Okay, so this is technically a series of one-shots connected to my story Baby Steps and leading up to a sequel that will focus entirely on Elizabeth and Grayson as teenagers, however, you do not need to read the first story to read this, it just might make understanding this series a little easier. Anyway, I hope you enjoy. And for those of you who did read the first story, welcome back, I hope you like this one too.

A First Birthday to Remember

Sam POV-

"Of course, I had to be the one to insist on individuality," I muttered to myself. It had started out as a great idea, that is, until I had to plan two completely opposite themed parties under one roof.

"Are you talking to yourself?" Valerie, who was helping with the party asked.

"No," I answered, slapping more icing on a cupcake.

"Sam, it's not healthy to talk to yourself," Jazz insisted. I merely rolled my eyes, adding a bag of marshmallows to the homemade Chex Mix.

It's not like they would even remember this birthday when they were older, I mean, they're one year old for Pete's sake. But still, we would have some great pictures. And, if every other child in the world gets to have their own birthday, who am I to deprive my children of the same thing.

An overworked mother, that's who.

Of course, today, the day of, it's too late to back out and squish them into one collective birthday so now I'm making all stuff for a dinosaur party and a ladybug party for three o'clock later on this afternoon.

I'm still not sure we're going to get it all done, and that's with me, Jazz, Danny's mom, and Valerie all working on everything at the same time.

Of course, it would be a heck of a lot easier if Danny, Tucker, and Danny's dad would stop eating all the food as we make it and instead actually start helping. But there's a football game on, so that is completely out of the question.

To be fair, Danny tried to help earlier today, unfortunately, he doesn't have a single artistic bone in his body and ended up ruining several tissue paper lady bugs, which I then had to go and redo.

And maybe, I was going a bit too far for this birthday, especially considering that most of the party guests were already here, other than a few girls from school who were bringing their little siblings and cousins to put a few more kids in this house. Each birthday had a cake. And, in that aspect, Lizzie had the much easier part: circle cake, circle ladybug. Simple. However, for Grayson's cake, I was actually making a dinosaur. It took several different baking tin and I actually had to use the carving knife to get it the way I wanted, but, after several cans of green-colored vanilla icing, I finally had a dinosaur. In addition to both cakes, we make a single batch of cupcakes, making half of the bath red and other half green.

Of course, there were also other snacks, some themed and some not, for each party.

Lizzie's ladybug party was being held in the backyard, which we had already covered in multicolored streamers and balloons, and a ladybug painted banner that read 'Lizzie's First Birthday.' Set up around the backyard were various games for the younger party guests to play including "Paint a Ladybug," "Ladybug Scavenger Hunt," "Ladybug Toss," and "Catch all the ladybugs." On a table next to the food were goodie bags filled with candy and ladybug themed kitschy dollar store junk. I was so glad that we had actually gotten a bright, sunshine-filled day, or else the living room would have been extremely crowded.

This is because, the living room was being used for Grayson's birthday.

Dinosaur wall clings were stuck to every wall and green, blue, brown, black, and orange streamers trailed down from the corners were balloons were taped in groups of threes. We had phased all the furniture out of the room to make space for the activities: "What's in the Dinosaur Egg," "Make Your Own Dinosaur," "Dinosaur Stomp," and "Dinosaur Limbo." We had also made gift bags for this party, although they looked nearly identical to the ladybug ones except filled with plastic dinosaurs instead of ladybugs.

All the games had little prizes that were offered to those who won which was basically more dollar store junk combined with whatever we could find around the house.

Thankfully, the guests of honor had not given us too much trouble today. Both had been down for a nap for a few hours now.

Finally, three o'clock rolled around and guests began to arrive. I didn't know a lot of them, but that was okay, we had made enough food to go around, and, would likely still have some left over after everyone was gone. I gave Danny a camera and I took one for myself, each of us taking one of the babies and photographing them. Danny's mom was in charge of the video camera, filming all of the festivities.

For two one-year-olds, I think they rather enjoyed themselves.

Or maybe it was just all the people and bright colors surrounding them.

Or maybe it was the cake. Neither of them had ever had cake before.

We sat them next to each other in their high-chairs, giving them their own cupcakes, and sang happy birthday. They both looked at us rather confused as we sang, wondering what we were doing. Lizzie's hair is a little longer, and it flipped out at the bottom with cute baby curls, while Grayson's black hair tended to flip out on top.

When we had finished singing, while a little prompting, we got Grayson and Lizzie to both pick up their cupcakes with their meaty hand and shove the pastry into their mouths. They must have liked it because they continued to eat the now-squished cupcake with their hands.

By five o'clock, all the guests had cleared out, and, armed with black trash bags, everyone who had been with us this morning, picked up the garbage.

When we were done, filling a total of five trash bags, six plastic baggies, and twelve Tupperware containers, the doorbell rang. We all looked at each other, then at the clock. It was seven o'clock, surely no one had misjudged the time by that much, I mean, the babies were already asleep upstairs. And no one had left anything here either, considering we had just cleaned the entire house.

The only thing that had been left untouched was the slew of unopened, colorfully-wrapped, presents.

Danny went to answer the door, the rest of us behind him.

To say I was surprised by who was behind the door was an understatement.

"Are you guys having a party?" a girl with long, slightly matted, black hair and ice blue eyes smirked at us.

"Danielle!?" four of us exclaimed in unison. Then after a second, three of us realized that the forth shouldn't know that we know Danielle. But Valerie said nothing; instead she regarded us suspiciously as we all invited Dani inside.

