Double update! Chapter 8 has also been posted.

This is the last chapter of Collateral! Thank you all for reading. This is the first multi-chapter fic I've completed, so I'm pretty happy about it. Hopefully I don't leave you disappointed.

If you like my writing, please read my other works. :)

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Chapter 9

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Danny hadn't woken up yet. It had been a week since the shooting, and he hadn't woken up. The doctors didn't know why. Vlad didn't know why. There wasn't any reason he shouldn't wake up, according to them. The injury hadn't been that bad. He just wouldn't wake up.

Well, that wasn't strictly true. He had done that weird out-of-body projection... thing a few times since then. Only for Jazz, for some reason, and he hadn't been exactly lucid any of those times, but he had done it.

People were starting to notice that Phantom was missing. There hadn't been too many attacks. Most of the Amity Park regulars had a weird kind of code of conduct. They would keep chaos at a minimum until Danny woke up, or until he'd been unconscious for so long they felt like it didn't matter anymore. Or until they forgot.

Danny was no longer in the ICU, and multiple visitors, as well as non-family visitors, were now allowed. Sam and Tucker had come once a day since then. Jack and Maddie were taking turns sleeping at the hospital. They wanted at least one person there when Danny woke up.

Except 'when' was rapidly becoming 'if.'

A small bright point was that Vlad hadn't come back to the hospital. He was still under protective custody. Apparently, the previous mayor of Amity Park, Ernesto Montez, had gone missing, and a man named Timothy George had jumped off a building after writing a confession detailing his work as an assassin.

Jazz wasn't entirely sure she approved of that last solution. It felt a little dirty. Or, more accurately, like it should feel a little dirty. Like Jazz should feel guilty about her part in it.

She didn't. It wasn't like Timothy George had died, anyway. The building he had jumped off of had been too short. He was being haunted pretty horribly, though, and he would likely never walk again.

She didn't feel bad about that, either, honestly. It served him right, for hurting her little brother. Jazz wondered if she had picked up a little bit of ghostly vindictiveness.

"I'm going to head to the cafeteria," said Maddie, jolting Jazz out of her contemplation. "Do you need anything, sweetheart?"

"No," said Jazz. "I'm fine. I ate just before coming."

Maddie gave Jazz a thin smile. "Alright. I'll be back soon."

Jazz sighed, and tried to return to her book. 'Return' being a loose term. She'd been on the same page, the same paragraph, since she had gotten to the hospital.

She looked up at Danny, still hooked to wires and bandaged. "I wish you'd wake up," she said.

The temperature of the room abruptly dropped. Jazz leapt to her feet, ecto-gun at the ready. A temperature drop like this only happened when a ghost wanted to announce their presence. Who-?

Oh no.

"Desiree?"

The genie ghost faded into view on the other side of Danny's bed. She brushed her long dark hair out of her green-skinned face, bangles clinking. She smiled. "I've been waiting for someone to make that wish," she said.

"Get away from Danny," said Jazz, leveling the ecto-gun at Desiree.

Desiree's smile grew broader. She waved a sparkling hand over Danny. "Never say I never did anything for you children. Maybe he will remember this, next time." Desiree vanished, taking the cold with her.

Jazz cursed under her breath. Desiree was a headache to deal with at the best of times, but, more importantly, what had she done to Danny? What exactly had Jazz said?

Danny sat straight up in the bed, breathing heavily, like someone just freed from a nightmare.

"Danny?"

"Aaahh," said Danny.

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Danny's recovery was not what he would call smooth. The bullet had left him a nasty scar and bald spot (for the moment, he had hopes that his supernatural healing would repair it), he had acquired recurring debilitating headaches and a case of insomnia, and had reacquired a stutter he thought he had seen the last of in second grade. Among other things.

Like his new-found tendency to astral project out of his body when he did get to sleep. That was fun, especially since his excursions had a distinctly dream-like quality to them. It was like he was sleepwalking. So far, he'd massively freaked out both Sam and Tucker by standing or floating over them while they were asleep. And Jazz. And his parents. And Mr Lancer, for some reason. And a bunch of people in the park.

He was also a little peeved about losing so much of his summer vacation, and the fact that the ghosts had started to pick fights again. Not all of them, but enough to be annoying.

He blamed Vlad. For all of it. That was usually a pretty safe bet in general, in his life.

There were some bright spots, though. Vlad had, of his own accord, offered Danny a more robust truce, one that included Dani, and Danny's friends, and hadn't been fighting with Danny. Danny wasn't sure how long that would last, but he'd take what he could get.

Jack and Maddie had also decided not to send Danny off to boarding school. Danny probably shouldn't have been surprised about that, considering how badly he'd been hurt, how badly he still was hurt, but he'd resigned himself to it since Vlad first proposed it.

It was a relief. He wasn't sure he would have been able to hide the weird astral-projecting stuff from a roommate. Even a very inattentive roommate. As far as he was concerned, it was sheer dumb luck he hadn't done it in front of his parents yet.

Another plus was that Maddie kept making all of his favorite meals. Only one of which had come to life. This morning, she had made him a nice, hot bowl of oatmeal, with raisins.

"Thank, um, thank you, Mom," said Danny, quietly, as he sat down at the table. He moved slowly. He'd stopped getting dizzy spells just a couple of days after he woke up, but better safe than sorry.

"It's no problem, sweetie," she said, giving him a smile.

"Mh," said Danny, not trusting himself not to stutter.

Jazz slid into her seat a moment later. "Vlad's giving a massive donation to the school," she said, without preamble. She looked like she had been up for hours.

Danny frowned. "He- he's not- he's-" He bit his lip. "He's not making us, um, us wear uni- uniforms again, is he?"

"No. It's no strings attached, as far as I can tell."

"He's probably just making up for not being able to give you that scholarship, Danny."

"Mh," said Danny, doubtfully.

Maddie misinterpreted his emotion, of course. "I know you were really looking forward to going," she said patting his shoulder. "Maybe next year, once everything settles down a bit."

Danny shrugged, and went on eating his oatmeal. With luck, he would be going to that boarding school maybe never. He had things to do here, in Amity Park.

As he scooped up the last bite, his ghost sense went off. He rolled his eyes and pushed back from the table before walking, cautiously, to the bathroom. He shut the door and went ghost.

Oddly enough, the injuries he'd sustained in human form hadn't made it onto his ghost body, nor had any of the weird physical side effects. He stretched, enjoying a feeling of freedom, a lack of pain, and smiled.

Maybe he'd been hurt, but he would recover. In the meantime, he would cherish the fact that even his enemies had been upset when he'd been hurt. That had to say something about him. Something good.

He flew up, through the house, intangible and invisible, humming as he considered battle tactics, jokes, and potential puns.

It was a great day to be alive.