Capítulo 19: Chapter 19
Summary:
Jack and Maddie are worried about testing to determine just how much the Portal has changed them. They worry what they will find--for both them and their son. Their initial findings are definitely not what they suspected. They vow to help Danny with his changes as well.
Notes:
Sorry this took so long to get out. The word fairy has been missing the last few weeks. No worries, though! I have the entire story outlined. We'll be heading back to the present time in Gotham just as soon as we get the origin stuff out! Thank you all for sticking with me!
Chapter Text
Jack and Maddie found excuse after excuse to delay the testing. They knew that they would have to test their son after they figured out what was going on with Jack, and they were both dreading it. They finally decided to wait until school started, so that Danny would have something to do other than worry about the changes in his body. They knew he would be upset—and he was—but they felt that it was the best course of action. After all, what would a few weeks be but a little longer to recover from things?
Finally, the time came. Danny's first day of school went remarkably well, all things considered. He had a locker close to Sam and Tuck's, and the trio shared a homeroom and several classes. Lunchtime was typical bland food, but the free time with his friends made up for it. Even though it was only the first day of school, Sam was already complaining about the menu. She and Tucker re-started their argument about vegetarianism versus the wonders of eating a mostly-meat diet. The familiar back-and-forth was soothing to Danny, and it was almost…almost was enough to let him forget about the ever-growing strangeness in his body, along with what caused it in the first place.
Danny still had not told his best friends the whole story about the accident with the portal. He relayed that he had gotten shocked, and that it had caused some nerve damage in his hand. But—he didn't have the courage to tell them the rest. It wasn't that he didn't trust them—it was more like he was embarrassed by his failure to adhere to basic safety standards. He certainly didn't want to sit through another one of Sam's rants about working alongside his parents.
She was convinced that they were crackpots that would get him killed one day. Danny thought back to all the weird happenings he had experienced since the accident and wondered just how right she might have been.
"Hello! Earth to Danny!" Tucker's voice cut through the foggy circles that had ensnared Danny's mind. He jumped and grabbed his chest. He could have sworn he saw a reflected green flash in Tucker's glasses, but neither of his friends said anything. Either Danny had imagined it—or his friends weren't saying anything.
A warm hand settled on Danny's shoulder. "Breathe, Danny." Sam's voice was strangely calm.
Danny hadn't even realized that he had been holding his breath. He gulped in a lungful of air. "Uh..heh…thanks, Sam. I didn't realize…" He trailed off at the looks of concern on his friends' faces.
"Seriously, Danny. What's up with you? It's been weeks since the accident, and you're still acting weird. Is there something you need to tell us?"
Danny opened his mouth, but no words came out. After a moment, he realized that he must look like a fish. His mouth shut so fast his teeth clacked together. He looked away from the table, taking in the room behind them. Could he tell his friends the full truth? Did he even want to?? His gaze snapped back to his friends. "It's nothing." He frowned and looked at the floor.
That made him miss the silent look that Sam and Tucker shared. They had suspected that the accident was more serious than Danny was admitting to, but they respected his wish to keep things under wraps. If it got bad enough, he would tell them…wouldn't he?
Tucker sighed. He looked hard at Danny one last time before turning to Sam. He carefully and deliberately chose his next words. "Why would I want to eat rabbit food when hamburgers and steaks exist?"
Sam glanced at Danny then turned to Tucker. "You know why!" She then began the old argument anew. She was willing to leave Danny's issues alone—for now, anyway. Tucker seemed to be of the same mind, as he fell back into the rhythm of their long-standing debate over food. They both noticed how Danny visibly relaxed once their attention was off of him.
The rest of the day went smoothly, and Danny found Jazz standing by his locker at the end of the day, waiting to drive him home. He could have walked home, but his parents had insisted that he ride with Jazz—at least until they figured out what was happening with him.
The drive to Fentonworks was silent except for Jazz's quiet humming. Danny stared out the window at the bright afternoon landscape passing by. He felt cold, despite the heat, and he realized with a start that he had been cold since he came home from the hospital. He didn't even want to know what was up with that. He was worried that there were going to be a lot of questions without answers once he got home. He wasn't looking forward to it.
That morning…
Jack and Maddie made their way to the lab once the kids had left for school. They needed information, and they needed to start gathering it by finding out if their baseline stats had changed.
Jack went first. Maddie checked his vital signs, height, weight, and vision. It became obvious by the end of the quick run-through that some things had definitely changed. Somehow, Jack had lost about 20 pounds—and he didn't look like it at all, if anything, he looked bulkier. He and Maddie were extremely concerned how that even worked.
