the needle and knowing that it had been inside his chest was almost too much. – The area was still numb when he clumsily prodded the small hole in his skin, uncertain if his knees felt wobbly, because of the lost ectoplasm or because he was still trying to process what he’d just allowed to happen, as he tried to sit up and drew his legs close for comfort.

Wordlessly Vlad had handed him a first aid kit, but instead of carrying the syringe to Dani he took it to the work desk.

“Aren’t you going to give that to Dani?” Danny questioned as he pressed a gauze pad against his chest. Hoping that his ghost powers were able to hold out until it was closed, just like Vlad wanted them to.

“I can’t give it to her as is,” Vlad replied and filled the clear ectoplasm into a series of vials. “If the energies of your cores collide the reaction would be… explosive, to say the least,” he elaborated. “Just let me work, and prepare yourself to get up and shut off that blasted shield, it’s only to going to undo your selfless cooperation – you don’t want me to do that again, right?”

Danny could only shake his head, glancing at the side of the gauze pad that touched his skin, thankful that there was only a small green stain on it. Wishing that the anaesthetic would let up, to better gauge how much pressure to apply, because he could barely feel his hand pressing against the area to begin with.

Closing his eyes Danny considered lying down again, but since Vlad wanted him to get up and possibly even fly he decided against it. If he was going to lie down now that wasn’t going to happen. That much was certain.

Time passed in impalpable measures until Vlad told him to shut off the shield. Against expectation his legs didn’t give way when Danny finally stood, but unfortunately the anaesthetic had started ceasing to work. It didn’t exactly hurt though, Danny realised as he pressed the button that shut off the shield, while keeping a careful eye on Dani, but his chest was sore right down to the core where the needle had entered it.

The lack of ectoplasm on the gauze pad was telling him that it was closing too. Danny just wished it would happen faster, he’d been feeling uncomfortable in his skin since the start of the week. Which, he now realised, he probably had to thank Dani for.

Exhausted Danny let himself sink into the chair beside her bed, he could already feel her radiating waves of heat despite it barely being minutes since he had switched off the shield.

Without taking his eyes off of Vlad he watched as the other carefully rolled Dani onto her back and cut a slit into the top of her hospital gown so he could expose only the centre of her chest. What Vlad injected into her core looked of slightly different consistency than the ectoplasm he’d previously extracted, it seemed to be somewhat more liquid and had slightly changed colour. It had dulled, the bright icy shimmer it had had before was gone.

Dani’s chest heaved uncomfortably during the injection, but otherwise she showed no sign of response to her environment. His parents must have sedated her at some point, he figured, though he couldn’t say when.

“Is that all?” Danny asked and wanted to get up and hold her hand again.

“Now we wait,” Vlad replied wearily, while his eyes lingered on Danny for a moment. “And watch. You watch, I’ll get coffee.”

Far from being able to argue in any way Danny nodded and leaned his head on his hand. Briefly it occurred to him that perhaps it wasn’t the brightest idea to leave Vlad alone in the kitchen, but with the promise of coffee it was hard to come up with anything against it.

“How long do we wait?” Danny asked when he heard footsteps on the stairs once more.

“About twenty more minutes,” Vlad replied. “There is no way her body would reject your ectoplasm, but I’d like to be sure, and then another thirty minutes, she should get one about every hour,” he explained and pulled up a nearby chair so he could sit next to him.

The smell off coffee muddled Danny’s thoughts too much to question anything about Vlad’s words or why he wasn’t leaving. A part of him was even glad for it.

In silence they let the time pass and drank their coffee. When the wound in his chest had healed Danny dared to pull up the upper half of the jumpsuit again and closed it, immediately feeling more comfortable for it. He was on his second cup and the first hour had almost passed.

“You could just make that an IV drip and leave,” Danny suggested. “I’ll watch and call you if anything happens.”
Vlad grumbled something incomprehensible in response. Clearly that hadn’t been part of his plan.

“How do you feel?”

Danny had gotten up to stretch, his muscles ached from sitting for so long and though the puncture wound in his chest had closed the spot still felt sore. “Hungry,” Danny announced after thinking about it for a while. Truth be told he wanted to crawl into bed or Vlad’s library, close his eyes and not move an inch for at least two days. But his hunger had to come first.

“Good.” Vlad sounded pleased, but then glanced at the ceiling no doubt wondering for how much longer the rest of the house was asleep, before scrutinising Dani with a long concerned look.

