A/N: Hey, so this story is actually my NaNoWriMo submission, so expect an update almost daily through this month. Enjoy!

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The doctors and nurses were tired. It had been a long, exhausting day, and they were glad to finally be done. As such, it was understandable that some mistakes were made.

"Mrs. Fenton," one doctor said, grinning down at the woman on the bed, "congratulations again on the birth of your son."

Madeline Fenton grinned weakly. "Thanks, but… when will they bring him back from the exams?"

"Soon, ma'am, but I must warn you…."

~\/~

"H—How is my son?" a frantic redhead demanded of her own doctor.

"He'll be fine, Ms. Whelan," the doctor replied, "don't worry."

Shea sighed in relief. "Oh, thank God. I thought, when they took him back, that—that—"

"Well, then you'll be glad to know we'll have him moved to your room tonight."

~\/~

"Danny, get up!"

Daniel Whelan winced at the screech from his foster mom. Then, the sixteen-year-old sighed and stood, stretching and arching his back. He ran his hands through his shaggy black hair, streaks of white and orange mixed into the lower layers. "Comin', Spectra!" he called down the stairs.

"Ah, ah!" she yelled back. "It's your turn to wake the little monst—I mean Yoshi."

Danny chuckled but obeyed, heading into the next room, where a twelve-year-old greenette slept. He kept a few feet from the bed, then let out a bloodcurdling shriek.

Bright green eyes popped open as the boy flipped out of his bed in a tangle of sheets. Throughout the house, people were yelling angrily.

Danny just doubled over in laughter, barely managing to bat away a pillow aimed at his head.

"Danny, you jerk!" the boy grumbled. "Next time, just shake me or something!"

Danny chuckled, dual-colored eyes shining in amusement. "Aw, Youngblood, you're no fun! You're always saying we needa lighten up and have some fun. That's all I was trying to do!"

"It's not funny!"

"I'm with him on this one, Dipstick," a new voice groused from behind Danny. He turned to see a green-eyed bluenette with designs tattooed under her eyes. "You nearly gave GW a heart attack and set him back about three months!"

Danny shrugged. "So? You weren't really getting anywhere with him recently, anyway, Ember!" Then he spun and ran down the stairs.

"Dammit, Danny!" she yelled after him.

He chuckled again as he came into the kitchen to greet his foster mom.

Penelope Spectra-Walker was nothing short of gorgeous, and she knew it. With wild red hair and almost neon green eyes, she was often the talk of the town—and her clients. She wore one of her suits, a red one with a skirt that barely reached her thighs. She smirked at Danny, showing off oddly pointed incisors. "The others won't be happy with you today after that stunt."

He grinned back. "I know."

"You're just lucky Jeb's already at work."

Danny groaned. Penelope's husband, Jacob "Jeb" Walker was under the impression that Danny belonged in prison, often blaming him for every little thing that went wrong in their crazy home.

Then again, that's what the two got for fostering all the "trouble" kids. Each of them came with their own set of issues, and it always took a while for them to reacclimate to new foster siblings. Even at three months, Danny still managed to mess up with them.

But that was easy to do, all things considered.

The next two that came down the stairs were Katherine and Johnny, affectionately nicknamed Kitty and Shadow, or even Mr. and Mrs. Thirteen.

Kitty, like Yoshi "Youngblood" Ketsueki, was a greenette, but unlike everyone else in their home, she had red eyes due to some kind of birth defect. Of course, if anyone ever asked her about it, she'd likely go into a fit, as that was one of the stressors for her bipolar disorder.

Johnny, on the other hand, was a blond, green-eyed kleptomaniac with a love of fire. He was, sadly, no stranger to the local prison, something Police Chief Walker was often embarrassed by.

Kitty flounced over to the table, her red-black-green three-tiered skirt swirling around her knees. She wore black Mary Janes over green fishnets and smoothed out her black and red corset as she grinned at Spectra. "Hey, Penny, what's good?"

Spectra simply smiled. "Just cereal today, sorry. We'll have Waffle Wednesday tomorrow, though."

Kitty's eyes squeezed closed as she happily jumped around, yelling out, "Yay!"

Johnny shook his head, all too used to his girlfriend's odd behavior, slinging his black leather jacket on over a green t-shirt. Gray jeans and sneakers finished off his look as he dug in his pockets for his lighter.

Danny rolled his blue and green eyes at that. "I thought that got confiscated last week?"

Johnny smirked, flashing his nicotine-stained teeth. "It was." He sat with his girlfriend at the table, flicking the small flame on and off.

"How the hell do you keep getting that back?" Ember grumbled angrily. She had changed out of her pajamas and into her usual tight black and green shirt and dark-wash, ripped jeans with green belts and pockets. She wore a black choker and wrist band and a necklace that had a black guitar pick with a flame on it for the pendant.

Behind her was Garrett Williams. He had on a light gray turtleneck and black slacks with a purple trench coat and dark gray scarf over top. Both his black hair and his rectangular-rimmed lasses hid his green eyes from view. His hands, as usual, were in his pockets, as they only really ever came out to write, thus the nickname Ghost Writer, which normally got shortened to GW.

Ember had one hand hooked around GW's elbow. The two were dating, oddly enough, though Ember's abandonment issues and paranoia were often at odds with Garrett's social anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorders. It was a wonder to all in the house that the clingy Ember could go out with the hermit Ghost Writer.

