Paranoia

Well, here's Chapter seven. Speak. These things seem to still be coming out pretty quickly which is odd considering I usually don't even update once a month and this story has grown a considerable amount in even the last few weeks.

My notes: I like this chapter pretty well. I added a random thing I've been having the urge to write for awhile and I think I managed to fit it in pretty well.

Anyway, warnings for this chapter: Drug use and mental breakdowns. Several. Also, does comma, hyphen, italics and ellipsis abuse count as warnings?

---

Danny couldn't move. He couldn't bring himself to move. All he could do was lay there on the floor of the bathroom and watch as Dark stood up. He didn't move as Dark fixed his pants, then knelt back down. Danny didn't even flinch as lips were pressed against his in a deceptively gentle kiss before the other man stood up and walked through the door.

Danny almost chuckled as he thought about how literal that last statement had been. Dark hadn't even bothered to open the door, instead just phasing through it like it was nothing, which it really was.

That thought had him chuckle out loud and he startled himself with the noise. He then got over it and began laughing at himself for being so jumpy. Thinking about the situation and how he was lying on the floor of a bathroom in Dash Baxters house made him laugh even harder. Danny then thought to the events that had led to him laying on the floor.

A hiccuping sob worked it's way into the laugh, and that made Danny let out a breathless little giggle. Suddenly everything flat-lined in Danny's head and he started laughing hysterically, sobs working their way through his laughter causing him to come close to hyperventilation. Curling on his side he continued to laugh, not able to stop.

Somewhere in the back of his mind a voice was telling him that he had to get himself together, that he was going into something akin to shock and he had to snap out of it. He couldn't though. His breathing was becoming more irregular and he couldn't stop laughing. Danny was slowly suffocating himself laughing and the realization of that only made it worse, the sudden panic making him tense and air wouldn't come into his lungs.

Slowly the laughter diminished to panicked gasps, tears streaking down his cheeks. His head ached and he couldn't think. Darkness swam at the edges of his vision and his lungs burned.

Finally Danny lay on the floor of the bathroom trembling, short gasps consisting of not enough air coming through his lips as finally everything faded to black.

---

"Yo Dash, where you been?" Kwan asked, throwing an arm around Dash's shoulders.

Dash made a face at the normally timid teen and could smell the alcohol on his breath. Throwing his friends arm off he vaguely said, "Around."

"Well you shoulda been 'around' with me and Star. We've been having a great time." he chuckled and Dash frowned at him, his mind still other places. Such as upstairs.

"Sure, whatever." he said and Kwan finally seemed to realize something was off with him.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked, fighting his way through his drunken haze to try and figure out what was strange.

"Nothing, just a few misunderstandings," was all Dash said and Kwan raised and eyebrow before shrugging.

He backed up a couple paces and put his hands up in a defensive gesture, "Ok then, but be sure and come hang with us, yeah?" he said and Dash nodded vaguely making Kwan flash him a grin and stagger off.

Dash leaned against the wall, grabbing another drink though he really didn't feel like it. He just felt like he should be holding something. Thinking about what he had heard upstairs he frowned again and took a drink, almost hoping that he would get piss drunk stupid enough to forget it and he could live the rest of his days in bullying peace.

His hopes crumbled as one of the objects of the thoughts he was trying to rid himself of leaned next to him on the wall. Trying to act normal Dash pushed himself off the wall and stretched, looking over at him.

"So where have you been?" he attempted to ask nonchalantly.

"Elsewhere." Dark said and Dash mentally winced, "It seems you're not enjoying yourself very much."

Flinching minutely Dash said, "Yeah, well I guess I'm tired. Being a host is more difficult than I remember." Dark made an acknowledging noise and Dash nearly sighed with relief.

"Well I wanted to tell you that I'm leaving, I have other things to do." Dark said startling Dash.

"You what?" he asked stupidly and Dark smirked at him.

"I may be back later. I may not. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll see me again." Dark chuckled and waved as he walked out the door.

Dash almost wanted to call out to him to wait or not go or explain what he was doing. He almost wanted to ask him what exactly he was doing with Fenton upstairs. He almost wanted to ask where he was going, or better yet, where he came from.

He didn't though, and for some reason he had a feeling it was better that he was left in the dark.

---

"I want you to take away my emotions, my ghost half." Danny frowned as he heard that. It sounded like him.

