Chapter Text
Artwork by ep-10, posted here!
Typically, slipping into Long Now held an edge of play that completely undermined the entire point of sneaking. The doors would always open at Danny’s touch, the lair welcoming him in. Clockwork was always clearly aware of his presence, no matter how much Danny wished otherwise.
They’d made a bit of an unspoken game out of it — Danny trying to see how far he could get before Clockwork reacted to his arrival. He felt that he’d been getting better at it lately, but Clockwork could see everything in the time stream, and Danny was part of the time stream, so…
Yeah, Clockwork knew he was coming. It didn’t stop Danny from testing how far he could get before being caught though. Surely omniscience had its limits.
The doors gaped wide when he approached. Danny turned invisible and drifted down in front of them, peering into the tower with a frown. They’d never been left open for him before, and the sight was disquieting, but he couldn’t figure out why. Had Clockwork left them open to let in some fresh air or ectoplasm?
The thought was absurd, with the handful of times that Danny had been roped into cleaning the tower’s structural gears still fresh in his memory. The tower doors were always kept closed like a case protecting the machinery within.
Discerning nothing from his investigation, Danny crept into the lair, his neck prickling. Something was definitely wrong, but the entryway was empty. He had half a mind to close the door behind him, but if Clockwork had left them open, then it would be best for Danny to leave things as they were.
He double checked the gaps in the gears that made up the walls for any peering eyes before letting out a breath that he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. The quiet movement felt loud in the stillness, and Danny finally noticed that the tower wasn’t making a sound.
The clocks… the gears… it had all stopped.
Danny took another breath, letting this one out slowly too as he fought back an initial wave of panic. Sure, this probably wasn’t good, but who knew? Maybe the tower just needed winding up or something like that. Maybe Clockwork had deliberately stopped it for maintenance of something particularly fragile, and Danny was about to be convinced to spend the afternoon holding slender tools and keeping everything clean and in order throughout the repair.
Staying invisible, he flew through the silent structure that was as much a clock as it was a building, searching for his mentor.
Several other doors were open, giving Danny glimpses of rooms thrown into disarray. He lingered at the first door, staring aghast at the small alcove where he and Clockwork had so often shared conversation over cups of extinct teas. The plush chairs had been upended, stuffing spilling out through vicious tears in the upholstery, and the ornate coffee table had been shattered into sharp splinters as long and thick as his forearm. Scorch marks littered the gears lining the room, and Danny gripped the door frame so hard his knuckles ached before moving deeper into the lair.
He paused at each door just long enough to take in the carnage and to confirm that nobody was there. The library books had been scattered, shelves partially torn from their mountings and errant pages still lightly smoking from ectoplasmic blasts. The garden had been torn and burned, and Clockwork’s workshop tools were strewn across the floor. The tiny inner workings of an antique clock scattered in a starburst from where it had been dashed against the ground.
He followed the signs of the brutal fight until a splash of ectoplasm caught his gaze, still dripping from where it had splattered against one of the larger wall cogs. Danny swallowed, his throat suddenly dry at the tangible proof that Clockwork might actually be hurt.
Voices snapped something unintelligible in the distance, and Danny followed the noise, tracking it to the thick curtains that covered the arched opening to Clockwork’s viewing chamber. The curtains had been torn from their railings, remnants hanging in tatters that were streaked with more ectoplasmic blood.
Danny phased inside, unwilling to touch the curtains in case whoever was inside noticed. The viewing screens were dark, the room eerily quiet without the tower’s typical cacophony of ticking and shifting gears, and anger bubbled icy cold into his blood as he recognised the ghosts in the room. Clockwork was slumped on the floor, ectoplasm smeared beneath him, though Danny couldn’t see the wound from this angle. The space around him was crowded with Observants. They were gathered in a loose circle that gave Clockwork no avenue of escape.
Danny started forward, hand outstretched and ready to reveal himself violently, when Clockwork’s stern red gaze snapped to his invisible location. Despite being unable to see Danny, Clockwork gave a small shake of his head.
Danny drew his hand back, wrapping his arms around himself and suppressing the urge to make any noise of anger or concern. His continued invisibility seemed to satisfy Clockwork, whose frown melted into softness at the corners of his mouth before he turned his head away from Danny to look up at one of the ghosts circling him.
The Observants were speaking in that frustrating way of theirs, interrupting each other to take over in the middle of sentences. It was probably done to seem unified and untouchable, but Danny only ground his teeth as he tried to decipher their smattering of living and dead languages.
Clockwork stayed where he was, but adjusted his position with a small groan. “I’m the Timekeeper,” he said wearily in modern English. “It doesn’t matter what you want, the time stream must remain as it should be.”
One of the Observants tutted, curling its bony fingers over a slice on its upper arm that was slowly staining the white fabric dark green. “You were created to keep balance…” it said, matching Clockwork’s language choice.
“You will keep balance…” said another.
“We instruct, you obey,” a third intoned.
Clockwork shook his head, but the motion was weak. “We have balance already. Your goal will cause unjustified pain.”
“You will do as we say—”
“Or what?” An edge of irritation clipped his tone, and Danny bit his lip, realising that he had never heard Clockwork sound genuinely frustrated before. Exasperated, yes, but not like this.
One of the Observants tilted its giant eyeball head, the eyelid sliding into a flat position that clearly conveyed an unimpressed stare. “We wind you down,” it said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Clockwork let his head fall back onto the ground, giving off the same noncompliant message that Danny gave when he pulled the covers over his head instead of getting out of bed in the morning. It was another surprising moment, one that Danny would never have expected from his typically-graceful mentor, but the sheer cheek of it did line up with the glimpses of Clockwork’s sense of humour that Danny had begun to see over their time spent together.
