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The first time it happens, it takes him hours to realize.
The clock ticks over, and it's 2:43 in the afternoon. It's Saturday. He has his homework (mostly) done.
The clock ticks over, and it's 3:37, and he doesn't remember the last hour.
He assumes he took a nap, ignores the ache in his bones, and goes out to the movies.
A week later, the clock hits 2:36, and he feels—off. Charged, somehow. Concentration slips, and the TV fades, and he hurts, but it's almost a distant thing. Time moves, and it gets worse.
The clock moves. 2:38, 2:40, 2:41—
2:43.
He stands. He walks. Electricity surges—
he screams.
The clock hits 3:37, and he wakes on the floor, shaking from what he tells himself is a nightmare.
Sleep is hard, that night.
Three days later, it's hard to breathe at 2:30 in the afternoon. Lancer is speaking, and it was making sense. The symbolism, the rise and the fall. He could see the story clearly. The death that was coming, the tradegy that could not be avoided.
But it's 2:31, and it's hard to breathe.
He raises his hand, asks for water. For once, Lancer doesn't argue. Sam and Tucker tense, and he thinks Sam tries to ask what ghost, what's going on, but it's not an outside force. Not this time.
He walks. He can't stop. The clocks turn, and he opens a heavy door, steps into a room he knows doesn't have stairs but he walks down them anyway. Walks through a basement, and sees blueprints, and broken appliances.
Sees the empty portal.
The clock turns.
He puts on a suit that isn't there, steps into a portal that's miles away, and dies.
The time between shortens, until it feels like every day his body moves without his imput. The clock turns to after 2:30 in the afternoon, and he can't help but stand. Can't help but walk the distance from his room to the basement, no matter if he's actually home or not.
It's not until he looks at the calender that he realizes the date. It's barely a week to the first anniversary of the portal accident, the day he died but didn't. Lived, but didn't.
And his body is repeating the motions, like it knows what's coming.
Sam and Tucker are concerned, and he…he can't explain. He's terrified, and he hates it, but he can't stop.
His body rises. His body walks. He sees his bedroom. Even laughs at a joke that's not spoken, said by Tucker nearly a year ago. He walks down to the basement, no matter if there's stairs or not. Walks to a portal that's not there.
And dies.
Again, and again, and again—
The days pass, and the date of the anniversary creeps closer—
And the only ghost in Amity Park is him.
He tells Sam and Tucker he wants to be alone today. Sam sucks in a breath like she's put something together, and Tucker swallows hard, manages to make up something about how he's busy anyway. Sam tells him to less than three time to call if he needs something, anything.
And what he needs is for them to not watch him die again. Possibly for the last time.
The last three days he's walked to his death against his will, and each time reality has shattered just a bit more. It's almost like he forgets it's the past. Sam and Tucker become realer by his side, their voices loud and laughter bright. Yesterday, he could almost feel the weight of Sam shoving his shoulder. Feel the fabric of the hazmat suit that's been apart of Phantom for almost a year.
Yesterday, he got all the way into the dark portal before he remembered, but it didn't matter. He stumbles, his hand hits the switch, and—
He dies. And lives.
Today he's home. Today, it's worse.
He can't leave.
He tried. Tried and tried and tried.
He woke at 7:00 AM, showered, changed, and tried to leave. Slipped on his spare shoes by the back door, already trying to figure out what remote location he could be in by 2:30, and—
His body locks up at the threshold of the house. He can't move. He tries to transform, and it works, but it's worse. Everything aches, and he feels—
Everything.
Dread, and fear, and a thick coldness that penetracts through him, in a way he's never felt before as Phantom. The more he fought to leave, the more he had to stay.
He spends a solid hour of his morning curled up on the rarely used rug by the back door, in his human form, shaking. He wants to leave. He doesn't want to find out what's going to happen this afternoon, if he dies for good this time.
But he can't go.
Worse, the more time passes, the more he forgets. The more today and yesterday blur, all the way back to a year ago.
At some point he stops shaking. At some point, he takes off his shoes, closes the back door, and forgets the driving need to leave.