"Are you sure, this will be very painful. I'm not sure what will happen."

Danny stirred, opening his eyes. That sounded like Vlad. What was Vlad doing here? Where was he anyway. He tried to look around, but realized he couldn't. For a minute he panicked before he registered what he was really seeing.

He sat in an office in Vlad's mansion, across from the older man. Vlad looked terrible, like something horrible had just happened.

"I'm sure." Danny frowned as he realized the words were coming out of his mouth. But what...? "I don't want to have to live feeling like this. Knowing it's my fault...my fault they..." he sniffed and put a hand up to his mouth, trembling.

"It's not your fault they died, Daniel." Vlad said, sounding forceful and with a start Danny realized what was going on.

He was in a memory. One of Dark's memories. It was from his reality when he hadn't been able to save his family and friends from the Nasty Burger explosion. Danny figured that he must be watching it through his eyes, though he wasn't sure why this was happening.

The alternate Danny shook his head and Vlad sighed. "All right, if you're sure we'll go down to the lab."

There was a flash and Danny was confused for a minute before he discovered they must have moved forward in time a little bit. He was strapped to a surgical table tilted up so he would have been standing. Vlad was walking toward him with the Ghost Gauntlets and Danny mentally cringed. He didn't want to see this.

The future Vlad hadn't told him what Dark had done to his body after everything, but he guessed he would be finding out soon whether he wanted to or not.

Suddenly a scream, his scream, filled the room becoming two-toned as if both his human and ghost half were screaming. After a second he felt the body fall limp, not quite unconscious and was able to see his ghost half grab the Gauntlets from Vlad and use them to rip out his ghost half.

Both versions of Vlad screamed and the human half fainted as Dan pulled Vlads ghost half to him, merging with him. There was mostly silence in the lab for a short while, the only sounds were that of heavy breathing. Dan shuddered and suddenly his hair changed, turning into a white flame and his body changed, turning a greenish color with sharp teeth, pointy ears and that tongue.

Somehow Danny's human half had managed to get off of the table and was cowering next to the wall. Dan stalked up to him and Danny could see him through his human selves eyes. He was terrified. Maybe even more than he had been at that moment. This was the moment that had changed him forever. Not just the merging of his and Vlads ghost selves, but the actual act of murder that Danny was sure he was about to preform.

He surprised him by not killing him immediately though.

"You-you did this!" Dan yelled and grabbed Danny by the collar, jerking him up so they were eye to eye. "You made me do this! Why-how could you be so selfish!"

"I didn't mean-" Danny's human half started but was cut off by being flung back to the wall and Danny winced as he heard the crack of his skull bouncing off the stone. His vision became fuzzy for a moment and when he looked up Dan was standing in front of him.

"It didn't have to be like this." Dan sighed, looking downcast. He knelt down and embraced his human self. Danny could feel his body tense and a tear fell from his eye.

Dan stood back up, and so did Danny. He supposed it was natural that he would like to face his demise standing.

Shaking, he opened his mouth to utter the last two words he would ever say, and didn't have time to be surprised that Dan echoed him before a blast of energy made a hole in his chest.

"I'm sorry."

---

Danny woke with a start, one hand flying to his chest before he even realized it. After a second he got everything sorted out and his panic decreased a little bit.

"What was that?" he muttered to himself, shaken. That was not at all what he had been expecting when he tried to imagine what had happened when Dark had killed his human half in his reality.

He shook his head, his thoughts of Dark reminding him what had just happened. Danny figured he must have passed out after having a panic attack when Dark was through with him.

Danny winced at that last thought. That was it though, there was no other words to describe why he left other than those. Dark decided what he wanted to do with Danny, used him accordingly, and left when the use was over. Danny sniffled again but refused to go into another episode.

Finally fulling realizing he was still naked Danny made a face and retrieved his clothes, wincing at the pain when he moved. As he put back on his clothes he tried to get his thoughts in order.

What was he going to do when he went back downstairs? He couldn't leave without telling Valerie, but there was still the possibility of running into Dark and Danny wasn't sure he could handle that right now. There was also the horrible sense of resignation that had overcome him for a minute when Dark was 'preparing' him earlier. He closed his eyes and let out a deep breath as he let his shirt fall into place. There were so many questions and not enough answers.