Johnny leered at Ember. "You wanna know how I got this back?" He shook the lighter.

Ember rolled her eyes, disgusted as normal with Johnny's lewd and suggestive comments. "Ugh, never mind."

Youngblood finally came downstairs, dressed in a black-sleeved gray shirt and baggy tan cargo pants. Two bracelets, one green and the other red, clacked together on his arm as he moved. It was an idea Spectra had had to keep him from moving his hands so much in school due to his ADHD. If he made noise, he'd get in trouble, and there was a counter that kept track of each time they connected. He bounced over to the table and flopped into a seat, happily digging into a bowl of cereal with an unusual (for most people) amount of enthusiasm. When he looked back up, he glanced between Spectra and Danny. "Why 'oo wear'n silv'a?" he mumbled around his food, pointing his spoon at Danny's clothes.

Danny's gaze flicked downward, seeing a black sleeveless loose turtleneck, silver arm warmers, and silver baggy cargoes, both of the latter with several black belts covering them.

Spectra also looked him over before sighing. "Phantom, let Danny be the one to go to school today."

Danny—no, Phantom—bristled. "He doesn't want to!" he snarled, highly overprotective of the boy whose body he shared.

See, Danny, too, had his own problems, just like all the other foster kids in this house. At a young age, he found that two of his imaginary friends actually took over for him whenever life was too difficult. Phantom tended to be confident and carefree while Dark was a fighter and normally apathetic. Danny, meanwhile, was shy, scared easily, and had a phobia of touch. More often than not, Phantom was in control of the body.

"Look, Phantom," Ember began calmly, "ya needa let Danny have a chance to make friends on his own, okay? You and Dark want him to have friends, right?"

For a long moment, Phantom just stared at her. Then, finally, he reluctantly admitted, "...Yeah…."

Ember grinned slightly, knowing she'd win this battle. "Go get changed and let Danny go to school today."

Phantom nodded, sighing heavily, and turned to the stairs, heading back up.

Spectra let out a relieved breath. "Thank you, Eponine."

Now Ember bristled. "It's Ember," she hissed, "not Eponine!"

Penelope rolled her eyes. It was far too early in the morning for them to be getting into this old argument. "Your parents named you Eponine McLain, so I will call you—"

"My parents ditched me, okay?" Ember growled out. "So I can ditch the name they gave me!" She tugged on GW's arm. "C'mon, Writer, we're goin' to school!"

The two stormed off, and everyone could hear Ember's car speed off. Johnny and Kitty were next to leave, both hopping onto his motorcycle and heading for Casper High School.

Danny finally came back down the stairs, dressed in a loose red long-sleeved shirt and silver jeans. A necklace with a silver angel pendant hung around his neck. His arms were covered with a black sweatshirt that he carried with him, hugging it close like a security blanket. He blinked at Penelope, noticing that she and Youngblood were the only two left there.

Penelope sighed. "Danny, could you take Yoshi to school, please? The others have already left."

Danny nodded, then waved for Youngblood to head out with him to the small car he borrowed from the Walker family as needed. Then, he glanced at the directions they'd left for him on how to get to both the high school and middle school before turning around in the driveway and heading off to drop Youngblood off at Stretch Middle School.

He'd just have to worry about how to communicate with everyone later, now that Phantom was making sure that Danny himself stayed in control. After all, no one had yet realized that his true personality refused to speak.

But that was another story entirely.

~\/~

"Ms. Whelan, are you and little Danny ready to go home?" the nurse asked, grinning brightly at the woman and her son.

Shea shakily grinned back before glancing down once more at the child in her arms. "I… suppose so."

The nurse frowned. "What seems to be the problem, ma'am?"

The woman shook her head. "I just—I thought, with everything… else, that… that there'd be some sort of—of complication or problem… with the birth."

With a happy sigh, the nurse's grin came back. "Oh, well, Ms. Whelan, sometimes these things just resolve themselves. Just be glad you have such a healthy son."

Now Shea's smile was a bit more sincere. "I am. I'm so glad to have my Éiníní, my Danny."

~\/~

Madeline Fenton was in shock. "But—But, I only—I only took a few sips of wine during my whole pregnancy, and that was before I even found out I was pregnant! How—How could he have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome?"

The doctor shrugged sympathetically, honestly as confused as the woman but unwilling to show it. "Sometimes certain people are more susceptible. It's highly likely that your son is just a bit more vulnerable to alcohols. In any case, it's not severe enough to warrant extra care, but make sure you monitor what he has carefully, along with what you yourself drink and eat while breastfeeding."

"But—will he be okay, doctor?"

He smiled now, glad to have a question he could answer honestly. "Yes, he'll be fine. So long as you pay closer attention to what the two of you take in, your little Esu will have no problems developing as well as a child without Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. In fact, if you take good enough care, no one will even know he has it."

"Well… if you're sure." Maddie glanced away from the little redhead in her arms just long enough to grin up at the doctor. "Thank you, doctor, for everything."

"It was no problem, Mrs. Fenton," he replied, "no problem at all."

But no one knew that in just a few years, this would cost a life.

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A/N: Also, just so's everyone knows, I have a Twitter account specifically for my stories, so if at any time you want to know what's taking so long or when the next chapter will be posted, check it out. It's ElphieBLW. And good luck to everyone out there who's been hit by Sandy! I ended up waiting out the storm then running away home to avoid waiting around for my power to come back on.

Anyway, read and review, please!