[Third Person's PoV]
'They know!' Danny thought with growing joy, barely able to contain his excitement. 'Finally, they know! God, I really thought I was doomed to never tell them in my own reality!' A wave of relief surged through him like a breath of fresh air.
"Danny, you're seriously acting weird right now," Sam said, her voice both cautious and curious. Her brows were furrowed in confusion, and her arms rested stiffly over her chest. "What's going on?"
Danny practically bounced on his heels. "Okay, okay, both of you—sit down. This is going to take a while to explain," he said, motioning hurriedly for Tucker to sit beside Sam on the bed, his tone frantic but thrilled.
Tucker tilted his head, clearly suspicious. "Didn't you say before you couldn't tell us anything?"
"Yeah, but that was before I realized you guys actually already know I have ghost powers!" Danny beamed, the grin on his face spreading.
Sam and Tucker exchanged glances—eyebrows raised in shock and disbelief. That disbelief, however, quickly gave way to something more serious. Their expressions tightened as they both turned toward him simultaneously.
"Danny," Sam began, her tone low and serious, "like we said, we were there the day of the accident. Why wouldn't we know about your ghost powers?"
Before Danny could reply, they both stood up and switched positions with him, gently grabbing his arms and guiding him to sit back down on the bed. Now they stood above him, arms crossed, looming like interrogators with familiarity and concern.
"Explain," Sam ordered, her voice leaving no room for protest.
Danny opened his mouth, ready to spill everything—every truth, every secret he'd been bottling up—but something in his mind screamed at him to stop. 'Even if Batman doesn't exist in this world anymore, that doesn't mean I should freely share his identity. I still don't know what the full effect of the wish was. I should tread carefully…'
He inhaled deeply through his nose and slowly exhaled through his mouth, composing himself before choosing his words carefully. "Right now, we're… we're living in an alternate reality."
For a moment, there was complete silence. Then Sam and Tucker burst out laughing, falling back against the bed and each other, nearly crying from how hard they were wheezing.
"A-A-Alternate r-reality?!" Tucker managed to get out between gasps of breath, pointing at Danny as if he'd just told the best joke in the world.
But they stopped short when they saw Danny's face. His expression was dead serious, his eyes locked onto theirs, void of humor or sarcasm. The laughter died in their throats, replaced by confusion and surprise.
"Wait… You're serious?" Sam asked slowly, her voice unsure now.
Danny nodded once. "Tell me something. In this reality… have we ever fought a ghost named Desiree?"
They looked at each other, uncertain. Then they shook their heads.
"No," Sam answered. "The only powerful ghosts you've fought so far are Ember, Skulker, Princess Dorathea, Technus… and Vlad."
Danny's jaw dropped. "Vlad? I fought Vlad?!"
"We weren't there when it happened," Tucker explained, "but it's what you told us. You said you went on a trip to Wisconsin with your parents and met him there."
Danny leaned forward, running a hand through his hair, his mind racing. 'That's right… In this world, my parents are alive. So I must have gone with them… unlike in my reality, where I never got the chance. That means no trip to Wisconsin… and no meeting with Vlad.'
He exhaled again, shoulders slumping. "Alright. Desiree is a ghost—specifically, a wish-granting ghost genie. And because of a wish made by a villain, this entire alternate reality was created."
Sam stared blankly. "A wish-granting… ghost."
"And a genie," Tucker added, equally flat in tone.
Danny gave them both a look. "I'm literally a half-dead teenager who can walk through walls, disappear, fly, and shoot ectoplasmic blasts from my hands. That's believable to you, but a ghost who grants wishes is where you draw the line?"
"…Fair point," Sam muttered as she finally sat beside him again, this time more grounded in the conversation. Tucker went and took the computer chair, now listening more intently.
"So… what wish exactly did this ghost grant?" Tucker asked, still trying to wrap his head around it all.
Danny hesitated, then said solemnly, "The disappearance of Batman."
There was a beat of silence.
"Who?" Sam and Tucker asked in unison, tilting their heads.
"Exactly," Danny said, gesturing with both hands. "You don't know who he is… because he was erased from this reality. He was a vigilante—he protected Gotham. He was more than that, though. He was… kind of my teacher."
His voice lowered at that, and his gaze dropped to the floor. His brows pulled together, and there was a heaviness in the way he spoke that neither Sam nor Tucker had heard from him before.
Sam blinked, her disbelief giving way to contemplation. "Wait… Gotham had a protector? That would actually make a lot of sense. It'd explain why it's such a lawless dump right now… Although its also hard to imagine that such a place had a protector to begin with."