“Stop the abomination,” the Observant ordered, its eyelid narrowing further. Danny’s mouth soured, his heart fluttering. Had they attacked Clockwork because of him?
“Then you’ll be without a key,” Clockwork responded, shifting in a way that made his purple cloak fall from where it had been covering him. It revealed how he clutched at a wound, bleeding through his fingers enough to have stained his entire side.
“With his absence, we would have chosen a different key…”
“...and this conversation never would have happened.”
He narrowed his eyes. “He is my protégé. You cannot touch him.”
“We will not need to if you stop him.”
Clockwork sighed, lifting his head to look at each of the Observants in turn before dropping it back down. The room was so silent that Danny held his breath, his heart beating loudly enough in his ears that he worried that they would hear it.
Clockwork closed his eyes, a pained expression flitting across his face. “Leave him to me,” he said, voice tight as he squeezed his side harder.
Apparently satisfied, the Observants broke the circle, filing silently out of the room. Danny waited, invisible and still until Clockwork looked in his direction.
“Daniel,” he said, soft and pained, and Danny went to him without a second thought.
“What’s going on?” he asked, kneeling beside him.
Clockwork pushed himself up, groaning and gripping Danny’s shoulder for support. He left glowing green streaks on the dark hazmat. “Help me up.”
Danny did his best, looping his arm around Clockwork’s back and practically dragging him off the floor. He did it as gently as he could, but Clockwork still hissed, ectoplasm dripping into the small pool below them as they hovered just above it.
“Why did they hurt you so badly?”
Clockwork nudged Danny. “A fruitless show of force. They’re afraid of losing the control that they’ve held since the dawn of our current civilisation. My bedroom, please.”
“I don’t know where that is.” Danny pressed harder against Clockwork’s uninjured side, holding him more securely. “They’re scared of losing control over you? I thought they were talking about me.”
Clockwork nudged him again. “Left, down the hallway. There’s a staircase behind a grandfather clock.”
Danny nodded, supporting Clockwork in the indicated direction. He’d never noticed the staircase before, but then again, the lair was big and complicated, and it was Clockwork’s. If Clockwork didn’t want Danny to find something, then he never would. It was how lairs worked, or how they were supposed to work anyway, shielding their ghost from harm.
“The Observants really must have control over you, if they can come in here and hurt you like this. Did they take anything?”
Clockwork sighed as Danny practically carried him through the torn curtains and down the hallway. “My key,” he admitted. “It is not the first time they have taken it. They wish to threaten me with powering down, and will not return it until I have satisfied their demands.”
“You have a key?” Danny asked, the conversation he’d witnessed starting to make a little more sense.
Clockwork nodded down towards his chest, keeping one arm around Danny’s shoulders and the other pressed against the largest wound in his side. “Have you never looked at my case?”
“Well, yeah, but I thought the keyhole was like, ornamental or something. You having an actual key is just so…” He trailed off, not wanting to voice the word at the tip of his tongue and knowing it was futile anyway. Somewhere, in one timeline or another, he did say it, and Clockwork would know.
“Unlike you, I do not recall ever being human, if I was one to begin with,” Clockwork gently explained. “Calling me inhuman is not inaccurate.”
“Sorry,” Danny mumbled. “It still feels rude.”
They drew abreast with the grandfather clock. As indicated, there was a narrow staircase tucked behind it, only obvious now that Danny knew to look for it. Even though he now knew where it was, he doubted he would be able to find it again if Clockwork did not wish it.
It was almost too narrow for both of them to go side by side, but Danny managed it by almost squishing himself against the wall so that Clockwork had more space. The silence of the tower’s mechanisms was even more apparent in this cramped space as Danny flew them both up the stairs.
The flight wasn’t very long, and the staircase ended in a plain wooden door. “Don’t phase,” Clockwork instructed, reaching out the hand from his side and pressing it against the wood when Danny drew them close enough.
The door opened at the touch, whisper-quiet and with a clear handprint of green ectoplasm left on its surface. Danny guided Clockwork into a light-drenched living space that left him blinking in surprise.
The light was reminiscent of sunlight, however impossible that would be in the Ghost Zone. It streamed through open windows, beyond which Danny could clearly glimpse a sky crisscrossed with the lines typically seen on star charts. Double French doors were also open, leading to a balcony with a telescope just visible at the edge of his limited view.
The interior space held an air of foreign luxury, with polished wooden floors and furniture with metallic fittings that seemed to stem from different moments in history. Cushions were gathered in one corner by a low table, a blend of blues and golds embroidered on them in swirling patterns that complimented the solar system painted on the blue domed ceiling.
“Thought you’d be more of a purple decor kind of guy,” Danny said, trying to keep his tone light as Clockwork sagged more heavily against him and ectoplasm dripped onto the floor.
“The heavens were the first timepieces.” His voice was softer than Danny had expected, weaker and maybe even a bit hoarse. “The cushions, please.”
Danny led him to the cushions, noticing that the floor beneath them was covered in a thick woven rug with more beautiful patterns. Possibly Persian, but he might only be thinking that because Vlad had been complaining about ruined Persian rugs after a recent fight.
Clockwork settled into the cushions with a groan, lying across them and closing his eyes. “Thank you, Daniel.”
Danny hovered over him, both metaphorically and very much physically. “Will you be okay?”
Clockwork looked so frail lying there bleeding onto the beautiful cushions, and for the first time ever, Danny was struck with the sudden terrifying realisation that maybe Clockwork wasn’t invincible after all.