His height was the same, but his vision was much sharper than it had been. Jack had always had 20/20 distance vision, but now he was closer to 20/10. His reading scores showed that he could see much smaller things than he had before. It was almost as if the man's eyes had been fine-tuned. Both Maddie and Jack were very apprehensive as they moved on to the rest of the testing.
Jack stood in front of the x-ray machine patiently as Maddie got sets of front, side, and back images. Then, they drew his blood. Some went on slides for the microscope, and others into tubes headed for the various machinery and centrifuge that was tucked away in the corner medical section of the lab.
Both Fenton adults had to take a heavy load of biology classes in college, because of their ecto-biology degree—they had to know the hows and whats that made up "normal" human biology so that they could tell the difference if something was amiss or "ghostly" flavored. It was also the only way the university would accept their degree-plan. Technically, they had pre-medical degrees. They just didn't follow up with med-school.
That meant that they knew their way around a human-focused lab as well as an ecto-based one. So, together, they thoroughly studied Jack's x-rays while waiting on the blood results.
After the deviated baseline results, the couple was not surprised to find that Jack's films were abnormal. The images of his arms were fuzzy and somewhat distorted—almost as if his bones were now made of something slightly radioactive. Maddie was sure that Danny's would be worse, but she kept that thought to herself as Jack puzzled over the images.
"Mads…if you look past the distortion, you can see that the bones look almost translucent. It's like they've lost density! And my muscles aren't nearly as visible as they should be. That might be where the weight loss is coming from." His faces scrunched in confusion. "But…how??"
Maddie shook her head. She didn't know, and she was afraid to find out. "Let's check on the bloodwork, Jack. Maybe our answers are there." She turned to the portal shining across the lab. Even at this distance, there was a quiet siren call pulling her attention to it. She shuddered and walked over to the centrifuge.
"This should be ready by now." She made sure that the machine had stopped, and then she slowly opened up to get the vials. She almost dropped the first one she pulled out—due to shock. On top of the other separated particulates, there was a small layer of fluorescent green. It wasn't a lot, but it was there and easy to identify. Ectoplasm. Jack had ectoplasm in his blood! Oh! First Danny, now Jack! She thought.
Jack didn't say a word. He just looked at the vial in his wife's hand, a sort-of terror building up from places he couldn't name. He had to look away. His eyes were ensnared by the portal across the lab. He vaguely remembered staring at it the night Danny had come home, and he didn't want to get lost in it again. He closed his eyes. "Mads, we need to build some sort of shield or cover over that thing."
Maddie knew exactly what he was talking about. "I'm thinking lead-lined steel doors at the minimum. The ecto-radiation is leaking from there into the lab. I don't want our kids to be living directly over that thing's output any more than necessary."
"We'll have to put a lock on it, too." Jack added. "I don't want one of the kids getting sucked into that thing." He went quiet for a second. "Maybe we can come up with some ecto-resistant paint or something to be extra-careful. What do you think?"
Maddie audibly breathed in through her nose, then slowly sighed. "I think we should make that a priority." She gently put the vial she was holding in the rack on the table next to her. The rest of the vials in the centrifuge showed the same levels of ectoplasmic contamination as the first. Each one settling in the rack made her stomach drop further and further. She thought of what this would mean for Jack—and for Danny.
Suddenly, she realized that the hospital—and the doctors there knew that Danny's blood was contaminated. WHAT were they going to do with that information?! They could, theoretically, take him away from his family to become some sort of lab rat. Maddie swore on her life that she wasn't going to let that happen!
Across the portal, a purple-robed figure stared into a set of screens. He shook his head in sadness. "Ah, Madeline Fenton, you have no idea how prophetic you are…"
Back in the lab, the Fenton parents had set all the tests to running. Some would be ready that day, others not-so-soon. Before long, it was time to test Maddie. Her vital signs were relatively normal, and she sighed in relief when that was checked off. Then they checked her eyesight, and both adults were rattled when she had the same results as Jack had gotten.
"What? How, Maddie? Did you touch that portal too??" Jack's eyes were wide with anxiety. What did this mean for them? What did it mean to their kids?? Why had they put the tests off for so long???
Maddie swallowed thickly. "I only got in front of it when you and Danny were thrown into the wall. I didn't…I didn't touch the opening of the portal at all."
"How long were you in front of it?" Jack's eyes were set now, the scientist in him overrunning the fear.
"I don't know. Everything from that night is all mashed up in my mind—but Jack, think about Danny's first night home. We sat for hours in front of that thing. What did we do?? What did we create??" Unnoticed tears gathered in Maddie's eyes. She didn't notice them until they began their journey down her cheeks. She roughly wiped them away. She would NOT cry, damnit! She was a scientist. This was SCIENCE. There was no room for tears in the lab.