“I could go for some greasy fast food,” Danny interrupted Vlad’s contemplation on whether it was safe to leave Dani alone for a moment. His mouth was practically watering at the thought.

It seemed unnecessary to explain that using the kitchen to its full extent at this hour when his parents didn’t even know Vlad was over, was out of the question, and that Danny expected Vlad to go and get whatever he could find this late at night, while Danny held watch in his absence. Chances were Dani would be fine, but Danny realised that they were in silent agreement about not leaving her on her own right now when he looked back at Vlad.

If he had been any less hungry Danny might have been able to even consider the oddity of their sudden solidary unanimity, but all Danny could think of was that he really wanted a burger. Or two. Three was even better.

“I’ll stay and watch her,” Danny noted the obvious, rubbing circles on his chest with his thumb to the soreness.

**

Vlad had brought burgers, just as requested, which they had eaten (devoured more in Danny’s case) in silence, while Vlad had kept his eyes on Dani and the monitors. He’d come back just in time for the twenty-minute mark, and for Danny to tell him that Dani’s condition remained unchanged.

“You don’t seem concerned,” Danny had pointed out.

“Unchanged right now just means she’s not getting worse – that’s a good start,” Vlad had explained and handed him a paper bag and a cup of soda, after which Danny had been too distracted by combating his hunger to question that further.

Now sated and weary Danny made himself comfortable in the air, angled in a way that allowed him to watch Vlad who was still watching Dani. He looked just as tired and unwilling to actually sleep.

“Thank you for telling me.” Vlad said it with strange, quiet sobriety.

Danny hummed to himself and then in agreement with Vlad’s words. It gave him the same feeling as earlier when they had agreed not to leave Dani unsupervised – a strange sort of necessity and protectiveness that he was all too familiar with, just not in the presence of Vlad. It stood in stark contrast to the fright he’d felt earlier over his parents’ analysis of Dani’s samples. Another oddity, Danny noted and then decided that now wasn’t the right time to pick it apart. “She’s going to be okay, right?” He asked, glancing at Vlad.

“She’s made out of tough stuff,” Vlad answered quietly. “Speaking of which, it’s time for her next shot.”

The words fixed his eyes on Dani, a part of him wanted to be by her side while she had to endure that, but Danny was too hesitant to even put an arm into the shield, out of concern it would unravel his transformation not just in part but wholly. Despite the puncture wound having closed, he didn’t have enough trust yet in the strength of his body, that he would be fully okay. So he silently watched as Vlad checked the machines and Dani separately, to be sure she wasn’t going to wake all of a sudden before administering a mild sedative and carefully inserting the needle into her chest.

It was the first time, Danny realised, that he’d seen Vlad work on someone else, and he did it with the same practised care that he had taken his own samples. Briefly Vlad dabbed at the drop of blood that was forming on Dani’s chest with a piece of cotton, as if it was something he was doing a thousand times over each week.

Yet the way Vlad moved around Dani, careful not to put too much weight in his steps, keeping his touch light and brief, except for when he had to make sure she wouldn’t just sit up and knock the syringe out of his hands, but even then his hand only touched the fabric of her gown, and now as he exited the shield again Vlad did it in such a way that he stepped out of Dani’s immediate vision first before leaving it– it all spoke clearly of the fact that Vlad knew more than well that his presence was unwanted.

A behavior that stood in such a stark contrast to his own memories of what Vlad had been like after capturing him the few times that he had, that Danny couldn’t help how it made him pause, and he had to admit to himself that it had never occurred to him that Vlad could be gentle with Dani, after initially letting her melt.

“Do you regret it?” When he glanced at Vlad to figure out whether he ought to elaborate on that, Danny noticed how stiff the other’s shoulders were.

“It never quite occurred to me that I was creating a person and not just a copy of you…” Vlad said, looking at his hands, as if he had trouble grasping that Dani wasn’t just his imagination. “That sounds stupid,” he then admitted to the obvious. “It is stupid,” he continued, “but I’d met you, I had an… idea of what you were like and what this clone was supposed to be…”

Sluggishly the words bumbled through Danny’s sated brain as he sat up straight and attempted to banish the weariness. “Are you… telling me… you thought you were just running me through a photocopier??”

