Summary: Jazz has an important secret of Danny's that she feels she must tell on Christmas Eve. One-shot.

Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom. I never did, and I never will.

"I'm going to tell them about you, Danny. It's time they knew the truth!"

Danny stared at his older sister, at a loss for words. When he'd asked Jazz what was wrong, he certainly hadn't expected that. Not on Christmas Eve, of all days! His mouth opened and closed several times quite silently, and he found himself resembling a fish out of water that was struggling fruitlessly for breath. Desperately, he prayed that she might suddenly contract a severe case of laryngitis before she could do any real damage.

Unfortunately, his prayers were answered with a resounding 'no' as Jazz bellowed, "Mom! Dad!" quite loud enough to be heard by their parents in the lab downstairs.

All of a sudden, Danny found his voice again. "Jazz, no!" he begged. "Please! I'm not ready for them to know yet!"

"It's for your own good, Danny," she said as if she were merely telling him to take medicine for a cold. "And I just can't keep this from them anymore."

Before Danny could get another word out, Jack and Maddie burst into the room.

"What is it, Jazzy-pants?" asked Jack loudly. Danny stared at the Fenton Bazooka in his hands and began to feel slight alarm building within him. Taking no notice, as always, Jack continued, "Is it about a ghost?"

"Well..." said Jazz as though she were considering her words carefully, "it's about Danny. He didn't steal the presents last year."

Danny panicked. Without even listening to what his sister was saying, he choked out, "It's a lie, I'm not a ghost!"

Jack stared at him blankly. "...Huh?"

"I mean... um..." Danny stammered when he realized his sister was talking about something completely different than what he had assumed. "Oh crap..."

"Well of course it wasn't Danny, sweetie," answered Maddie. She hadn't heard a word of what her son had said, luckily enough. "He was being attacked by evil Christmas trees several blocks away!"

Jazz shook her head impatiently. "No, Mom, not that Danny. I'm talking about Danny Phantom."

"He was there too," the boy in question mumbled to himself, glad that his parents' attention was focused solely on their daughter.

"Phantom?" they repeated together, both looking confused.

"What does he have to do with anything?" questioned Jack.

"He didn't steal the presents. It was all a huge misunderstanding."

Her parents eyed her suspiciously. "How do you know?"

"I... I just do. You'll have to trust me on this one. He wouldn't do anything like that."

Maddie still didn't look convinced. "Again, how do you know?"

Jazz considered her words carefully. "I, uh… I know Phantom a lot better than you might think. Please, just trust me on this one."

The two elder Fentons looked as though they wanted to ask further, but they were both aware that Christmas Eve was hardly the time to interrogate their children about ghosts. Instead, Jack smiled, shrugged, and said, "Oookayy... So what brought that up?"

Jazz returned a smile of her own. "It's Christmas again, and I was just remembering last year, that's all."

"Me too, actually," chimed Danny, grinning lightheartedly as he fully comprehended that he wasn't about to be destroyed. Not today, at least.

Maddie chuckled. "Well, last year was kind of weird, wasn't it?"

"You're telling me," mumbled Danny. "At least you don't remember the rhyming."

Jack shook his head in confusion. "Jazz, you have awfully strange timing."

None of them noticed Danny's eye beginning to twitch.

Merry Christmas, folks!