Sam grabbed his shoulder, pulling him back just before he stepped off the stairs. "Danny." She almost looked nervous. "Do you need to go over it again?"

Danny shook his head, swallowing heavily. He didn't trust himself to speak.

"Okay, then." She released his shoulder, then lightly punched him in the same place.

Throwing her a grateful smile, Danny nodded. "Let's get this over with."

But it wasn't long before his courage again ran dry. Right outside the kitchen, cowering behind the doorframe, his mind was full of possible excuses to put off the conversation he knew was coming. He was walking right into it. He felt like a mouse in a mousetrap. It was dangerous, and he could only hope the reward would pay off the risk.

"You'll have to do it soon," Sam reminded him, most likely sensing his trepidation. "And I've got stuff in the afternoon, so I have to leave in a few hours."

"Give me some credit, Sam," Danny huffed. His nails dug so hard into the wooden frame that he was afraid he'd leave dents. "This shouldn't take long."

"Hurry up and start."

"Alright! I'm getting there, okay?"

"You're too slow," Sam complained in a stony voice, shoving him into the kitchen. His elbow hit the door with a loud thud, instantly drawing his parents' attention.

"Uh," he fumbled for words under their observation, bringing his throbbing arm up to his chest. "G… Good morning."

"Morning, dear," Maddie said, nimbly folding her tea towel and draping it over the tap. Even Jack put down his fork full of… something. "Are you ready to explain a few things?"

Danny wondered if he could say 'no', but with Sam's watchful eye monitoring everything he did, it was better not to try. "Yeah. I think so."

"Good," Jack rumbled as Maddie gestured for them both to sit down. "We were very worried, Danny. We thought that ghost boy had taken you."

Danny shook his head forcefully. He'd rehearsed what he wanted to say so many times, and yet he could barely speak. "It-it wasn't him, Dad. He helped—"

"Ha!" Maddie's scornful laugh made him flinch, wishing he could simply turn invisible. What would they do then? "As if that rotting piece of ectoplasm could help anyone! It's a ghost!"

Jack nodded in agreement. "That's right. And he's on the top of the list, now that we know he had a hand in kidnapping—"

"Our only son!"

"That's right."

"But he didn't kidnap me!" Danny burst, leaping forward to hold onto the table. He was feeling dizzy again. "It wasn't him!"

Maddie directed her hateful glare to him, and though it wasn't intentional, it still hurt. "Then what was it?"

Sam had decided on the ghost. Someone safe, someone easy. Someone his parents could catch, but someone who could slip away at a second's notice.

Clearing his throat and trying to look embarrassed, Danny said, "The Box Ghost."

Maddie instantly relaxed, and her expression faded to disbelief. "The Box Ghost?"

"Which one's that again, dear?" Jack glanced up to his wife, a puzzled frown on his wide face.

Sam answered, "It's the, uh… shoe salesman from a few months ago. He calls himself the Box Ghost."

Maddie's eyes flashed. "Him. What's he doing working with the ghost boy?"

Danny groaned quietly, resisting the urge to slam his head against the table. "He's not working with Phantom."

"That's unimportant," Jack said, standing suddenly and shovelling the remainder of his breakfast down his throat. When next he spoke, pieces of egg preceded his words. "They're both ghosts, and they'll both be in our lab at the end of the day."

Danny snorted quietly and muttered, "Doubt it."

"What was that?" Jack adjusted the sides of his goggles to fit better.

"Good luck." Danny lifted a hand in farewell. "Hope you find them."

The whine of an ectogun filled the kitchen. "Thanks, my boy. We'll tear your kidnappers apart molecule by molecule! Just leave it to us!"

Jack's loud footsteps sounded like thunder as they echoed down the hall and into the street. Maddie followed soon behind, also yelling something Danny's tired mind couldn't understand.

"Ugh," he groaned, shakily getting to his feet. "I don't feel good. Reckon you could let Tuck know I'm back?"

Sam nodded, expertly pulling out her phone. "He's probably at school right now."

Frowning, Danny questioned, "School?"

"It's Friday," she said, smiling slightly at Danny's despairing expression. "Don't worry, no one expects you to come."

"Good." He started to stagger towards the stairs. "I'm gonna have a hard enough time staying awake to get to bed—I couldn't stand all the questions."

Sam gave a short laugh. "Apart from us, Dash, and Lancer, I don't think anyone noticed."

"Dash?"

"He's still bitter about you talking back. It was a stupid thing to do," Sam lunged forward to catch him as Danny wobbled dangerously, "if you really wanna stay anonymous, that is. Really, Danny, what happened in the Ghost Zone? You're not right."

"You think I don't know that?" Danny tentatively put his foot on the first step, letting Sam lift him up. "These stairs look like Mt Everest. But was Mt Everest ever stripy and tilted? Ugh." He let his head loll down to his chest, ignoring Sam's curses. "I feel like I'm gonna be sick."

"Just… wait," Sam grunted, laying his arm around her shoulders and tugging him after her. Danny's toes thudded against each step, his knees also perilously close to the ground. "I'll get you… some medicine… when you're in… bed."

"I think I'm gonna throw up," Danny said before gagging. Even with his eyes closed, he could feel the house rocking from side to side. He whimpered. "Sam…"

"Just don't be sick on me, got it?" Sam grunted when they reached the second storey. "Geez, Danny. When did you get this heavy?"

"Are you callin' me fat?" he slurred, hoping his room wasn't too far away. Disorientation was consuming him, making his own house seem like a maze.

"I'm calling you more trouble than you're worth."

The world spun, and Danny let out a cry of surprise when his back met a soft mattress. They had made it. Almost instantly, he fell asleep.

