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"And I'm telling you, you can’t migrate through that part of the Zone while the star spectres are roosting!"
The amorphous blob of a ghost made some sort of sound like a sighing house, which then trailed into the creaking and low groaning of wood under pressure.
"I don't care if you've done it before, that's the whole problem! They're already endangered because of the bullshit Pariah did, and that’s what I'm TRYING to fix. If you and your people all travel through there while they’re roosting, they’ll be scared off their nests, their clutches will fail, and the whole population will continue to decline!"
More sounds like the rustle of fallen winter leaves, accompanied by a shift in the ghost’s colour, had Danny sighing and rubbing at his temples.
"Because they’re a part of the Zone, and they deserve to thrive there just as much as your people do. Is it REALLY that hard to travel around the whistling nebulas?"
Whatever the blob said to him had the corners of Danny’s mouth pulling into a deeper frown.
Lancer looked at him with mild concern, wondering just how often he was having to stop whatever he was doing to have these kinds of conversations with random ghosts.
The bags under his eyes seemed more pronounced than ever, certainly more than they had been BEFORE everyone knew who he was.
William sincerely hoped Danny hadn’t been expecting his life to get easier after he was revealed. The disappointment would surely be contributing to the stress, and possibly a breakdown if he kept on like this.
The only reason William was here was to give Danny an out. Before he'd started making sure someone was around whenever a ghost showed up to talk to their King, Danny could be trapped for hours at a time by duty and protocol. For some reason though, so long as there was someone who could be considered part of his 'close human council' around, ghosts would excuse him the moment that 'council' requested his presence elsewhere.
"Okay, okay, look. Give me a date and time, I will come and escort you through the area that gives you trouble. But I can't promise I won't have to compromise on the date and time, I have a lot of other stuff going on with restoration efforts in the wastes."
William was starting to get the gist of the conversation when the amorphous blob spoke, partly from the tone of the sounds, and partly from how deep it made Danny scowl.
The blob seemed to be going on some kind of rant, and there was a palpable sort of tension building as Danny rubbed at his temples again.
Then there was some kind of shudder in Danny's ghostly aura, and the blob stopped making any sound at all, colour paling.
There was a beat where Danny looked up and blinked at the ghost in confusion. Then the blob made a kind of trilling sigh, performed a sort of… weird bow, and then raced away.
Danny and William both stared after it for a moment before sharing a confused glance.
Then Danny’s aura did the same thing again, but stronger this time, and he dropped to his feet.
"Danny? Are you alright?"
"I… Think so, yea? He just kinda… apologised for 'disturbing me at this time' and left."
William frowned slightly. "Did he only just realise you're in school?"
Danny narrowed his eyes slightly, still rubbing at his head. "Mmmm… they don't really have a concept of school, and that's not really what the inflection suggested he was talking about-"
Danny’s aura did a third sort of wobble, and a second later, white rings washed over him, leaving him human.
The surprise on his face suggested to William that the change hadn't been voluntary.
"Are you SURE you're alright Daniel?"
William tilted his head to try and look at Danny’s face as he looked down at himself, clearly unsure of what was going on.
He opened his mouth to respond, but then wavered on his feet, gasping softly. A hand flew up to clutch at his chest, and his eyes grew wide.
"Daniel?"
"What’s the date?"
William blinked. "I'm… sorry? The date? Is that really impo-"
"Very."
William was startled at the clear panic on Danny’s face when he looked up at him, eyes locking on his in an unnervingly sharp way.
"It’s… it’s the 28th of August."
Danny’s already pale face drained of colour, and his body wavered again, like he was some kind of holograph that was glitching.
He glanced down at his wristwatch and made a strangled sound, hands tangling in his hair.
"Shit… shitshitshit it's too late, I'm not… I'm…"
"Daniel!?"
William watched as Danny's eyes suddenly unfocussed, his whole body seeming to fuzz at the edges. His voice trailed off into an echo.
"Daniel? Are you alright? What's happening, what can I-"
He reached out a hand, laying it on his student's insubstantial shoulder, and found his voice snatched away from him.
He was no longer standing with Danny on the front steps of Casper High. He was… in some kind of metal lined room?