“I’ll be fine,” he murmured without opening his eyes. “I just need rest.”
“You make me drink ectoplasm when I’m hurt enough to need your help,” Danny countered.
Clockwork smiled faintly, cracking his eyes open just enough to nod in the direction of a decanter on a polished buffet shelf against the wall. Danny immediately fetched it, removing the carved stopper — was that glass or crystal, he wondered — and tilting the vessel against Clockwork’s lips until ectoplasm slipped down its long neck and into his mouth.
He drank slowly but deeply, giving Danny the chance to look for any other serious injuries beyond the obvious. There were plenty of smaller signs of battle. Clockwork’s cloak was singed and torn, and soaked through with ectoplasm along one side. He also had the initial swelling of what was probably going to become a black eye, right where his facial scar was. There were various cuts along his body and arms as well, many deep enough to bleed significantly.
Clockwork tilted his head up, and Danny drew the decanter back and slid the stopper into place.
“Thank you.” Clockwork sank back into the pillows with a tense sigh, closing his eyes. “Leave that on the table next to me, please.”
Danny did as he was asked, lingering when Clockwork didn’t give him any further instructions. “Do… do you want me to stay?”
Clockwork pressed his lips together in that way he did when he was thinking about something. “I can’t tell you if it’s safe to leave yet,” he said after a long pause. “They could be waiting outside.”
“Hmmm. Do you think that’s why the lair’s still off?”
He shook his head, cracking his eyes open to give Danny a stern look. “You’re not able to turn it on by yourself safely. Do not try.”
“Wasn’t gonna,” Danny mumbled, although he knew that both of them were keenly aware of the lie.
“I mean it, Daniel.” Clockwork shifted with a grimace. “I need time to rest. It’s up to you how you spend it, but do not leave Long Now, and do not attempt to fix the machinery.”
“Right.” Danny looked over to the door before turning back to Clockwork. “Do you want me to stay with you?”
His eyes had already closed again. “Rest here if you like, or go and busy yourself elsewhere. Just stay in the tower until I wake.”
“Okay.” Danny glanced around the room before drifting up to examine the solar system on the ceiling more closely. What he’d thought was paint at first glance was actually an intricate mosaic out of countless tiny pieces of tile, each cut to perfectly fit together with matching dark blue grout in between. The gold planets and other celestial bodies were made out of actual gold superimposed over the tiles, and he took great pleasure in closely examining all the tiny details of each one. He didn’t know how long he looked, but it must have been a while by the time he was done because as he swept his eyes over the system one more time…
Danny leaned in closer, squinting at the tiny Jupiter. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say that the storm was in a slightly different position from before.
He opened his mouth in wonder, turning to Clockwork to excitedly ask if the planets on the ceiling were actually moving, before being dragged back to the present by the sight of him lying on those pillows. He looked so still like this, so vulnerable and hurt, and Danny drifted back down towards the floor to watch him for a moment.
He didn’t know what he was looking for, since it wasn’t as though Clockwork breathed or anything like that, but Danny realised with relief that Clockwork’s eyelids flickered in sleep, the same way a human’s did.
Satisfied that he seemed to at least not be fading, Danny wandered over to those open double doors. They had a dark, thick curtain framing them which had been drawn back to allow the sunlight to pour inside, the same as the windows interspersed evenly around the circumference of the room.
There was no breeze when Danny floated through the doors and touched down onto the balcony, and he almost laughed at himself for expecting it. This space just made it so easy to forget where he really was.
The sky was another, larger dome crisscrossed with the lines of a star chart. The representation of a sun shone brightly midway between its peak and the horizon, and Danny admired the precision of the linework before turning his attention to the telescope. He’d love to have a look through it later if Clockwork would let him, once the sky here was dark and the stars had come out. He wondered if it was actually a telescope, or a time manipulation tool of some kind.
He twisted his hands together, fighting back the urge to touch the beautiful brass instrument in case it did impact the time stream, and instead turned to investigate the rest of the balcony which wrapped around the round room until it curved out of sight.
There were more telescopes when he followed the balcony, set up at regular intervals. Each telescope has a small table set up beside it, with materials for charting and for taking notes. Fragrant plants grew here as well, with wisteria and jasmine climbing up the railing and along the stone side of the building. It was beautiful, like something out of a fairytale, and Danny wondered why Clockwork hadn't shown him this space sooner.
He pushed the thought aside, reasoning that if this was Clockwork’s private inner sanctum, he probably didn’t want people coming in here. It was a privilege for Danny to be in this space, and as he looked up at the star chart sky again, he wondered if this was the first timekeeping space that had been created for Clockwork to live in. It was so much more personal than the neat spaces in the rest of the lair, which didn’t have the same cultural influence as that of the decor here.
Satisfied with his exploration, and unable to trust himself to refrain from touching the telescopes if he stayed out here any longer, Danny returned inside. Clockwork was where he had left him, still asleep and hopefully recovering, and Danny crept to the door and slipped out into the narrow staircase.
He only intended to fetch himself something to eat from the kitchen, and maybe a fresh supply of ectoplasm for when Clockwork woke up, but as he flew through the lair, he was confronted with the destruction.
A younger version of himself would have flown right past it with barely a thought. However, Danny had spent a significant amount of time here over the past year or so. He was safe here, and happy, and useful. He’d learned lots of interesting things from Clockwork, and lots of good and new ways to use his powers. He felt at home in this lair, and the damage left Danny feeling as violated as he would have if the Observants had broken into his own home and torn the place apart.
