Phantom Falls

13: Fever

The above artwork does not belong to me.

Danny wiped the sweat from his forehead, dull pain throbbing in his chest and ankle as he limped around the kitchen. His injuries were healing quickly, but broken ribs, claw marks and puncture wounds weren't your average boo-boos.

He pulled a bowl from the cupboard and raided the pantry. The others had left him with a few books to read at the shack, and he'd practically died of boredom. That is, until he began to feel light-headed.

It'd been happening quite a bit since the shifter attack: he would get dizzy, then eat food and feel better. Simple as that. He hadn't paid it much thought. But now, as he stumbled around alone in the kitchen . . . Well, he was feeling a lot worse than normal.

The cereal selection wasn't all that big, but Danny took stock of the different kinds, scowling as he laid eyes on the Fruit Loops. The last thing he wanted to think about was Vlad.

He settled for Cherios, honey-nut of course, and sat down to munch. Only this time, he could not feel his strength returning. To the contrary he seemed to be getting slowly weaker.

A mechanical noise, like an elevator rising, jolted Danny from his thoughts. Maybe it's Ford, he contemplated. I thought he didn't like people.

Danny had been right. Ford dragged himself into the kitchen, seemingly exhausted. He froze when he saw the boy at the table.

"Hey, Mr. Pines," the teen greeted. "The twins left me here when they went ghost hunting with my parents, and I got hungry. I hope you don't mind."

Ford's look of alarm faded, but its suspicious undertone did not. "I heard you got lost. Does this ghost hunt have anything to do with that?" he asked coolly.

The boy rolled his eyes. "Yeah, my parents think a ghost led me away from the trail somehow. It's normal for them, really, to blame everything on something like that."

Of course, Danny was under the impression that the Pines had honored their promise about not looking at the data. Not even Ford would lie like that, right?

Suddenly, he didn't feel so great. The feverish, lightheaded feeling was overpowering. Danny groaned and laid his head on the table.

The scientist, startled, placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Danny, are you all right?" He mumbled an incoherent response.

Danny felt himself being carried down the stairs. He could hardly think over the waves of heat rolling through his body, but he knew that he didn't want to be alone in the lab with Ford.

He was laid down gently on a table as he clutched his chest. Immediately Ford pulled up his shirt to see something wet seeping through the bandages across his torso.

Ford scowled. He didn't seem particularly surprised as he cut off the bandages with large scissors. In his dazed state, Danny could barely register this information, but he clenched his teeth in pain as the bandages were peeled off.

The older man gasped as the wounds were revealed. Claw marks, the flesh around them angry and red. White puss oozed from the half-healed gashes in the skin.

Overall, Danny was a mess. Sweat was trickling down his face. His ankle and neck were full of puntures from the shifter's teeth, and Ford scowled even more deeply when he saw those, too. The boy hadn't allowed Jazz to change his bandages, since he knew she would freak out if she saw the ragged wounds. Instead, he'd wrapped them himself. He didn't know very much about medical procedures, though, and had assumed the redness and aching was normal.

He was wrong.

Ford cursed. "Stupid kid, what were you thinking?" he muttered. "The infection has gone septic!" He cleaned the wounds, Danny clenching his fists at the pain. He nearly blacked out.

Finally the old man spread antibiotic paste over all three areas and gave him an injection. Danny breathed heavily from the stress. He'd had to use all of his concentration to keep from going ghost.

Yet for all of his efforts, Danny's eyes had still glowed green when the bandages were wrapped again. This confirmed to the scientist something that he already knew. He picked up the boy and placed him on a couch in the lab.

* * *

Several hours later, Danny woke. He gently touched his chest. Now that the punctures were clean, he could feel them healing already. At that moment, he'd never been more thankful to his quick regeneration.

That is, until he saw Ford clicking away at a computer. On the screen, what looked suspiciously like the names of different DNA proteins flashed as the man scrolled, muttering.

The old man was scribbling away on a notepad. With his enhanced vision, Danny could read the words at the top: Halfa: Half ghost, half human?

Even worse, if he strained his eyes, he could see Daniel Fenton written under that.

He sat up with a strained breath. Ford turned around and froze. Danny's eyes were glowing green, his hands encased in ectoplasmic energy. "You looked at the sample, didn't you?" he asked quietly.

Ford attempted to calm the boy down. "I'm sorry Danny, I couldn't help it. I was too curious. I'm a scientist, after all." He rubbed the back of his neck nervously, glancing at the gun that sat on a table nearby.

Danny caught the movement, of course. "Don't do that," he sighed, the energy fading. He ran a hand through his hair. "Who else knows?"

"Nobody!" Ford answered quickly. "Just me."

That didn't reassure the boy at all, but he'd have to take Ford's word for it.

"So how is a halfa even possible? They shouldn't exist," Ford pried.

Danny glared at him. "I used to be full human, you know. There was a lab accident. That's all I'm going to say."

Ford was obviously dying to ask more, but Danny held up a hand to cut him off. "I don't want you to tell anyone about this. Not even my parents have any idea that I'm a . . . a halfa." It almost hurt to admit his secret in front of Ford.

The old man seemed to see Danny differently for a second. "Why not?"

The teenager snorted. "They're ghost hunters, Ford. Isn't it obvious? They hate anything to do with ectoplasm, and I have it in my DNA."

"But . . . you're their son."

Danny returned the stare with cool blue eyes."I'm not risking it."

He tried to get up and leave the lab, but he was still weak. His ankle felt like it was on fire.

Ford grabbed his shoulders and gently pushed him back down. "No, Daniel. You need to rest. The infection poisoned your bloodstream. You're lucky I had antibiotics, or else you'd be in the hospital."

The pillows caught his head in their soft embrace. "Don't . . . don't call me that," he mumbled.

A blanket was pulled over him. "What? Daniel?"

He stared up at the ceiling. "Yeah. That."

The phantom wondered when the twins would return, when he'd have to start keeping up the charade of normalcy again.

He hoped they were okay.

So, I've added fanart to every chapter! Most of the art gives hints about events that take place in said chapter, but not always. If you haven't already, go check out the art on the previous chapters!

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