Negative Feedback (Danny Phantom Fic)

Chapter 38

Riding piggyback on Dude, Camry squeezed his arm and leaned over to speak softly in his ear. "Don't worry, Dude. We'll find your mom and sister soon." 

He answered with a weak smile and a gentle squeeze of her shin for good measure. "Lo sé..."

Rain pattered on the rooftops and sidewalks, sprinkling over the heads of everyone unlucky enough to be caught without something to cover themselves with. It had yet to grow into a steady downpour, but only time would tell if the winter weather would allow for that. As Dude and Saoirse struggled to weave around and through all the people still trying to process everything that had just happened, Camry kept her head held high and her eyes peeled for anyone she might be able to recognize. 'Now I just wish I'd met Dude's mom and sister before so I'd know their faces...' she thought as they drew closer to Delta Pin.

It was a good thing no one took notice of or commented on the fact that Camry was the only 'survivor' to come out of the Crom ordeal without looking like she'd been frozen in time. By the way she kept having to fix her bangs every time they fell into her eyes, it should have been obvious, but another small miracle must have been granted. After everything that had happened in the last few months, maybe a few small miracles were in order.

"Can you believe a ghost did all this?"

"Ghosts aren't real. Are you kidding me? Maybe the government did something as an experiment."

"I dunno, man..."

Everyone seemed to be going down their own paths of reasoning to hash out the cause of their rather impromptu imprisonment-- and subsequent release. 'If only they knew the truth' Cam had to think as a vice of guilt gripped her heart. 'None of this would have happened if I hadn't opened the stupid oven door in the first place.'

Their going was unbearably slow, and after a few minutes of trying not to push or shove too much the trio stepped off to the side of the street and found themselves standing in the mouth of an alleyway. They had only managed to move about half of a block down the road, which meant they still had a long way to go to reach Delta Pin. Judging by the despairing look on Saoirse's face, she was not looking forward to facing her mother's wrath from having run off without saying where she was going. 

She reached into her back pocket and pulled out her phone, which was predictably dead after her dive into the lake. "Mum's gonna kill me... And I can't call her or tell her where I am, either." Saoirse leaned back against the brick wall that made up one side of the alley and uselessly pressed the home button on her smartphone over and over. 

Camry slid down from Dude's back to give him a little rest, and she stood on tip toes with ease to avoid stepping on anything sharp or pointy. Dude let out a sigh and thanked her for the break before turning back around to gaze out over the sea of people. He wasn't exactly the tallest boy in the world, so his vantage point didn't do much good. 

"¿Mijo?"

To Saoirse and Camry's confusion, Dude let out one of the loudest gasps either girl had ever heard and swerved to look down the road. His black opal eyes were shiny with relief and hope as he exclaimed, "¡Mamá!" at the top of his lungs and ran toward a woman who was only a few inches taller than he was. Her wavy hair was long and dark, thrown up into a bun that had started to fall apart, and she wore a long-sleeved pajama top with frayed sleep pants that didn't match. Behind her, a girl the same age as Dude beamed at her brother reuniting with them at long last. 

"¡Mijito, estás a salvo!" she cried, enveloping him in a bear hug and cupping the back of his head securely. The rest of her Spanish was too hurried to quite catch in its entirety, but her words didn't need to be understood in order to realize her feelings. Dude hugged back energetically, reassuring her that he was fine and that he was so happy to see her again in the same tongue. Understandable tears were shed unabashedly.