Looking into the mirror Danny winced, he looked awful. He figured he couldn't have been out for that long because his eyes were still red and showed signs of tears. He also had a deer-in-the-headlights sort of look which made him make a face.

Blowing out a breath he walked-not-limped to the door and unlocked it, pushing it open and walked straight into the teen he had seen in the hallway earlier. Danny gasped in shock and jumped backwards, but the teen seemed not to notice.

"Hey, you're still not having fun," he said with a frown and Danny resisted the urge to back up a few more steps and close and lock the bathroom. There was something wrong with this kid.

"I-I'm having fun. I'm having lots of fun." Danny said trying to sound earnest but the boy just tsk'd and shook his head.

"No you're not. Put out your hand."

Danny swallowed, nervous with good reason. If some kid that you suspected might be high or something asked you to put out your hand would you? What if he stabbed him with a needle or something. Danny winced at his thoughts before timidly putting out a hand, hoping he would be able to move in time if some of his more morbid thoughts came true.

Danny flinched when the boy took something out of his pocket, though he still seemed not to notice, and put it in his hand. It was another pill of some sort, still of no kind that Danny knew. He shifted nervously as the teen watched him intently.

"Uhm, I don't really want this," Danny murmured softly and the boy frowned.

"What do you mean you don't want it? Everyone wants it," he said, his voice raising a bit with a desperate edge making Danny want to bolt again.

Danny swallowed nervously thinking of the random shows he had seen talking about the violence people on drugs could do. He tried to think of something and the best he could come up with was pretending to take it.

He laughed nervously, "O-of course you're right, I want it." he said and that seemed to placate the teen and Danny put the pill in his mouth and under his tongue, pretending to swallow it under the watchful eye of the strange boy in front of him who nodded in approval.

"There, you'll be feeling good now!" the teen gushed and pranced down the hallway.

After a couple seconds Danny breathed a sigh of relief and thought 'Now I can spit it out,' before his sister and Valerie appeared.

---

"Danny!" Valerie and Jazz yelled and Jazz frowned as Danny stiffened, swallowed, coughed, and swallowed again slight horror showing on his face for a second before he went back to neutral.

"Valerie...Jazz?" he asked, an incredulous look on his face. "What are you doing here?"

"I was worried about you and we have to talk." she said and frowned as Danny shook his head. It wasn't really an act of defiance so much as something you would see someone trying to clear their head do.

"Well I'm fine now, no reason to talk," Danny said and his voice sounded slightly distant causing Jazz to frown deeper and Valerie take a step closer.

Danny shook his head again and swayed making Valerie and Jazz exchange a glance. What was going on?

Jazz had told Valerie in a quiet rush what she thought she had heard after she found her which had taken a while longer than she had anticipated. Valerie had been horrified and concerned, though she didn't look as surprised as Jazz had thought she would. She had only told the girl because she had heard Danny was hanging out with her more, but what if he had told her before he told them...?

Pulling herself back to the present Jazz put a hand out to Danny's shoulder, making him jump back and crouch against the wall. He seemed to recover himself after a moment and tried to stand back up, staggering a couple times to get back up.

"Danny, have you been drinking?" Jazz asked, not accusing, just curious.

"Yeah, but tha's not wha made me...this's your fault." Danny slurred, sending a half-hearted glare toward them.

The girls exchanged glances again before looking at Danny who blinked and shook his head again. "Uh, what are you talking about?" Valerie asked nervously and Danny blew out a deep breath.

"Crazy kid...some pill, wanted me to take it. Me take some stupid pill. Didn't want to, but you guys just had to startle me," Danny rambled, his voice barely audible before he turned up his chin to glare at them again.

Jazz frowned, trying to figure out what he was talking about. Suddenly remembering the kids downstairs in the hall her eyes widened in shock. Danny didn't...? She didn't accidentally make him swallow one he had been hiding had she?

"Don't think this means you'll be getting off easy." Jazz finally said, and Danny laughed.

"Ok then," he said started walking toward the stairs.

Jazz and Valerie shared a look and Jazz said, "Um, Danny, I think I should actually get you home."

"Why?" Danny asked, as if she had just asked the stupidest question in the world, "Wha' would mom and dad do if they saw me like this. I mean, 'm pretty sure tha' pill wasn't aspirin."