"Would you like some cake, chips, or hotdogs?" I offered what we had the most left of.

Dani nodded vigorously, and, looking at her, she definitely needed it. If I had to guess she'd been on the street, most recently, for at least three weeks. Before that she had probably been bounced around between homeless shelters, group homes, or foster care, but still never staying in one place for very long. I handed her a plate of food and she scarfed it down quickly. What I didn't understand was how she still looked the same age as when we had last seen her: twelve.

Valerie looked about ready to ask something, but her phone buzzed. She sighed, answering it.

After a few minutes on the phone with her dad, she hung up, sighing again.

"I've got to go home. It was nice seeing you Dani," she said, saying goodbye to the rest of us too, before exiting out the front door. Now it was Danny's parents' turn to be confused.

They didn't even need to ask, the look on their faces said it all.

"Remember how I said Vlad tried to clone me…" Danny trailed off. It only took a second for that to sink in.

"So you're saying…" Danny's mom gasped in realization, then she turned to Dani, "Do you have…" Mrs. Fenton didn't even need to finish her question before Dani nodded, transforming into her ghost form.

Danny's parents seemed a little dumbstruck. And Danny's dad muttered something about "…five in one house," which, I guess, now there were. Me, Danny, Dani, Grayson and Elizabeth.

"I'm sorry I came here. I just…I had nowhere else to go and—" Mrs. Fenton cut Dani off.

"Sweetheart, don't apologize. You're a Fenton, you belong here. But with Grayson and Elizabeth in the guest room and Danny and Sam in his room, you'll have to share a room with Jazz," Mrs. Fenton told her. Dani's face lit up, a smile stretching from ear to ear.

"Yay!" Jazz exclaimed, "I've always wanted a sister."

I smiled a little. I had been on the receiving end of Jazz's sisterly kindness. That's a fate I wouldn't on anybody. But I got the feeling that since Dani had been without a family for so long, any family, even one as dysfunctional or overbearing (as Jazz most definitely has the tendency to be) as this one was welcomed.

Suddenly her eyebrows wrinkled in confusion, the way Danny's sometimes do.

"Wait a minute, who are Grayson and Elizabeth?" she wondered.

Danny and I shared an embarrassed smile.

"Our twins," we said in unison. Dani's mouth formed a little "o" before she burst out laughing.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, so you guys…" she didn't get to finish before another round of laughter shook her body.

"Are you done?" I asked with a hand on my hip.

"No wait, this is still funny!" she cackled loudly again. I rolled my eyes, preparing a few questions of my own while I waited for her to chill out, "Okay…okay, now I'm good," she said between deep breaths. Then she looked at us questionably, "How?"

"Well, it wasn't exactly our choice," I told her, "Vlad hired a ghost named Hatchwork to mind control us into…you know…so that, after they were born he could raise them as his own kids." At this, Danielle paled, all amounts of humor gone, "He kidnapped them when they were three weeks old, and, although we were able to stop him…Elizabeth ended up in the emergency room."

She didn't know what to say.

"But enough about that," I said, "I have a question for you," she looked at me expectantly.

"How are you still twelve?" I wondered.

Dani shrugged, "I guess when Vlad made me he messed with my aging. I've looked like I was twelve for three years, when I'm technically only three. My guess would be that I'll be twelve for twelve years before I actually start to age."

Huh, weird.

"So if you're twelve for the next nine years, that means, at some point, you will only be two years apart from Grayson and Elizabeth," Danny pointed out. That was actually kind of nice. Because we were so young, Grayson and Elizabeth didn't really have anyone close to their own ages, and, even though it would be years, I was glad that they would get to go through their teen years with someone close to their own age who completely understood all of the issues they would have with their powers.

"So do I get to meet my niece and nephew?" Dani asked hopefully.

I looked at the clock, then back at Danny.

"It's only an hour and a half after their bedtime…" he trailed off.

"Oh, alright," I gave in, "But, you two are going to have to deal with them when they're fussy tomorrow," I told Danny and Dani.

Danny grinned, phasing upstairs to go get them. A few seconds later, he came back down, a baby in each arm.

The two yawned in unison, blinking open their eyes.

"Aww," Dani gushed, sitting down so she could hold them without fear of dropping them, "They're so cute."

She looked at them for a few minutes. I got the feeling that they were having this moment, mentally sharing their "bad experiences with Vlad" moments. After a while, our babies yawned again, and Dani reluctantly handed them over to Danny who took them back upstairs.

After several more plates of food, Dani finally seemed to be satisfied.

"Well, I would say that you should start school, but if you really aren't going to age for nine more years…that might be a little suspicious," Mrs. Fenton told her, "So, I guess that means you'll just have to be home schooled."

Dani grinned happily.

"You can learn the ins and outs of ghost weaponry!" Danny's dad boomed gleefully, Dani seemed excited by this. I chuckled a little at the exchange.

After Dani had showered and Jazz carefully cut the dead, matted, dirty-caked, hair off, leaving her hair a good three inches shorter, we all got ready for bed. Dani borrowed some of my clothes, at least until we could get her some of her own, and slept on an air mattress on Jazz's floor until we could get her a bed.

Even still, I'm not sure I've ever seen her happier.

The official cover story for now on was that she was Jack's sister's daughter who had come to live with them after his sister had died. It was a stretch, and it wouldn't explain why, in nine years, she still looked the same, but we would cross that bridge when we came to it.

I just wondered if Valerie would believe the story.