The weekend passed in a flurry of colours, voices, and soups. Soup seemed to be the only thing Sam and Jazz allowed him to eat, despite Tucker's protestations. In one of Danny's brief moments of clarity, he had awoken to find his best friend yelling, "Soup isn't enough to make him better! He needs iron and protein! At least put some meat in it, Sam!"

Danny couldn't tell if Tucker got his wish—everything tasted the same. Like nothing. He had worried—more than once—that he'd lost his sense of taste, but his tired mind barely had enough energy to stay awake. Thinking was way too hard.

Maddie and Jack hadn't returned, but Jazz had informed them of Danny's condition. They were taking care of any and all ghosts they passed, through nothing but determination and near-insane obsession. The ghost boy was yet to be found.

Monday came and went. Danny woke only for meals before his tired eyes decidedly shut themselves.

Tuesday was the same, but by that time, only Jazz was able to stay with him. The glass on his bedroom floor has been cleaned, but as his mind gradually returned, Danny found himself reminded more and more often of the… thing that had come out of it.

Surely it was a dream

By Wednesday, Jazz would let him sit up on his own, provided there were enough pillows around to support him. Even Bearbert Einstein was there, helping him heal.

It was then that Danny regained the ability to speak, beginning first by demanding an explanation in his sorry excuse for a voice. Jazz only smiled and said the school had been told he was sick.

His parents dropped in late in the afternoon, shortly after Danny started to shiver. Sam and Tucker came by after school, and they also helped Jazz keep his room free of any visitors—including family. Danny didn't know why, but with his teeth chattering painfully, he found he really didn't care.

It was Thursday, day six of his confinement, and icicles hung from the ceiling.

Sam sat by his bed, cloaked in several jackets and covered head-to-toe with the thickest blankets money could buy. The tips of her nose and ears were red from the cold, and her mouth was blue and bitten from worry. No matter how freezing the room became, Danny's temperature wouldn't go down.

His trembling had ceased the night before, replaced by delirious mutterings that no one could understand. It had been horrible to watch.

So, when Danny's red-rimmed eyes opened, Sam couldn't help but dread what would come next.

He licked his lips several times, frowning. His hair was shiny with grease, dropping over his flushed face. "Sam?"

Her grip tightened on the desk chair they had dragged in on Saturday, gloves wrapped tight around the plastic armrests. "Yeah?" Sam croaked, voice croaky from disuse.

Danny's brilliant eyes rolled around the room, tracing non-existent patterns on the ceiling. Those eyes were the reason his parents weren't allowed in. It was a shock; one day they were blue, but the next turned them green. Even while the rest of him languished with illness, those irises shone bright.

Sam almost thought Danny had forgotten, before he finally spoke. "I'm… thirsty. Do we have lemonade?"

Sam shook her head and went to stand. Tucker had finished the bottle in the first day. "I'll get you some water."

"We don't have… lemonade?" He was staring up at the ceiling again, a strange, dazed expression on his face.

Slowly sitting back down, Sam reached out to grasp his arm. It was sticky from almost a week of neglect, since none of his temporary caretakers were comfortable washing him.

"Danny…" she began, her stomach lurching as his unnatural eyes swivelled to hers. "Are you… feeling okay?"

His cracked lips twitched several times, then pulled upwards in a mockery of a smile. He obviously meant it to be genuine, but to Sam, it looked painful.

"I will be," he replied. His voice was hardly more than a whisper. "Just a few more days and I'll be fine."

"Good." Sam tried to make herself sound sure. "Can I get you something to eat?"

Danny redirected his gaze to the ceiling. "Nah."

Reluctantly, Sam stood, shivering. "That wasn't a question. I'm getting you something and you're gonna stay awake long enough to eat it, understand?"

Danny screwed his eyes closed and weakly shook his head. "Not hungry, Sam."

"Stop being such a child." The carpet crunched underneath her boots as she crossed the room. There was soup in the fridge, she was certain.

"I don't want any, Sam."

The voice that was previously so feeble and sick was filled with life and intent. Sam looked back over her shoulder, her breath catching—and not from the cold.

Danny was sitting straight up in his bed, eyes glowing bright. It bleached the colour from his hair, and, as Sam watched, the individual strands turned white. White tinged with green. A pale, sickening green that contrasted horrifically with the bruised circles beneath his intense eyes.

Sam's grip on the doorknob strengthened.

"Don't, Sam." Danny swung his legs out of the bed. One bare foot touched the floor, ice shooting out across the carpet. "I don't want you to leave just yet. Ten minutes—no." He shook his head. "Just one minute." A smile stretched up, higher and higher, his lip splitting. Murky blood—both red and green—trickled towards his chin. "Just one minute and it'll be finished."

Quickly, Sam swivelled, twisting the doorknob as hard as she could. In less time than it took to blink, ice shot up the door, jamming it. Without looking, she knew Danny's smile had dropped.

She took a deep, shuddering breath, steeling herself. "Danny?"

There was a pause. A long pause. Sam could feel her heart pounding, but behind her… Behind her there was an absolute, complete silence. He wasn't breathing. He had no heartbeat.

Sam closed her eyes and leant her head against the door. "You're not Danny." she turned and fixed him with a strong glare. Hopefully, it would hide her terror. "Are you?"

Phantom smirked.

AN:

Hey! pale-blue11 here!

So I wanted to end it on a cliff hanger. How'd I do?

Going on a holiday at the end of the week, so I'll hopefully work on this a bit while I'm away. Can't wait to see you, deborahpflover!

Anyway, please leave a review if you liked this chapter.

Have a nice day!

pale-blue11