"All the more reason to get you out of here," Valerie said, finally getting into to conversation. "We don't know what it was, what if makes you go all weird and crazy." she said and Danny laughed again as if he had some private joke.

"Fine then, let's go. It's not like I didn't know this party wasn't a good idea in the first place."

---

They managed to get outside without a lot of trouble much to the sober ones surprise, but now getting home was the hard part. Valerie and Jazz had decided that it took two of them to get Danny moving so she would just stay the night at their house when they got there.

It normally wasn't a very long walk, but at the pace Danny was going...

"Come on Danny!" Jazz exclaimed for what seemed like the millionth time as Danny took an unneeded detour to go sit on the curb. She had thought that she would have some sympathy for her little brother, but honestly right now he was trying her patience. She supposed it was probably whatever he had ingested's fault, but at the time that didn't seem relevant.

"What do we have here?" a voice asked behind her, startling her and making her jump and turn around.

"Vlad!" all three teens cried out and the man wasn't sure whether to look startled or amused.

"It's quite late, why are you out?" Vlad asked, then looked curiously at Danny who he noticed was swaying a bit. "And what's wrong with Daniel?"

Jazz shifted from foot to foot. She wasn't sure how much she should say. Vlad had gone to college, so she was sure he was familiar with parties, but she still didn't want to give away too much. She also thought, maybe on a bit of a selfish note, that with Vlad there he could actually carry Danny and reduce the time of their escapade considerably. It was after midnight after all.

Finally she said, "We were at a party and Danny just got a little messed up." She was sure that Vlad would have asked what kind of 'messed up' Danny supposedly was if not for him pulling the attention to himself by groaning and laying back on the sidewalk.

Valerie rushed over and knelt next to Danny asking what was wrong.

"I feel funny," Danny groaned and put a hand to his forehead and a wave of worry washed over everyone.

There was a moment of slightly awkward silence before Vlad said, "All right, I'll help you home. Don't think I won't inquire about this later though."

---

Danny moaned when he was picked up. The world spun a bit and he wondered for a moment when he had gotten off the roller coaster. He looked up to see who was carrying him and laughed to himself when he saw it was Vlad. He had thought he had heard his voice earlier but everything was seeming kind of distant and fuzzy.

It wasn't that bad in some ways, but for him who was used to having to be so alert all the time it was slightly unnerving. Also how the drug was affecting his body. Danny couldn't exactly feel in a normal sense, the sensation of pain was dulled, and so was just normal touch, but if someone was trying to be gentle that was another matter.

Vlad cradled him to his chest and Danny squirmed a little, wanting to be let down. He didn't like him touching him. It felt weird.

"Danny, quit wiggling!" Jazz said and Danny figured she must have noticed him moving and was trying to make it easier on the older man.

"Can't, don't want..." Danny muttered and shivered. He then stiffened and thought about why he had shivered. Suddenly, violently, he pushed at Vlad's chest, causing him to drop him.

Gasping in pain as he fell on the cement Danny tried to get his bearings. Struggling to stand up his efforts were thwarted even more by people pushing him down and pinning him so he couldn't run.

Immediately Danny panicked.

---

Valerie winced as Danny screamed, and had a feeling it wouldn't get any better if they tried to cover his mouth. She was sure it looked like a kidnapping enough as it was. Suddenly Danny stopped screaming and fell limp, his breathing ragged and his eyes still wide. If she had thought the screaming was bad what Danny was rambling was even worse.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Please let me up. Let me go, I won't- please let me up. Don't touch me, get your hands off me. Please let go of me," Danny shuddered, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. "I-I won't run. I won't. Promise, just...just...please."

Shocked by the words coming out of the boys mouth everyone leg go and Danny sat up, scooting back a bit before curling up.

'What happened to him?' Valerie thought to herself watching as Danny tried to pull himself back together. Sure she knew the one plain fact of rape, but it seemed like there was something else going on. Something much deeper than that.

Jazz and Valerie shared a glance, and then it drew Vlad's attention too. He raised an eyebrow at the girls who exchanged another look between themselves.

"Maybe," was all Jazz said before kneeling down to try and help her brother.

---

Danny woke up feeling like shit. He had a massive headache and his stomach felt like it was just waiting for the most opportune time to crawl up his throat. He groaned and some of the events from the night previous flitted through his head.

