Chapter Text
The glow of the portal casts a halo of light on the body. It’s still and immobile and burnt and Tucker can’t breathe while he looks at it. He can feel Sam next to him, shaking and crying. Or is that him? He doesn’t know and it doesn’t seem all that important who's doing what, because the only important thing was what was lying just a few feet in front of them: doing nothing but being there.
They were only going to look. That’s all there was to it.
They had gotten together at Fenton Works to play Doomed, same as any other weekend. Danny had been talking about how his parents had finished their portal, so excited for it to work, only for the thing to sputter and die. While Tucker may not have really thought anything would come of it, because as much as he likes to kick their butts in Doomed, he doesn’t think ghosts, poltergeists, and the like exist outside of fiction. Still, Tucker felt bad for them. He’s known the Drs. Fenton since he was like four, and he’s been witness to all the time and energy they've dedicated to their life’s work, same as Danny. It must have been really shitty to go the way it did. Danny mentioned how Jazz pushed them to get out of the house today before leaving for the library herself.
Then Sam went and asked if they could go see it for themselves, and really, what was the harm in it? Danny had agreed, so long as he wore his jumpsuit and that the two of them didn’t get too close, since his parents would nag about safety. And after that they all agreed it would be kind of cool if Danny went inside, because the power was off right?
They were only having fun.
But if fun was going to be described as seeing your best friend since preschool trip on a loose wire and crash into a wall, hear something click before light like a flashbang hit them and all he could hear was Danny screaming something terrible until even that stopped, then no, he had not wanted fun . But here they were anyway. And Danny’s corpse continues to exist in front of a metal-framed spinning vortex that haunts them with its overbearing presence.
What are they supposed to do now?
As though in response to his unvoiced question, he hears Sam take enough shuddering breath and wipe at her eyes before trying to speak.
“We should-should,” Another gasp and start, “We need to-to tell someone.”
That makes him pause in his tracks. It’s technically the right answer, but how? How could they tell people they killed their friend? Because that’s what they did, isn’t it? They could have not gone down, could have not encouraged Danny to step further in, could have still had his friend. In the wake of his thoughts, all he can do is nod.
Beyond the stair to the lab and from the front door, the tell tale jiggle-click and crash of the front opening travels down. The cacophonous sound of Jack Fenton barging into the house is followed by Maddie’s voice:
“Kids! We’re home!”
Sam and Tucker tense.
When the portal failed to work yesterday evening it was safe to say she and Jack were plain devastated.
The two of them had checked and double checked all of their calculations. Frame? Designed to be optimal for containment. Circuitry? All wires marked and accounted for. Energy output? As high as they could feasibly make it; tearing a hole in the fabric of reality to peer into what lies on the other side takes as much power as you can get.
And yet when the time came for the ‘big shebang!’ as her husband would put it, absolutely nothing. Jack had tried to open and close the circuit again to check if it was just a fluke, but again, nothing came of it. Looking around more brought no answers, and they were so sure of everything! Danny and Jazz had gone upstairs after the third time they had investigated the capacitors.
They had taken to moping in the aftermath of their failure. Jack had been working on his needlepoint with the most dejected look on his face and Maddie couldn’t think of anything to say to help from where she sat by him at the kitchen table. What could she say when she was feeling just as miserable? And exhausted, for that matter. While it may have been one of the reasons she married him, along with his sweetness, Maddie is well aware that she and Jack have an awful habit of feeding into each other’s energies, bouncing ideas back and forth until suddenly hours have passed with nary a pause. It’s an occurrence they’ve tried to break ever since their Jasmine was born, but it rears its head every now and again.
Like now: they had barely slept in the past three days leading up to the portal’s activation, so immersed in their work and the excitement of being so close to the finish line that a few hours of rest seemed unimportant in face of completing the biggest project of their lives.
It was Jazz who got them out of their slump; marching downstairs and telling them that they needed to take their minds off the portal for a while and go do something else, all but demanding that they leave the house.
That’s how a few hours later the two of them are back from having lunch at a restaurant and in much better spirits. Their dear Jazzypants was right on that account. The break and food had helped to clear their heads and now they’re back and ready to start again. They couldn’t forget that they were Fentons. Stubborn is their middle name and Maddie sure as hell will make sure to live up to it! Just because the portal didn’t work when they wanted it to doesn’t mean they’ve given up yet. Jack went on ahead to open the door, bounding into the house in his excitement to get back down to the lab. Maddie entered behind him shortly after.
“Kids! We’re home!”
No response, which isn’t all too concerning, but a bit odd. Jazz is old enough to drive and likes to frequent the library, but it’s a Saturday, and Danny typically invites his friends over to hang out. Maddie can’t hear the familiar sound of the three of them yelling to ‘Shoot that pinkie Sam! Quick!’. They must have gone out instead.
Walking to the kitchen Maddie sees that the lab door has been left ajar. Were they that out of it that they forgot to close it? The kids knew they weren’t supposed to be there without either Jack or her with them.
But there’s something wrong with the air. A chill that she swears she’s not imagining. All of a sudden Maddie is tense and wary. She sticks an arm out to stop her husband from walking further and meets his questioning eyes quickly with her own before turning them back to the door. She calls out louder just to check.
“Kids? Are you down there?” Still no response.
…
Something’s not right. Call it a mother’s instinct but she can feel something bad , a sense of dread sinking deep into her bones. Not heeding her own warning to stop, Maddie throws caution to the wind and marches down the stairs. Her heart seizes once she reaches the last step and can look around the corner; she gasps.
The lab is bathed in green, and in its glow she sees Sam and Tucker necks turned to look at her like deers by headlights. There are tears in their eyes and they’re kneeling in front of a prone body. It’s wearing a…jumpsuit…a white and black jumpsuit.
She recognizes that suit. Jack had been sewing it all together in their bedroom only a few months prior. Danny’s jumpsuit.
It’s charred.