Marisa’s note: there is a very important author’s note at the end of this chapter; I would appreciate it if you guys read it before deciding to not leave a review (as most of you don’t), because leaving a review in this case will help decide whether this fic continues or not. The author’s note will explain.

And this chapter’s quote is more directed at you guys than the chapter. Again, the note will explain.

— — — — — —

Chapter Fifteen

“And with that I bid you a fond farewell.”

— — — — — —

Valerie yawned and stretched luxuriously, blinking blearily as she stared at her alarm clock.

She jumped up in shock, and leaned in for a closer look. Yes, it was definitely eleven in the morning, and Saturday to boot, yet a certain annoying ghost-boy had not woken her up at six AM with a screeching “Hi, Valerie! Ready to go ghost-hunting?” and breakfast. (Breakfast had to be served because she refused to leave the house without it, on pain of pain, as Danny had already done death.) Why had Danny let her sleep in after almost a year of early mornings?

Grumbling, Valerie descended the stairs to see her father in the kitchen.

“Good morning, Valerie. Finished ghost-hunting already?”

“Haven’t started yet, actually. Where’s Danny?” She quickly poured herself a bowl of cereal and sat down. “He’d better not be fighting ghosts without me.”

“Actually, today’s been quiet. I haven’t seen any movement on the radar, including Danny.”

Valerie thoughtfully ate in silence. After she finished, she rinsed out the bowl and looked at the kitchen stove’s clock, which had a display of the date as well as the time.

“Oh,” was all she could say. In a moment she had her armor on and was out the door on her hoverboard, looking for her friend.

The date was the day that Danny’s family and friends had died.

— — — — — —

“Any luck, Valerie?” asked Damon over the com. Valerie sighed.

“No,” she said. “I’ve tried the Nasty Burger, the school, Tucker’s old house, Sam’s old house, his usual hangouts…”

“The cemetery?”

“Of course I’ve tried…oh. Um. On my way. ”

— — — — — —

She found him sitting on his parents’ double grave, leaning against the headstone, his head on his hands, his expression hideously blank. He hadn’t looked so emotionless since his death one year ago. She suddenly felt frightened.

“Danny…?”

Nothing.

“Danny?” Still spooked, she waved a hand in front of his face. He didn’t even blink.

She bit her lip and sat down next to him, quietly recalling her armor as she did so. For a while there was silence, with the unblinking ghost and the unnerved girl, as she opened and closed her mouth several times, trying to think of something to say.

“So, um, Danny,” she began finally. “Are you going to patrol with me later?”

Silence.

“You could have asked us to get you some flowers or something. On…on M-Mom’s anniversary, we always give her her favorites. And we…we talk about her, to remember the…the good times. You don’t have to do this.”

The ghost still didn’t react.

“Hey, ghost boy, I’m trying to help!” Valerie snapped, standing up and glaring at him. “Stop pitying yourself! You’re not the only one who lost someone today, y’know!” Immediately after she said it, she wanted to take it back. But even this did not make Danny respond. After staring at him for a moment more, she turned and left, brushing tears from her eyes.

The two ghosts who had been there so long they no longer set off Danny’s ghost sense became visible then, smirking as they inhaled the emotions from Valerie and Danny and visibly grew younger and younger. Laughing, referring to the teens and particularly the boy as a “stalled spa treatments”, the two took off to steal themselves some frappacinos before their next dose.

— — — — — —

Danny watched, over and over, as his family died and he did nothing.

Over and over, he heard the screams. Over and over, blood fell on his face. Over and over, he didn’t pass out this time, he watched their faces as they contorted from the pain and shrieked and their blood showered over him in a coppery flood.

Over and over, he saw it. And he heard a familiar woman’s voice, talking to him through the fog, telling him it was all his fault, but he didn’t need the voice to tell him that, he knew it.

He didn’t know how or when he had come here. He had simply been drawn to the graves, just like he had simply known today was the day they died, and today was the day he had let them down. And he would see them die over and over again and feel it and smell it and taste it until he begged to scream and be released. But he couldn’t move. He could only see it again. And it was his fault.

Danny?

Mom died.

Danny?

Dad died.

So, um, Danny, are you going to patrol with me later?

Jazz died.

You could have asked us to get you some flowers or something.

Lancer died.

On…on M-Mom’s anniversary, we always give her her favorites..

Tucker died.

And we…we talk about her, to remember the…the good times.

Sam died.

You don’t have to do this.

Their blood covered him.

Hey, ghost boy, I’m trying to help!

He couldn’t get it off! Oh, God, it wouldn’t come off!

Stop pitying yourself!

Why wouldn’t it come off? And—oh, oh God no—was that—was that their scattered body parts over there? No, no, please…he didn’t want to see…

You’re not the only one who lost someone today, y’know!

And then they died again.