He had gone to the party with Valerie, Dark had been there, he decided to skip past that last recollection and went to where some weird kid had given him a pill and Jazz had made him swallow it. After that things got even more confusing and he couldn't exactly remember how he had gotten home. He thought it might have something to do with Vlad though.

Thinking of Vlad made him lift his head a bit, a bad idea, but he looked and saw that he wasn't around anyway. Danny vaguely wondered where he was, but the pounding in his head was still almost as distracting as his desire to hurl.

After a few minutes Danny finally managed to sit up, trying to force the room to stop spinning. Staggering to his feet he almost fell back on the bed, regaining his balance just in time. Now that he was standing he didn't know what he wanted to do. Since it was Saturday his parents would be gone at least half the day shopping or whatever they did when they vanished. Jazz was probably already downstairs and he assumed Vlad was too since he wasn't in the room.

Frowning he realized that Valerie had come over too and they were all probably waiting to accost him in the kitchen. Deciding to delay the inevitable Danny made his way to the bathroom to take a shower and whatnot.

Opening the cabinet for toothpaste he saw a bottle sitting there blaring 'acetaminophen' right in front of his face. Half of Danny's mind immediately screamed 'Relief!' while the other half was still wary of pills considering what had happened the last time he had taken one. Downing two anyway didn't make Danny's stomach any happier, but he got into the shower anyway to wait for them to start kicking in.

Feeling a disturbing amount of deja vu Danny stepped into the shower, turning it on and sighing as the water turned hot. He stood under the spray for a few minutes just enjoying the warmth before he grabbed a washcloth and soap and began meticulously cleaning himself.

"What am I even doing?" Danny asked himself as he closed his eyes, leaning back to rinse the shampoo out of his hair.

"I would say you're taking a shower, but that seems so obvious I'm sure you're asking about something else," a voice said from the other side of the curtain and Danny yelped in shock and crouched, covering himself though there was still a shower curtain in the way.

"Vlad you, you-!" Danny exclaimed in shock and anger and a bit of fear. "What the hell are you doing! Get out!"

A thought occurring to him Danny tried to go ghost, relieved when it worked and that his suit appeared so he wasn't naked any more. Ripping back the curtain Danny glared at the other man.

"Daniel, my little badger, what happened? Your sister and little friend won't tell me. I can help you, just tell me." Vlad said and Danny looked at him like he was crazy.

"You sneak into my bathroom while I'm taking a shower to ask me what's wrong?" Danny's eyes glowed briefly with anger, "I don't want to talk to you about it. I don't want to talk about anyone about it, but they won't leave it alone. I can take care of it myself." he growled. In reality he knew that half of what he said wasn't true, but the other man didn't know that.

Vlad sighed and said, "I'm not sure about that."

Danny's fist began to glow and he had to stop himself from punching him right there. He was too high-strung and blasting a hole in their house would not be a way to calm him down, not matter how much satisfaction it would bring.

"Just go." Danny said and Vlad shrugged and walked back out the door without opening it, reminding Danny of what Dark had done.

His calm mood officially shattered Danny resisted the urge to pick up the ceramic cup on the counter and break it into a million pieces, instead just going back into the shower and changing back to human. It seemed that all the soap had vanished when he changed, but he stood there anyway, trying to calm down. He didn't want to go down there and confront Jazz like this.

Sighing in frustration he knocked his head on the side of the shower, closing his eyes for a moment. He then thought about how that hadn't been a very good idea since the pain pills weren't kicking in as fast as Danny would have liked. His anger at Vlad had caused his stomach to tighten as well and as Danny got out of the shower to dry off he realized darkly that he felt worse now than he had before he had gone in.

---

When Danny got downstairs he was surprised to see only Jazz was there. Curiosity overcame him and he asked where everyone was.

She answered that their parents were out doing something as Danny had suspected, and Vlad had gone out somewhere, which considering what had happened earlier he wasn't too surprised about either. He was kind of shocked that Valerie had left without seeing him and asking for an explanation about last night but he shrugged it off. Jazz would probably be relaying whatever happened to everyone anyway and he knew he couldn't make her promise like he had Valerie.

After a minute of silence he sat down at the table across from her. He knew she was going to say something he just wasn't sure what. Danny finally decided he would be the first one to say something.

"Last night...I think I remember you saying that we needed to talk."

