Chapter Text
Gwyn’s breathing gradually slowed while in her father’s embrace. The wall she had created slowly disappeared. The others were hesitant to approach until Frostbite motioned that it was okay. As they all settled around the examination table, Gwyn turned to sit facing everyone. Picking at the fur on her tail.
“Feeling any better?” Danny hopped up on the table to sit next to her.
“I don’t feel as sore anymore.” Gwyn’s voice was still rather raspy. “And, I think my fever’s gone…at least enough to where I can use my ice again.”
“Yeah, we might have noticed that.” Tucker let out a small chuckle.
Gwyn’s fingers picked at her fur faster. “Sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Sam assured.
“You felt like everything was out of your control, so you did something to take the control back,” Jazz surmised, standing next to her brother.
“Don’t pick at your fur, Gwyneira,” Frostbite gently admonished, making Gwyn let go of her tail altogether.
“Sorry, dad.” Gwyn started fiddling with the broach holding her short cape on instead.
“Gwyn, we’re sorry for causing you such distress after everything.” Mrs. Fenton stayed toward the back of the group.
Mr. Fenton nodded, resting a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “That’s right, we didn’t want to give you a shot, but that was the only way for the antidote to work.”
“I-It’s fine.” Gwyn lamely waved them off. “I…I have to get over my fear somehow. Avoiding it is probably only making it worse…”
“It just takes a small step at a time. There is no rush,” Frostbite assured.
“Yeah, small, microscopic steps,” Gwyn mumbled.
The Fenton parents slowly and gently began to take Gwyn’s vitals. They periodically checked with Frostbite to be sure she wasn’t having any negative reactions to the antidote. Once they were certain she was recovering, they went to file all of their notes away and clean-up from where they had to synthesize the medicine.
“Can I go home now?” Gwyn practically whispered.
Frostbite shook his head. His shoulders seemed to droop slightly. “I am sorry, Dear One. But it is still safer if you stay here until she is captured.”
“It clearly isn’t.” Gwyn’s fur puffed up slightly as she turned to face her father. “She can find me now. She won’t-she won’t stop until-at least at home-”
“She does not know how powerful the Great One truly is. She only did enough research to know where to find you, and with all of their defensive measures, I still believe this is the best course of action.They can keep you safer than I can, my Epiphany.” Frostbite tried to smooth down Gwyn’s fur, with little success.
Gwyn floated up to be eye level with him. “Don’t lie to me. This is just so I’m forced to ‘get in touch with my humanity’!”
“To fully understand and accept yourself, you must embrace both sides,” Frostbite sagely stated. “As Chillbane has stated before, this will help you in the long run.”
Gwyn opened her mouth to refute her father, but Danny cut her off before she could even start.
“It’s not that bad here, is it?” Danny asked from his seat on top of the table.
“In just the two weeks that I’ve been here, I’ve outed your secret to Tucker’s and your parents. I’ve been attacked by multiple ghosts. And the one ghost I was hiding from has found me and tried to kill me.” Gwyn glared down at him.
“So the worst-case scenario has already happened,” Tucker conceded. “You’re still alive, and we know how to better help you if it happens again. I know that doesn’t change how you feel, but now you know we’ll have your back just like the Far Frozen do.”
“But-” Gwyn started.
“And the best combat training is in battle anyway.” Danny cut her off.
Mrs. Fenton gave Danny one of her mom looks. “Young man, you are all getting actual combat training from me from now on. You’re not ever going in without being prepared again.”
“That’s right, son. You can’t just keep flying by the seat of your pants,” Mr. Fenton added firmly.
“I have two years of experience fighting ghosts. I beat Pariah Dark, didn’t I?” Danny looked slightly offended.
“They have a point, little brother.” Jazz put her hands on her hips. “A lot of the time, you only just win by the skin of your teeth. Half the time Sam, Tucker, and I have to bail you out somehow because you have yourself backed into a corner due to improper planning.”
“Fine, we’ll do the training thing. But only if Gwyn stays,” Danny huffed.
“You’re doing it no matter what,” Mrs. Fenton corrected.
Frostbite put a gentle hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “This is why you will be safer here. These people are as much your support system as I am, Dear One. With their help, you can get stronger than when you were isolating yourself in the Far Frozen.”
“I wasn’t isolating myself. I went out and talked to other Far Frozen.” Gwyn crossed her arms over her chest.
“Gwyneira, you know that I am right. No one in the Ghost Zone outside of our people knows you. Here, you can have a bigger circle of friends,” Frostbite said.
“...but I miss you. I miss home.” Gwyn kept her voice low so only her father could hear her.
“And I miss you as well. But as I said earlier, this is for the best. It will not be forever. Just for now.” Frostbite offered her a small smile.