There were benches covered in scientific equipment and… weapons. Familiar weapons. With a familiar logo.
He was in some part of Danny’s house. And as if summoned by being thought of, he heard Daniel’s voice.
There was something off about it though, it was too high, too young.
Looking around, he spotted him, and felt an odd pang of nostalgia. Oh, Samantha and Tucker were there too. The inseparable trouble trio, and they were so young.
Had they time travelled? Was this something Danny had expected from previous time related mishaps? He'd mentioned that time travelling was possible in the ghost zone, and that he’d done far more of it than he liked.
He’d even briefed the whole school on what to do in the instance of accidental time travel.
That would certainly explain him asking the date. But then, if he’d accidentally been transported through a time portal with him, where WAS Danny?
William eyed the three children who were nattering away in front of some hole in the wall. They hadn’t noticed him, despite walking right past, so he assumed there was some kind of situation where he was astral projecting.
The very fact that this seemed like a sensible notion made him wonder what the hell his life had become since Daniel’s reveal as both Phantom AND the Ghost King, but now wasn’t really the time to muse on it. He needed to do some deductive reasoning with the knowledge he had on hand.
If he himself wasn't there physically, then maybe Danny wasn’t either… which meant he might be in his younger self's body.
William realised he had no way to tell, and he didn't DARE try to call out or interact with the younger versions of his students, lest he do some damage to the timeline.
"Who knows what cool things are on the other side of that portal?"
William focussed in when he heard the word 'portal'.
Alarm bells started ringing in his head.
Portal. The portal. That was significant. Hadn’t Danny had an accident with a portal? Wasn't there one in his basement that-
Several things occurred to him all at once, and his eyes widened as he watched Daniel walk into the portal, wearing a distinctive white and black hazmat.
Everyone knew he was Phantom.
But he'd never explained how it had happened.
William only remembered him talking about an accident with the portal, but there had been no details involved. Obviously he hadn’t wanted people trying to recreate whatever happened to him to turn themselves into half-ghosts as well.
There was a loud, ominous ‘click’ that sounded through the silence of the lab.
And then a green glow built within the hole.
William couldn’t call out, couldn't rush to pull him from the dark chasm of the machine. The moment he tried to move he found that he couldn’t.
And when the green glow flashed into a blaze of light and whirring and screaming, William could feel it.
As if he was standing in it himself, there was fire suddenly coursing through every nerve in his body. It was like someone ripping him apart into the tiniest pieces possible and then smashing those pieces together again, over and over and over.
He thought he might be screaming, but realised somewhere in the fog of agony that he couldn’t… he had no voice, he had no body, this couldn’t really be HIM, because he wasn’t the one in the portal…
It was Daniel. He was hearing his screams. He was feeling what Daniel felt.
He was feeling Daniel dying.
A moment later, the fire and the light stopped, and he blinked (in so much as he could blink, realising he was actually just an incorporeal presence in someone else’s timeline).
There was the echo of the smell of burning flesh and ectoplasm somewhere in his mind… the shadow of the sensation of full body muscle spasms. Aches and shivers and cold… an icy weight, in his chest, feeling like it was strangling his heart and lungs, until a moment later it lightened… everything lightened…
William came back to himself abruptly, settling back into the weight of his own consciousness and body, gasping as if he’d nearly drowned.
It took a moment to realise he was staring up at the blue sky.
A small, feeble whine from somewhere beside him drew his attention.
Despite his body’s protests, he pushed himself up as fast as he could, searching. Spotting Daniel was easy, he was Phantom again.
But… but something was wrong.
It took a moment for him to put his finger on exactly what was so off about Phantom’s posture. He was on the ground next to him, but not lying prone… he was sat up, hunched over, staring wide-eyed at his own hands as they flickered in and out of invisibility.
That in itself wasn’t so strange, Danny had told him his powers could go on the fritz when he was extremely stressed out.
No, the thing that disturbed him most about the picture was how SCARED Danny looked. He was sure that he wasn’t misinterpreting his expression, conviction affirmed when Daniel looked up at him and seemed to become even more anxious.
“Wh-what… what happened? Where am I?”