He smirked at the thought of them even trying. The Fenton security system would have caused those stupid eyeballs much more trouble than it would have been worth. If a visit from them wouldn’t put his parents and sister at risk, Danny would have even been happier with them attacking his home instead of tearing Long Now apart like this.
He mulled that over, wondering if that meant he was more connected to this place than his own house, but shrugged it off. Long Now was becoming more and more like a second home to him, and he didn’t think that that was necessarily a bad thing, so long as people didn’t worry too much when he wasn’t home as often as he used to be.
He continued on in his search for something to eat. Cleanup could wait — there were lots of things in the lair that Danny wasn’t supposed to touch, and he didn’t think it was wise to try now. Not when Clockwork couldn’t help him if it went wrong.
The kitchen wasn’t a kitchen in the traditional American sense, but it was a room for storing and preparing meals, so that was what Danny and Clockwork called it. The space included a bench, cooktop, and sink, but then food and drink were kept in various pocket dimensions out of time. These little dimensions kept things in temperature-controlled environments, and storing them out of time prevented spoilage.
Now, with Long Now down, the power supply to these time pockets had also been cut. They had clearly dissolved, spitting out their contents into a horrible mess of food and drink. The mixture of human and ghostly food had already started to combine in ways that Danny wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with, and so to prevent any hot dogs from gaining sentience and trying to take over the world like they had in his parents’ house on more than one occasion, Danny held out his hands and channelled all his pent-up tension out in a wave of ice, freezing everything solid.
It did the job of preventing development of sentience, but now Danny was left to pick through the mess in search of something edible. He did manage to find a half-eaten tub of ice cream that didn’t seem any worse for wear, and decided that it was a better choice than trying to thaw anything from the frozen conglomerate of smashed and scattered foodstuffs.
There were also some soda cans that he could reach easily enough, so Danny scooped up a few of those as well and fetched a spoon from where the cutlery drawer had been flung against the wall. His stomach was growling by now in hunger that was a combination of the stress and the lateness of the afternoon, but there was nowhere to sit here. He’d have to find another place.
He headed in the direction of the sitting room before remembering the state of it, and changed direction, flying to the garden instead. There were some undamaged spaces in there, and when Danny picked his way between the broken plants and scorched grass, he was soothed by the sound of running water from the streams that flowed through the area. The sound took away some of the disquiet Danny felt even though the lair remained still and silent, and he felt marginally better as he settled on an undamaged section of grass near the herb garden and began to eat his snack.
A groan sounded off to the side, and Danny paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth, leaning over to get a better look. Beneath a branch that had been clearly torn off the apple tree and tossed across the garden lay an Observant, ectoplasm still seeping from a gash in its neck. It was a wound that would have been fatal on a human, but was unlikely to keep a ghost of any real power down for longer than a few hours.
The ghost stirred, moaning again and clearly trying to move. It blinked its eye open, squinting at the sizeable branch pinning it in place, and then it looked around.
Danny wanted to rip its stupid head off.
He ground his teeth, sucking in a breath through his nose to calm himself. Fighting might only prove that he was a threat. He should probably try to appear as harmless as possible, if for no other reason than it was always good to try to figure out your enemy before you needed to tussle with them.
So, he’d be friendly. Maybe even annoyingly so, if for no other reason than the Observant had information, and Danny wanted to know as much as possible.
Mind made up, Danny waved the spoon, the ice cream dangerously close to slipping off. “Hey. Your buddies left you.”
It glared at him and Danny grinned at his accomplishment. Antagonising a being that most likely wanted him dead probably wasn’t a good idea but he hoped that frustration would make it more likely to talk. So, he smiled, popping the ice cream into his mouth before waving the spoon again. “You want some?”
The Observant wriggled before turning intangible and phasing out from under the branch. “Abomination.”
“Rude,” Danny said casually, pretending to be unperturbed by the greeting even though anger licked at his insides. “Can’t you think of something more creative, or do you only see what you’re told to by your buddies? That’s pretty short-sighted of you.”
It might be unwise to goad the creature, but he was confident that he could win if things came to blows. He did kind of want to fight, just so he could punch the stupid thing right in the eyeball and hear it squeal for what they had done to Clockwork. It wouldn’t be worth it though, if they decided to press charges or whatever, and he doubted Clockwork would be pleased if Danny made things worse. “Your friends left,” he repeated, scooping more ice cream onto his spoon.
“The Timekeeper-”
Danny rolled his eyes. “They roughed him up and left. I guess they got what they wanted.”
It touched a hand to the wound in its neck, fingers coming away slick with its own ectoplasm. “You could have ended me before I woke up.” Its words were laced with disbelief.
He shrugged and decided not to bother explaining that he hadn’t seen it until it made a noise. “I’m not a monster, despite what you all think.”
It stared at him, or at least he thought it did. It was kind of difficult to know when the eyeball took up its entire head.
“You should probably go before Clockwork comes downstairs,” Danny said when it didn’t move or say anything else. “Unless you really do want some ice cream? I’m happy to share, but you should probably get your own spoon. If you even have a mouth. Or do you just eat with your eyes, like the saying? Do you stare at something and feel full? Like, what happens if your eyes are bigger than your stomachs?”
The Observant blinked, touching its neck again before visibly shaking itself. “I assume you have our warning, then.”
Danny tried to keep his nonchalant act going, eating another spoonful as though he didn’t have a care in the world. The thing was talking to him, and maybe if he pushed it the right way, it would let something slip. “You didn’t need to make such a mess to deliver a few threats.”
