Chapter Text
The siren was still ringing in Valoren's ears when she killed the engine.
For a second she just sat there, fingers curled around the steering wheel of the ambulance, watching the condensation fade from the inside of the windshield. Her hands ached. Her shoulders ached. Her eyelashes ached.
"Dawson, you good?" her partner called from the back. He was finishing the last of the wipe-down, the sharp bite of disinfectant leaking forward.
"Yeah," she lied, dragging a hand down her face. "Gonna walk it off at home. See you tomorrow, Carl."
"Tomorrow's your day off," he reminded her.
She huffed a humorless little laugh and reached for her thermos. "Sure. That's what the schedule says."
He snorted, because they both knew she'd pick up a part-time mechanic shift if anyone texted. She always did.
The back doors thumped shut. The station lights glowed steady and soft in the mirror. Across the dark stretch of Amity Park, the weirdly-shaped outline of FentonWorks poked up over the neighborhood roofs like a rejected cartoon cityscape-rounded tower, neon sign, satellite dishes, and the ghost-shaped RV parked crookedly in the driveway.
Home was the two-story brick house right next door to the madness. Normal. Boring. Her front step was exactly thirteen paces from their property line; she knew because she'd counted them, late one jittery night.
She tugged her jacket tighter, grabbed her go-bag and keys, and stepped out into the cool air.
It was late enough that the street was quiet. A few porch lights. A dog barking far off. The sky was a dull, Amity Park gray-black; light pollution smeared over the stars. She wished she had the energy to drive an hour out and find real darkness, real constellations. Instead, she adjusted her grip on the bag and started toward home.
She got as far as the curb.
A muffled whump rolled across the neighborhood, followed by a bright green flash and a boom that slapped against her chest.
Valoren flinched automatically, ducking a little-not quite a flinch, more of a combat-ready crouch that never fully left her muscles. Instinct. Heart already kicking up. Her eyes snapped to the source.
FentonWorks.
Of course.
From the stylized ghost sign, vivid neon green spilled across the night as the ground rumbled. A few loose shingles clattered down the slope of their roof. The whole top of the building puffed out a ring of smoke like the world's most irresponsible chimney.
"...You've got to be kidding me," she muttered.
Her first impulse was to go for her radio, but she'd already clocked out and switched it off. Besides, the Fentons never called 911. Either they had a handle on it, or they'd be on their own roof with a net and a bazooka and calling it Tuesday.
She took a breath, checked up and down the street (no fire, no other explosions, no visible debris raining hell), and then hurried up her own driveway, boots thudding. Light blue denim, layered shirts, black work boots with faint lavender accents-she'd changed between calls in a quick bathroom pit stop, but she still smelled like hospital air.
Her porch light flicked on as she approached. She thumbed the key, muscle memory. That was when she heard the side door of FentonWorks slam open.
"-I'm fine, Mom! Really!"
Valoren paused, key halfway in the lock, and turned.
The Fenton lab door-halfway hidden along the side of their house under a crooked metal awning-banged against the brick as it swung. Danny Fenton staggered out, one hand gripping the frame, the other pressed against his upper arm.
He was pale. Not normal teenage-just-fried-his-brain-on-homework pale. His lips had a bluish tilt. His breath puffed in short, visible clouds, and it wasn't that cold out. Static made the ends of his hair float just a bit. Tiny arcs danced along his fingers where they brushed the metal doorframe.
Her medic brain woke up with a snap.
"Danny?" she called, already moving before she'd made a conscious decision. "You good, kiddo?"
He jerked toward her voice, eyes wide. For a second he looked wrong-too bright, neon green reflections caught in his pupils from the sign overhead-but then he blinked, and they were just blue, big and startled.
"O-Oh, hey, Val," he stammered. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm, um. Totally fine."
The lie sat there, thin and obvious.
Up close, she could see his shoulders shaking. Not adrenaline-shaking. Cold-shaking. His skin had that weird, waxy look she hated seeing in the back of her rig.
She closed the distance in three strides.
"Uh-huh. And I'm the Queen of England. Sit," she ordered, nodding toward her porch steps. "You're white as printer paper."
"I-" He glanced back toward the door, where she could hear Maddie Fenton still yelling something about "stable ecto-signatures" and "just a little singeing."