Gwyn looked back at Danny and the others before sighing. “It’s not like I can do anything about it anyway. You’d just bring me back if I ran back home. And…I’m not sure I can fly that far right now…”
“So, you’re staying then?” Sam asked.
“Yeah. I’m staying. But only because I can’t outrun dad right now.” Gwyn landed back on the examination table, her arms still crossed.
Frostbite gently patted her shoulder. “You have yet to outrun me, Dear One.”
“Then we’ll see about starting our training once you’ve fully recovered,” Mrs. Fenton stated.
Tucker gently elbowed Gwyn. “And you thought you’d gotten out of P.E.”
“Keep laughing. You have to exercise twice as much now,” Gwyn reminded.
“I will stay for a bit longer if that is alright.” Frostbite informed the Fenton parents, “just to be sure that my Epiphany is healing properly.”
“Of course, Frostbite. Anyone who’s helped our Danny is welcome any time. Besides, it would be nice to go over some of our theories with a real ghost and rework some of our inventions. We don’t want them to hurt Danny anymore than they already have.” Mr. Fenton’s face brightened at the prospect.
"I'm already tired." Gwyn watched as the adults started going over notes across the room. She sank back down until she was sitting once more.
"That's what happens when you almost die." Danny waved her off. "You'll get used to it."
"Um, no thanks. I've had plenty of that. I'm good." Gwyn shook her head.
As the adults continued their discussion, the teens took Gwyn to her room. Her legs were still pretty stiff, but she refused to let them baby her. It was far more comfortable on her bed, anyway. And it didn’t smell like a hospital filled with rotten citrus.
“So…this is the third form you were talking about earlier?” Sam surmised once they were all comfortable.
Gwyn nodded, sitting criss crossed on the bed.
“I don’t see why you didn’t want to show us. You look like any other Far Frozen. Just a little shorter.” Tucker sat on the bench at the end of the bed.
Gwyn’s fur stood up a little. “I’m not short. I’m the perfect height that I need to be at this particular moment in my life.”
“Fair enough, but he’s right,” Jazz stated. “Why were you so worried about showing us?”
“...the last time a human saw me like this was when I was six. My-my mom was screaming at my dad that I couldn’t live with her on earth because…because I looked like a monster. They didn’t know I was there. I was supposed to be in bed.” Gwyn went to pick at her tail but stopped halfway and ran her fingers across her broach instead.
“But you know us. We’ve seen way worse. We would never judge you on your appearance like that.” Sam sat a little straighter on the floor next to Danny.
“I know it was stupid. I know a lot of what I do is illogical and dumb. I just-I can’t help it. I was scared. Once you hear someone call you a monster…it’s hard to shake.” Gwyn’s shoulders started to curl inward.
“I understand how that feels,” Danny said.
Everyone turned their gaze on the black-haired ghost hero.
“That’s exactly how I felt about telling my parents about my ghost powers.” Danny leaned back on his hands. “There’s no logical reason why your head tells you it would be better to keep it to yourself, but it still does.”
Jazz rolled the desk chair a little closer to the group. “Emotions aren’t logical. That’s why they always clash.”
“So, Dr. Lora-that woman called you a monster and that’s why you’ve been doing something that hurts you? Just to look like how she wanted you to?” Tucker had noticed the slight flinch Gwyn had at the name and adjusted.
“I was little and just wanted to make her happy. I-I didn’t know it was-was a bad thing to do to myself,” Gwyn shrugged.
“Why not just use your human and this form? Stop using the in-between altogether. Wouldn’t that get rid of your attacks?” Sam wondered.
“No, once a form is made, it doesn’t just disappear. That’s the trouble with making such a drastic change of appearance for a half-ghost,” Gwyn explained. “It’s just as much me as this form and my human form. I’m stuck with it and my attacks.”
“Which, again, you will be telling me about as soon as they happen,” Tucker reminded.
Gwyn flopped back to lie on the bed. “I know; I know.”
“Good, because I will pester you about it if you don’t,” Tucker added.
Sam and Tucker promised to bring any make-up work from school before they had to leave. It was a fair assumption that Gwyn would miss school for a few days. Frostbite could only stay for so long.
It took two days for Gwyn to give up on convincing her father to take her back to the Far Frozen. It hadn’t helped that she had to lay down after she changed to her human form. So it was back to school. Her joints were still stiff, and her legs refused to let her walk with anything more than the grace of a newborn deer. It was a week before she got any semblance of grace and poise back. By then, she was even able to help from the sidelines when a ghost snake decided to wreck the football field. She even got to see Dash freak out when the snake got a little too close to him. That was funny. Plus, they hadn’t ended up in the nurse’s office. Maybe she could deal with being on Earth a little longer. Just so she could get to know Danny and his friends better.