— — — — — —

Vlad arrived at the cemetery later than he’d initially planned solely because he’d been unable to decide which flowers to leave on his precious Maddie’s grave. At first he’d wanted to leave glowing green flowers there, to represent her love for ghosts, but then he discovered the only ones he could find were extremely radioactive, so that was no good. Then he tried to find yellow and dark green flowers, but remembered she just never loved the Packers the way he did. And the exquisite bouquet he’d ordered for her turned out to not be ready in time (he’d made a mental note to either buy out that particular shop or “visit” it later as Plasmius in revenge), so that was a dud. He’d had to go to a sub-par shop in Amity Park and ended up with a single white rose and a single red rose to lay at her grave.

All of these thoughts, of course, were only surface thoughts to distract him from the fact that today was the day his beloved had died. But that was all right. He would meditate on that when he was alone, with her.

He got out of the limo and waved it off. Today he needed to be totally alone.

As he walked up the hill to Maddie’s grave, he heard a woman cackle, “But you let them die, didn’t you, Danny? You let them explode into little pieces…”

“Oooh, let me try, Spectra! He’s so weak now I bet even I could do it!”

Spectra?! And apparently Danny was there too. No, no, this would not do. In a moment he had shifted to Plasmius and become invisible.

“Bertrand, do I have to send you for frappacinos for a third time? Now be a good little man and make sure no one’s around. You nearly let that Valerie girl catch us last time, and I will not be caught off-guard again!”

Well, with an invitation like that….

“Oh, really?” Plasmius purred, appearing behind her. The crooked therapist jumped and Bertrand’s eyes widened. “I’ll have to let Miss Grey know her ghost-sensing equipment needs to be fine-tuned.”

Spectra merely smiled. “Oh, it’s you. The college boy who never grew up. The man who wasted twenty years on a woman who was married, with children, and then tried to corrupt those children when he couldn’t corrupt her. The freak who, despite having money and fame, still never got what he really wanted because he couldn’t picture having anything else. Yes. I know you.”

“You know nothing,” Plasmius growled, and attacked. Spectra danced past the first blast, sambaed past the second. Plasmius growled again and split into four, each directing a beam at the woman…

…who dodged out the way, and all four beams hit Daniel, who didn’t even move. When the smoke cleared it was obvious Daniel was bleeding ectoplasm in several places and there was a huge crater around him. Plasmius roared in anger and Spectra giggled.

“Look at me!” she laughed. “Nearly a teenager now, and more powerful than ever. Oh, the teenage angst, it give me youth—especially little Danny and cute Valerie—but you, your fears and your pain and betrayal and that glorious, ever denied desire—I haven’t felt like this since I first died and sucked the emotions off of my living husband. Truly, how could a monster like you ever have expected love, true love? It would never have happened, not even if you had somehow managed to kill Jack, which you still managed to fail to do. It took Danny to do that. Patricide, matricide, sororicide, and triple homicide all in one shot. Really, he is a genius at killing things. Unlike you.”

“SHUT UP!” roared Vlad, perfectly aware that Daniel could hear every word Spectra was saying. He fired more shots at the woman, who only laughed as she dodged, even if they hit. By now she was so powerful that even a blast from Plasmius wasn’t enough to injure her. Or was he just that weak?

No! He couldn’t allow her into his head. That was how her powers worked. He had to defend Daniel from this atrocity at all costs, get her away from here, do whatever he had to—

“Mr. Masters!” cried a new voice.

“Miss Grey,” Plasmius grated. “I was wondering what was taking you so long.”

“I’m sorry, the Box Ghost distracted me, but Dad told me there was a huge amount of activity and—whoa!” Valerie swooped as Bertrand attempted to knock her off her hoverboard. “Oh, I don’t think so!” she yelled, and in a moment the green shapeshifter was sucked into a thermos.

“Ah, and the red failure of a bodyguard returns,” smiled Spectra. “You didn’t even realize we were here, girl, guiding Danny, helping him realize just how badly he screwed up. All you did was make it worse, talking about your dead mother as though she mattered, although you probably made her want to die—”

“You—you—you—you take that back right now you twisted freak of a ghost!” Valerie screamed, and charged. Spectra tried to dance away, but Plasmius didn’t give her a chance, not this time, he was blocking her from four directions, keeping her well away from Daniel and the graves, and Valerie fired with the most powerful bazookas in her arsenal, and while it destroyed one of the duplicate Plasmiuses in the process it also blew a hole through Spectra’s abdomen and she screamed as ectoplasm squirted everywhere, but Valerie showed no mercy and sucked the ghost into her thermos with a glare so full of righteous fury that Clockwork himself would have looked away in shame.

And with that the fight was over, and Valerie and Vlad had won.

Valerie landed next to her friend, who was still bleeding, and still not responding to any outside stimulus. Vlad did the same, and the two, without speaking, quietly repaired the damage to both the area around the graves and to Danny as best they could.

— — — — — —

The week passed.