He clearly weighed the options: go back inside with the mad scientists, or sit down for a minute with the neighbor who sometimes gave him coffee and rides.
He sat.
"Did something blow up in your face?" Valoren asked, dropping her bag and crouching beside him. Her knees protested. She ignored them. "On a scale from 'it tingles' to 'I'm definitely going to lose that limb,' where are we?"
He tried to laugh. It came out thin. "It's really not a big deal. Just... lab stuff. My parents got a new thing working. I was... helping."
Helping. Right.
She gently took the wrist of the arm he wasn't clutching. His skin was freezing. Not "cold hands" cold. Freezing. The bite of it made her flinch like she'd grabbed a metal rail in mid-winter.
"Whoa," she said softly.
Up close, there was a faint prickle against her fingers, like distant static shocks without the actual zap. It made the little hairs on her forearms stand on end, the ink of the wings wrapping her shoulders seeming to tighten.
"Do you feel that?" she asked.
Danny swallowed. "Uh. Feel what?"
"Like you've been making out with a power socket."
He gave her a weak smile. "I mean, our house is a power socket."
She snorted, because points for the joke, but her eyes tracked over his face. Pupils reactive. No obvious head wound. Breathing fast but not labored. His other sleeve, though-where his hand clutched his upper arm-had a dark smear on it.
"Show me," she said.
"It's really-"
"Daniel James Fenton." She pitched her voice into the flat, don't-argue-with-me tone she used on stubborn patients and firefighters who thought they were invincible. "Arm. Now."
He flushed. "Do you secretly have my medical file or something?"
She arched a brow.
He sighed, defeated, and pulled his hand away.
There was a tear in the long sleeve of his T-shirt, right at the bicep. Beneath it, a shallow cut had already clotted, leaving a smear of blood and something else. In the porch light, it glimmered faintly green.
Her breath caught.
Not bright. Not obvious. If she didn't spend half her life under fluorescent lighting staring at subtle color changes, she might have written it off as a trick of the eye. But there was definitely a greenish sheen at the edges of the wound, like someone had mixed glowstick fluid with the blood.
"...Huh," she said.
"It's just from the portal," Danny blurted, too fast. "Like, residue. It, uh. Stains. It'll wash off."
Portal?
She filed that away, too.
"Okay," she said slowly. "Well, even 'not a big deal' cuts get cleaned properly around here. I'm not letting you drip radioactive Mountain Dew across both our porches."
He made a face. "Ew."
"Exactly. Hold still."
She stood, grabbed her go-bag from where she'd dropped it by the door, and flipped it open one-handed. The contents were familiar comfort: gauze packs, antiseptic, gloves, tape, bandage scissors, a headlamp. She'd checked and re-checked the bag before leaving the station. Twice. Old habit. Couldn't help it.
She hummed under her breath as she worked, a tuneless little melody that settled her more than any deep-breathing exercise ever had.
"Take the sleeve up," she instructed. "Don't flex. You tear it open bigger, and I'm putting the ugly tape on it just to spite you."
"Yes, ma'am," he muttered, but he obeyed, tugging the sleeve up with care.
She snapped on gloves, cleaned around the cut with practiced, gentle motions. The antiseptic stung; he hissed air through his teeth.
"Sorry," she said automatically. "If you start seeing double, hearing colors, or tasting the alphabet, you tell me."
He snorted weakly. "Pretty sure that's not a thing."
"In my line of work? Everything's a thing."
She leaned in, squinting.
Up close, the glow was even more obvious. Like bioluminescent algae hugging the edges of a reef cut. It faded quickly as she wiped, though, bleeding into the gauze pad and leaving nothing but pink-tinged smears behind.
"Any dizziness?" she asked. "Nausea? Tingling anywhere besides the arm?"
He hesitated a fraction of a second too long. "Just... cold."
She set the used gauze aside. "You've been hanging out in your parents' fridge again?"
He laughed a little, but it came out thin. "Something like that."
She taped a clean pad over the cut, then wrapped it snug in a neat bandage. His arm was still cold under her fingers. Colder than the night air. Her breath made little puffs as she worked, joining his.
She finished the wrap, tucked the tape, and sat back on her heels. Her eyes did another quick scan-head, neck, shoulders, hands. No other obvious injuries. Her brain still pinged with that weird, wrong feeling, like a puzzle with pieces forced in where they didn't quite fit.