“Daniel… you’re out the front of the school. Are you feeling alright? I don’t know what that was, but-”
He had reached out to put a comforting, steadying hand on his student’s shoulder, but Danny recoiled, the fear and confusion in his eyes growing.
“Who are you?”
That gave him pause.
“It’s… it’s me, Daniel. Mr. Lancer. Your teacher.”
William felt his heart sink as no spark of recognition lit in Danny’s eyes, the boy seeming even more confused as the name failed to bring familiarity.
Danny licked his lips and looked between William’s hand and his own.
“Am.. Am I… d-did I die? I don’t… I don't remember anything except… except the portal… something happened in the portal.”
The sinking feeling turned into a twisting one, and William swallowed the rising lump in his throat. “Do you remember your name?”
“You… you said Daniel, right?”
William nodded slowly, shifting to sit next to Danny carefully. “Does that sound right to you?”
The boy’s brow furrowed, eyes staring at the ground, unfocussed. “...I feel like I would be more of a Danny.”
A sad smile tugged at William’s mouth. “You’d be right. You let me get away with calling you Daniel, but I know it’s not what you prefer.”
Danny just nodded, white hair bouncing as if there were no gravity. “That feels right… but… DID I die? Please don’t lie to me, I need… I need to know.”
“Well… that’s complicated. You did, but you didn’t. As you like to remind us, you’re only half dead. And none of us can make you give up on the morbid puns.”
That seemed to ease some of the anxiety in his posture, Phantom looking up at him in earnest. “...That DOES sound like me. I mean, If I’m gonna die, I should get to make all the dumb death jokes I want, right? Even if I only half die… even though I have no idea how I could only HALF die…”
William gave him a kind smile. “I can’t really argue with that logic. Now, I don’t really know what’s happening here… so I don’t know if it’s safe for you to try and turn human again. I suppose I ought to call the experts. Do you… remember anyone you’d recommend to help you?”
Danny frowned again, but this time it was thoughtful. “Um… there’s… I can see faces, in my head, but… names just won’t come to me… I KNOW that I know their names, WHY can't I remember-”
“It’s alright Danny, I’ll give them a call. Then when they get here, you’ll at least know if they’re the right people, and we’ll help you to remember, alright?”
Danny took a deep breath, sighing and nodding.
“Oh…”
Sam and Tucker shared a look. A knowing look. A very SAD knowing look.
Danny frowned slightly from where he was half draped over Tucker’s shoulder, his ghostly tail wrapped around Sam’s hip.
He’d latched onto them the moment they’d shown up without any prompting. Sam and Tucker hadn’t seemed at all fazed by this, just slightly confused when they asked if he was alright and he merely whined and shrugged.
Then William had recounted to them what had happened.
The moment he’d mentioned the date (apparently they’d been too busy to keep track of it as well), he’d gotten THAT reaction.
“So, I take it you both know what’s going on then? Is it something you’re able to share?”
The two looked at him, and then each other, and then Danny, before looking back to him.
“Um… it’s kinda… maybe we should go to your office?”
William frowned slightly, but nodded, leading the way.
The way Danny simply remained as he was while they walked was both endearingly amusing and a little concerning. He had a slightly confused and upset look, like a toddler who was overdue for a nap and didn’t understand why he felt bad.
Hell, if he threw a tantrum, William wouldn’t blame him. Not after… not knowing how his…
Morbid jokes were the LEAST Daniel was allowed given what his death had felt like.
Thankfully, since it was lunch period and most students were in the cafeteria, they passed no one in the halls. Once they were in his office, he closed the door and gestured to the seats in front of his desk.
Tucker and Sam spent a moment handling Danny so that he was sprawled across their laps once seated. Danny didn’t put up any kind of resistance, though he did look like a slightly bewildered cat during most of the process.
The moment Tucker and Sam were both petting his head and back soothingly, he seemed to finally relax, even though he made another mildly confused noise.
“So, this isn’t something permanent, I hope?”
Sam shook her head. “No, but it might last… two? Three days? Three tops, I think. I don’t know that he’s ever had to be gone for more than three.”
“Yeah, and usually day one is ON the day, so he’s out a few hours before it happens.” Tucker added, absently smoothing down Danny’s hair as it constantly floated upwards.