The eyeball narrowed, but then the ghost glanced at the scattered broken foliage and adjusted its robe. “Then it appears you have some cleaning to do, little apprentice.”
Danny couldn’t help himself — he bristled, glaring at the ghost and brandishing his spoon. “Why don’t you just make your threats to me instead of getting Clockwork to play messenger, anyway?”
It stared at him again, tilting its head this time, before giving its collar a tug to cover the gash at least a bit. Then it turned abruptly, flying in the direction of the door.
“Piss off, then,” Danny snapped, waving the spoon. “It’d be nice to see some manners from you, y’know.”
It didn’t respond, simply flying out of sight, and Danny flipped his middle finger in the direction it disappeared before returning to his snack and wondering what the Observants had threatened before he’d arrived. That one didn’t actually seem to want to fight or arrest him, which was more than he’d honestly expected. Sure, it was injured, but the Observants were nothing if not zealous. If they still wanted him destroyed, then that one would have likely fought him, even if it didn’t have a great chance of winning. They were clearly overly confident in their own abilities and self-importance, and Danny didn’t think that it would have just left him be if there was still an order for his annihilation.
“Why’d you decide I don’t need to be destroyed anymore?” he murmured to himself, rolling a can of soft drink in his hand before opening it and taking a long sip. He didn’t know what was worse — knowing they wanted to end him, or knowing that they’d changed their minds on the contingency that Clockwork did whatever it was they were asking him to do.
Apparently, it involved stopping Danny. Stopping him from doing what, exactly? Hadn’t he already done enough to prevent himself from turning evil and destroying the realms? That was kind of the entire reason he’d become Clockwork’s unofficial apprentice in the first place. It had been a mutual agreement, sure, but Danny had had the impression that the right choice was to take the position when it was offered to him in the aftermath of the whole Dan debacle. Clockwork wouldn’t have offered it if there wasn’t a clear reason, right?
Not for the first time, he wondered if Clockwork actually liked him, or if keeping Danny in line was just another obligation of his Timekeeper duties.
The thought stung, maybe more than it should have, and Danny took another sip of his drink to try to quell the discomfort. He liked spending time with Clockwork, and he hoped Clockwork liked him too.
Disquieted, Danny packed up his little picnic and did a quick scan of the garden, taking a deep breath and reaching outwards with his ghost sense to make sure there weren’t any other Observants beneath the greenery. Nothing brushed against his senses, but he thought it might be a good idea just to double-check each room anyway.
He dropped the ice cream tub back into the kitchen first, giving it a generous coating of ice and confirming that the room was empty of any eyeballs. Then he moved to the foyer, pausing at the front doors still gaping wide. Sucking his lower lip between his teeth, Danny faded into invisibility and crept toward them, peering through without crossing the threshold.
The silence weighed on him, his ears buzzing with the static of no ambient noise, and Danny stared out into the empty Ghost Zone. There weren’t even any islands or floating doors nearby, although that wasn’t unusual for Clockwork’s lair.
Danny closed the doors, latching them shut from the inside. He stayed invisible, moving from room to room and keeping his ghost sense tuned to identify the slightest indication of another core nearby.
As he searched, his anger mounted, and Danny fought to keep himself calm as he surveyed the damage. How dare they? So many delicate instruments had been smashed, and antique timepieces lay in shattered fragments scattered across the floor. Furniture was broken beyond repair, and many old, valuable books had been singed or outright burned in the battle. Even the damage to the garden would take years to fully repair.
He checked the debris thoroughly, channelling his rage into thoughts of what he would do if he found another Observant lurking in the mess. He didn’t think he could refrain from at least giving it a few good whacks, even if it would prove their point when they called him an abomination.
Once satisfied that nobody remained in any of the rooms, Danny slipped between the gears that made the walls of Long Now and began to search the bowels of the machinery. The stillness was even more eerie in this labyrinth of gears and chains, and Danny scarcely even breathed as he moved through the space.
There was nothing, not even the whisper of a blob ghost, which was again concerning in its own way. Typically small blobs did make their way into the tower, as they did everywhere else in the Ghost Zone. It wasn’t unusual to find a few roaming around in the gaps between the gears, happy to just drift on ectoplasmic air currents. Danny didn’t think he’d ever seen a space in the Ghost Zone so devoid of the little things.
He lingered at the deepest parts of the lair, keenly aware of Clockwork’s express forbiddance to try to get things going again. There was nothing immediately wrong that Danny could see, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t something out of place, or blocking the gears from starting up again.
He twisted his hands together, wanting nothing more than to be helpful as Clockwork so often praised him for being. It always made him happy down to his core to help others, and being unable to do anything here chafed more than he’d expected it to.
Danny retreated before the desire to try to fix things could overwhelm him. Clockwork had told him to stay out of it for a reason, so he had better listen.
Feeling useless, he turned visible again and hovered in the passageway near the hidden staircase. He didn’t know how long Clockwork would need to rest, but he’d told Danny to stay here, so going home wasn’t an option. Danny figured he might as well start helping with some of the cleaning, to at least pass the time while he waited for Clockwork to wake up.
Still, it wouldn’t hurt to check on him first. Clockwork might have only been asleep for about an hour, but he’d been bleeding, and it would be poor form for Danny to leave him alone for too long.
He located the hidden staircase easily enough, especially with the grisly trail of ectoplasm drops leading to it, and flew up, grimacing at the handprint of Clockwork’s ectoplasm on the wood.
The door opened at his touch and he slipped into the room. It was as he’d left it, though the sunlight through the windows and the open door had changed angles just a bit, and Danny dropped to his knees by Clockwork’s side.