Jack pulled his wife into his arms and rested his head atop hers. He rubbed soothing circles around her back as she fought her tearful breakdown. "Mad's," he whispered into her hair. "I can't say that I know what's going to happen, but I CAN tell you that we are going to face this together, as a family. We're Fentons. We're not going to let this destroy our family. We're gonna get through it—you know that, right?"
Maddie pulled herself together. She was stronger than this! "You're right, Jack." She wiped away the last of the traitorous tears. "We are going to get through this. Together, we can do this! I believe you, honey. I believe in our family."
Jack patted her back. "C'mon. Let's get your blood drawn. The sooner we get started, the sooner we get answers. They kid's will be home in a few hours, and we need to know where to start with Danny's tests."
He took a long look at the rack with the blood, shining green liquid covering the tops of each drawn sample. "We know that this level of ecto-contamination has affected my arms—and apparently the rest of my body as well. We'll need to know just how it's affecting Danny, too." He turned back to his wife. "I'm dropping things—it's like my arms and hands just sometimes go…I dunno, intangible, I guess? Danny said he's dropping stuff too. We need to be able to help him. I need to figure out how to deal with this so I can teach him."
Maddie nodded. "Let's figure out just how affected I am, and then we can work on identifying the changes." She rolled up her sleeve. "Let's draw the same amount of blood from me as we did for you. We'll need to be sure that the tubes are all carefully labeled for comparison with future tests."
They got to work. After Jack had taken Maddie's blood and the pair started the various tests, they took x-rays of Maddie. Her x-rays were almost normal. When they compared them to the ones before the accident, they looked just a tad bit fuzzy around the edges. Neither adult could guess what that meant. As they waited for the first of the blood tests to be done, they discussed what other things they should look at.
Jack suggested testing strength. He had always been overly strong, even accounting for his 6'9" height. He wondered if the apparent density changes would lessen or heighten his strength. Maddie agreed, and they decided to do that once they finished downstairs.
Maddie also wanted to test reflexes and reaction times. She was still a bit unnerved for the lost time in front of the portal. If her brain had been affected, she wanted to know. Together, they created a list of physical things to go over outside of the lab. Once that was done, they headed upstairs to take a break before the kids came home from school. They needed time to wrap their heads around their own changes before tackling Danny's.
They finished up everything that they wanted to do just in time. Jazz and Danny walked in to see their parents sitting at the kitchen table—clipboards and papers in scattered piles all around them. Maddie was the first to notice them.
"Hey, kids!" Her tone did not match her eyes. "How was the first day of school?"
Jazz brightened and told her mom about all the classes she was taking that year. Danny just shrugged and let his sister keep talking. Jack and Maddie made a silent note on his silence, and waited for a chance to talk with him.
Danny turned to head out of the kitchen, but his father's voice stopped him. "Hey, Danno! We've heard from your sister—tell us how your day went?"
Danny turned around and began to toe the kitchen floor with his shoe. Finally, he raised his eyes to look at the table. "It was fine."
"'Fine', honey? That's it?" His mom sounded concerned.
"Yeah." He looked up into his parents' faces. Their faces looked pinched, and Danny was suddenly worried. "Did something happen today?"
Maddie shared a look with her husband before answering. "Nothing happened, sweetie. We just…we started working on the portal's effects on us today…" She trailed off when Danny's eyes went wide.
"Is Dad ok? Are you?"
Jazz took a step back when Danny dropped his booksack on the floor. Her eyes went from her brother to her parents and back again. "Mom? Dad?" Her voice warbled with fear.
Maddie gave her children a tight smile that didn't reach her eyes. "We're both alright, kids. We just found a few anomalies during our testing that we're trying to figure out." She turned and faced Danny. "Honey, I think that we'll have the info we need to figure your situation out by this weekend—if you can wait that long."
Jack piped in. "We're sorry for making you wait this long. I know the whole situation must be heavy on your mind. I'm just…we're just sorry…"
Danny cut him off. "It's ok, Dad, Mom. I mean. I've been ok. I know that you guys needed some time to process things before digging in. I can wait until this weekend." He gave them a half-hearted smile.
"That's good to hear, son." Jack's smile was genuine, despite the worry in his eyes. "If you have time, try and think of all the questions you have for us so that we can do the best job of helping you."
"And make note of any changes you've had or…maybe abilities that you've discovered. We want to cover all the bases, alright sweetie?"
Danny's expression settled, and he suddenly looked determined. "Ok. I'll be ready for this weekend."
His words hung in the air like a promise.
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