#danielle martha fenton who wears her granny mae's pearls. Grandma Knight. Of whom she gets her middle name. her momma's momma

[starry-bi-sky]

It's 10PM.

It's 10PM and Danny is fourteen, standing in the bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror. There are stitches in her side and a vice grip on the sink ledge, her fingers are stained a dried red. She was fixing the stitching. Her back is bruised -- as is many places -- and her throat is sore from a power she didn't know she could use -- until today, that is.

She's fourteen. It's 10PM.

Her family was supposed to die today. They would've, if not for Clockwork and his kindness. She can't get the choking smell of ash and dust and burning gas out of her nose.

Her family should be dead. They're not. They're alive.

So why can't she get the rock out of her stomach, the urge to vomit out of her throat?

Danny didn't save her family. Clockwork did.

She can't get the sound of that other her out of her head. The cold laughter out of her ears. That woman wasn't Danny, and yet she was wearing her face. Both living and dead, she was wearing her face.

She drags a hand through her hair, and then down her face. Her hair is gross. Dirty with grime and oil and sweat, it plasters to her head, it itches the back of her ears, it prickles the nape of her neck.

That other her had long hair like her. Long and flowing and white fire. White hair and blood red eyes. Her face, matured, staring back at her. Danny doesn't know what her name is, she never asked. She's been calling that other her 'Me' in her head.

It's not her, but that Me is a part of her. So it's just as worse.

Danny didn't save her family; Clockwork did. Her hands are shaking, her legs are shivering. There was no control today. Everything felt like a moving train -- fast, unstoppable, speeding down one track and by the time you hit the brakes, it's too late. Someone's already been hit.

Danny Fenton should've begun her downward spiral today. Her downward spiral into villainy. She didn't. Because of Clockwork. Only because of Clockwork.

He was the one that showed her the future. Hew as the one that saved her family. Not Danny.

Jazz says when someone feels like their life is out of control, they tend to make desperate changes to themselves in order to feel like they regain it.

She reaches for the scissors.

They're thin, not meant for hair. For thread. It's from the first aid kit.

She grabs them anyways, and grabs a fistful of hair.

There's no thought behind it, just numbness all over. Numbness, and an icy fear. It doesn't all cut in one fell swoop; she has to saw, just a little bit.

Her eyes never leave the mirror. Blue eyes stare back at her, blue eyes she's been steadily becoming unable to recognize. In the end, she's holding a chunk of her once-long hair in her hands, a thousand-yard stare staring back at her, and with an uneven haircut that tickles her neck.

Her vision stings. Her throat grows thick and ugly. Tears bleed into her eyes. A whine, a wail, swells in the back of her mouth, and pins itself between her tongue and the roof of her mouth.

Mom and Dad sleep, safe in their beds. Jazz is asleep, safe, in her bed.

She drops the hair in her hands and lets it scatter across the floor, she drops the scissors and it clunks clumsily, loudly against the floor. She's half afraid that it'll wake them all up. But no one stirs.

She reaches forward, grips her fingers against the ledge of the mirror, and opens it to reveal the cabinet behind it. Finally, her reflection won't look at her.

Turning numbly to pick up the scattered first aid kit across the floor. There is a grief is lodged between the climbing bars of her ribs, stuck like a pebble in between the grooves of a shoe.

She cleans up the bathroom silently. She wipes the blood off the tile and puts the first aid kit back where it belongs, and gathers up the discarded hair to throw away.

She mourns the whole time, flinging the tears from her lashes with every blink. In the end, she half limps over to the door. Her fingers linger over the light switch.

Bye-bye, Danny, she thinks. She doesn't turn around to look at the mirror.

If that is who Danny becomes, Martha simply won't be her anymore.

She turns the light off, and doesn't look back.