“So… what exactly IS this? This happens every year on the same date? Is it some kind of time loop?”
“Nnnno, not a time loop. it’s… standard ghost stuff. In the zone they just refer to it as their ‘Anniversary’.” Sam explained, though she sounded like she was picking her words carefully.
She and Tucker both glanced down as Danny tensed at the word ‘Anniversary’.
William glanced down at him, and then back up with a worried expression. “I take it I shouldn't ask for more details?”
“Mmm. Hangon. Danny, gonna cover your ears for a sec, okay? Don’t wanna set off your core.”
Danny made a slightly confused noise of agreement, covering his own ears and allowing Tucker to put his hands over the white gloves to make sure he couldn’t really hear.
“Okay, so… A ghost’s anniversary specifically means the anniversary of their death.” Sam explained quietly.
William felt as if his stomach was bottoming out again.
“Oh… I see. And… the memory loss is part of that?”
“Well, yeah, it’s… it’s why Danny usually goes and hides in his lair until the whole thing is over. He’s told us a little bit about what happens, but… we’ve never seen it before either. We don’t know much, just what he and Frostbite have told us. Frostbite’s not shy talking about it because he’s a GZ native, they don’t HAVE anniversaries.”
“Ah… yes, of course, born of the Ghost Zone, I don’t suppose they would. He’s explained a fair bit about the differences to me during some of our catch-up sessions. So… what do we do now? Should he be at home until his memories return?”
Sam and Tucker shared a look and a shrug as Tucker released Danny’s hands. Danny dropped his own from his ears and looked up at them questioningly.
Sam sighed. “I mean… we WOULD take him to his lair, but I don’t think he would be able to show us the way to it while he’s like this. He had so much trouble finding it in the first place, and you can’t really map stuff in the zone.”
“Yeah. Besides, there’s no guarantee he’d stay in there anyway. Essentially… he’s gonna be like he would if he’d, y'know… become ALL ghost from the start. His core is in, like… reset mode. Like he’s a freshly formed ghost who’s lost connection to most of his living memory.” Tucker explained as he continued running his fingers through Dany’s hair.
Lancer noticed Danny relaxing like some kind of odd, over-cooked noodle, sprawling across their laps and… was he purring?
“I see… well… he at least seems to be familiar enough with the two of you on some level that he’s calmer with you. Do either of you have anything pressing that would stop you being with him until his memories return?”
The two shook their heads, filling him with relief. “Good. In that case, if you have an idea of the best place to keep him calm and safe until he’s recovered, I’ll organise your permissions of absence. I can also gather up some of the work you’ll be missing so you can catch up a little easier once you’re back, if you’d like.”
The two of them gave him grateful nods as they continued to pet the definitely purring Danny still sprawled across their laps.
When William was done with sorting the details of their absence and all the units they needed notes for, they lifted Danny up between them like he weighed nothing (and he remembered belatedly that, well, of course not, he was floating).
Danny got the hint, sliding upright and giving William a slightly bemused look as Sam and Tucker took his hands and led him to the door.
Before they got through it, he slipped intangibly from their grip, hesitating, staring at William.
William looked back, a little worried by the odd behaviour. “Danny? You ARE alright going with Sam and Tucker, aren’t you?”
“I’m… I’m sorry. I’m sorry you had to… feel it.”
William stared at the bright green eyes boring into him with a knowing sort of clarity that had been missing when they’d picked themselves up off the front steps.
He felt something inside him twist.
Daniel was trying to apologise for him feeling his… for sharing, however inadvertently, what his death had felt like.
William swallowed the lump in his throat and put on a kind face. “It’s quite alright, Danny. It wasn’t your fault. Please, go and rest up and I’ll… I’ll see you in a few days, alright?”
Phantom just nodded and gave him the fleeting shadow of a smile, before allowing Sam and Tucker to pull him away. The two of them gave him a knowing look before saying their goodbyes.
As soon as the door clicked shut behind them, William buried his face in his hands.
The papers on his desk got shoved out of the way haphazardly, so that they weren’t smudged or ruined as he failed to hold back the barrage of emotions that had been churning under the surface, waiting to strike.
He wondered how it was possible to feel such grief over someone who wasn’t even gone.