radiology
for @dekalko-mania and @dragonsdomain
Danny looked down at his arm and leg, then up at the ER desk, then over to his mother, sitting next to him, who had witnessed the car ‘clipping’ him. Unknown to her, it had done quite a bit more than clip him. Anyone else, and the driver’d have a vehicular homicide charge on his hands, not just a hit and run.
If she hadn’t been watching– If he’d seen the car–
Well, then he wouldn’t be in this mess, would he? He would’ve dodged, or gone intangible, or just hidden the injuries he did get until they cleared up. Just like he’d hidden all the other injuries he’d gotten that week.
Although, he could admit that these were pretty bad, all things considered. Worse than he usually got, which was incredible, considering he’d gotten it from something as banal as a car accident.
Less banal were the other injuries he was sporting. Like, new broken bones and bruises? That’s what he was supposed to have. That’s what was normal to have after a car accident.
Old broken bones and bruises… He definitely still had the ones from being hit by the car, but they just as definitely had started healing already, faster than a normal human’s ever could. So had the broken bones and bruises he’d gotten earlier in the week after a particularly nasty fight with Aragon, the bites from the ghost bear, the stab wound from an anti-ghost knife (thanks Valerie)... But they were still there. Those would be harder to explain. If he even could explain them.
He needed to figure out how to hide all of this. Like, obviously, he couldn’t hide everything. He had been hit by a car, and, more importantly, he’d been seen getting hit by a car. But the weirder stuff? He could do that.
“Fentons?” called the receptionist. “They’re ready with the x-ray.”
“He’s going to need a wheelchair,” said Maddie.
They got him a wheelchair, despite his protests that he could still walk, and wheeled him over to radiology. He eyed the x-ray machine with trepidation and distaste. It didn’t look like much, not compared to some of the machines he’d been in, but that didn’t mean it didn’t have the power to destroy his life. Metaphorically. Probably couldn’t do it literally. Probably.
A woman leaned into the room. “Mrs. Fenton, we have a question about your insurance.”
“Right, okay, I’ll be right back, sweetie.”
“Don’t worry,” said the radiologist, who was adjusting something on her computer. “We’d actually ask you to leave the room while we did this anyway. No reason to irradiate you today.”
“My jumpsuit would–”
“Mrs. Fenton, the insurance.”
“Yes, yes,” said Maddie, she walked out, leaving Danny behind with the radiologist and the nurse that had helped them back here.
The nurse helped the doctor make sure he was arranged properly for the x-ray, each limb in place, while the radiologist took a series of images. Then he got him back into the wheelchair.
“Thanks David, I think we’ll be okay here for now, if you need to get back to the ER. I’ll call Molly when Mr. Fenton’s ready to get his bones set.”
“Alright,” said the nurse, nodding. “You’ll be in good hands, kid, Molly’s great.”
That left Danny alone with the radiologist, who was clicking through Danny’s x-rays on her computer and rapidly paling. With a flash, he went ghost and phased into the radiologist.
He didn’t like overshadowing people very much anymore. It had been fun at first, getting to be someone else. Like playing a part. But being the part, being puppeted… That was a lot less fun, and once Danny realized that, he stopped, except for when it was going to save a life. Or his secret. Which was pretty much his life.
He stared at the computer screen. Overshadowing someone didn’t mean that he knew what they knew. Not really. But he did get echoes. Impressions. Bits of emotion. Sometimes, he even got a snippet of something they knew so well that it was basically muscle memory. So, he knew his x-rays were screwed up, but not in what way, except–
Oh, yeah. That would do it. That was probably it, anyway. He’d forgotten that he’d phased the thermos into his stomach to hide it, earlier. Along with a couple pencils, a spoon, and various other small objects. That was probably also related to why his liver felt so bruised… He hadn’t realized it’d show up in x-ray even though it was intangible, but then, Danny was still visible while intangible, unless he went invisible at the same time, so… Yeah… Huh, the physics behind that had to be wild.
But that wasn’t relevant right now. He was hurt enough that he didn’t think he could hold onto the radiologist for more than a few minutes longer. She wasn’t really fighting him, but she had a strong sense of self.
However… he deleted all his x-rays. That was step one. Now, she had to have, like, spares or something. Something he could substitute in for the images he’d just deleted. He minimized the window and started looking through the radiologist’s files. The spares might not have bones broken in the same places… or even broken bones at all, but that was fine. People got lucky in accidents all the time. He could play it off as the car not hitting him that hard. Or something.
Panic and aching pain may have disrupted his thought processes just a little bit.
Finally, he found something labeled EXAMPLE 20XX. That’d work. That was over ten years ago, for all that it looked like the right file type for the x-ray program, so hopefully the radiologist wouldn’t recognize it.
He loaded the pictures up and fled the radiologist’s body. Just in time, too. As the radiologist was orienting herself, Maddie came back in, a scowl on her face. However, the scowl quickly turned into naked worry when she saw Danny.
“Were you able to take his pictures already?”
“Yes, we have a new fast imager. But these are…” She trailed off, examining the screen intensely.
“Is something wrong?” asked Maddie.
“Well,” said the radiologist, “come look.”
Maddie crossed the distance between Danny and the radiologist. “Oh, thank goodness, I don’t see any breaks.”
“And that would be good, if these were his bones.”
“They’re not?”
“Not unless he’s a thirty-five year old woman,” she said. “Sorry, this is my sample set. It shouldn’t be connected to his– Nothing like this has happened before. I didn’t even have my samples open.”
“Could the undo button help?” asked Maddie.
“I mean, if they were in here at all, maybe,” said the radiologist.
Tucker was going to kill him for not restarting that program. And the computer. And emptying the ‘trash’ bin. And probably a dozen other things that would have prevented from the radiologist and his mother being able to restore everything with a few clicks of an ‘undo’ button.
“Oh, here they are, they’re…” She started losing color again. “Mrs. Fenton, do you have any idea what this… what these things are? Or how he could have… Dear lord, I think these are more break than bone.”
Maddie turned to Danny. Her stance looked casual, but Danny knew she could whip out a gun faster than you could blink.
“Danny,” she said, “can you explain any of this?”
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