He opened his eyes as Danny alighted, thin red slits watching as he settled his knees onto a free cushion.
“I kicked out the one in the garden,” Danny offered, probably unnecessarily. “Well, I annoyed it until it left, which is kind of the same thing.”
A smile ghosted across Clockwork’s mouth, faint but there. “Well done. It’s good you didn’t fight.”
Danny sighed, raking a hand through his hair and looking over Clockwork’s body. The cushions beneath his side were slick with ectoplasm, but the wound itself was only seeping now that the flow had subsided considerably.
“I still need time to rest,” Clockwork admitted.
“Yeah.” Danny sighed and looked at the ceiling. The warm wood panelling and floorboards lent a comforting smell to the space, lightly perfumed with the jasmine drifting in through the open doors. Jupiter had definitely spun by now, its spot migrating across the little gold planet. As the planet with the shortest day, and having the red spot as an indicator of movement, it was the best way to confirm that things were moving up on the ceiling. “Is that a time-accurate model of the solar system?”
Clockwork gave an affirmative hum. “The stars measured time before civilisations ever existed.”
“It makes sense you’d have a space like this. I just never thought about it before. I’d never realised…” He trailed off, pondering the similarities in their interests. He’d never realised before how alike the two of them really were.
“Do you like helping people as much as I do?” He looked back down at Clockwork to find his mentor watching him with a fond expression.
“I do,” Clockwork said, his eyes creasing at the corners with a stronger smile than before.
“Is that why the Observants have your key?” Danny asked. “To stop you from helping people they don’t want you to help?”
Clockwork shifted, his brow pinching as he settled into a slightly different position. “The Timekeeper role threatens their control,” he explained. It was certainly clearer than Danny typically received when he asked a question, but the lack of detail brought several questions to the forefront of his thoughts.
Clockwork grimaced, placing his hand against his side again, and Danny bit back his queries. Now clearly wasn’t the time.
Still, he wanted to find out more. He couldn’t help if he didn’t know the answers to his questions.
“Do you know where they keep the key?” He twisted his fingers together, feeling the way his gloves slid smoothly over each other.
Clockwork regarded Danny for a long moment, long enough that Danny was worried he might not answer, before shaking his head. “Do you remember what I explained about looking at my own past?”
He nodded. “Yeah. You said it’s like sticking your hand in water instead of just watching through the surface - it messes things up and you can’t see anything clearly. Is the key like that for you too?”
“In a way.” Clockwork closed his eyes and relaxed his head back. “Seeing your own past or future is very difficult, Daniel. You cannot make out the details clearly.”
“That’s the issue with the Observants, right?” Danny asked, leaning closer as he began to reach a conclusion that actually made sense. “That’s why they rely on you — because they can’t see their own pasts and futures that well, and they get fussy over the little details they do see because they don’t have all the information.”
“It is the nature of intelligence to be curious.” Clockwork cracked open his eyes again with an unreadable expression. “It is also the nature of intelligence to fill in the spaces when information is not forthcoming.”
Danny felt that there might be a rebuke hidden there, and he shrugged sheepishly. “I’m just trying to understand.”
“That will come with time.” Clockwork settled, closing his eyes once more. “Forgive me, but my strength is taxed.”
Danny nodded even though Clockwork couldn’t see him. “Can I use your telescopes when the sun goes down?”
“Use the one by the doors. Pull the curtains to block the light.”
“Yeah, I will. Thanks.”
He waited a moment more, but Clockwork gave no indication of replying.
So, Danny settled as well. He could have gone downstairs and cleaned, but the empty, quiet tower was just too creepy without Clockwork there with him, and the destruction made him too angry. He’d stay here, in this warm, comfortable room, and wait for Clockwork to say that it was safe for him to either help or go home.
Further exploration revealed that one of the shelves contained scrolls of star charts written in Clockwork’s looping hand in various languages and following the format of different time periods and areas of the globe. Some of them contained completely unfamiliar skies as well, and Danny pored over them, wondering if he was looking into the distant past or future, or at the starscapes of other worlds entirely.
The light steadily migrated across the floors, turning golden and soft, and then faded away altogether. The room didn’t go dark though — there were lanterns that were set into the walls around the room, and more hung from the ceiling. They filled with soft light as the sun disappeared, brightening the space with a comfortable level of illumination. When Danny finally stretched from where he was sprawled amongst cushions and scrolls, he realised that the solar system on the ceiling also glowed gently. It was far more beautiful than it had any right to be, and he hoped that he could come back here on future visits.
Clockwork slept on, and some of the colour had returned to his cheeks when Danny next checked on him. It was still unsettling to see him so vulnerable, and as Danny re-rolled and carefully returned the scrolls to their places, he wondered why Clockwork even allowed him to see this instead of manipulating time to make this recovery nothing but a blip that nobody would notice.
It probably had something to do with the tower being out of action, and maybe that key that the Observants held. Danny didn’t know what winding down actually entailed for Clockwork, but it hadn’t sounded good.
He headed onto the balcony, drawing the curtain closed behind him, and stopped short at the sight above.
The star map sky stretched in silver lines over his head, filled with constellations far clearer than he had seen before. There was no light pollution here, no interference from weather processes or human hands, and Danny could see far more with the naked eye than he had even realised possible.
He wanted to see it all.
So, it was hours later when a quiet “Daniel” from behind tore him away from the telescope.
He looked over his shoulder, blinking in the light from the gap in the curtains that Clockwork had pulled aside. “You’re up,” Danny said, and his throat caught at the dryness of hours without tending to mortal needs.