Beside him Vlad stifled an unexpected laugh that dissolved into a quiet, pained groan. “More like a 3D printer.” Having found his composure again Vlad began to elaborate, “that’s not… I mean it wasn’t the terms I was thinking in, but yes, in its essence, and in retrospect, that’s somewhat what I was doing – it had to be you, ghost powers and Maddie’s genes and all, but you already know that, that’s why I didn’t care, why it didn’t matter, why Dani could have never been the prime clone…”

Gently Danny boxed Vlad’s arm. “Well, now you’ve got the real deal, but I’m not signing any adoption papers.”

Instead of pressing the subject Vlad folded his arms with a sigh and kept his eyes on Dani just like before. “When I left her to melt, I didn’t think of it in terms of her not getting to grow up, it was like scrapping a failed project, but seeing her now, I’m glad you didn’t let that happen.”

Now it was Danny’s turn to sigh and he pulled his legs up so he could wrap his arms around them. Thinking of Dani melting still opened up a cavity in his stomach. “Trust me it was a close call,” he said in a bitter voice.

“Let’s get some more coffee and then I’ll have a look at that”, he gestured at Dann’s chest where the puncture wound had been.

“I’m all healed up.”

“That’s wonderful, but I’d rather be certain.”

**

After the third injection the first real improvement in Dani’s condition had shown, and since the forth she had been comfortably sleeping, although the real test was yet to come when she would later leave the shield and her powers weren’t negated anymore, so Dani would feel the full force of her core’s element again.

Fire. Once again she was his mirror. Vlad had pointed that out too, and then that if Dani truly was anything like him that Danny could cease his silent worrying because she would be fine. More than fine. Just like he had been.

“What are you going to tell your parents?” The way Vlad said the word – parents – made it seem like a strange acknowledgement of that role, as if he meant to point something out with it.

Emptying another cup of coffee – Danny had stopped counting after the third – he replied. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Vlad’s brows furrowed and he leaned back in the chair, that Danny had earlier occupied when he’d sat by Dani’s bed, with folded arms.

A wry smile formed on Danny’s face. “Nothing,” he repeated truthfully, “they will have their own answers and I’m just going to nod and let it make sense to them.” It was the safest option for avoiding the truth about Dani. “They spent years explaining away the similarities between me and Phantom and why their gadgets seemed to target me still, they’ll do the same for Dani.” There was an edge to his words that he couldn’t hide, even though he tried.

Above them the sound of people waking made them stir. There was one last shot that Dani had to get.

“I can administer it,” Danny offered, glancing at the syringe.

“No,” Vlad responded, “I’ll do it, just make sure they don’t come downstairs just yet.”

With a sigh Danny rubbed his weary shoulders and settled onto the ground again. The wound in his chest had healed perfectly without any help from Vlad or the contents of his lab, yet his reluctance to enter the shield hadn’t completely vanished. “Alright, I’ll go check on them when they get to the kitchen, if they see me now, they might think something’s wrong with her and stumble down here before I get a chance to explain.”

Both of them were watching the clock now.

“What are you going to do about her?”

“Frostbite helped me regulate my core, I think.. I think I know someone who’d be thrilled to train a little firecracker.” A lopsided smile showed on Danny’s face and he ran a hand through his hair.

“Really?” Vlad regarded him with mild curiosity but didn’t press the subject. He got up and grabbed the last syringe in a manner that suggested he could do this in his sleep.

The noises were coming from the kitchen now, but Danny figured he could wait until the last shot was administered. Well aware that it would mean that Vlad would leave, realising that a part of him didn’t want that right now, disregarding the fact that Dani would be less than thrilled about it.

“I’m going to leave it up to Dani’s judgement whether Dan should know the truth.”

Vlad paused, blinked, syringe still in hand, hovering over Dani’s chest, but Danny waited until he had administered the last shot. “If my theories are correct, she should be feverish if she leaves this shield, but stable enough until she can get help.”

“We can’t keep it from him forever, and it should be her decision how and when to tell him, but I won’t get involved unless she wants me to.” Well, it was a different matter if Dan decided to rip Vlad a new one for it, but that seemed self-explanatory considering it was a different angle to the issue, and one that concerned him much more directly. “I should go upstairs,” Danny noted as he watched Vlad pack up the things he had brought to the lab.

Vlad’s acknowledgement was a quiet sound. He opened a portal. Danny left.

