unspoken screams

Danny held his right arm over his mouth as he tried to navigate through the gas without breathing in too much of the fear gas that plagued the streets. He hasn't come across anyone else yet, so he's a little hopeful that anyone who did get caught up in this attack has gotten out already.

He stilled as he heard the sound of a crying child. He turned around and began walking towards the sounds of the crying.

"Hello? is anyone there? are you ok?" Danny called out as he tried to search for the child.

He rapidly spun around as he heard the sounds of sniffles right over his shoulder. His heart stopped as he saw where the sound of he crying was coming from.

"Ellie...?" he called out softly, walking slowly towards her. There, Ellie lay, curled up in a ball on the ground, crying.

Danny knelt next to Ellie slowly. "Ellie...?" he called out again, reaching out to touch her shoulder carefully, rolling her onto her back.

His breath hitched at what he saw, tears beginnig to fill his eyes. There, on the cold, dirty ground, laid his beautiful baby girl who was all cut open, bleeding green all over the ground.

"Oh my ancients..." Danny said under his breath as tears streamed down his face. He desperately pulled her into his arms, clutching at her prone form tightly.

He couldn't hear the crying anymore, oh ancients he couldn't hear the crying anymore. Why wasn't she crying anymore?!?!

"Ellie?! come on babygirl, open those eyes for me, " Danny cried hysterically, "please, little Ploaris, you can have anything you want, just open those eyes for me."

Danny hugged Ellie close to his chest as he decended into incomprehensible sobs. He had failed her, and he had failed his precious daughter.

He was never going to hear her call him Mama again. He was never going to get to go stargazing with her again. He was never going to get to watch her grow up. He was a terrible parent, what kind of parent fails their child so badly?

Danny scratches and tugs at the offending limbs as he's pulled further and further away from Ellie, desprately struggling to crawl his way back to her.

"Please..." he cries after unlatching from the person's arm, "I can't leave her." He thinks that the person says something, but his hearings muffled. He can't make out what they're saying.

"NOOOOO!" He screams as he's pulled out of the view of Ellie's body, he starts struggling more despreately, uncaring for any harm he might cause himself or the person currently dragging him. His lungs felt like they were on fire and his throat felt like he had swallowed nails with how much he screamed.

Eventually, his screaming stopped, and he just broke down into gut-wrenching sobs. He could hear new voices talking around him, but he couldn't bring himself to listen, his babygirl was gone. What did it matter what happened to him.

He felt himself being lowered into a sitting position, and the person that had been dragging him settled beside him. The voices around him seemed to talk a little more before there was a lull in the supposed conversation. The person next to him shifted a bit, and then he felt a sharp prick in his neck.

As the seconds ticked by, he could feel his head begin to get clearer, and the events of this morning slowly began to come back to him. He wiped the remaining tears from his eyes with the back of his hands. They were shaking slightly.

As he looked around, he came to realise he was sitting in the back of an ambulance. He felt relief course through his bones as the events of this morning made themselves clearer to him. His baby girl was fine... she was probably fine.

He should call Ellie and make sure she is actually ok. She's supposed to be in Egypt right now. She hadn't missed any of her weekly check-ins with him or Vlad as far as hes aware of. Jazz had just gone out to visit her as well, and she had told him that she seemed perfectly fine.

So he's sure Ellie isn't actually hurt and that it was all just a hallucation caused by the fear gas, but he'd still feel better if he got confirmation from Ellie herself.

He fumbled around his pockets for his phone, though he was stopped by the paramedic next to him. "Hey, sir, can you hear me now?"

Danny turned his attention to the paramedic before nodding his head. "Yeah, I uh, I can hear you."

"That's good, you seem more aware, at least. You were really out of it for a second there." The paramedic laughs.

"I gotta," Danny swallows, "I gotta call my daughter."

The paramedic looks at Danny understandingly, "You can, in a minute, sir, but I wanna take you on if you're alright with that. You got yourself pretty beat up on your way over here."

Danny looks down at his arms at the paramedic's words and yikes. It looks like he's been in a car accident or something.

"I think you might need stitches, and I want to make sure you haven't broken anything. It wouldn't surprise me if you ended up breaking pr fracturing something with how desperately you were struggling there."

Danny nods his head, "Yeah, yeah, OK. Can I call my daughter on the way there?"

The paramedic agrees and loads Danny up in the van before they start on their way to the hospital. While on the way, Danny fished his phone from his pocket and called Ellie.

The call he had with Ellie was short, but it helped soothed his fears. She was fine, still in Egypt with Jazz. He had Ellie put Jazz on the phone, and he filled her in on what had happened. She had promised that she would bring Ellie to visit him, and he told her he was looking forward to it.

By the time they had all shared their goodbyes and hung up, he was already being escorted into the hospital. Not soon after his arms were stitched up by a nurse, and he had his vitals taken.

Apparently, both the paramedic and the nurse were worried about the level of fear toxin still in his bloodstream. If he had to hazard a guess, he'd say that the fear toxins were reacting negatively to the ecto already coursing through his veins.

The nurse wanted to keep him for a few hours while they waited for the levels to go down. With the meta rights act now extending to those who carry ectoplasm in their veins, he saw no reason to disagree.

He was set up in a room and had an IV inserted into his arm. Every now and then, a nurse would come round, check his vitals and the IV, and then leave again.

He was staring out of the window boredly before perking up at the sound of the door opening. It was too early to be the nurse, so who was it? When he turned his head to look, he saw Ellie and Jazz standing behind her.

"Ellie!" He exclaimed excitedly, opening his arms up for her.

Ellie, not one to disappoint, she ran straight into his arms, "Mama!"

"Hi, sweetheart." Danny squeezed her close, "how was Egypt?"

Ellie pulled away slightly so that she could see Danny better, "it was fun, I met a lot of cool people and saw a lot of cool things. Then, when Auntie Jazz came to visit, I showed them to her too!"

"Yeah? I'm glad you had a good time." He was glad that she enjoyed travelling in Egypt, though he was hopeful that she might spend a few weeks here with him.

He knew that her obsession was travelling, and he would never dare dream of depriving her of it, but he still couldn't help but miss her whenever she set off for a new adventure.

Jazz shot him a knowing look before speaking up, "I'm gonna pop down to the cafe and pick up a coffee. Do you want anything?"

"A coffee would be nice, thanks Jazz." He shot her an appreciative smile.

"Oh, a milkshake, please, Auntie Jazz." Ellie grinned in Jazz's direction.

Jazz shook her head and laughed before leaving him and Ellie alone. Him and Ellie talked about everything and nothing whilst Jazz was gone, and his heart felt a little lighter after Ellie confirmed that she was going to stay with Danny for a few weeks.

Danny Phantom master list