“You’ve been in one form for too long.” He held the curtain wider, and Danny noticed that he had changed into an undamaged tunic now, along with a fresh cloak and gloves. His hair was combed and neatly braided, and although his face was still tense with pain, Clockwork was up without needing to lean on something, which was a far greater improvement than Danny had expected in so little time.
Speaking of… “It’s pretty late, isn’t it?” he asked, yawning and turning away from the telescope.
Clockwork inclined his head. “You need food and rest.”
“You’re okay now, though?” He floated through the curtain and Clockwork dropped it closed behind him.
“As well as I can be, given the circumstances.”
Danny hummed, noticing that the low table near where Clockwork had been lying before now contained a plate covered with foil and a bottle of water. The cushions and rug had also returned to their former glory, and there was no longer a trail of ectoplasm leading across the floor. “How long was I out there?” he asked, turning human once he reached the cushions. The weight of his living form after so long spent as a ghost was almost jarring, as hunger and thirst that Danny hadn’t noticed in his haze of obsession-fuelled stargazing slammed into his senses. He sank into the cushions with a yawn.
“It is almost dawn.” Clockwork gestured to the plate. “Eat, and rest. It is now my turn to take care of you.”
“But-”
“You can help me later.”
Danny frowned at Clockwork before looking down at the plate. “You’re the one who’s hurt,” he grumbled, removing the foil to reveal a dish of warm roasted vegetables and spiced chicken. The smell made his mouth water and his stomach growled.
“I need to repair the tower.” Clockwork floated towards the door. “Stay here and rest until you hear ticking, or you may be injured in the process. Things can move unpredictably.”
Danny scowled deeper. “But what if they come back?”
“The best way for you to help me is to stay here until the tower is restored.”
“...Fine.” It was a more detailed explanation than he’d expected, but Danny wasn’t going to point that out. Though… “While you’re telling me what I shouldn’t do, don’t you have to stop me from something? That was why you got beat up, right?”
Those familiar red eyes turned to him, and Danny swallowed a suddenly dry mouth, feeling pinned by the intensity of Clockwork’s gaze. “You will know in time.”
Danny nodded stiffly, and Clockwork turned and left without another word.
Free from the weight of that all-knowing gaze, Danny turned to the meal. The first bite held the heavenly bliss of food after a fast. Although he’d had ice cream, that had been in the late afternoon, and it was now almost morning. He was admittedly used to neglecting his needs like this more often than not, but Clockwork often prompted him to take better care of himself, and when Clockwork told him to do something, he always tried his best to do it.
He ate fairly quickly and then settled down to rest. While the idea of finding out how Clockwork would get the tower running again was tempting, he knew better than to go against an express order. Danny would wait here until it was time to leave, and he would use the opportunity to recharge. At least if he was rested, he’d be able to kick eyeball butt if they were still around outside.
The thought cheered him and he lay back on the cushions, adjusting until he was comfortable and looking up at the planets on the ceiling.
He didn’t even remember closing his eyes.
A deep chime woke him, and Danny blinked blearily in the sunlight that poured through the windows before rubbing his eyes with a yawn. He sat up and stretched, his spine clicking with the movement.
Dropping his arms, he glanced around the space. He was still alone, and the empty plate and cup on the table suggested that Clockwork probably hadn’t been up here yet. Danny wondered how the repairs were going, and only then did he realise that the tower was ticking.
He smiled, and shifted into Phantom. There was nothing wrong with being human in Long Now, and he’d spent plenty of time here in his living form, but it would be easier to float through the debris if there was still a mess downstairs. Being a ghost also just felt right here.
He’d asked Clockwork about that before, and had been rewarded with a typically vague non-answer. Which meant he would either figure it out by himself later, or someone, probably Clockwork, would tell him when the time was right.
He drifted to the door, opening it to reveal that the ectoplasm on the steps had been cleaned away. The handprint was also gone now, and Danny descended back into the more familiar hallways of the tower, marvelling at how clean everything was.
Of course Clockwork would have used time manipulation. It certainly wasn’t unusual. Danny tried not to feel slighted at the complete rejection of his offer to help with the repairs, figuring that there must have been a good reason. Surely.
“There always is,” Clockwork said, and Danny jolted, turning to face him as he slipped out from the inner workings of the lair through the gap beneath the joint where two large cogs met. “There were too many delicate things in the debris that could have caused you harm or distress.”
“Oh.” Danny recalled the things that he’d been warned against touching in the past. Hourglasses, timepieces, and other dainty instruments. Things that could alter his timeline, change his core, or outright hurt him terribly.
Yeah, Clockwork handling the cleanup was probably for the best.
“Anyway,” he said, floating alongside Clockwork as they continued down the hallway, “what do they want you to stop me from doing?”
“Something you have already done, and yet, are yet to do.”
He scrunched up his nose. “They want to stop me from… time travel? Like, with… that?”
Clockwork dipped his head in an incline that didn’t convey an affirmative so much as reinforcing the gravity in his tone. “That future timeline has nothing to do with this. They wish for me to stop you from something that I cannot explain.”
“Your oaths?” Danny followed Clockwork into the garden where tools waited beside a destroyed bed of endangered, poisonous flowers. Now the plants were withered and smouldering, ruined by the fight.
Clockwork inclined his head again and passed Danny a trowel. “You know that there are things of which I cannot speak.”
Danny huffed, settling beside him and beginning to dig up a plant that had burned down to the soil until only a few charred stems remained. He knew better than to try to phase it out — many of the plants here were sensitive to spectral powers, and some were outright phase-proof. It had become a general rule that when helping in Clockwork’s garden, powers were not to be used without prompting.