"You are," she declared, "officially patched."
He flexed his fingers cautiously. "Thanks."
"You're welcome. Next time your house explodes, maybe don't volunteer as tribute, yeah?"
He smiled, but his gaze flicked back toward the lab door. "Someone's gotta keep an eye on them."
She followed his glance. Through the little basement window, green light still pulsed, and Jack Fenton's voice boomed indistinctly about core calibrations.
"I'm thinking the someone should at least have hazard pay," she said dryly.
"Think I can get that as an allowance?" he asked.
"Worth a shot."
He pushed himself to his feet a little too fast. The world tilted for him; she could see it in the way his knees almost gave, the way his hand darted out for the porch rail.
She was already half-standing, reaching to steady him.
"Hey. Easy." Her fingers wrapped around his forearm. Cold seeped through the glove. "You sure you don't want to sit another minute?"
"I'm okay," he said quickly. "Really. I just need to... lie down. I'm tired."
No kidding.
She studied his face. The static prickle had faded a little, but it was still there under her palm. The medic in her screamed that something about his physiology was wrong. Too cold, too charged, too-something.
But he was upright. Awake. Talking in complete sentences. He had that stubborn, mule-ish look she recognized-a teenager who'd bite through his own tongue before admitting he needed more help.
She'd been that kid once.
"Alright," she said finally. "But if you pass out between here and your bed, I reserve the right to tell everyone you tripped over your own socks."
He huffed a small laugh. "Deal."
"And you keep an eye on that cut," she added. "If it starts glowing on its own, I'm calling OSHA on your parents."
"Pretty sure OSHA doesn't cover ghost portals," he muttered.
Her brows went up. "Ghost what now?"
He froze.
"...Joke," he said weakly. "Just, y'know. Fenton stuff. Portal, ghost, ha-ha, get it? Because they hunt... ghosts..."
She squinted at him for a long moment.
There it was again: that off-note, that skid of something under the surface. She could feel the words she should say rising: What portal? What exactly happened down there? How long have you been freezing? Did you inhale anything? Do I need to drag you to an ER?
Instead, she heard herself exhale.
"Right. Fenton stuff." She shook her head, backing off a step. "Go inside before you turn into an actual popsicle. And if you start feeling worse-dizzy, chest pain, trouble breathing-you knock on my door. I don't care what time it is."
His eyes flicked to her tattoos where her sleeve had hitched up-a glimpse of black ink wings curling over her shoulder-and then up to her face. Something in his expression softened.
"Okay," he said quietly. "Thanks, Val."
He put a hand on the porch rail and headed for his own front door. His steps were a little slower than usual, but he didn't stumble. The Fenton door opened on a burst of light and Maddie's voice, scolding and worried all at once.
"Danny, there you are, sweetheart, the portal was only at 60% contamination-"
The door shut behind him, cutting off the rest.
Valoren stood there in the cool night, fingers drumming absently against her thigh. She could hear the distant hum of the Fentons' basement equipment, a low throb under the neighborhood quiet.
She looked down at the used gauze in her gloved hand.
In the porch light, the smear of blood and whatever-else-it-was had turned a dull brownish-red. No glow. No green. Just a stain. If she hadn't seen it shimmer, if she hadn't felt the prickle of static under her fingertips, she might've chalked it all up to exhaustion.
She wasn't that tired.
She peeled off the gloves, tucked the gauze in a bio-bag from her kit-old habits-and sealed it. Tomorrow, she'd probably end up tossing it, because there was nowhere normal she could take something like that.
Her gaze slid back to the Fenton house. A new scorch mark blackened the siding near the lab door. The ghost-shaped sign flickered once, twice, then steadied.
"Something's wrong here," she murmured to herself.
But the kid was inside, still on his feet, not coding on her porch. She had sixteen hours of work in her bones and a brain humming on caffeine and adrenaline. Pushing now would just make her the crazy neighbor, and she'd seen enough of those.
She bent, grabbed her bag, and finally unlocked her own front door.
As she stepped inside, she flicked on her porch light and left it burning, casting a small, warm circle of safety on the shared strip of concrete between her house and theirs.
Just in case.