Tucker nodded slowly, clearly mulling it over. But something else was bothering him. "Hold on—how did you even know this Batman guy? You've been handling ghost stuff on your own just fine until now."
Danny's entire posture shifted. His shoulders hunched, his hands folded together tightly, and his voice dropped into something almost mechanical.
"Back in my reality… Gotham was still safe enough to live in because of Batman. So… my family didn't move. That's where the accident happened. That's where I became… a halfa. It's where I—" His voice caught, then his face hardened. "Where I… killed my parents. And Jazz."
The room went deathly quiet.
Sam and Tucker's eyes widened in horror, mouths slightly agape, unsure of what to say. Danny stared down at his clenched hands, his knuckles white, and his lips pressed together in a trembling line.
There was no doubt anymore. Every ounce of emotion, every word, every pause—it was all too real.
"D-Danny… What do you mean by that?" Sam stammered, her voice trembling as if her breath had just been knocked out of her chest.
Tucker was silent at first. His face, frozen in initial shock, slowly tensed with a mix of worry and demand for clarity. "Explain everything," he said, his voice low but firm. "What do you mean you killed your parents and Jazz?"
"You guys weren't there on the day of the accident, it was just me and my parents. They were excited to test out their own working ghost portal and wanted to show me, Jazz wasn't interested. however it ended up as a failure. they were disappointed to see that it didn't didn't even activate. I… I thought I'd do them the favor of checking it out, I mean after all it was their life's work. I wanted to make them happy so I went inside and started to investigate…"
Sam and Tucker felt a shiver run down their spine as they saw that Danny lost the usual spark in his eyes, now appearing almost dull as he recounted the tale, "Mom, she saw me investigating the portal and knew instantly that it was dangerous and called to me in worry…"
Danny was sliding back his hair, tears pooling around his eyes at the memory, he shut his eyes, still envisioning everything, making it harder to continue with every passing second. Sam and Tucker were too stunned to say or do anything, all they could was weakly call his name as he went on.
"But being the clumsy dumbass that I was… Because I'm apparently startled by even the slightest noise, I jumped back and pressed the button that activated the portal. I didn't even have time to react. Pain hit me all at once—like being torn apart and stitched back together in seconds. I was on fire and freezing all at once. Everything happened too quickly.
The next second we were a happy family and the next everything was ripped away from me. I watched almost in agony as Mom and Dad struggled against the suction of the portal. Jazz then appeared as she heard the commotion and the three of them were pulled too close. They couldn't escape and were caught in the explosion that followed… That was the reality I woke up In, I was found in the ruin of the lab by Batman who took me in."
Danny was almost curling himself into a ball, Tucker and Sam were now by his side, embracing him. Tears flowing down their eyes, they could see it, they could sense it, and most of all they could feel it, the pain and guilt Danny had never been able to get rid of. All that he had suppressed and locked away trying to hide.
Unbeknownst to them there were additional ears listening in. During school when Sam and Tucker had decided to sneak out they weren't being as sneaky as they had hoped, Jazz had spotted them.
Something within her told her to follow them, whether it was her sisterly instinct, her worry for Danny, or simply because she was noisy, she followed those feelings and chased after them.
She stood along the side of the wall, Danny's window being wide open, with both hands covering her mouth.
She slowly slid down that wall and had her head down, her hair coming to the front of her face to hide her expression, to hide the look of horror and disbelief in her eyes.
It was all starting to make sense to Jazz, it was all coming together. That almost explained everything, his reaction this morning, why he was so affectionate, the reason for the guilt.
And she couldn't help but feel sick to her stomach, 'Oh Danny…' She couldn't help but think.
However Jazz wasn't the only one secretly listening in.
Maddie was initially worried about Danny due to what happened during breakfast. Jack merely thought that the best idea to lift Danny's spirit was to go on a ghost hunting trip.
However as they were going up to his road they heard a commotion and rushed towards his room.
Just as Maddie had placed her hand on the door handle she froze as she heard Tucker and Sam's voice.
And by the end of it she softly slid her hands away and stared towards Jack, who was standing over the door with the most serious expression she had ever seen on his face.
She pushed up her goggles and pulled her mask away staring at Jack, a shaking hand slowly rising towards her mouth.
"J—" Maddie was about to call her, her voice cracking.
But Jack placed a hand over her mouth and placed a finger by his lips. She had never seen such a scary expression on husband's face before.
Jack's gaze became distant as they two continued listening in to the unbelievable tale that Danny was sharing.
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