So, Danny dug, and as he dug, he thought. “What’s the point of a key if you have your oaths, anyway?”
Clockwork said nothing, uprooting another destroyed plant.
Danny turned to the work with a disgruntled hum, jamming the trowel into the soil with more force than he needed to, but slowly feeling the brash edge of anger simmer into something more righteous and deeply frustrating. “I wish you could share more with me,” he grumbled after several minutes had passed.
“As do I,” Clockwork murmured.
The garden bed was small, and it didn’t take them long with their combined efforts to uproot all the damaged plants. Clockwork gathered them into a waiting basket and passed it to Danny. “Could you please take these to the apothecary and hang them to dry? There is still much they can be used for, and it would be helpful to me.”
Danny smiled, taking the basket and trying not to wiggle in delight at being directly asked to help with something that didn’t feel negative. “Yeah, I’ll do it now!”
He zoomed off, heading for the small room connected to Clockwork’s kitchen. The room was lit with warm copper light, and bunches of dried plants had hung from lines strung above head height before the fight had ruined most of them. There was a wall filled with thousands of tiny drawers filled with different useful things, and the shelves had been lined with hundreds of glass bottles in all shapes and sizes.
Now, the space was bare, and Danny’s heart ached at the destruction.
He set the basket down on the workbench and carefully set about his assignment, gently shaking excess dirt off the roots and tying matching plants into bunches before hanging them off the hooks spaced evenly across the lines that Clockwork had re-strung high above his head.
He mulled over the conversation in the garden as he worked, wondering how he could help Clockwork with this problem if he didn’t actually know what could be helpful. The last thing Danny ever wanted was to be a problem for Clockwork, but here he was. The only reason that the tower had been so damaged, that Clockwork had been so hurt, was because of Danny.
The shame made him want to curl up and hide, like when he was a child and had broken one of his parents’ inventions by mistake.
A thought pricked his dour mood as he hung the last of the bundles. Danny floated back down to ground level, taking care to wash his gloves with soap so that any residual poison from the plants wouldn’t have the chance to accidentally harm him. Not that he was even sure they could, but he wasn’t about to take the risk. Not when he wanted to do this quickly and quietly.
It couldn’t hurt to just take a peek, could it? Sure, Clockwork couldn’t see his key, but that’s because it was directly involved with him. Danny could look for him, and find out where it was, and… and…
It would be such an amazing way to help.
Sucking in a breath that fluttered with his suppressed excitement, Danny flew silently towards the viewing room. He half expected Clockwork to appear in his way at any moment, to stop him in his tracks, but the farther he went without interception, the more sure Danny was that this was what Clockwork wanted him to do. This was why he hadn’t already been sent home! He was here to help do something that Clockwork couldn’t do for himself!
He slipped into the viewing room and paused just inside the door. The screens were all dark, their emptiness calling for his inquiring touch. Clockwork’s chair was empty, and when Danny drifted closer, he grinned when he saw white fabric neatly folded on the seat.
It was his white cloak, the one he wore whenever he worked on something delicate with Clockwork and needed an extra layer of protection. There was also a time medallion resting on top of the cloak, clearly waiting for Danny to use it to power up a viewing screen.
He slipped on the items, glancing towards the curtain covering the entryway as he did so. It remained undisturbed, and Danny’s heart pounded in his ears at the giddy combination of excitement and transgression.
He wasn’t supposed to touch the screens. But these items had been waiting for him, in clear invitation and recognition that Clockwork knew what Danny would do. That was obviously permission, or at least the opportunity for Danny to make his own decision.
The largest viewing screen stood before him, blank and waiting for his touch. With the medallion now strung around his neck, Danny took it into his left hand, feeling through his glove the ridges of the gear’s teeth.
The artefact's internal power made his fingers tingle, and he loosened his core’s control in invitation. The foreign energy surged through him, running up his arm and looping through his core like a transformer before moving down his other arm in a tingling wave, and Danny’s palm glowed with golden light.
It took him a moment to remember how to breathe, and when he did, the energy made the motion stutter.
Danny closed his eyes, focusing his thoughts on what he had seen here. On the Observants, of Clockwork, and of Clockwork’s key.
He opened his eyes, touching his glowing hand to the empty screen.
The power poured through him, and the screen burst into colour and light that slowly clarified into an image. It showed a room with a vaulted ceiling, and figures milling around the space. Many of them had the shape of Observants, though the details were unclear. Others were there too, but Danny couldn’t make out their faces nor their clothing, except for vague approximations of coloured shapes.
He squinted, leaning closer and pressing his hand harder against the screen. It bent slightly under the pressure, the malleability a warning of the portal that it had the potential to become if pushed too hard, and Danny chewed on his lower lip with a frown as he tried to figure out what he was looking at.
“Where’s this key?” he murmured.
The image blurred, rippling like water, and Danny caught a glimpse of Clockwork with Observants hovering around him, and…
It dissolved again into shapes and muffled, indistinct sounds that could have been chanting, or maybe just conversation or prayer.
He gripped the medallion tighter, its teeth digging deeper into his palm, and willed with all his might to see the Timekeeper’s key.
The barrier beneath his hand gave way like honey and Danny yelped, unable to stop himself from pitching forwards. As he fell, he caught a glimpse at the edge of his vision of Clockwork passing through the curtain into the chamber, hand outstretched and Danny’s name on his lips.
With his core unresponsive when he tried to catch himself, Danny was engulfed in colour and sound as he rushed through time.