Jazz looked at him for a long moment before sighing and running a hand down her face as if she didn't really want to talk but felt like she needed to. She took a deep breath before saying, "First of all, I don't want to accuse you of anything. I want you to tell me anything you think you can tell me. I'm here for you Danny, don't forget that."

"Yeah, ok." Danny said, a lump forming in his stomach. He could tell by her introduction that this was not going to be anything good. Knowing how his luck was going lately it was probably going to be worse than he thought.

He found out how much worse it was a moment later.

"Danny, at the party..." she trailed off, her voice soft, "I heard you. I heard you with...someone, in the bathroom."

Danny paled. He wasn't sure what to say. "I...that was..."

Jazz stared straight at him as he trailed off. He knew that she wasn't going to take any excuses and she told him as much. "Just please tell me what's going on. If you have a boyfriend or something I promise I'll try to understand, but if there's something else going on I want to know." Jazz desperately hoped that Danny did have a boyfriend. She hoped that all his secrecy was because of that and not something more sinister. She knew that it wasn't very likely, though, considering his behavior.

"I...I don't...he's not." Danny stammered, then snapped his mouth shut. Maybe it would be better to let her think that. It would cause less trouble, but he couldn't really imagine telling that lie. It would be too hard. He would probably say something.

Biting her lip anxiously Jazz decided to press a little harder, "I know this is going to sound really really awkward coming from your big sister, but...were you having sex?"

"I wasn't! He was-I mean, I don't-!" Danny burst out and immediately tried to fix his error. Jazz immediately jumped on it though.

"What do you mean by that Danny?" she asked and Danny panicked and unintentional words began to come out of his mouth again.

"He, I mean, I, uh. It wasn't, um, sex, exactly we weren't...I wasn't-" Danny cut himself off again wincing. He was just making things worse for himself. Why couldn't he just shut up? "I'm leaving." he said and quickly stood up.

Jazz immediately jumped up to grab his wrist. He hissed and drew back but she wouldn't let go. When he tried to phase out of her grip she just glared at him and he stopped.

"Tell me." she ground out and decided to try the gamble she was hoping wasn't true. "I know that you were raped. I need to know Danny. Tell me if it happened again."

Danny stopped dead. He turned a sickly white and his silence spoke volumes. Jazz had released his wrist and he took one step back, two.

"Y-you know." he stammered and Jazz frowned, "You're not supposed to know. Valerie wasn't supposed to know, I shouldn't have told her. Sam and Tucker can't know. Don't tell anybody. I don't want you killed. Please."

Jazz was unnerved but pressed forward anyway, "Who was it Danny? Maybe I can help. I want to help you, I don't care if its dangerous!" she exclaimed and Danny shrank back.

"Valerie doesn't even know," he murmured, looking around nervously as if he was afraid whoever they were talking about would pop out any second, and for all Jazz knew that could very well happen. Danny took a step toward her although it looked like it pained him.

"Please don't scream or start to ask me a ton of questions." he said and took a breath.

Taking a few more steps closer he made a hand gesture which Jazz recognized from when they were little and he wanted to tell her a secret. Despite of the dark situation it made her a little happy to see a reminder of old times. She took a step closer and bent down obligingly so he could whisper in her ear.

"It's Dan." he whispered before he swallowed and backed up. She saw tears forming in his eyes as he turned and walked away, presumably to his room.

Jazz stood there in silence for awhile. She was confused. 'Dan? Do I know any 'Dan'? But it sounds familiar. Why would it sound familiar if I didn't know anyone who...?'

Her memory was suddenly and painfully jogged when she saw Vlad walk in the door. She let out a gasp of horror and ran to her room, closing and locking the door behind her, sliding down to sit leaning next to it. She was sure Vlad would be confused by her actions, but she didn't care any more. She was too shocked.

"In the alternate reality the explosion killed you. Killed mom and dad and everyone. I couldn't take it. I went to Vlad, and had him take out my 'emotions' or my ghost half. My ghost half ripped out Vlad's and absorbed it into himself. I'm-I'm not sure what he did to the human half, but..." a breath. "He called himself Dan after that. Dan Phantom, and he was, he is the most evil, most powerful ghost there is. We just have to hope Clockwork takes care of the thermos."

Jazz slowly put her trembling hands in front of her mouth as tears slipped from her eyes and she started to sob. "Oh, Danny-! I'm...I'm so sorry!"

---

~End Chapter Seven