**

“Eeember,” uncharacteristically Danny used the cadence of her signature song to call her, however he left out anything that wasn’t her name. “Eeeembeer,” the sing-song in his voice dissolved into an awkward laugh when she suddenly appeared in front of him, looking so confused about his call that he couldn’t help himself. Admittedly, he’d never acknowledged her music much since she had ensnared Casper High, but right now he came in peace and it had seemed like the easiest way to convey that while looking for her.

“Babypop? Two babypops!” Ember exclaimed with sudden surprise and excitement.

After Vlad had left and his parents had declared some scientific victory Danny had explained his plan on taking Dani to the Ghost Zone to give her into the care of someone more experienced with her element, and his parents had agreed with the caveat that Dani had to be stable enough to remain conscious and capable of standing up without keeling over. Danny had then explained that again over breakfast after Dani had woken up. And eager to prove herself Dani had put on a brave face all morning, however, she had quickly slumped exhaustedly against his shoulder after only a few minutes within the Ghost Zone. The transformation and the new flashes of heat had taken a bigger toll on her than Dani had initially wanted to admit, which was exactly why Danny persisted in looking for Ember.

Dani was still leaning onto him, with her head on his shoulder and her arm linked into his, which had allowed Danny to slowly but securely shepherd Dani around the Ghost Zone.

“Whoa, spicy baby pop,” Ember remarked, almost impressed when she noticed the heat radiating off of Dani.

“Ember, this is Dani – Dani, Ember.”

“That’s not confusing at all.”

“Dani with an i,” Dani insisted wearily but determined, as her eyes blinked open for a moment.

“Eeembeer,” Danny repeated his sing-song with a grin as he now got a curious look from the other ghost. Admittedly, they had fought in the past, but Ember had always been the type of ghost that didn’t warrant worrying about unless she was in the process of garnering new fans. And then the quizzical look on Ember’s face changed as it occurred to her that Danny wanted something, and when her eyes narrowed his own silently pleaded with her.

“Dani can’t control her core, but I’m out of my depth with fire, I was hoping you would be willing to teach her,” Danny explained in a tone that was equally placating and amiable.

With how she had narrowed her eyes, the effect of them widening now was even more obvious as Ember stared at them. “What’s in it for you?” She asked carefully, eyeing Danny.

Danny blinked. Admittedly, this line of thought hadn’t occurred to him. “There’s no catch, Frostbite helped me, when my core was going haywire, and you’re the fieriest ghost I could think of.” For her, for Dani, his eyes said. Not for me. Hoping that Ember understood.

There was a pause, then suddenly with playful mischief Ember grinned, as if something had occurred to her. “Alright,” she said, folding her arms and seeming almost too comfortable with the situation, making Danny wonder, ever so briefly, whether he wasn’t about to regret this in ways he hadn’t even thought of yet. But then he realised that the reluctance he felt when he carefully shifted Dani’s weight on his shoulder, as he closed the distance between himself and Ember, wasn’t from Ember’s potentially nefarious plans, but because he felt protective of Dani. The last time she had been this vulnerable she had been at risk of forever disintegrating into a puddle of goop, and while he wanted to trust Vlad enough to say that it wouldn’t be the case this time, it didn’t help the bout of anxiety that came with the overall situation.

“Take good care of her,” Danny warned Ember, but smiled when he looked at Dani, “take all the time you need… I had to rush getting my core under control and that wasn’t a lot of fun,” before his expression turned a little more stern, meaning to emphasis that he didn’t want Dani to push herself. It made him feel like a parent, and he closed his eyes with a sigh at the thought.

When he opened them again Danny looked at Ember once more. “I’m gonna make sure mom and dad won’t go blasting you to bits if you have to bring her home, the portal can’t stay open, but they’re working on modifying the Fenton phones so Dani can call home when she needs to, I’m gonna bring them over when they’re ready.” Walker be damned. Danny knew that he should have mentioned him when they had gone over means of communication, but in the same moment that the problem of Walker had occurred to him, Danny had realised that none of it mattered. Dani needed to be able to contact him or their parents, and Walker had to deal with it.

“You’re not going to stay?” Now it was Dani who spoke.

“I…” He wanted to, Danny realised, but then shook his head. “There are some things I have to take care of in the meantime, I’m sorry.” But he and Dan and Jazz still had some things to work out, and he wasn’t going to tell Ember all about it right now.

With half a nod Dani closed her eyes again, looking mighty comfortable on Ember’s shoulder already, who didn’t seem to mind, and something in her expression told Danny that Ember somehow understood more about the situation than she was letting on.