Every day, the only difference was that Danny sat on a different grave. The first day, the day of Spectra’s attack, he had sat on his parents’, on his mother’s side. The second, on his father’s. The third, on his sister’s. The fourth, on Tucker’s. The fifth, on Sam’s. The sixth, on Lancer’s. Whenever human mourners were around he was invisible, but otherwise he did not acknowledge the existence of anything or anyone. Valerie had to work double time to pick up the slack, as word had spread that the Ghost Boy was incapacitated and was prime for the picking. Fortunately, she convinced all the ghosts this was a flagrant lie—or at least a truth they would pay dearly for investigating.

On the seventh day, the day of Danny’s suicide, she didn’t see Danny on any of the graves.

She did, however, see one of her ghost-guns missing.

Oh god, oh god, oh god, she thought, searching her room in a panic. This can’t be anything to do with Danny. He hasn’t left the cemetery in a week. So just because today’s the day he died, and I’m missing a ghost gun that kills ghosts and he’s a ghost now and that one’s specifically designed to annihilate ghosts and he’s been practically catatonic all week doesn’t mean—oh, who am I kidding?!

“Dad!” she screamed. “Dad! I can’t find a ghost gun and today’s That Day and I can’t find Danny and—”

Damon peeked into her bedroom. “Honey, he’s still in the cemetery. We’ve got a tracker specifically for him now, and remember, you put it on him three days ago. Why don’t you bring the remote and—”

Too late. She was gone.

— — — — — —

“Danny! Danny!” Valerie screamed, even as she raced over the cemetery’s gates. “Danny, please, don’t resuicide or whatever! It’s not worth it! Danny!”

She landed at his family plot, where his gravestone sat next to his sister’s, and caught sight of him just as he turned invisible.

“Oh no you don’t—Danny, you are not going to kill yourself again! I refuse to let you!” She walked over to the grave until she was pretty sure if she wasn’t standing by Danny she was standing in him, and that had to annoy him. Sure enough he reappeared, and she found herself embedded in his chest. She grabbed his clammy hands and met his eyes for the first time in seven days. Neon green eyes stared back, just for a moment, before disappearing into their own private hell once again.

“Danny, you didn’t take the ghost gun to…kill yourself, did you? Please, please tell me you didn’t.”

There was no answer. Valerie searched the area, just to be sure, and found nothing, to her relief. She wondered if he could have hidden it in the ground, though, and would just wait until she was gone before…

“If you did that, I’m just going to stay with you all day, and that’s that,” she said. “I can miss a day of class for this.”

And with that she sat down beside him. Danny didn’t respond, but he didn’t disappear, either.

Valerie had actually fallen asleep when Vlad showed up. Not wanting to wake her, he simply lay some daisies on Daniel’s grave. He still wasn’t sure why he was doing it; he had never bothered to find out whether the boy liked any kind of flower or not, and technically the boy wasn’t really dead in the final sense of the word. But it felt right to put flowers on his grave, even if Daniel was sitting vigil on it, Valerie at his side. Pausing for a moment, he sighed and sat down on Daniel’s other side.

“Daniel…we may…have problems…but understand this: if only for your mother’s sake, and even for your own…I will protect and train you.”

Daniel did not respond. But then, he did not push Vlad away, either.

And between the three there was peace.

— — — — — —

Marisa’s note: Hello, everyone. Well, it’s time for a very overdue explanation.

Quite frankly, for a long time I could not work on this chapter. See, Laryna6 and I in real life were best friends, and this fic was born in that friendship. Every time I think of TUH I remember staying up until three or even four in the morning, even though class started as early as nine or ten, just to discuss what would happen next in her dorm room, or meeting up in the living room to plan out the next chapter (we ended up being roomies as well) and they’re honestly fond memories. However, at the beginning of this year we—well, we became no longer friends. I’ve tried getting in contact with her, but it seems that it’s a friendship that is permanently broken. And I do mourn its loss, because there was no one like focused, crazy, interesting-insane Laryna.

However, we wrote this fic together and now I’m stuck with a story I’m not sure I can finish. Please let me know in your reviews whether you would like to see me continue it alone (the story has always been written in my style, so the style would only change in that I’ve been improving, as I hope you can see in this chapter) or whether you would prefer to have a summary chapter where I just tell you what would have happened if we had continued this fic together. I am honestly tempted to try to go it alone, but as I am more interested in working on some Pokémon fics right now, the going might be slow. Faster than it took to get this chapter out (you have no idea how many rewrites and replots this chapter went though) but still, the Dark Trilogy I have planned for the Pokémon fandom and the stories I want to publish for the other ghosts in DP (I have backstories in my head for them all, which do affect TUH sometimes; I’ve just never bothered to write them out), would probably take precedence. Anyway, let me know what you want: a summary of how the story would have ended or me attempting to finish it myself.

If there is anyone who would like to work on this fic with me, and is good at writing pre-season three Vlad (which is when he starts to show his true sociopathic tendencies, and would you believe Microsoft Spellcheck doesn’t think ‘sociopathic’ is a word), I would appreciate it, as writing Vlad has always been my weak point. Thank you very much for your support and your reviews, for the reviews of this chapter will decide whether TUH continues or not.