His name is Danny Fenton, and today is the day he dies.
His name is Danny Fenton, and he hasn't died yet.
His name is Danny Fenton.
He's bored. His parents are out of the house, which should be great. They've been terrible to deal with since their latest project failed—their biggest one to date.
But they'd promised they'd actually do something today, together, and now they're gone and Danny's bored.
Jazz breezes by, says something about a study group or something, and is gone before he can even call her lame. With no one to tell him he can't, he calls Sam and Tucker.
It's just before noon, and they have a whole afternoon to do something better than study.
The door bell rings, and Danny lets his friends in.
For a moment, seeing them there, Danny feels dizzy. Sam looks pale, almost sick, and Tucker's gripping his PDA so hard his knuckles are pale.
The moment passes, and they're laughing and playfully arguing.
At 2:15 the conversation changes. Danny speaks words he knows to his very marrow.
"It's busted Sam, and besides, there's no such thing as ghosts."
"Then what's the harm in looking?" she replies, and for a moment she stumbles. There's a bit more conversation, Tucker's worry they'll be caught but—
They head downstairs. It's 2:30.
His steps feel heavy, and something in him is begging him to stop, but he can't.
The lab door feels like ice under his hands. He hesitates.
"Danny," Sam says, out of sync with the day, with a panic that was never there before.
"Stop," Tucker says, voice thick, body shaking.
"I can't," Danny whispers, his tongue thick, uncooperative. This didn't happen before. It can't happen now.
The lab door opens. They walk down.
They're mocking, laughing, repeating motions a year old. Tucker keeps his distance, poking at some of the blueprints, trying to figure out the password on the lab computer. Sam finds the hazmat suits, picks up the one in Danny's size.
It's 2:40.
Danny puts on the suit. He remembers this, the feeling of the fabric against his skin, the itch of the unfamiliarity, the way it pulls at his underclothes.
"I'm sorry," Sam chokes out, but Danny's too far gone to respond. He rolls his eyes, says what he did a year ago:
"I'll be just a minute,"
He walks towards the portal. It's 2:42.
The portal is a black hole, silent, empty.
The portal is active, humming with a deep power that Danny's felt in his bones for a year.
It's 2:43.
He steps through. He stumbles. His hand hits the switch. Light. Pain. Screaming—
The portal takes him, as he screams, as he lives, as he dies.
"Easy, young one." A voice speaks, deep and soothing. It's vaguely familair. "The first is the worst, I'm told. It's over now."
He hurts. There's pain everywhere, his throat is raw, and he's shaking like he's run miles. Something shifts, and it's soft. A heavy weight—a hand?—on his back soothes.
"It's alright to be confused," the voice continues, and he's so close to remembering who it is, but he's safe. He knows he his. "Just let yourself adjust, young one."
Young one.
"Frostbite?" Danny mumbles, more than simply confused. How did he even…? "Wha…what happened?"
A moment of silence, then a sigh. "An anniversary, young one. Your first. It was rough on you."
Anni—
He jerks, tries to shove himself up as he remembers. Days of walking to his death, of repeating a pattern, of losing reality to the past. The way his brain had fogged up and slipped back to a memory he tried so hard to forget. The way he literally couldn't stop the walk down—
"Sam. Tucker." He gasps out.
"Are fine." Frostbite says, firmly. "Young one, I spoke with them both, they are well."
Danny sags into Frostbite's grip. Neither says nothing for a long time.
"Am I dead?" Danny whispers, barely able to force the words out.
"No more than before," Frostbite says, shifting to hold Danny closer. It's warm. He feels so cold. "The first is the roughest, young one, and had I known the date, I would have been here sooner. But you will be well."
He wasn't dead.
"The first," Danny says, realization striking suddenly. "This—this happens every year?"
"In some form, yes," Frostbite confirms. "It will ease as time passes, as you move away from your death. It gets easier. But yes, Danny. This won't be the last."
Danny closes his eyes. He cries.
His name is Daniel Fenton, and today was the day he died.
And next year, it will be again.
And again.
And again.
Death remembers.
And so will Danny.